|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Pleasanton mayoral candidates Jack Balch and Julie Testa weighed in on budget challenges, water rates, economic vitality and other top issues facing the city at Tuesday’s public forum.
Balch, the incumbent who is seeking a second term, said he’s incredibly proud of the work the city has done over the last two years and that he hopes to continue that work, which includes protecting Pleasanton’s quality of life, for years to come.
“At a time of national growing division, I work to listen, invite people into the conversation and move us forward together,” Balch said. “I’m running for another term because I want to build on the progress we’ve made and see that through.”
Testa, a District 3 City Council member who will be termed out this year after having served on the dais for the past eight years, also said she is running because Pleasanton “needs experience, independent leadership that is accessible to residents.”
“I’ll keep pressing for strong public safety, safe drinking water, responsible housing and careful stewardship of taxpayer dollars,” she said. “I will listen to you, be direct about our challenges and work every day for the people of Pleasanton.”
The Sept. 29 forum, hosted by the Weekly, drew a standing-room-only audience to the City Council chamber room at the Pleasanton Civic Center; it was also live streamed.
Candidates talk public safety
The candidates each said public safety was a priority. While Pleasanton experienced a string of commercial burglaries that affected nearly two dozen businesses Sept. 10 and has seen four high-profile murder cases in the last four years, Balch reminded residents that the Pleasanton Police Department’s latest numbers show crime is down overall in the city.
However, he said he recognized that public safety is also a “sense of feeling safe.” If elected, he said, he would continue to make sure the city provides officers and all first responders with the tools they need to do their job. He also said he would aim to prioritize response times.
“(PPD’s) response time, we’ve learned, is not consistent with how we measure response time in fire, and so we’re working to make sure that we are communicating a consistent time so we have consistent expectations,” Balch said.
Testa thanked the police department for making a quick arrest in connection to the commercial burglaries.
She also said while avoiding crime is basically impossible, she appreciates the dedication of Pleasanton’s officers and pledged her continued support if elected as mayor.
“I think they’ve done a really great job,” Testa said. “I’ve seen significant evolution in our department over the eight years I’ve been on council, and I’m very proud of them.”
Differing views to revitalize downtown
Both candidates said boosting the city’s economic vitality is a top priority, but they offered different ideas on how to address it.
Testa called downtown Pleasanton the heart of the city and pointed out that as a council member, she has continuously tried to agendize discussions for different strategies the city could use to address the vacant storefronts scattered throughout Main Street.
She said in looking at other cities that have transformed their downtowns to vibrant hubs with occupied storefronts, Pleasanton needs to have conversations with local property owners to fill the empty storefronts along Main Street, some of which she said have been vacant for nearly 10 years.
“I think that some of our longtime property owners just aren’t motivated,” Testa said. “It’s their property, but it’s our downtown. We should have that conversation and look at what our options are.”
Balch touted all of the things the city has done under his leadership to make downtown Pleasanton more attractive for incoming businesses, including cleaning streets, planting trees and straightening sidewalks. He also highlighted the city’s new Pleasanton Playbook, which lays out what it takes to open a business and is intended to help streamline the permitting process for business owners.
He said while he thinks that the community understands the ongoing challenges of persistent vacancies, the conversation shouldn’t be focused on comparing Pleasanton to other cities but on ways to embrace and support existing local businesses.
He proposed reevaluating the city’s Downtown Specific Plan to see where improvements can be made.
“That plan was adopted in 2018, and I don’t believe it’s getting us the results to the business and economic vitality that we expected,” Balch said. “So I think we need to crack that open and see what we can do to further enhance it.”
Balch addressed Testa’s comments regarding strategies to address vacancies, saying one of the strategies she favors is a vacancy tax.
During her time on the council, Testa has brought up the idea of discussing a vacancy tax, along with other strategies to address vacancies, but has not committed to the idea and has not been successful in convincing her colleagues on the council to agendize a conversation.
Testa refuted Balch’s claim that a vacancy tax was among her proposed strategies.
