Ritu Jha-
Indian American Sikh engineer and former city airport commissioner Sukhdev Bainiwal will contest the from District 8 of city of San Jose. Bainiwal, who has been living in the city since age 11, says his Evergreen neighborhood has been in decline over four decades; therefore, he is determined to change its course. Topping his priority list is resolving the numerous issues that plague his favorite neighborhood.
Bainiwal would be facing three more contestants in the March 5 primary election: incumbent Domingo Candelas, Tam Troung and Surinder Kaur Dhaliwal.
Bainiwal, 57, who sits on the board of the Sikh Gurdwara of San Jose has strong ties to the local Sikh community, with an electrical and software engineering background. First on his agenda is public safety, he told indica. He wants to improve public safety through neighborhood watches and also press for beefing up the police force.
The other issues that he wishes to tackle are homelessness through interim housing construction, increasing affordable housing stock by streamlining the city’s permitting process, and revitalizing the commercial centers to support small businesses. He also plans to invest in local parks, particularly the polluted Lake Cunningham.
Bainiwal spoke to indica as he took a walk down memory lane and spoke about his hopes, aspirations, and why he entered the poll arena.
“I’ve been in the community for more than 20 years. In addition to taking care of my family, and a full-time job, I’m also involved in the community a lot, whether through the city or the Indian community, Sikh community. I always try to stay involved to connect with the community, and help them with any services they need in the city or the county.”
He had migrated from Punjab to the US with his parents in the 1970s. In 1977, they bought the house that he lives in with his family even today.
He joined the Evergreen school and then later went to the Quimby Oak Middle School. When he was in Silver Creek High School, he started delivering newspapers in the area.
“I used to be a paper boy and delivered the San Jose Mercury newspaper to its subscribers in this locality. I started delivering newspapers from the 7th grade and continued until I graduated from high school and then went to college,” he told indica.
“During my childhood we were always outdoors playing and we never felt unsafe. All the kids were playing with each other in the parks or the streets. We rode our bikes and our doors were left unlocked. We never thought about any of the public safety issues that we see these days in District 8. Now most parents are concerned for their children’s safety and about the frequent burglaries that happen here. Mail theft is a federal crime, but still, people’s mails are stolen,” said Bainiwal who wants to “create a better environment” for residents.
He feels that liberalization of some of the laws has hastened the deterioration in the law-and-order situation of Evergreen.
“Public safety and homelessness are the two top things that are different than what they used to be because of the growth that we had. And some of the policies have caused this. The number one reason for this breakdown is the lower number of police officers and number two is people are just into themselves instead of knowing each other. What we need to do is have more block parties and have people know their neighbors,” Bainiwal said.
“We also should have neighborhood watches and keep an eye out for each other so we can protect our neighborhoods and create strong and safer neighborhoods. I don’t think I ever saw any homeless people back then. Now the state of San Jose is getting its fair share of that too. We need to take care of the homeless, but we also need our parks back, we need our creeks back, we need our businesses back. That’s why the homeless need to be indoors somewhere in some type of shelter or housing, where they can be connected to mental health services, job services, or rehabilitation programs for drug addicts.”
“When somebody is caught committing crimes like thefts, they need to be prosecuted. They need to pay for what they did. They cannot just steal somebody’s property and not be caught because of Proposition 47,” he added.
Proposition 47 was introduced to tackle prison overcrowding and reduce nonviolent offense incarcerations. This enabled the reclassification of specific offenses like minor thefts and certain drug-related charges as misdemeanors instead of felonies.
“Proposition 47 which the state of California passed said that if you steal anything worth $950 or less, it will be treated as a misdemeanor, and not much action is taken against the perpetrators. The reason they did that was they said the jails were filling up too much. Earlier, the amount was $250, and they increased that to $950.”
Bainiwal feels that Proposition 47 is the root cause behind the increase in retail thefts and petty crimes throughout the state of California.
“Sometimes the authorities just say that we can’t do anything since the theft amount is small. I say it needs to be recalled because the small and medium-sized businesses are hurting because of that. Then SB 553 was introduced this year. It was called workplace violence prevention. What it underlines is if somebody is stealing at your business place, you should not confront them. Let them take whatever they need to take. Just take an inventory of what they take, or you hire a security guard. But, none of these small businesses can afford to hire a security guard. All the business owners were against that but it was passed regardless. All the small business owners protested a lot in Sacramento, but their pleas went unheeded.”
“I’m all for safer and cleaner neighborhoods and that is what I’m running for – safer and cleaner neighborhoods and safety of the businesses. Each councilman is responsible for each district to look at the public safety good parks, and land use in their area so they can keep that district flourishing and safe. I stand for positive change. This current status quo is not working. Our homelessness, and public safety crisis are not improving. And I’m the change person who’s going to make positive change and take bold steps to make that change.”
Criticizing existing policies, Bainiwal said: “They’ve been trying to put the homeless into permanent shelters but they’re not making much headway. We need to have cheap, prefabricated shelters where we can house them where they can be connected to the services and be able to get on with their lives. And we need to have more affordable housing, increase the stock of housing in San Jose so people can afford to live here.”
Indian American Sikh engineer Sukhdev Bainiwal announces for council run from San Jose District 8
