The Cupertino Courier

City Council candidate Steven Haze

Haze calls for responsible local growth

By Pam Marino

City Council candidate Steven Haze, now in his fourth council election campaign, looks at it this way: Abraham Lincoln ran unsuccessfully for office eight times before he became president.

"I'm not going after his record," Haze joked.

What Haze is going after is a chance to serve his community, the senior program manager for Wang said. He calls himself a "bona fide community activist."

Haze is the first to admit he is not always out in front and in the public eye. However, over his 19 years in Cupertino he has been involved in issues such as the San Jose Diocese property, two different general plan reviews and discussions of the "Heart of the City," Cupertino's answer to having (or not having) a downtown.

He serves on numerous boards and committees, including the Friends of Stevens Creek Trail Committee, of which he is currently president; the Cupertino Historical Society and Museum board; and the vestry at St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church.

In this election Haze said he has four main issues he is concentrating on: community, responsible growth, economic sustainability and leadership.

As to the first issue, Haze said he is concerned about whether Asian immigrants feel they are a part of the community. He said the city needs to look at what the opportunities are to make sure everyone is included in the life of the community.

"I know what it's like" to feel different in a community, Haze said. He said he is a mixture of German, Irish, Cherokee Indian and Assyrian. As a boy growing up in mostly white Palo Alto, his darker skin tone made him stand out, he said.

Under responsible growth, Haze said residents need to make a decision. "What kind of community do we want?" he asked. Haze wants to see continued citizen involvement in general plan reviews.

In an earlier campaign Haze said he was unfairly labeled "bad for business," after he called for reviewing part of the general plan that would have allowed companies to build larger-capacity office buildings. It now appears that part of the plan, the so-called "tier system" of development, is on its way to defeat at City Hall, having been recently rejected by the Planning Commission.

Haze said he has been in favor of protecting the hillsides surrounding Cupertino. He was a founder in 1990 of OAKS: Organization Advocating Keeping St. Josephs, which fought earlier diocese plans for a golf course and several hundred homes on property near Rancho San Antonio County Park. Haze is no longer involved in the group, but he said it was the early involvement of OAKS and others that led to the eventual donation of 65 percent of the land to the county as open space.

Haze said he included economic sustainability in his campaign because he thinks Cupertino lacks long-range economic planning.

"Do we have a year 2000 plan?" he asked. "What's our plan if Apple doesn't survive? What's our plan if Compaq moves Tandem to Texas because it's cheaper?"

A big concern for Haze is the issue of ethics. He believes he was unfairly targeted by the San Jose Mercury News in an editorial just days before the 1995 council election, which called into question the ethics of a mailer against fellow candidate Marshall Goldman. Haze said he had nothing to do with the mailer, which was produced by Haze's political consultant, Rich Robinson, for different clients.

This election Haze is not using a political consultant. He is using an "ethics adviser," a Cupertino resident named Norma Stewart who volunteered for the position. Her job is to help Haze make sure he stays on a straight, ethical path throughout the election, he said.

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