Dave Cortese | |
---|---|
Member of the California State Senate from the 15th district | |
Majority Whip | |
Assumed office December 7, 2020 | |
Preceded by | Jim Beall |
Member of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors from the 3rd district | |
In office 2009–2020 | |
Succeeded by | Otto Lee |
Personal details | |
Born | David Dominic Cortese [1] June 3,1956 Monterey County,California,U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | Patricia |
Children | 4 |
Parent |
|
Education | University of California, Davis Lincoln Law School |
Committees | - Senate Transportation Committee, Chair - Senate Ethics Committee, Chair - Senate Agriculture Committee - Senate Education Committee - Senate Housing Committee - Senate Insurance Committee - Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee Contents
- Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture - Joint Committee on Rules |
Website | https://sd15.senate.ca.gov |
David Dominic Cortese (born June 3, 1956) is an elected official from San Jose, California. He is currently serving in the California State Senate, representing District 15, which encompasses a majority of Santa Clara County. Before being elected to the California State Senate, Cortese served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors for 12 years, as a Councilmember and Vice Mayor for the City of San Jose [2] for eight years, and for eight years as a trustee for the East Side Union High School District [3] in San Jose. Cortese ran for mayor of San Jose and won the primary, losing the general election to District 3 councilmember Sam Liccardo. [4]
Cortese was born on born June 3, 1956. [5] He attended Bellarmine College Preparatory high school (1970–1974). He received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Davis and graduated from Lincoln Law School (1991–1995). [6]
Cortese is the son of former Santa Clara County Supervisor and California Assembly member Dominic L. Cortese and Suzanne Cortese. Cortese's paternal grandfather, Vince Cortese Sr., was an immigrant farmer from Sicily [7] who found success in agriculture and commercial development. His maternal grandfather, Ed Donovan, was a civic leader and executive of General Motors Credit Corp. who served as a Santa Clara City Councilman in 1949 and 1950. [8] Dave Cortese and his wife, Pattie, who serves on the East Side Union High School District Board, have four children.
In 1986, following a successful tenure as a professional financial manager within a prominent corporation, Cortese assumed the role of general manager for a collection of enterprises in ranching and real estate. These enterprises have historical roots tracing back to their establishment in the Valley in 1917. His professional journey includes business endeavors involving the sale of agricultural produce, stewardship of a substantial multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio, construction, ownership of a dining establishments, and a private law practice. [9]
Cortese’s leadership positions include serving as Vice Mayor of the City of San Jose, Board President of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, Board President of the East Side Union High School District Board, Chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), President of the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), President of the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), President of the Santa Clara County Cities Association (SCCCA), Founder of the Joint Policy Collaborative for Economic Development, Chair of the California Senate Labor, Public Employment & Retirement Committee, President of the San Jose East-Evergreen Rotary Club, Board of Directors for the East Valley YMCA, The Tech Interactive, Parents Helping Parents, and several other nonprofits, as well as a Founding Member of East Valley Girls Softball. [10]
Cupertino is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 60,381 as of the 2020 census. The city is widely known for being the home of Apple Inc., headquartered within the city at Apple Park.
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), is a special district responsible for public transit services, congestion management, specific highway improvement projects, and countywide transportation planning for Santa Clara County, California. It serves San Jose, California, and the surrounding Silicon Valley. It is one of the governing parties for the Caltrain commuter rail line that serves the county. In 2023, the VTA's public transportation services had a combined ridership of 26,610,000, or about 94,100 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2024.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is the government agency responsible for regional transportation planning and financing in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was created in 1970 by the State of California, with support from the Bay Area Council, to coordinate transportation services in the Bay Area's nine counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. The MTC is fourth most populous metropolitan planning organization in the United States.
Reid–Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County is in the eastern part of San Jose, in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is owned by Santa Clara County and is near the Evergreen district of San Jose where aviation pioneer John J. Montgomery experimented with gliders in 1911. Reid–Hillview Airport was also the official general aviation airport for the 2016 Super Bowl in Levi's Stadium.
San Jose Diridon station is the central passenger rail depot for San Jose, California. It also serves as a major intermodal transit center for Santa Clara County and Silicon Valley. The station is named after former Santa Clara County Supervisor Rod Diridon Sr.
