{"id":481356,"date":"2026-10-01T07:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481356\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T07:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:26:14","slug":"districts-2-and-3-candidate-forum-few-differences-few-specifics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481356\/","title":{"rendered":"Districts 2 and 3 Candidate Forum: Few Differences, Few Specifics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sept. 27th\u2019s candidate forum for Santa Clara\u2019s District 2 and District 3 city council races heard from candidates about council dynamics, the city budget, housing, data centers and Santa Clara\u2019s relationship with the 49ers. The forum was co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters of San Jose\/Santa Clara, the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce and San Jose Spotlight.<\/p>\n

Few policy differences emerged among the candidates, including on seemingly irreconcilable goals of spending more on infrastructure while restraining budget growth. Everyone agreed that the council should be on better terms with the 49ers and council meetings are too long.<\/p>\n

What separated the candidates was whether they offered specific policies and actions versus general statements about problems and what the city \u201cshould\u201d do. The 90-second answer limit, however, made substantial answers difficult.<\/p>\n

District 3: Eric Crutchlow and Kyle Madej<\/p>\n

Eric Crutchlow, a cyber-security engineer, has the most direct city experience of the candidates: three years on the Planning Commission, where he is currently the chair, and his service this past year on a charter review committee.<\/p>\n

SPONSORED<\/p>\n

\"Devid<\/a><\/p>\n

On fiscal policy, he proposed a standing finance committee to inventory city assets and allocate money for their maintenance before emergencies happen.<\/p>\n

Crutchlow favors a data center moratorium, but also proposes a simple beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve already asked that at the next planning commission we do something simple: start a report that looks at an aggregate of all the data centers,\u201d said Crutchlow. \u201cThat plus the other industry that we have in Santa Clara. If they all turn on their diesel generators, what would be the impact? Is it going to be a public health problem?\u201d<\/p>\n

SPONSORED<\/p>\n

\"57th_SC_Parade_of_Champions_Image.\"\"57th_SC_Parade_of_Champions_Image.\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kyle Madej is a founder and executive of several security and police equipment companies. His single specific proposal was a structural one: separating the Stadium Authority board from the City Council. He argued it creates \u201ca huge conflict of interest\u201d when the same people oversee both the city\u2019s and stadium\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n

Crutchlow endorsed the proposal.<\/p>\n

Madej also advocated for more parks and remedies for El Camino Real\u2019s blighted state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have two shopping centers on El Camino that are abandoned right now,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to find developers who want to come in, and \u2026 incentivize businesses to want to be in Santa Clara.\u201d<\/p>\n

District 2: Yvonne Inciarte and Kimberley Williams<\/p>\n

Yvonne Inciarte is former Director of Intergovernmental Strategy for Congressman Ro Khanna. Inciarte serves on the Historical & Landmarks Commission and served on the Economic Development and Marketing Committee. Inciarte\u2019s answers were characterized by the vocabulary of process: \u201cexplore,\u201d \u201cempower\u201d and \u201ccreate solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing the conflict on the city council, Inciarte said she would \u201cassess what\u2019s the frustrations going on, on council \u2026 what are priorities? Why are we gridlocked? That\u2019s something that I will do to empower collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

On data centers, Inciarte suggested education about data centers and sliding electric rates.<\/p>\n

Although Kimberley Williams doesn\u2019t have experience in city government, her answers showed knowledge about specific policy tools. Williams is a longtime volunteer in Santa Clara Unified schools, serves on the board of the Santa Clara Schools Foundation and California State PTA Board of Managers.<\/p>\n

On the state\u2019s affordable-housing mandate, Williams enumerated actions the city can take: contributing public land, deferring fees, streamlining approvals and partnering with the county housing authority and nonprofit developers. On the city budget, she identified a structural pattern: repeated failure to adequately fund infrastructure reserves.<\/p>\n

Long Council Meetings, Data Centers, Levi\u2019s Stadium, Downtown<\/p>\n

Three of the candidates offered concrete ideas about corralling council meetings that last into the wee hours of the morning. Crutchlow and Madej both proposed a hard cutoff time for substantive votes and votes carrying deadlines. Williams put forward pre-recorded staff presentations and expanded language translation.<\/p>\n

Inciarte recommended the city should \u201cactually follow the Brown Act \u2026 so that we can be more efficient,\u201d but did not elaborate.<\/p>\n

Everyone bemoaned the absence of a downtown, and Madej had a concrete suggestion: demolish the city-owned building on the corner of Homestead and Lafayette and allow food trucks there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something we can do really fast,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would make a splash, and give us momentum to push through on the final project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inciarte didn\u2019t have anything to say about the downtown, instead saying the Super Bowl and World Cup events \u201cshowed that Santa Clara actually had soul\u201d and \u201cwho we are as we\u2019re growing together,\u201d and something that she would \u201cmake sure that we empower.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the question of the stadium, Crutchlow pushed back on demands for more auditing. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should be auditing all the time,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to be proactive and look in the front and where we\u2019re going, making sure the contracts have worked for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inciarte said, \u201cWe need to know how to speak to everybody,\u201d and that she \u201cwould not like the stadium to be taking from our reserves and general fund.\u201d<\/p>\n

The video of the forum can be found at https:\/\/fb.watch\/v\/6CoJyVdZr\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Carolyn Schuk can be reached at carolyn@santaclaraweekly.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sept. 27th\u2019s candidate forum for Santa Clara\u2019s District 2 and District 3 city council races heard from candidates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[6036,188730,188731,188732,88,90,89,197,2919,2921,2922,188733],"class_list":["post-481356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-area-news","tag-eric-crutchlow","tag-kimberley-williams","tag-kyle-madej","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara","tag-santa-clara-city-council","tag-santa-clara-weekly","tag-silicon-valley-voice","tag-yvonne-inciarte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}