Election 2024: Willow Glen native seeks San Jose District 6 seat

Michael Mulcahy helped keep the curtains rising at the Children’s Musical Theater in San Jose when he took over as executive director for almost a decade in 1993 — growing the youth arts center into the powerhouse it is today. He called the experience the role of a lifetime.

Now a managing partner at his family’s real estate firm, Mulcahy, 59, wants to undertake a new role as he vies for the open District 6 seat on the San Jose City Council, with Councilmember Dev Davis terming out. Mulcahy is running against insurance agent and community advocate Olivia Navarro. The district encompasses Willow Glen, Santana Row, The Alameda and parts of downtown.

Mulcahy said he has no plans to bring down the curtain on his passion for the arts community and continues to serve on the board of the Children’s Musical Theater. But when a fundraising campaign he was putting together for the theater faced uncertainty over the COVID-19 pandemic, he said he knew he had to be transparent, explaining the hurdles the theater had to overcome to stay operational.

“We knew unless we told our community what we were up against, that we may not have a chance to even get to 90% (of our goal), let alone survive as an organization,” Mulcahy told San José Spotlight. “I basically told the community what was going on. One week later we got a $50,000 anonymous gift and we said — ‘We’ve got to keep rolling.'”

The fundraising effort eventually reached its $2 million goal, Mulcahy said. It’s one of the many ways he’s trying to improve Willow Glen.

Mulcahy, through his family company SDS NexGen Partners, has invested in myriad properties along Lincoln Avenue in downtown Willow Glen, including the Garden Theater, helping to revamp the area.

As former president of the Willow Glen Business Association, Mulcahy helped establish downtown Willow Glen along Lincoln Avenue as an improvement district to grow the community and businesses. He said he’d like to see maintenance in local business districts move swifter, and for the city to give more autonomy to businesses, which would enable owners to address immediate concerns without so much red tape.

“(The city) just can’t seem to get out of the way to allow the business association to improve the lighting that ultimately would improve safety and aesthetics. That’s the kind of stuff we’ve got to eliminate,” Mulcahy told San José Spotlight. “Get out of the way and let the small business community be its own best advocate.”

An unsuccessful bid for San Jose mayor in 2006 was his first foray into politics, and Mulcahy said he’s learned even more about District 6 since then.

“I always attribute so much of what came after as a real enhancement to my life, to my work and connections in the community,” he said. “I look back at that time as super valuable, it really gave me the courage to run for office again.”

The Willow Glen native grew up in a family of business owners, with his grandfather Frank DiNapoli founding multiple companies that now make up the family’s real estate portfolio.

After graduating from Bellarmine College Preparatory and transferring from San Jose State University to the University of Southern California, Mulcahy graduated with a degree in communications.

Since starting his campaign for District 6, Mulcahy said the most common theme he’s heard from residents is they don’t feel safe. One of the ways he said he will address concerns about safety and homelessness is by aiming to fully staff the San Jose Police Department and building more cost-effective homeless shelters.
To help grow the affordable housing stock, Mulcahy said he wants to collaborate with other councilmembers to incentivize developers to build in San Jose.

He said residents have told him they are not fans of having more tax measures like the $20 billion Bay Area regional housing bond to help fund affordable housing. The measure was pulled from this year’s ballot.

“We have to increase our ability to have people be able to afford to live in this community by creating more jobs, high-wage jobs, as much as we can,” Mulcahy told San José Spotlight. “I do not think that we can tax our way out of the situation. There may be an opportunity when public trust comes back and people would perhaps allow some of these tax measures. But with many tax measures in California it’s really to test where the temperature of the state is.”