Crime & Safety

City Council Candidate Q&A: Stephanie Johnson

San Marino City Council candidate Stephanie Johnson, a systems analyst who has lived in the city for 12 years, shares her views on the public safety tax (Measure S), city development and more.

City council candidate Stephanie Johnson, who ran previously in 2007 and 2009, had a Q&A session with Patch about where she stands on various city issues and what she would address if elected on Nov. 8.

Johnson is running against incumbents Dennis Kneier and Eugene Sun and newcomer David Foley for the chance to fill one of two .

Johnson chose not to conduct her interview with Patch on video.

Find out what's happening in San Marinowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

See video interviews with the other city council candidates by clicking on their names below.

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Stephanie Johnson Q&A:

1. Why are you running for city council?

I think I’ve developed a good deal of insight about the city and what works and what doesn’t work. I would say I’m more of a grassroots type person. The work I’ve done is with my neighbors and friends here in the Mission District to try and overcome some of the issues or problems that are specific to our area. ...

My interest began more narrowly focused on the Mission District and our area and the problems relating to traffic and parking and that sort of thing. And since I’ve been attending meetings now for about 10 years I’ve kind of branched out from here and I try not to intrude into every issue—I don’t think that’s my place—but I receive all the agenda material and I read it all and I do ask questions and participate. I wish more people in the city would do that. I think it’s interesting to understand what goes on and how things work. It’s a very small city and you can get a pretty good handle on that by attending the meetings.

2. Will you vote for to extend the public safety tax? Why or why not?

I’m going to vote for the public safety tax.

It has been a tax that has been on the books for many years now. I think it maybe goes back to 1986 and the city is a full-service city and we just need the supplemental revenue to make ends meet and they’ve counted on this for quite a long time.

Could the city function without it? Yes. Right now this tax is through 2012. If this didn’t pass there is time to readjust before next June before they do the next budget if they could possibly put it up for reelection in March.

If the tax doesn’t pass, what I’m afraid will happen is we will be reacting and that’s not the best position to be in for financial planning. It’s always good to be able to plan and get things right and do it in a very prudent way that’s fair to everybody—the employees and the taxpayers—rather than to have to react and just start cutting. In that way I am going to vote yes with the hope that the city will address the issues of employee compensation.

3. Will you vote for term limits to limit office holders to two four-year terms?

I’m going to vote no on term limits.

I realize there was an advisory vote two years ago and it had a majority [for term limits].

I think the public should be able to vote for whomever they want and if they feel someone has been in office for too long they won’t vote for that person. So I don’t think it’s a prudent thing to do to limit the choices the public has when they are voting. We did find in 2007 that the two incumbents who had been in office for many, many years were defeated and I think that just affirmed my opinion that people will decide if you have been there long enough, they’ll vote for someone else.

4. What relevant experience do you bring to the table to serve on city council?

Although I haven’t been on the city council, I’ve been going to city council meetings longer than most people on the city council. I know that I’m a great analyst and project manager—that’s what I’ve done for my career—and I’m pretty smart. Also I’m really willing to roll up my sleeves and do some work on behalf of the city and listen to people here and represent them and advocate for them. 

I was disappointed that I’ve been attending the 710 [freeway] gap meetings and the MTA’s Cal Trans series of public meetings about that and the Southern California Local Council of Governments’ 2012 transportation plan and no one from the city ever goes to these meetings and it’s really to our disadvantage that they’re not attending these meetings.

What concerned me from the Southern California Council of Governments was they posted a transportation map that showed some of the streets in the city as being designated high quality transit corridors and I thought, “Oh my gosh”. ... Even if this was some sort of mistake or how it came about, certainly someone should be there to participate in these sorts of meetings.  

5. What is your philosophy on commercial development in the city?

San Marino was designed as a residential community by Huntington and Patton and their distribution of properties here. The commercial area has always been for the convenience of the residents, typically small stores that are useful to people living here. Business has always been in this city, by design, secondary.

From talking with people during the campaign, the things that people would like to see are restaurants and things that would serve the local community. But at the same time people say they would like those things, we don’t want a bunch of outside people. We don’t want to draw more traffic to the city either so it’s a bit of a catch-22.

The businesses on the Mission District and especially Huntington Drive—the rents are market-driven and I think at this point they are too expensive for most small businesses to operate. From the [city's] August 2011 report there is 11 percent vacancy, which is not great but it’s not terrible either.

One of the things that’s happening more recently in the city over the last few years is there's been a trend to and a trend away from having more of this review go through the planning commission and I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think we need to stick to an overall plan and I think the planning commission does an excellent job and I think that to shift more of their operation of the oversight and community just to the city staff is not a good thing.

6. What other major issues would you address if elected?

Addressing city finances.

A few years ago the city had a budget surplus and they have over the past several years built up a reserve that they are required to maintain. So the trend has changed now where they were at a breaking point and this year they’re at a deficit so this issue should be concerning to the city.

Certainly San Marino is not in the position of other cities that are in rather desperate straits already but staff costs for San Marino is 68 percent of the budget so it absolutely has to be addressed and we have all read the issues regarding pensions and civil service salary and all of that. So certainly that has to be addressed and it has to be addressed more than just pension reform. I think we need to look in the city at the level of staffing and the positions people have attained and the compensation they are getting. The city pays a very, very generous amount of costs that would be normally in a private business paid by the employee, as well as giving management an extra four percent bonus, so that has to be addressed and I think that can be done and still be very fair to the staff.

Other than that I think one of the things I'd like to see happen is move along with the plans for a community center.

As you know, I was an advocate for the city providing some sort of aid to the school district and that was part of my 2007 campaign about the community center and sports facility and that type of thing. I think that we should keep pursuing that—we’ve made an investment now of over $5 million for Stoneman [and] it shouldn’t just sit there. …

I’d take a step backwards from where we are right now because plans have been made and even down to the point of having architects draw some plans for what would be at Stoneman. I think in all fairness to the public, the public should be more involved in developing ideas for what should be done so I’d love to do that.

And number two, whatever we build—and this is my own particular bias—I think if you are going to build a building you should hire a well-known architect so you are building something of historical significance and I think if you do that too more people are going to be willing to donate to a project like that rather than just a run-of-the-mill civic building. So I’d like to see them do something and do it in the first class way that San Marino has in the past accomplished things and built. So that’s the main thing going forward that I would like to do as something new.

Don't forget to vote on Nov. 8!


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