“The comment was that the vacancy strategy that I had mentioned was a vacancy tax. I certainly did not say that, and that’s not the case,” Testa said. “The strategy would be a variety of different strategies … having a discussion would determine what it is and what it isn’t.”
Candidates support hotel tax increase, disagree on financial impact
The candidates also discussed Pleasanton’s financial outlook, including whether they supported Measure HH, a proposed hotel tax increase that supporters say would help the city address a structural budget deficit that has forced cuts and service reductions over the past few years.
Measure HH would raise the city’s hotel tax rate from 8% to 10% beginning next July. The rate would increase again to 12% the following year. City officials have said the tax rate has remained stable since 1983, and the full 12% increase would generate up to $2.8 million annually.
Both mayoral candidates previously voted with the rest of the council to place the measure on the November ballot, and both signaled their unequivocal support for the measure.
However, Testa noted she was opposed to the phased increase, simply because she would have wanted the city to get the full $2.8 million in projected annual revenue quicker.
Testa also reiterated — as she has during council discussions regarding the ballot measure — that even if it’s approved, Measure HH won’t do much to address a deficit projected to be in the millions for the next several years.
She said Measure PP, a sales tax increase measure that failed at the polls in 2024, would have been the best way to begin addressing the city’s budget deficit. She added that Balch voted against placing the sales tax measure on that year’s ballot, and she called Measure HH a band-aid solution to a bigger fiscal problem.
“The (hotel tax) is very small in comparison,” Testa said, noting that Measure PP was projected to bring in about $10 million in revenue annually. “It’s going to be good to have, but it’s not going to make a dent, really, in our budget situation.”
Balch defended his take on Measure PP, reiterating his stance that the city needed to look more closely at its finances before asking taxpayers to bear the burden of a half-cent sales tax increase.
“Before I ask for another … taxpayer dollar, I want to make sure we need it, and I stand by that budget philosophy,” Balch said.
He also defended the phased approach the city took with Measure HH, saying it is what hotel industry leaders preferred, especially as the industry continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that while the revenue from Measure HH may not be significant, those additional dollars will help the city “maintain that high quality of life.”
How to address housing mandates
Both candidates agreed that retaining local control over current and future housing development proposals was important, but they disagreed on how the city should address state mandates.
Balch said he is for responsible growth over time so services and infrastructure can adapt. However, he said, it’s also important to choose viable housing sites that will comply with state laws so that the city avoids being sued, as it has been in the past. He added that he supports multigenerational housing that is affordable by design.
“Not growing too fast is important, but not growing too slowly as well,” Balch said.
He criticized the past council majority for not adding portions of East Pleasanton as potential housing sites in the city’s sixth Housing Element, a document that lays out areas within the city to be zoned for future housing. The state requires Pleasanton to plan for 5,965 new units — 2,758 of which are targeted toward lower-income households — over the eight-year cycle, which runs through 2031. Though the city must rezone to allow for the units, it is not required to actually build them.
Testa countered Balch’s comments, saying her vote with the council majority to exclude East Pleasanton from the Housing Element came after city staff recommended doing so. New housing has been proposed in East Pleasanton on land the city has annexed, but Testa said she would have preferred to see those sites used for industrial purposes.
She said East Pleasanton is not appropriate for high-density housing, mainly due to the lack of transit options, and that industrial businesses would have generated more money in property taxes for the city compared to residential units.
She said she supports housing but wants it to be realistic for the city and called the state’s mandates unachievable. She said Pleasanton should be joining forces with other cities to fight back.
Other topics covered at the forum included the search for the next city manager, the newly proposed sewer rates that the council will vote on later this year, decorum on the dais and street safety and road maintenance.
A video of the forum can be found on the Pleasanton Weekly’s YouTube page.
Court records reveal abuse allegations before fatal shooting in Dublin parkSeptember 30, 2026 9:17 am
Halloween-themed events, Night Market coming to Alameda County Fairgrounds this monthOctober 1, 2026 8:58 am
