News & Updates

The District 3 candidate believes her experiences translate to understanding the city’s most pressing issues

By Devan Patel | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: February 27, 2025 at 6:00 AM PST

On the day Gabby Chavez-Lopez came home from the hospital with her newborn son, one of the first questions that ran through her mind was where she wanted to raise him.

The 37-year-old was living in New Mexico at the time but wanted the best opportunity for her family — a similar feeling she experienced after spending most of her childhood and adolescence in Fresno.

Born to professors at Fresno State University, she gained a foundational understanding of how to build power through community, even walking with her father as a young child in the funeral procession for Cesar Chavez. But when her father took a new job in San Jose during the tech boom, it presented a new level of excitement — as if the sky was the limit. Chavez-Lopez later realized she wanted to replicate that for her son and now for the city’s residents as she seeks the District 3 City Council seat.

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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.

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San Jose officials are at a crossroads over how to fill the City Council seat left vacant by Omar Torres’ stunning Election Day arrest and resignation — and several potential contenders want to take his place.

City leaders in the next several weeks will decide whether to replace Torres in a special election or appointment, the latter of which would be voted in by the council majority. Either route could tip the scales of power in a city balancing labor and business interests.

While the city hasn’t officially opened a nomination period, several residents are considering the open District 3 seat to represent the downtown core, including Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley Executive Director Gabriela Chavez-Lopez.

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SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- Latina leaders and community members gathered Thursday at San Jose State University to call on local leaders and businesses to close the wage gap.

On average in the U.S., Latinas make 51 cents for every dollar made by men.

In Silicon Valley, the gap is even wider.

The day falls on the 277th day of the year, showing how many days extra Latinas would have to work to make what their white male counterparts make in a year.

"San Jose, unfortunately, is the epicenter of the wage gap in the entire nation," said Gabby Chavez-Lopez, Executive Director of Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley. "Latina workers are paid 33.6 cents on the dollar compared to their white male, non-Hispanic counterparts and what that means is debilitating happening for that individual for families."

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