Vanguard Interview: City Council Candidate Joe Krovoza

As we head down to the final stretch in the 2010 Davis City Council campaign, the Vanguard will this week publish our interviews of candidates.  The Vanguard took previous statements and positions that the candidates have taken to explore more deeply or to clarify on issues that have been presented both in campaign material as well as the candidate’s forums.  We begin today with Joe Krovoza. 

Vanguard: What would you describe as your general philosophy on land use, development and the ag-urban boundary?

Krovoza: I would say I want to preserve a strong ag buffer around Davis as wide as possible.  I think that’s what creates a great uniqueness to our community.  I think that Measure J/ Measure R is a strong mechanism to be able to provide that.  It forces us to think more creatively and clearly about higher densities in one fashion or another within our current urban limit.  I think we need to make the most of the land we have so that we can leave as much of it in a natural state as possible.  I think as we think about land use planning, I think we want our planning to be as community based as possible.  In fact all of the planning for our land should come from the community based upon community needs, not a party on the outside telling us what their study say might be best for the land.

Vanguard: You voted for Measure X, Covell Village, why did you do so?

Krovoza: At the time I thought and I still think that I would not take the Covell Village property off the table for development.  I thought that putting a Trader Joe’s there, having it across the street from a market, having bike connections on all three sides of it, and having the ag buffer at the top represented a solid opportunity that merited on balance a yes vote.  I thought that if I had the project to re-think a little bit more, if I were on the city council, I would hope it would be shaped a little bit differently.  I think it would have greater density, it would probably have more open space within the living areas, I also think it would have been still greener than it was.  I think that a project like that being approved in one phase is too big of a piece for the city to bite off.   I think that even some of the contributions to the community from the project were classic mitigation, and that’s good, but there might have been still more that could have been achieved by the community.  So on balance, I was a yes on X, and I stand by that, but if I were on city council, I would probably think about the project with a slightly more informed lens than I did back then.

Vanguard: There’s a possibility that there will be another project there in your term, how do you view that in the next four years?

Krovoza: Going back to my answer in the first question, my interest in a project there would be strongly influenced, in fact completely influence… first of all it would have to be a project that came from city planning based upon community needs.  And it would have to be a project that the city itself had decided should be on that piece of land as opposed to other competing parcels in town that might achieve a more compact urban form or might be more efficient with regards to the delivery of city services overall.

Vanguard: So the natural question that people are going to ask, 800 unit senior housing project, what’s your inclination there?

Krovoza: Well if an 800 unit senior housing project really comes naturally out of a community based planning project of the city of Davis, then I’m willing to consider it.  But I think that it’s not clear to me that Davis seniors or even the families of Davis seniors, or Davis families that may have a senior or an elder that they wish to care for, really could command the demand of an 800 unit place.  If we think about work-live, work-retirement kind of balance, I think it’s hard to imagine a sole senior community really being the next step for Davis housing.

Vanguard: One of the outcomes of the current city’s water projects is increased cost to the ratepayer, how concerned are you about this and what steps will you take to mitigate the costs particularly to low-income and fixed income ratepayers?

Krovoza: It’s not clear to me that we have looked as aggressively as we can and should for funding from outside sources to help undergird the cost of the project for one.  I still am not convinced that the city has looked strong enough at conservation to make sure that there aren’t some ways that conservative can reduce the supply need whether it be the water supply or wastewater treatment or even groundwater quality for that matter.  And then I think that the best way to encourage conservation and such is to make sure we have pricing structures, both on the water supply/ wastewater treatment side that are not regressive, that truly are progressive, and that provide incentives.  So I think that people who are fixed income or lower income are exactly the people that may not be large water users.  A graduated structure that realizes a basic needs for water and spreads that across everybody.  But increased needs for lawns or higher use activities, I’d like to see a pretty progressive tax structure that discourages certain types of behavior that would be higher water use.

Vanguard: What do you see as the primary problems with the city’s budget?

Krovoza: I think the primary problem is that we are not adequately respecting the probabilities of increased costs down the road.  And it’s very true that you never know until you get there how much things are going to cost.  But, I think that we can look at health care expenditures that we’re contributing toward our employees’ and we can look at the pension situation and we can even look at the state’s interest in taking back from the city, whether that’s redevelopment funds or in other ways, and know that we’ve got an increasingly high probability of being in much tougher straits down the road than we are now.  I do think that we can’t go back to where we were ten years ago or five years ago, where we were projecting that revenues are going to go up.  I think we’re living in a very very different economic time and so that forces us to be more conservative or prudent or efficient or whatever word you want to use to make sure we’re getting on stable long-term footing.

