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Leon Leong says the City Council needs more diversity.

By that he means fresh voices talking about issues that are currently under the council's radar. Specifically, he wants the council to start focusing on the impacts of new developments on local schools and on neighborhood traffic; on a bloated city budget; and on bringing new businesses to Palo Alto.

"I've seen the City Council focus on a lot of broader regional issues like climate change and not on day-to-day issues like local traffic congestion," Leong said. "It didn't feel like a diversity of views."

Leong has never served on a local commission, but he is well familiar with local issues. He grew up in Palo Alto and earned degrees in computer science from University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University. He has spent 20 years in the high-tech industry, working in management positions at Hewlett-Packard Co. and other high-tech companies.

In 1994, Leong changed careers and became a Realtor. He studies Palo Alto's trends and serves on the Government Action Committee for the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors. He says the council has been too hasty in approving several mixed-use developments, including Alma Plaza and the College Terrace Centre.

He says the city should require more measures to ease the impacts of development and have stricter standards for dense housing projects that congest neighborhood streets and overcrowd local schools.

"School-impact fees have not been sufficient to cover the magnitude of the enrollment," Leong said.

Leong also wishes he'd seen a diversity of views from the council before members voted 8-0 to support the high-speed rail project in October 2008. California voters approved a $9.95 billion bond for the rail line in November 2008.

Earlier this year, council members started voicing concerns about the rail line after learning that its design could feature elevated tracks running along the Caltrain corridor.

But Leong said he voted against the project in November and wished the council wasn't so hasty to get behind the project. He called that vote "quite unfortunate."

"I did my homework and knew there would be grade separation," Leong said. "But it passed on an 8-0 vote, with no opposition. It kind of surprised me."

Building underground tunnels would be a much better option if it were financially feasible, he said. But he added that tunneling through a section of the Peninsula would most likely be cost prohibitive.

Leong also said he opposes the council-backed proposal for a business-license tax, Measure A, which will be on the November ballot. He calls the tax, based on employee count, regressive because it caps payments for the largest companies and forces small companies to pay (by his estimate) 80 percent of the total tax revenue.

Leong said he would prefer an employee-based tax without a cap and with exemptions for workers who live and work in Palo Alto. He would also like the city to give tax credits to companies based on the number of employees who use public transit.

He also said he is worried about the impacts the new tax would have on business owners who want to set up shop in Palo Alto.

"One thing I feel will discourage businesses from coming to town is the business-license tax," Leong said.

Leong supports reducing the city budget and trimming compensation to city employees. He is a proponent of a two-tiered system in which new employees have to make greater contributions to their health care and pensions than existing employees.

In fact, one of the few areas in which he agrees with the council is the need to cut costs and reduce employee benefits.

"I applaud the current council in their negotiations," Leong said at last week's Chamber of Commerce-sponsored candidate forum. "I hope they stick to their guns."

If elected, Leong said he would seek to make the budget more transparent, improve government efficiency and engage city residents. In a Palo Alto Neighborhoods questionnaire, Leong wrote that "civic engagement" should be a two-way street and said he believes "it should be a priority to get 'new faces' and 'new voices' involved.

"I realize I'm a newcomer," Leong told the Weekly. "But new means you can inject new ideas into the council's thinking."

— Gennady Sheyner

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