It's fairly simple to tell if you live in the City of San Jose or in the unincorporated area of Santa Clara County - just watch the color of the small street signs (City: Black, County: Blue) and which garbage trucks go where (City: Recycle Plus, County: Green Valley). If you can dial 311 (San Jose Police Non-Emergency Number) from your home phone, you are in the City; if not, you're not. Look below to see what California State Legislature Districts you live in.
Generally, if you live east of Kirk/Fleming or north of McKee Road, you are in District 3 and Pete McHugh is your County Supervisor.
The Board of Supervisors meets on Tuesdays, usually starting at 9:30 AM. The meeting agendas are at http://www.sccgov.org/agenda/home and the meeting summaries can also be accessed from that page by using the Quick Link at the upper right.
District 2 is south and west of District 3 - the map is at http://www.blancaalvarado.org/map.html.
City Council District 5 covers this area and extends far beyond the city limits as you can see from the map at http://www.sanjoseca.gov/planning/data/council_dist/Index.html. There's a nice, big map of District 5 at http://www.sanjoseca.gov/planning/data/council_dist/dist5.html. Note how far District 5 extends east of Crothers Road.
City residents in this area (e.g., Country Club Heights) are in District 5 and Councilmember Campos is their representative on the City Council but we are all in the area where the City and County "cooperate" on planning and zoning issues and coordinate services (e.g., the County contracts with the City for fire protection in this area).
Those of us who live in the unincorporated County areas can't vote in City elections but we can speak at City Council meetings, which are on Tuesdays and start at 1:30 PM (there are also some Tuesday evening meetings). The agendas and reports are at http://www.sanjoseca.gov/clerk/agenda.asp.
The two City Councilmembers below also have ties to this area. District 4 is generally north of District 5 and includes Berryessa; District 8 is south of District 5 and includes Evergreen.
The easy way to find all your U.S. and California elected officials is by entering your 9-digit zip code at http://www.vote-smart.org. Use the lower box at the upper left. You can find your 9-digit zip code if you don't know it by using the link right under that box and entering your address.
For example, most of us are in Zip Code 95127. By entering our zip code at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html, we can see that we now have one Senator for this zip code (Elaine Alquist). However, we have three Assembly Members whose districts intersect in our zip code. This is an improvement because we used to have three Senators and three Assembly Members for 95127.
A few California State Senators and Assembly Members for our area are listed below.
Senator Alquist's district is based in San Jose and covers most of this area of San Jose and the East Foothills. If you're not in this senatorial district, you're probably in either District 10 or 15 so we have included the senators for those districts below.
Senator Figueroa's district is based in Fremont and approaches this area from the north. This district includes the area northwest of Alum Rock Park and some northern parts of San Jose.
Senator Maldonado's district is based in Santa Cruz and approaches this area from the south.
Assembly Member Torrico's district includes Alum Rock Park and other areas north of Crothers Road (i.e., Crothers Road from Alum Rock Avenue to Peacock Gap Drive, including the closed part of Crothers Road). We think the Country Club Heights townhomes and some County pockets north of Crothers Road just as it turns south, are in this district.
Assembly Member Coto's district is south of Alberto Torrico's district and generally covers the area south and west of Crothers Road and north of Mount Hamilton Road and then south and west of Fleming Avenue.
If you live east of the two districts above (e.g., on the east side of Crothers Road), your assembly member is from the Salinas area. Yes, his name is actually Simon Salinas.
Copyright© 2002-2005 by Judy Thompson. All rights reserved. Updated 12/2/05.