Vanguard: Road repavement has virtually no money for things beyond basic road repairs, how serious a problem  do you view this as and what would you do if elected to address any shortfalls?

Krovoza: I think it’s going to be very difficult because a lot of the extra things that we might want to do with road repair are things that need to be funded by the general fund and the general fund is extremely tight.  So I do think we are going to be in a situation, if we’re not already, where we’re down to bare bones.   Long term maintenance of roads is I’m sure less expensive than short term fixes, but I’m sure there’s going to be some tough tradeoffs there.  I do think that again, external funding, can’t be the panacea for everything by any means, everybody is in tough straits, but I think we have to look pretty aggressively at, I think there’s going to be re-authorization of the federal transportation legislation.  There should be money in there for more creative alternative transportation projects maybe that can help free up some general fund obligations that would help with roads.  But that’s going to be one of these very tough choice situations.

Vanguard: Describe in your view what is the current problem with compensation to public employees.

Krovoza: First of all, I’ve taken the stand that in my campaign that I was not going to seek funds from any groups that does business directly with the city council.  I have great respect for public employees; my uncle was a fire chief.  My best friend growing up is a police officer; he’s been helping me out with the campaign a great deal.  We’re in tough times, everybody in Davis who works for the state is on a 15 percent furlough at least.  Everybody who works for the university has done an eight percent pay cut.  We have to make sure that we’re spreading the difficulty of the economy across all sectors.  I think that the buyout for employee health if your spouse is covered is unprecedented for a city, especially one in our fiscal consideration.  If we have public employee jobs open and we have hundreds of applicants for them, whether it’s the safety area or not, that tells you that this is a bit of a buyers market and we need to make sure we’re very careful there.

Vanguard: Are you willing to eliminate the market comparisons which were used to justify past salary and benefit increases that have occurred over the past ten years?

Krovoza: I don’t think that market comparisons are completely irrelevant.  So I’m not sure that I would be in favor of eliminating them.  But I think that they have to be looked at in an entirely new light.  If you’re in a competitive labor market and you’re truly getting outcompeted for employees then you have to pay attention to that.  But if you’re in a situation where you have many many applicants for job openings, I think that that is not appropriate really to be looking there.  The hirings that I’m a part on the UC Davis campus, there’s a tremendous amount of talent out there looking for a job, and that should be taken into account.

Vanguard: How can we address future pension costs and unfunded retiree health liabilities?

Krovoza: First of all we have to take a very realistic look at both how much the city is putting away to contribute to our employees and we have to evaluate whether the level of benefit is what we can truly sustain long term.  When we hire a city employee depending on how old they are, we may be taking on a forty, fifty, or a sixty year obligation to that employee and hopefully one that we would be able to keep.  Bringing the benefit down to an adequate level and making sure it’s not overly generous is the right thing to do.  But also if employees choose, and they want a benefit that’s better, that’s something that they can opt into.  But I don’t think you immediately go to a default situation where you’re providing benefits that maybe not everybody is supportive of.  So some level of employee contributions should not be off the table and making sure that the overall benefits are not overly generous is appropriate given this economy.

Vanguard: How would you differ in your approach to the most recent employee bargaining negotiations?

Krovoza: I would have been very interested in bringing in outside assistance.  Whether that person would have been as a negotiator or simply an adviser to the process, I think that when you’re living in these different economic times bringing someone in from the outside to guide us on what’s happening in other jurisdictions is appropriate.  I also think that bringing in someone from the outside can be if their properly, a healthy way to avoid the awkward position of what the city manager but also the council, having to work directly with some of its employees.  So an independent third party helping to guide us in those situations is good.  For the amount of money that we’re talking about at play here, not just one year but for years to come, I think that the amount of money that you might do that is a small investment for such a big decision to be made.

Vanguard: How would you change the budget process to change what appears in retrospect to have been an overly rosy revenue projection in the budget models passed by the council?

Krovoza: I think we have to look at the assumptions we’re making and use a little bit of first hindsight to say what were our projections last time and how did we do?  And if we were overly optimistic, why were we overly optimistic?  We need to make sure we don’t repeat that.  I would favor in this economic climate a bias toward guessing wrong on the conservative side and then being pleased as a community that we’re in a little bit better shape as opposed to being overly optimistic and then finding out that we have to make at the last minute more drastic cuts which I think is harder on staff morale and certainly are more difficult to do from the perspective of good planning.

Vanguard: Do you think we’re likely in a flat revenue situation for the coming years?

