City Hall Diary
On Thursday, August 23, 2007, the elected officials of the City of San Jose and Santa Clara County met to talk about five top priorities that affect the city and county. City and county staff attended, including San Jose City Manager Debra Figone and County Executive Pete Kutras.
It’s no secret that the relationship between the county and the city has been less than stellar. For example, a few years ago San Jose sued the county over the county’s attempt to build a concert hall at the fairgrounds. The city sued because they wanted to build a concert hall downtown. Guess what? Both entities lost and the talk of a concert hall has been put to rest for now.
Residents of District 6 have shared that the sparring between the two governments is foolish. Suing someone only to lose over $20 million like the city did to the county is not in the best interests of the community. So, in an attempt to move beyond the courtroom, both entities have moved to City Hall and County Chambers to begin the process of rebuilding their relationship—a relationship that is more open, harmonious and collaborative for the sake of our future.
The city and county both have elected officials that genuinely care about their constituencies; however, both are suffering from structural deficits, pension liabilities and a growing need of services from their respective populations. Both know that they will not be able to deliver the same services in the same way for much longer. Therefore, they both understand the need to find commonalities on issues that we share a mutual interest in so that we can best serve the residents.
Below are the five priorities that were discussed at the meeting and one other important issue.
Former City Hall
The county is interested in purchasing old City Hall. The city is interested in getting the most monetary or other type of value from City Hall. Some feel that City Hall is an historic building and should not be knocked down, but preserved.
Fairgrounds
A Request for Proposal (RFP) has been circulated for the possible development of the 136 acre site. Some of the other options that have been discussed include commercial, parkland dedication, a possible new site for the fire training center and organized play for soccer, softball, etc. and an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Coyote EIR
The county (and I share the view) has concerns with the traffic impact, limited parks and development next to creeks known as the Riparian Corridor. I have recommended and will continue to recommend that we stop “planning” for Coyote Valley and thus not develop. I agree with the county that the impact to our current infrastructure will be detrimental. In addition, the City of San Jose has had some of its best planners working on Coyote Valley instead of on other land use issues that are important to the city.
Annexation
There is agreement between the county, city and state at this time to move forward in trying to annex various pockets of property that are currently surrounded by the city. Many District 6 residents, as well as others throughout the city, support annexation.
Pandemic Flu/Emergencies
Discussion also included the need for collaboration between the city and county regarding emergency preparedness. This will most likely be an ongoing issue with updates, etc.
Willow Glen Spur Trail
Although the Willow Glen Spur Trail was not included as one of the top priorities, it is an important subject. The Willow Glen Spur Trail is a former rail line owned by Union Pacific Railroad which runs through Districts 3, 6, and 7. The development of this trail will connect the Los Gatos Creek Trail to the Coyote Creek Trail. The railroad company is not in the business of creating walkable, livable communities like the city and county are; therefore, it has been difficult to acquire land for this trail in a timely manner. However, from my conversations with my colleagues, there is support to keep this future trail alive and to move forward with its completion. I can speak for myself when I say that I will not support any zoning change to the former rail property that would block the future trail.
I am optimistic that the city and county can maximize their assets for a win-win situation that benefits both governments and, most importantly, its residents.
What do you think the city should do with old City Hall? What do you think the county should do with the fairgrounds?
Your posts make me want to curl up on a couch and snooze. Keep it up, I need the rest.
How about consolidation of the county. Eliminate useless levels of government. The valley flows together like one city, but instead it’s forced to jump through fifteen or so hoops via bureaucracy. Tax dollars go to lawyers and not to communities. Things get held up forever and progress is usually a surprise instead of a given.
It’s like in Office Space, having to answer to eight different bosses. I suggest we all work on cutting a little fat. Then there’s no debate or hold up with annexation. There’s no conflict about a concert hall. The fairgrounds can be used for the flea market with the concert hall goes downtown…and there’s not a petty argument. The old city hall is not tied up in a bartering process, but more quickly put to some good use.
San Jose and SC county voters would never support city-county consolidation, local cities would fight it in court and is politically impractical due to years of repeated negative actions and lawsuits between San Jose, local cities and county
Let the flea market owners buy land for a new flea market. It is not the responsibility of Santa Clara county taxpayers to provide land for the flea market.
If the flea market is such a great business concept then there should be no issue with them buying the land. Or, if the flea market is not a viable business concept then they will not buy the land.
Let the market decide the future of the flea market. Not government, either San Jose, or Santa Clara county.
