Barry Chang访谈录(二),美国华人微信公众号文章

张昭富(Barry Chang)生于台湾，于1977来美国，就读辛辛那提大学获土木工程硕士学位。1985年开始定居湾区。接下来一直居住在库布蒂诺市。是三个孩子的父亲。三个孩子先后从加州州立（UC）系统毕业。

张昭富社会价值的主张是维护民权、妇女参政权、身体障碍者权益以及各人种权益的平等和保护。在财政上张昭富坚持保守理财，捍卫民众税款不被滥用或者补贴特殊利益，坚持市州政府项目必须有效益。在环境问题上张昭富坚持维护湾区的环境不被非法污染。张昭富长期在教育努力，在有限的教育经费下帮助库布蒂诺成为加州最好的公立学区之一，而且坚持了浸入式中文的教育机会，让很多华裔和非华裔孩子从中受益。

张昭富坚定地反对加州SCA5的新歧视。支持促成库布蒂诺市议会投票成为加州第一个宣布反SCA5歧视的市。为反SCA5他也不断继续奔走努力。

张昭富1995年开始成功竞选公职。从1985年到1997年是共和党。此后和许多人一样选择了民主党。张昭富不介入党派之争或按党派路线投票。他说“我从不按党派投票，因为这是对民主的滥用。我一贯捍卫人人平等的权利和良好的经济政策，这不是一个党派专有的，了解坚持各派的优点实际上有助于我更好地和大家一起工作为社区服务”。我会对28区的居民和加州负责，把事做好，只要需要我会不断向我的同事表达诉求，无论他们是民主党、共和党还是党派独立人士。

访谈录中的LY是湾区一名学者Li Yu，他在基本人权和华人关心的问题上有深入的思考和积极的行动。由于访谈录篇幅较长，我们将分几次登出。下面是Barry Chang访谈录的第二部分：

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2. Bread and Fiscal Policy

LY: Tell me more about your experience as a fiscal conservative in Democratic Party. I’m very curious!

Barry: Let me tell you a bit of my background first. I have been an engineer and small business owner. I graduated from Taipei Institute of Technology in 1972. In the next two years I was a second lieutenant in combat engineering in the Army in Taiwan. I helped build military underground bunkers, garrisons, and roads. After finishing my service in the Army, I was immediately hired to work on constructing the first freeway in Taiwan. With a scholarship in 1977 I was able to come to the University of Cincinnati and graduated with a master’s degree in Civil Engineering. Since then I worked on nuclear plant construction across the country. Eventually our family settled in Bay Area. The company I worked for wanted to transfer me to Pennsylvania. With a three old and a 10-month infant at that time I decided to quit and start a new career. I started as a real estate agent. It was very hard for me in the beginning. Through perseverance and hardworking I eventually owned my real estate brokerage and loan office. My wife has been along with me and is currently my office manager (laugh). So I have an understanding of how a sustainable business should be run.

I’ll give you the example of the proposed High Speed Rail program. Governor Brown wants to build the bullet train linking Los Angeles and San Francisco. Half of total cost estimation of $40 billion will be picked up by private sector and federal government. Good idea, right? The problem is that the cost, as more often than not, is way underestimated. At the same time and even more important, the planned path goes across the Central Valley, with very little ridership in the middle. Its route choice in Los Angeles is also tricky and questionable. Unlike countries like China where railroads are built and subsidized by the central government with near term profit only as a minor consideration, our California cannot afford to have a project that keeps losing money when our state debt is already so high. From my Civil Engineer background, I understand the cost projection and reality. We need a project that can sustain on its own, that means ridership and the keys to ridership are convenience, saving time and saving money. The high speed rail in design simply couldn’t meet the requirement of Proposition 1A in self-funding. Maybe a plan change can make it work, but we are still facing the issue of wasted money and fogginess in construction cost estimation. I’m just a city councilman, but as a Californian I’d like the government to be responsible for taxpayer’s money and offer a better solution.

For economic development, the priority for AD28 is improving Bay Area daily commuting where billions of dollars of productivity is wasted. Because of special interests and politics, BART couldn’t extend to San Mateo and Santa Clara. We need to get everyone to work together and complete the loop to have the proper infrastructure needed for the local economy. That will allow the businesses in NorCal to keep on growing. This will be laying the foundation for future sustainable success and pay ample dividend. If I become a state assemblyman, I can apply my knowledge and experiences for the district and whole State.

LY: There were people who don’t agree with your assessment. Is it?

Barry: I stand by principle and numbers, not personal agenda or partisanship. I understand that an idea can be unpopular sometimes but people will eventually see and understand. If I’m wrong, I will not hesitate to stand corrected.

