For the longest time I’ve wanted to write about El Camino in Santa Clara – am I the only one that notices how disgusting our section of El Camino is? You leave Sunnyvale heading south on El Camino and you enter “THE ZONE”.
House of Pain, Karaoke Bars and ill fated book stores that seem to have cars parked out the front 7/24 and these cars are all in need of a wash as I think are the book stores! The real question is does anyone buy a book in there? The thought makes me shudder!
Does Ms Mahan, Dominic, Will or Joe go into these stores or are they just proud of the fact we don’t have a pot hole in Santa Clara? Cringe …. here we are in what we consider modern times and you get to our section of El Camino and the place looks like the back streets of Thailand. Even the chief of police for BangKok some years ago closed down the bars after 2am in the hope of cleaning up the city. He stirred up the seedier part of his world and clamped down on pimps and druggies – though I think in Bangkok it’s an uphill battle but surely in Santa Clara we can do something about it? Or does the City Council not see what I see?
I’m happy to drive around during the day but at night I lock my doors and don’t venture out anymore and if I’m like this how many others are?
Have you ever noticed that we have more $49 oops it’s now $53 a night hotels than any other part of Silicon Valley El Camino? Have you ever noticed the Tattoo stores in Santa Clara? House of Pain – what a great name – I think that’s what we should call our part of El Camino – the Row of Pain because it pains me to go down this section. I avoid it at all costs.
It also saddens me that we feel obliged to have developers ‘fix up’ our urban blight. Why can’t we as a community take this on? Where are the grandma’s that forced druggies out of communities? Where are the greenies that hang out in trees? Where are the mothers that are up in arms about school scores? Come on guys time to let City Council know that we see what they aren’t doing – one person speaks out for us at the moment and she is ostracized and criticized for having an opinion that is against the other six ‘family’ members!
I don’t know about you but I’m a little sick of the ‘family’ running the town – time for change!
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June 24, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Rick
I also don’t care for the look and layout of El Camino Real in Santa Clara – although you exaggerate greatly to comparison with back streets of Thailand.
I was wondering if you attended either of the visioning workshops for the general plan update. El Camino was one of the topic areas. There were a lot of ideas – I think some good (architectural standards, public transportation, attracting higher-end restaurants) and some not so good (“attracting restaurants that I like”).
I’ve viewed other posts of you and know that you are also vocal about the lack of a downtown. Again, there have been plans on the table, but public help is needed to move them along. Have you participated?
It is pretty easy to point out what is wrong, but I would love to see you get involved and use your passion to make something positive happen.
Will I see you at the next forum?
Peace,
Rick
June 24, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Rick
I now see that you had attended the workshop last night.
Sorry that I responded to this post before I saw your earlier post.
I don’t understand your comment about downtown being at Lawrence and El Camino. It was clearly shown on the map as being in the area I’ve always called “downtown” that is loosely bordered by Lafayette, Homestead, Monroe (or was it Lincoln?), and Benton.
peace, Rick