Oliverio, Liccardo, Constant, Reed, Cortese
Grasshopper, Butterfly, Spider, Beetle, Ant
Tulip, Rose, Orchid, Daisy, Carnation
Pear, Cherry, Peach, Prune, Apricot
Walnut, Almond, Pecan, Cashew, Peanut
Coyote, Eagle, Salmon, Mountain Lion, Hawk
Old City Hall, Fairgrounds, Coyote EIR, Annexation, Pandemic
The, Truth, Has, Been, Revealed
Pierluigi:
It’s not a good thing when the buyers and sellers of some of the city’s best real estate are government agencies.
Regarding the city/county relationship, I have often wondered why affordable housing isn’t done through the county. Why don’t neighboring cities contribute to the cause? The end result would be more affordable housing, not less, and it would be distributed equally around the South Bay. San Jose wouldn’t need to pay for the huge overhead, they could just write a big check and put those city employees to work on other San Jose needs.
You mentioned the $20 million on the concert hall settlement. When you add the tropicana ($6 million) and the garbage contract (more millions) and the new city hall that doesn’t conform to Measure I, you have to wonder who San Jose’s city attorney is really working for? I believe that these poor decisions have cost San Jose a fortune!
Pete Campbell
Interesting you bring up the city attorney, Pete. Why hasn’t he been held accountable for his poor advice, judgement and pitiful performance? He, like the city auditor, works directly for the council but his role in the loss of millions of dollars (at the expense of better parks, roads et al) is not considered by the council as grievous an offense as the auditor’s unproven influence on “creating a negative atmosphere” for a disgruntled employee. And, if history is our guide, that employee will end up suing the city and thanks to our inept city attorney will probably win!
Pier,
First of all, as a resident of your district who didn’t vote for you, let me say that I am pleasantly surprised and think you’re off to a great start.
Regarding the Fairgrounds. This is one of the few large pieces of land within the city that remains available for public use. At the same time, there is lack of recreational fields available. As a soccer/lacrosse parent, I’d like to see the city and county work together to create a sports complex that would be available for practices, local leagues and tournaments. Properly marketed, statewide and regional tournaments could bring in weekend visitors to San Jose and at the same time provide high-quality recreational facilities for the children of San Jose.
With all the bickering between the City and county, wouldn’t it be a good idea if San Jose seceded from the Santa Clara County and became it’s own city and county. It would be somewhat analgous to when San Francisco became it’s own city and county with the formation of San Mateo County.
7 – Keep in mind that the Gonzales/Borgsdorf regime saw legal advice as an annoyance and something to ignore if they could. They and Council often chose to ignore the legal advice they were given. The City Attorney may have his faults, but the previous mayor, city manager, and the previous council (some of whom are still taking up space on the dais) also hold much of the blame.
Accepting, at this stage in the game, the impracticality of consolidating entire city governments into a countywide conglomerate, I still wonder if considerable savings could not be had should certain functions now performed at the city and county level be handled countywide by departments operating under the oversight of a regional body (composed of participating jurisdictions). Here are five off the top of my head:
1. Hiring and testing of job applicants. This would negate the need for each jurisdiction to employ Civil Service specialists, compliance officers, etc. A centralized testing facility would save money, increase efficiency, and, by allowing for specialization, offer some level of protection against errors and accusations of impropriety.
2. Building permits, inspections, licensing bureaus, etc. Such a consolidation may require some adjustments and compromises of policies, but significant savings could be achieved without a loss of revenue.
3. Arson investigation and other generalized fire duties. Investigators and inspectors from individual jurisdictions could be rotated in and out as necessary, but savings could be realized by reductions in support staff and overhead. Again, with an increase in cases the citizens in even the smallest jurisdictions would benefit by an increase in the expertise of the squad. (An argument could be made for countywide fire services, but that ship has passed.)
4. Police special weapons teams (SWAT). A SWAT operation is a SWAT operation whether it takes place in East San Jose or Monte Sereno. Deployment decisions would still be in the hands of the jurisdictional commanders, but having a centralized, on-call force would lessen the manpower demands on the individual departments, increase expertise, and serve the community better. As it is now, every city seems to have its own Armed Personnel Carriers, Mobile Command Centers, machine gun arsenals, face paint kits, etc.—all very expensive to buy and maintain just to sit idle 99.9% of the time.
5. Crime scene investigations, evidence storage, vehicle impound bureaus, and every other non-enforcement function that is, or should be, done the same everywhere.
