Spring has come to District 3 🌦️🪻
- Support for Al Fresco outdoor dining program
- Approval of VTA Capitol Station affordable housing loan
- Support for compressed air energy storage system
- Promotion of community engagement events
- D3 Budget Town Hall
- Al Fresco outdoor dining memo
- VTA Capitol Station Housing development loan
- Willow Rock Long Energy Storage Site authorization
- D3 Budget Town Hall at Center for Employment Training
- Digital Kiosk Community Engagement Webinar on April 20, 2026
- Great American Litter Pickup on April 18, 2026
- Educator Nomination Deadline April 17, 2026
Email from District 3 See you on Saturday for our D3 Budget Town Hall! Dear neighbors, Spring is here, bringing some April showers to the upcoming weekend. But I hope the weather doesn’t keep you from joining me and my team tomorrow at 11 am for our D3 Budget Town Hall at the Center for Employment Training. We’ll be reviewing this year’s budget and going over community projects as part of our D3 Decides participatory budgeting. In closing, I wanted to take a few moments to reflect on the legacy of Rod Diridon, Sr., in the wake of his recent passing. Rod was my sponsor when I joined the Rotary Club of San José. It was a joy to get to know Rod, and last year he shared a story with me that many of you may not know. When he was a rising political star on the County Board of Supervisors and being approached by folks urging him to run for higher office, he had to make a choice: stick to his principles or further his political career. Rod stuck to his principles. In 1979, he voted to pass a controversial ordinance that banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The backlash was immediate: anti-LGBTQ+ groups rallied attacks on Rod and the other Supervisors and put a measure on the ballot to repeal the ordinance that Santa Clara County voters approved by 40 points. A few months after the vote, Rod ran for state senate and was defeated by a Republican. For many politicians, that could have been career ending. But as he said, “If you don’t vote your conscience, you’re not worth a damn.” And as we all know, his impact did not end there. Thank you, Rod, for your lifetime of service to Santa Clara County and your tireless work to make the lives of our residents better. Thank you for being an example of putting principles over politics. Yours in community, Al Fresco 2.0 I co-authored a memo with Councilmembers Kamei, Cohen, Ortiz, and Mulcahy directing City staff to explore permanently reestablishing our Al Fresco outdoor dining program. By restoring a low-barrier, by-right pathway for simple installations while establishing clear design standards and coordinated interdepartmental review for more complex improvements, the City can reduce uncertainty, shorten timelines, and provide businesses with a predictable pathway to invest in long-term outdoor dining. This is an opportunity to streamline our permitting framework in the pursuit of thriving neighborhoods and supporting our local businesses. VTA Capitol Station Affordable Housing This week, City Council approved a loan to MidPen Housing for the VTA Capitol Station Housing development at Capitol and Narvaez that paves the way for 203 homes serving families at 30%-60% AMI. The project also includes $11.5 million in Measure A funds and grant funding from the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program for bus, bike, and pedestrian improvements in connection with the Capitol Station. We’ve already partnered successfully with VTA on transit oriented development at Tamien Station and I’m looking forward to continuing that partnership to build much needed homes just footsteps away from transit. Energy Innovation This week, Council voted to authorize an innovative energy storage system that will protect San José’s energy supply and lower our city’s carbon emissions. Instead of a conventional lithium-ion battery facility, The Willow Rock Long Energy Storage Site will leverage an exciting new compressed air storage system. Using an artificial cavern, compressed air, surface water, and a powered turbine, San José Clean Energy will store energy during hours of excess renewable generation and discharge that power during high energy demand periods. I am proud to support this wise investment for a brighter future. Read a detailed breakdown of how compressed air storage happens here: Willow Rock Energy Storage Memorandum Digital Kiosk Meeting Join City staff to talk about new digital kiosks planned for downtown. We want to hear from you as the City considers moving forward with this program, including where these kiosks might go and what information they should share. Your participation will help ensure this program serves our community effectively. Community Engagement Webinar: Date: April 20, 2026 Time: 6:30–7:30pm Registration: https://sanjoseca.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9C7V3FcgRha3zFAkvQ1XzA Live interpretation in Spanish, Vietnamese, or Chinese is available upon request by April 15. Please contact Blage Zelalich at Blage.Zelalich@sanjoseca.gov to request language interpretation. Nominate Your Favorite San José Educator Join us in honoring dedicated and passionate educators who go above and beyond for their students! We invite students, parents, colleagues, and community members to nominate an outstanding educator. ⏲️ DEADLINE: Friday, April 17, 2026 Who can be nominated? 🏆 This award is open to any TK-12 educator currently working or who has worked in San José. Public, private, and charter school teachers are eligible. Retired teachers can also be nominated. How do I nominate? ✍️ To submit your entry, complete the nomination form at sjpl.org/TeacherAward When are the winners announced? 🍎 Winners will be announced during Teacher Appreciation Week, May 3 - 9, 2026. Great American Litter Pickup Join the Great American Litter Pickup on Saturday, April 18 and be part of a citywide effort to keep our neighborhoods clean, vibrant, and welcoming! Choose a location near you, grab some provided supplies, and team up with fellow volunteers to make an immediate impact. 📍 Multiple locations 🧤 Supplies provided Sign up today: https://bit.ly/galpu-sj We celebrated the start of a new chapter for one of San José’s most iconic buildings, the Bank of Italy. For the past century, it has been the most iconic landmark adorning our city’s skyline, exemplifying Downtown San José to such a great extent that I decided to feature it in our council office logo. But it’s also a building that has seen better times, and I think we can all agree that this beautiful structure has been vacant for far too long. That’s why I am so excited to see Westbank stepping up to breathe new life into this landmark building, creating 109 new homes in the process. This building is also the first project to proceed under the City’s new office-to-residential conversion incentive program, which aims to meet the challenge of persistent high office vacancies and transform that problem into an opportunity to reimagine existing buildings into desperately needed new homes. More affordable homes are coming to District 3! We recently broke ground on the Lupita Apartments, which will bring 99 much needed affordable homes — and on-site affordable childcare — to our Guadalupe Washington neighborhood. Last week we welcomed Pretty Good Advice to the Paseo de San Antonio! Since they opened their doors earlier this year, they’ve quickly become one of my favorite lunch spots. Matt McNamara and Pretty Good Advice are reactivating a space right across the street from SJSU that used to be a Togo’s, a local institution. Pretty Good Advice is keeping it local in their own way, with a menu featuring seasonal produce grown from a farm just up the hill in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was a pleasure spending time with some of our youngest D3 residents over at the Joyce Ellington Library. In addition to a visit from the Easter Bunny, I had the opportunity to join in for story time for this week. It was lovely to hear from parents about what a neighborhood gem this library is, and how much their children enjoy the programming our library staff provides. Last week, my team and I had a great Saturday morning at Café do Canto in Little Portugal. Thank you to everyone who came with your neighborhood concerns and questions about what we’re up to at City Hall. Couldn’t make it? Stay tuned for updates for our next Coffee with a Councilmember, coming to a neighborhood near you. Do you have an event you'd like to share with our D3 neighbors? Send the details to district3@sanjoseca.gov for consideration in our newsletter! District 3 | 200 E SANTA CLARA ST | SAN JOSE, CA 95113 US Unsubscribe | Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice