Looking Back to 1988
It was another time when I first became mayor in 1983. There were no first run movie theatres. The finest hotel was the Holiday Inn. The DeAnza and Sainte Claire were shuttered. No shopping, no sports, no pleasant river walks. The parks were seedy and unused. Needless to say, there was no real reason to come downtown except the noble arts groups, a few hardy pioneers like Camera 3 and Eulipia, and our nascent San Jose Museum of Art, gallantly fighting a Dunkirk-like battle, trying to stay alive to win a war.
Our newspaper and City Hall had long since fled the city’s heart. Any big events in sports or entertainment would necessitate a visit to “The City,” our spectacular neighbor to the north or to the dismal world of Oakland sports just off the highway in the East Bay. To get the picture totally, the sprawling neighborhoods of San Jose were a fine place to live, but the downtown had been murdered by the deadly trio of apathy, greed and stupidity, and our tax base was worthless.
On Monday, the Mercury and Mark Purdy did an excellent job of celebrating what many historians —me, the late Leonard McKay, the bartender at A.P. Stump’s—believe was the most important election in the modern history of San Jose and this valley. The article chronicled the 1988 decision to build the arena that put the stamp of maturity and prominence on what had once been a collection of suburbs and a devastated downtown—a place Herb Caen quipped was “thirteen off-ramps looking for a city.”
It was “the election of all elections,” and I remember it well. I was in the center of it.
It was a daunting prospect. There had been few publicly funded arenas in Northern California in that era, and there have been few, if any, since. There was no tempting team to lure the fans, provide money, and thrill the imagination. I recall one memorable evening late in the campaign at a community debate at St. Francis Church on Pine in Willow Glen. After hours of harangues by opponents citing increased traffic on Lincoln Ave., the demise of small businesses there, and, I think, the collapse of the dollar, I said in frustration: “Well, it looks like instead of a facility for shows, concerts, and sports for all our families, I am proposing a nuclear reactor in the center of the city!” No one laughed. It was a good line, so I knew we were in trouble.
The election occurred about a week later. And the result reflected well on the citizens of San Jose—the Arena won. As so often in our history, people put aside petty animosities of the past and the legitimate fears of giving a semi-blank check to public officials, and cast a vote for the future—their future, the future community of their children as well. They were not afraid to embrace the future. They had a chance to blink and didn’t. San Jose often does that, something that makes me love this city. It has a nice ring that pleases the ears even twenty years onward. For many decades and for many events, we can thank the wisdom of the voters on one warm day in June 1988.
Every good project for change is challenged by the fear it inspires, instead of the benefits it will reap.
I supported the Arena, but well remember the campaign against it. A small group of people who needed to be relocated, a group of NIMBY’s who didn’t want to spend public money on a private enterprise, a host of conspiracy theorists who believed it was simply to enhance the McEnery fortune.
Today, try running a campaign to get rid of it.
The same thing happened in San Francisco. They voted for a ballpark downtown—the naysayers all opposed the “giving” of land to a private enterprise. Look at how revitalized South of Market is today.
Of course, that would never have been built if San Jose had not rejected the Giants building a Stadium in San Jose. There the NIMBYs prevailed. Imagine a Pac Bell Park downtown—and the revenue it would generate.
Everytime these NIMBYs win, we lose. Their next opportunity is to defeat the new stadium in Santa Clara. The investment cost to the City would be peanuts for the economic activity it would produce.
Yet the naysayers are out there. Some of them are friends of mine.
The sad truth is there are hundreds of good projects are routinely defeated by the fear and ill-informed masses who fear change.
Santana Row is another huge success—
Of course, not every development deserves support—there are some projects that are inappropriate. But that should be determined by educated planners, not the uneducated masses.
But elected officials are easily swayed by 10 screaming constituents, despite the advice of their professionals. And NIMBY groups continue to be empowered by gutless politicians who seek applause at a Council meeting to the detriment of there community.
Leadership, like Tom provided for the Arena, is absolutely necessary for a vibrant community.
This should be a lesson for all would-be grandstanding politicians who crow to the masses about their vote to defeat a good project.
In the end, you are not remembered for what you killed, but for what you accomplished.
History, not the NIMBYs, are the ultimate judge of your legacy.
P.S. I’m back—missed you-all.
Tom,
what is fascinating is that Larry Stone referenced this issue when he last spoke to the Santa Clara City Council. Stone made the critical point that when you and your colleagues worked hard to bring about the well deserved victory for the arena, there were many people against it, and through the years, there are now hundreds of thousands of people that are now for it. Stone mentioned to Patricia Mahan that the arena is considered to many as the jewel of your time as Mayor of San Jose, and the 49er Stadium will be the same. As decades from now, hundreds of thousands of people enjoying a sports and entertainment corridor will point out the HP Pavillon as the first part of that corridor which was brilliant planning on your part. I, myself, am currently outlining a novel, Crossing the El Camino, which focuses on a the dynamics of an arena on the city’s political landscape.
