First District 3 candidate forum held to replace Omar Torres in San Jose

Torres resigned last year and is now in jail facing child sexual assault charges.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Hundreds of people came out to the first forum held for the candidates running for San Jose’s District 3 seat. One of the candidates will replace Omar Torres in April after a special election. Torres resigned in November and is now in jail facing child sexual assault charges.

District 3 represents so much of the city’s economic future and this forum gave voters an opportunity to hear how they’d address the district’s most pressing issues.

"The person that’s chosen has to have empathy for others," said Leslie Muniz, a District 3 resident in San Jose.

On Wednesday night at downtown San Jose’s Rotary Summit Center, hundreds of community members gathered to hear from candidates who want to represent District 3. The candidates included Gabby Chavez-Lopez, Adam Duran, Matthew Quevedo, Irene Smith, and Anthony Tordillos. Phil Dolan did not attend.

"Not only having served as a worker for many years, but now as an employer in our downtown. I have also been delivering services directly to this community through the pandemic all the way until today," Chavez said.

"I was born and raised on San Jose’s Eastside and what makes me unique is that I have just shy of 29 years of public safety with the Sheriff’s Dept," said Duran.

"For the past 16 years, I’ve been working with leaders and folks to make sure we’re addressing the issues that matter to you. On homelessness, we’re moving the needle, and we’re making sure we’re making progress on that," said Quevedo.

The forum was presented by the San Jose Downtown Association in partnership with the San Jose Chamber of Commerce. Candidates expressed their own ideas about addressing important issues including blight and vacancies, homelessness, BART construction, and the entertainment economy.

"The first being, no more dumping in D3 and the 2nd being, we need large scale shelters. Those two points are still critically important today," said Smith.

"We know that the previous Super Bowl brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in economic impact. But if you look at the data, the vast majority of that money went up to San Francisco. I think I can speak for everyone on this panel. For 2026, we need to make sure San Francisco isn’t eating our lunch again," said Tordillos.

After the forum, this District 3 business owner gave feedback on what she heard.

"This is the same stuff that we’ve been listening to. I do agree with a lot of the panel that we do need to put things into action because it’s a lot of talk, a lot of rhetoric, and we’re kind of tired of that," said Chris Patterson-Simmons, who owns and operates Neu2u Thrift Boutique on East Santa Clara Street.

District 3 candidates will take part in several more forums over the next two months before people make their choice on April 8th.

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