Santa Clara Transit Center is a railway station in downtown Santa Clara, California. It is served by Caltrain, Amtrak Capitol Corridor, and Altamont Corridor Express (ACE) trains. It is the planned terminus for the Silicon Valley BART extension into Santa Clara County on the future Green and Orange Lines. The former station building, constructed in 1863 by the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad, is used by the Edward Peterman Museum of Railroad History.
Cindy Chavez is an American politician who served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors representing the 2nd district, encompassing parts of Downtown, East, and South San Jose from 2013 to 2024. Her public service career began in the 1990s as a policy analyst for health care, public health, human services and transportation for the Board of Supervisors. She served two terms on the San Jose City Council, where she was also Vice Mayor, and also served on the board leadership of public agencies such as the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, and executive director of Working Partnerships USA and the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council. She has run unsuccessfully for Mayor of San Jose twice. She is a graduate of San Jose State University, is married and has a son in college.
Ken Yeager is an American politician. He served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, representing District 4. First elected to the board in 2006, he represented the cities of Campbell and Santa Clara, as well as west San Jose and the Burbank and Cambrian neighborhoods. Previously, Yeager served on the San Jose City Council from 2000 to 2006. Before that, he served two terms on the San Jose/Evergreen Community College Board. He was a candidate for the 23rd district seat in the California State Assembly in 1996, coming in second.
James Thomas Beall Jr. is an American politician who served in the California State Senate from 2012 to 2020. A Democrat, he represented the 15th Senate District, which encompasses the South Bay and Silicon Valley.
Dominic L. Cortese is a former California State Assemblyman who served from 1980 until 1996. For most of his career, Cortese was a moderate Democrat, but in 1995 he gained national attention when he became a member of Ross Perot's Reform Party. He was the highest ranking elected official of the newly formed party at the time. There were international media reports of this event, including the fact that Cortese was being considered by Perot to be his vice presidential running mate in the 1996 election.
Pierluigi Oliverio is a former American politician, who was the 6th district Councilmember on the San Jose City Council. He was sworn in on March 20, 2007, and left office in January 2017. He was elected to three consecutive terms, and could no longer run due to term limits.
Otto Oswald Lee is a Hong Kong-born American politician, attorney, and military veteran who was a Sunnyvale, California city council member from 2003 to 2011, before which he was on the Planning Commission, which he chaired from 2000 to 2001. From 2005 to 2006 he was vice mayor, and from 2006 to 2007 he was the 57th mayor of Sunnyvale. He is a patent attorney, and a co-founder and partner of the Intellectual Property Law Group LLP.
The VTA light rail system serves San Jose and nearby cities in Santa Clara County, California. It is operated by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) and has 42.2 miles (67.9 km) of network comprising three main lines on standard gauge tracks. Originally opened on December 11, 1987, the light rail system has expanded since then, and currently has 60 stations in operation.
Established in 1982, the California Trolley and Railroad Corporation (CTRC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization to preserve rail transportation in the Santa Clara Valley.
Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259 as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County form the San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara metropolitan statistical area, which is part of the larger San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area. Santa Clara is the most populous county in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Northern California.
Berryessa/North San José station is an intermodal transit center located in the Berryessa district of San Jose, California, United States. The station is served by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) buses. The transit center opened for bus service on December 28, 2019, and subsequently for BART service on June 13, 2020. The station is the southern terminus of the Orange and Green lines.
28th Street/Little Portugal station is a proposed underground Bay Area Rapid Transit station in the Little Portugal neighborhood of San Jose, California. It would be located north of East Santa Clara Street between North 28th Street and U.S. Route 101, behind Five Wounds Portuguese National Church. Preceded by Berryessa/North San José station, it would be the first station of the Phase II portion of the Silicon Valley BART extension. The station would have direct service to Santa Clara, Richmond, and San Francisco/Daly City.
The Silicon Valley BART extension is an ongoing effort to expand the Green and Orange Line service by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) into Santa Clara County via the East Bay from its former terminus at the Fremont station in Alameda County. Planned since at least 1981, the project has seven stations in three sequential phases.
The 2014 San Jose mayoral election was held on June 3, 2014, to elect the Mayor of San Jose, California. Councilmember Sam Liccardo defeated Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese in a runoff on November 4, 2014.
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors is the board of supervisors governing Santa Clara County, California. It is made of elected representatives from each of the county's five districts. As a result of the 2022 elections, members of the Democratic Party hold all seats on the board though it is officially nonpartisan.