Let me give you an example. In 2010, Cupertino was evaluating a plan for a cricket court which cost $250K. I asked the planner how many Cupertino residents would benefit from it regularly. He told me probably less than 10. Maybe more people from the neighboring community could come. I had no issue if it’s a public-private partnership or a multi-city solution to make it work financially for the city. However spending $250K of taxpayer’s money for less than 10 residents was not what we should do. Although it would be more politically correct to vote yes, only I voted NO. The single NO vote by me made a stand but cost me a lot of otherwise “goodwill” in our Indian Americans. Some Indian Americans friends didn't understand me at that time, and someone even called me as “disruptive” and “abrasive”. Even so, I would still be defending their tax dollars, the hard-earned savings from them. I hope that they now understand that I was working hard to safeguard theirs and everyone else’s interest. I will still support whatever makes financial sense for all of us, including our Indian American and other friends. All of us will be able to count on me to defend their rights.

LY: I heard that you worked on Apple’s new Campus deal with Cupertino? I also heard that like some other companies Apple has been very good with their tax reduction strategy.

Barry: I’m not at the position to talk too much about federal taxes. We need fair and leveled playing field for all, large and small business. We don’t want to tax everyone to death, neither can we leave the burden unfairly on those couldn’t exploit or decided against using tax loopholes.

On the local tax part, we have sales and use tax. Cupertino had a tax rebate for Apple back in 1997, subsidizing the company when it was near bankruptcy. The city refunds roughly 50% of the local sales tax Apple pays each year. As Apple turns around and becomes hugely successful, I believe that it doesn’t hurt for Apple to give back more to the community that supported it all along. The new deal I negotiated with Apple, with me in each of at least 12 times against the 7-8 well prepared financial and law professionals on the other side, has been difficult but worthwhile. Now we get back 30% more in Sales tax revenue for the city. Had we had more support among other councilmen and the mayor, maybe we could get back more or even completely phase out the tax subsidy. This allows the city to better serve the residents without tapping into additional tax revenue. We can even cut some local tax.

3. Affirmative Action and SCA5

LY: How do you view about Affirmative Action and SCA5?

Barry: From my experience in real estate and equal housing (where one has to be “racial-blind” to be really non-discriminating), the practice of AA in education is questionable and wrong. It has been a legal ambiguous area as the Supreme Court has been ruling differently in the past depending on the situation. After Proposition 209, the graduation rate in public universities improved. We have actually improved on student success rate.

The goal of SCA5 ultimately is achieve a “racial quota”. Even if it is legally allowed, how do we evaluate all the shades of interracial marriages now more than the past? Do they want to separate out Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Jewish Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, the various Hispanic and Latino Americans and African Americans ethnicities to be more “fair”? How do we deal with the conflict of the people being oppressed for generations since slavery age and those more affluent new immigrants of same color or ethnicity? It will be even more of a problem and unfair when we have to define and equally protect everyone. For example, what do we do with the kids that are descendants of Thomas Jefferson (the Caucasian President) and Sally Hemings (a Black slave). How can we have laws to perpetuate the rifts, creating winners and losers among the people?

We also need to look into the cause of education inequality. If it were the result of racial discrimination against the Hispanic and Latino Americans or other minorities, we look at the remedy over there. If it were for economic reasons, we try to help them on that. For example, the education spending per person on California students was ranked 6th in the nation about thirty years ago, that helped the excellence of our UC and Cal State universities. Today our rank is the 47th in the nation. If this is the cause, we need to address this head on. The wrong medicine creates new, unjustifiable discriminations; it can create more issue and tension in our education system and will divide our nation even more. We don’t mandate racial quotas for the NCAA, NFL or NHL because that would be wrong too.

From my experience with education I hope to bring success to the Hispanic and Latino American and African American communities too. Everyone deserves the chance to be a proud graduate based on their hardworking and merits. If it is poverty, we look into how to address the issue of job creation and working poor. If it is the habit of reading and languages from the early age, we improve on the head start and pre-K programs. If it were parents and community involvement, we can help. We can even look into the hunger issue and provide free or subsidized food for the very poor students if need. I have my thoughts, but I will have the good honest people and experts look into the real issue and give recommendations. We should help everyone to succeed. As always, as a first generation immigrant myself, I’m on the side of the minorities and economically disadvantaged for their equal rights as I see what my family has been gone through.

Drawing from personal experience, my mom didn’t finish school due to hardship. But she knew the importance of education and demanded the best of her kids. At one point the family business failed and my dad was thinking of going back to the countryside and becoming a peasant again (with kids help with the farming). My mom refused and insisted to keep the kids in school while both parents worked hard in Taipei on all sort of jobs they can find. Because of that, her kids were able to graduate from colleges. Even when my parents were in the 60s and 70s, they still learned enough English so that they could help out the family. We want every kid to have a proud family and the best education they make through. We also like every family to get the help they need and deserve.

We need to focus on cause and solutions rather than using SCA5 to obscure and complicate the problem. SCA5 is wrong. When education fails, the competitiveness of Silicon Valley will decline and everyone suffer.