Yes, Santa Clara is far, far different from San Jose. But both cities have people like you, Mahan, Kevin Moore (our city’s Lancelot), great citizens like the ones who blog here. People with a desire to build and dream. Great America was once our jewel, but in its current desire to block the stadium, while building a massive 115 rollercoaster which makes a shame of our noise ordinance, one has to step back and say, “we can make this Valley not only the one valley of Heart’s Delight, but one where families can came together, live, work, and play all within the Valley of Commerce and Sports Entertainment.”
In all our whining about how far this city has to go, we forget how much further it had back then. I no longer wonder why my parents have almost no sense of civic pride. They had to grow up with a pile of crap, relatively speaking. It’s too bad that image persists elsewhere.
You guys are insane if you equate the 17K-seat arena with all of its events to a giant football stadium that will get 10% of the use, if lucky.
Glad to see Purdy gave credit where credit is due! Measure H was an exciting campaign, I still have a well worn t-shirt from the campaign. Ground breaking day was great, I can recall the bleachers, music playing Take Me Out to the Ball Game, hot dogs, peanuts etc. I still have some of that memorbilia too. What I really remember that day was the smoke north of the arena ground, we had a fire bug in town at the time. I also recall sitting next to a homeless man and stuffing his backpack with hot dogs & popcorn; we sang the Star Bangle Banner together and ended up on the evening news on Channel 36. For those of you not here at the time, sweeping Guadalupe River of the homeless camps was used as a reason not to go forward with the arena. That brings up an interesting parallel with today’s current sweeping of downtown for bigger and better things for the entire community.
Nam,
If Santa Clara hosts one Superbowl, the economic take is $300-400 million.
http://www.azsuperbowl.com/super_bowl_faqs.aspx#1
That’s use for one day.
Don’t confuse use of time with economic benefits. Christmas accounts for a huge percentage of consumer spending for the year. It is a one day a year occurance.
The niners will play 10 games a year at home. Those 10 Sundays will produce more than $50 million in revenue on tickets alone.
Imagine 70,000 people for 10 weeks expending $100 a week in Santa Clara. That’s $70 million a year in new economic activity—on just football alone.
Throw in your advertising budgets, big corporate suites, television coverage, dollars spent by opposing team players and fans, and you have a nice little micro economy—that benefits all of us—not just the sports fans.
Of course the opponents will point out that traffic will increase on 101 for 10 Sundays a year—
Whoa, better vote no—even though most local folks don’t use 101 on a Sunday—especially with the current gas prices.
You cite all these numbers as if they go right to Santa Clara…and as if Santa Clara is San Jose. There is no bar and restaurant scene that will boom because of the nearby stadium. There are no lesser tenants to play lacrosse or arenaball there. There are far fewer concerts that would play there. A Super Bowl would draw people to San Francisco hotels, not so much those down here.
It costs way more and makes way less than our arena. The plan is weak.
Rich,
Welcome back. However, you need to work on your economics. Your numbers are based on voodoo economics; i.e. induced and indirect income. Those numbers are just guesses.
Additionally, it is certainly reasonable that an alternative use of the stadium land will also produce huge voodoo economic numbers every year, versus waiting twenty years for a Super Bowl.
If Santa Clara one day hosts a Super Bowl, will it be considered San Francisco’s or San Jose’s (our population should be well over a million by then)? Another important ballot proposition looms this November…Proposition 1, the High-Speed Rail Bond! A yes vote here, in conjunction with the already existing HP Pavilion, would certainly make the Diridon/Arena area a true destination…European-style train station, shops, restaurants, housing, office space (as an eternal baseball optimist, Cisco Field would be nice to). It could all happen in our downtown, and it starts this November! By the way, can we get an NBA team at The Tank?
That’s right. Santa Clara isn’t San Jose and Cupertino is not Sunnyvale and Campbell is not Morgan Hill.
What happens in San Jose and Santa Clara effects people in Campbell and Sunnyvale. But they don’t get to vote—why? Because of some artificial boundry created by LAFCO?
Cross the street and I’m in San Jose, but because I live in Cupertino, I cannot opine on the weighty matters of San Jose—though I grew-up in that city?
When will we learn that we live in a region a State and a Nation? Provincial politics is hazardous to our health.
In fact, we should just get rid of all these different provincial, stupid little governments from Morgan Hill to east Palo Alto.
We’d save a lot of tax dollars on administration and redundant services.
Why does Los Gatos need a police department or Morgan Hill? Let the Sheriff patrol those areas and everybody would be just as safe—and the local governments wouldn’t be screaming about cutting essential services because the State is bankrupt.
Have you seen a Cupertino City Council Meeting? Kris Wang is a moron—and she is the Mayor. If it were not for Dolly Sandoval and Orrin Mahoney—the entire city would be blighted.
But Cupertino isn’t alone, everyone of these cities has personalities on their Council who couldn’t get a job interview with Burger King albeit there are some good people too.