Krovoza: I’m not an economist and I haven’t studied all the reports during the campaign as much as I might like, I certainly have more people who I would regard highly who do pay attention to these things, telling me that flat or even assuming some market economic downturn are the way to look at the situation than people saying it’s definitely getting better.  My bias is to assume that we’re flat or we’re going to decline a little bit.  I think the burden of proof on doing anything rosy is pretty high for someone to establish that.  So I’m inclined to assume flat or worse than flat and let someone make a really good argument for me that it should be better than that.

Vanguard: In what ways do you see yourself continuing the policies of the current council and in what ways do you see yourself as an agent of change?

Krovoza: I see myself as an agent of change.  If we’re confronting tough situations now that every couple of months seem to be surprising us, that would suggest to me that we’re missing at least some opportunities to predict the future to plan adequately.  You can’t predict everything but it does seem to me that we should be getting a little bit better at that.  I think that I want to move in my emphasis on alternative transportation and biking and thinking about density, I think that we really need to embrace concepts that are really going to increase community and increase vitality of the downtown.   And not go as fast as we have toward classic city structures and modern America but really think hard about how we can forge a path in Davis that visionary compared to a little bit more stock.  So I really think that’s going to require some creativity and challenging ourselves at the planning department and the public works department as well.  I think those things will be good for creating a lower cost community and a community that is closer to each other.

I would like to have a city council that has lots and lots of votes where the citizens can’t quite figure out what the bloc is on one side of another.  I would love to have a city council that votes most of the time on big controversial issues 4-1 where four votes means that it wasn’t just a council majority getting three votes and saying tough luck to the other two, but really reaching over the aisle a little bit and finding a solution that respects as many people in Davis as possible. Similarly I like the idea of always having at least one no vote which maybe is a different person each time but shows a conscience that maybe we could have done it a little bit different, maybe we could have done it a little more fresh, maybe we could have cut costs a little bit more, maybe we should have been a little more aggressive.  I’d look forward to a council that’s much more fluid and a council that’s not just a straight up 3-2 on this, 3-2 on that.

Vanguard: In what ways do you see yourself continuing current policies?

Krovoza: I think that with two incumbents leaving and two new fresh faces coming in immediately and then another fresh face coming in, I think it’s actually an opportunity not to entirely disrespect the past in any way, but just to make sure that we’re thinking fresh.  I look forward to staff coming forward telling me that there are certain things that we did in the past and we’re proud of it, it worked, and we’re going to keep doing it that way.  I don’t want to throw everything out by any stretch of the imagination but I want to kind of foster a new attitude of really making sure that we’re thinking about everything fresh and if we end up staying the course, we’ll stay the course.  If we end up thinking there’s a little bit better way that’s maybe a little bit more low cost, that serves more people in the community then we’ll do that.

Vanguard: Since you brought up staff, do you think they’re too influential in the policy process?

Krovoza: I want to make sure that staff reports that come to the council are extremely balanced.  I haven’t rolled up my sleeves on big issues with as much perspective and knowledge as I’d like to make a flat assumption that staff is influential or not too influential.  I would like to see a very strong staff that is very influential but is also very independent, very community oriented and brings to us proposals where they’ve really brought together the stakeholders in the community before it comes to the council and we have achieved some level of consensus before the council.  I’m not interested in staff reports that kind of come to us with the community being very contentious and without some very legitimate opportunities to maybe bring a community together having been missed, and the council is expected to work late into the night trying to craft a solution to bring parties together that is political and not administratively or management based.  That’s not good decision making.  So I’d still like staff to be strong but I also want them to be creative and inclusive so that the council can focus more on policy rather than implementation things and design of specific projects.

Vanguard: Along those lines, let me ask you this question, are you concerned with the fact that staff by and large are not part of this community, most of them don’t live in Davis and they don’t have the same stake in this community as most of the citizens do?

Krovoza: I don’t discount the staff’s view because they don’t live in Davis.  I would always want to read their reports not paying attention to whether they’re in town staff or out of town staff.  But I do think that when you live in a community and you spend your time on the weekends whether its on the soccer field or at the Farmer’s Market or eating downtown, or seeing how the students are behaving in the late afternoon, that does give you more data points from which to make decisions.  So if our staff doesn’t live in town, I think they have to be especially cognizant of the views of those people who really are here 24/7.  It also makes me think about workforce housing and affordable housing in our town, because the more we can have workforce housing and affordable housing, the higher the probability that we can make sure that our staff and a higher percentage of our staff are living here in Davis.

—David M. Greenwald reporting