I know some counties have joint narcotics teams, so what I’m suggesting is just an expansion of that concept. I understand that some of my suggestions may not work for reasons that I’m not aware of, but I suspect that most of the complaints will be from those protecting coveted empires rather than from those looking out for us taxpayers.
#11
Do not forget helicopters. Having cities and the county running their own helicopter fleet is a tremendous waste of money.
First off, I think it would be a mistake to sell the old city hall to the county. That seems like it would be an extremely valuable piece of land to hold onto and would greatly appreciate in the future. If the county wants it so badly they can rent it
Secondly, I hope that everyone, especially those who blame the police/fire pension for the city budgetary problems, read this news article which just came out today. The SJ police/fire pension fund made over a 19% gain on their investments this past year, and have averaged a 9.8% annual gain since 1971. Just illustrates that the police/firemen have set aside a good chunk of their own pay, chose individuals to manage their fund who were prudent and responsible with investments, and are now reaping the benefits. They are to be applauded, and the city administrators and elected officials would be wise to follow their example rather than condemn them and make them the scapegoats to deflect attention away from poor past financial decisions.
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_6729482
Finfan, you’re correct on all counts. Taxpayers of the City and County could save tens of millions on such consolidations. The only thing that stands between abject waste and efficiency is… to use a politically incorrect term… the upsetting of hundreds of rice bowls.
While our current infrastructure made sense in the days of horses and buggies, it’s become a colossal waste of our limited tax dollars.
Don’t forget, too, the wonderfully self-serving waste in our public schools. Go ahead sometime and count the number of districts in our County, all with their superintendents, administrators, etc. Some of the districts oversee as little as a few hundred students… talk about waste!
Can you imagine the labor unions agreeing to County/City consolidations?! Oh, Silverman, regarding the City and County of San Francisco, do you find it interesting that there are huge redundancies, e.g., the County Sheriffs and the City Police?
Sure, blame public employees.
For school districts, see the recent fight in Los Altos Hill. Does anybody actually believe that it’s instigated by school administrators for additional superintendent position?
Santa Clara county have many distinct communities with vastly different social economical demography. In every joint-power kind of operation, justified or not, I heard way too many complaints about how they(and only they) got the short charged. People may not like the inefficiency, but people hate “not getting their fair share” more.
Sheriff also have very distinct duties from city police. Operation of county jail, bailiff of the superior court, enforcement of judgments, etc. Yes, they also perform police duty for unincorporated area. If people feel its wasteful, cities can annex those unincorporated area. But that’s hardly huge redundancies.
#1—sleep on…you’re clearly not interested. We won’t miss you, nor you us.
Nam # 2—do you expect all the city councilmembers to cede their feifdoms to the county…or vice versa?
Actually, Adam #4, it’s not anyone’s responsibility to buy land for a flea market…except perhaps the vendors themselves.
George #5—not only was your father Irving a nicer fellow than you, he wrote better songs.
Mac #7, if my record were as abysmal as Mr. Doyle’s, I would have been sued out of existence years ago by disgruntled clients.
Sounds good, #11. So, just become a consultant, and at least SJ would hire you; then you could put on a lobbyist hat and truck your conclusions around the county for vetting. They would never, of course be implemented, but there would be endless process, which really gets these politicos off. And take in Greg #14 as your consulting partner. Or maybe you could be the consultant and he could be the lobbyist…..
JMOC: I more imagined it as being a combining of many districts and thus making a larger council with more members. The county-level administrators would be the ones cut out via their redundancy.
Nam #17—that seems bass ackwards. Let’s say you combined San Jose, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale. What city councilmembers from those cities do you believe would cede power to a larger organization, all the while leaving county govt. intact?
Jeez, San Jose has 10 districts for it alone; each of whose councilmembers believes that his/her primary directive is to take care of the district, vs. the city as a whole.
So, we have had the mini-mayor system, a euphemism for Balkanization. What’s next, making Spanish or Vietnamese the official language of certain districts where the people speaking those languages predominate?
Most people in this neck of the woods still prefer to have local government as local as possible; like down to neighborhoods. In District 6, The Rose Garden folks have different issues than the Willow Glen folks, for example…and each of them want their little local, often petty, issues addressed. The big picture simply does not exist in their minds.
#1
Criticism is the disapproval of people, not for having faults, but for having faults different from your own. Oliverio is doing the right things. Be cautious with critism. He deserves praise for his actions.Things are getting done.