San Jose, relatively, is run by shining examples of elected officials. At least most of them can walk and chew gum at the same time.
But we must rid ourselves of this small minded, provincial behavior and stop letting a small minority of screamers dictate what is best for all of us.
The next blog, for instance, is about Little Saigon—much ado about nothing. How much time is spent on that little diddy?
In fact, if you put the issue on the ballot before the entire City the majority of voters would call it Story Road or the “I don’t care district”.
When will our elected officials stop listening to the screamers?
Just because you speak louder and longer than everyone else does not make you right. Just because you live in Cupertino, doesn’t mean you don’t care about what happens in Santa Clara or San Jose.
But, Nimby, Mob mentality currently rules local politics—not, as some think, money.
And that especially applies to the provincial little towns and small minds that make most of the major decisions for Silicon Valley.
Dear Voodoo,
Thanks.
But as to your point, I thought we were talking about a parking lot?
#10- Welcome back Rich. I thought you might be interested in an article I just read in the Merc:
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_9829812
Native,
Your “me, myself and I” analysis is really on point.
Who cares whether “you” benefit from the Arena? The key is that it betters the entire community.
Santana Row is a success, but that does not require downtown to be a failure.
The Financial District in SF is “dead” during nights and weekends too—not unlike City Hall.
The difference is that Union Square, Northbeach, and Chinatown are all within walking distance, have distinct neighborhoods and thrive at night.
They also have a transit system that, although maligned in the press, acutally makes these areas available to the entire city.
SJ does not have that downtown—yet.
Kathleen,
It is a start. But the myriad of issues brought up in the article actually exacerbates the problem.
In short, I wish they were merger talks.
(I misblogged before, I noted that Kris Wang was Mayor—that was last year—it just seemed like forever)
A Disney version of San Francisco? That’s redundant.
Oh stop the druelling at the mouth. The fact is the arena is great for some, irrelevant to many like me who never got into indoor arena sports or music from nearly dead has been rockers. The arena is architecturally butt ugly, a giant rollup door. PacB Park and the Arena may have been the impetus for positive local lifestyle amenities but not the the direct cause. Some restaurants fill up and empty around event time. Most folks just drive, attend, leave. There are no new sports bars and only one new restaurant within blocks. Personally I love Cinequest and the Jazz Festival. But I go to Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley for essentially all of my thinking non-classical adult music needs of jazz, blues, folk, etc. Dollars wise your all right on. A never thought a gated Disney version of San Francisco would work, but every yuppie in town now has a place to feel the luxury, the priveleged life in Santana Row, leaving downtown the shell that it is. After all, it has old people and moderate income type people hanging around, ick! But we will fix that too. For some sightings of those ill-informed NIMBY types, I suggest dropping by the Petite Trianon at an event there, another complete waste of potentially profitable real estate. $$$$ is life for so many, not all. Remember Richard, the new City Hall is the deadest place downtown evenings and weekends, a dehumanizing wad of glass, steel and concrete begging for a quick nature fix at SJ State, and an invasion of a NEIGHBORHOOD in need of help, as was foretold.
rarely do i agree wit dis mcenery fellow, but he done a good job fo dis here city wit dat lovely arena structure dat proudly hosts events we can all be proud of.
i am especially fond o dat oldies concert. i like ta listen from outside to da sounds of all da ol’ RB songs and reminisce to a time when black music was positive and empowering and not all bout dese bitches and ho’s and pass da courvesier.
wat we now need is a big ol football and baseball stadium. i say we teardown all tings north a santa clara and east of 87, past dem nasty empty new condo hulks—east of almaden—and put up a HUGE baseball stadium there. pave over st james park and de ol post office and put parking der. good fo lightrail drop offs fo da games. oh yeah.
tear down vault, starbucks, tied house, la victorias, both da british and irish pubs, dat useless theatre, cuccinis, dat lousy steakhouse, all dem irrelevant small retail stores.
forget santana row-slash-waterfront bologny. go wit a stadium like those china olympic ones dat dey done built.
tear down city hall and da new library and san jose state and all small tings in between and put a aussie rules football stadium der!
tear down sofa and put a big ol wimbledon replica der complete wit bluegrass courts and plenty of parking.
tear down da east side and put a big ol NASCAR track der. i mean da WHOLE east side!! up to berryessa, down to capitol expressway. imagine da draw!!!
i tink we should hark back to dose brave days of visionaries and dreamers and commence to building more stadiums. we can be da stadium city of da world.
amen.
da mayor
I started work in downtown San Jose, now nearly 20 years ago…and all I can say…is that our downtown is fantastic. It is small for sure, but on a cool breezy summer day, when you can see the hills both west and east and everyone is going to great gathering spots like the Coop…I count my lucky stars that I live in this great city. What is there not to like…with places like the Hedly Club and the California Theater….we are a historic city..and at any moment we might not be hip..but we have history and a core that many places will never have.