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Is Santa Clara loosing the battle with Graffiti taggers? There has been an increase of Graffiti in the last few months.
Previously it seemed that Graffiti was under control and only visible in areas around Cabrillo. Now it seems that it’s all over. It was noticeable on the old Marina Playa buildings before the developers bulldozed that site. (Perhaps there is a good side to developers).
Santa Clara city along with the SC Police Department have a policy of no tolerance and even have an assigned officer. To read more you can go to the SC Council website and learn how you as a local can even earn a ‘bounty’ if you turn in a tagger.
When I first came to the US I had an expectation to see more Graffiti as it seemed to be an issue in Sydney and Melbourne. In fact a Graffiti artist would call it a ‘badge of honor’ if he could tag something that seemed impossible to reach. An example of that would be a Bridge or a prominent statue. The only area I ever really noticed tagging here were many of the fly overs on 101 as you headed into San Jose area – notably around Tully.
I always found Santa Clara to be ‘clean’ from Graffiti but since the increase of empty lots and clearly the lack of surveillance of some of these lots Graffiti has increased and encroached on other private property.
Why an increase? No surveillance is obvious of the properties in question ie the Marina Playa project before it was bulldozed, the old Kaiser building on 900 Kiely. These are obvious but if you look closer and carefully you will see it on the tops of the Safeway on Homestead, you will learn that there are some truck owners around Victoria are regularly targeted.
Clearly these taggers have too much time on their hand and obviously money – because thier spray paint must cost money. Their ability to draw and create is not being funneled in the right area. Imagine if we were to give these creative kids an avenue to channel their art into something that either is profitable or of use to the city? Brighten up public spaces? Come on Patricia Mahan you must care about the youth of this city. Rather than offer a ‘bounty’ for these kids – have the money go towards programs that give these kids an outlet a space to create – a city funded art program for teenagers. Does something like that exist? If not why not. Mr Caserta is a teacher he must know how to go about communicating with kids like this. Mr Kolstadt is a former cop – he must know how to find these ‘lost kids’. Mr Moore is always looking for a new idea that has his seal of approval.
Why do you think in Santa Clara vs say Los Altos we have such a high incidents of Graffiti – could it be that we have working class parents that are so busy trying to pay their bills that they can’t be at home with their kids? sigh… doesn’t that then justify us a little more assistance? Oh I guess not, for after all isn’t it the unspoken rule that the city can ask you for assistance, tax you and speak for you but you can’t ask for assistance for the city because they are too busy doing work for you that has already been budgeted for and there is not budget to create something new that the residents might actually see might assist the residents. After all we are just children of the city and really don’t know what we need but the people in office/management/administration know more than us. We the residents are just the children. Mum and Dad know better …. sigh
©Letters From Silicon Valley 2008
I note with delight that the City of Santa Clara is going to hold more discussion about the Santa Clara General plan. Yahhooo – does it mean that the city is going to listen to it’s residents?
On August 4th the General Plan will in part look at EIR – says the link.
What’s an EIR – Environmental Impact Report – so it’s a report that in part is just a report that is out there and gets ‘tagged’ to all new developments by developers. In an EIR you will read about traffic issues, how a new building will affect the surrounding businesses, buildings, schools etc. But some of the reports within the EIR are already outdated. Imagine on one of the more recent approved city projects the Marina Playa project the EIR discussed traffic issues around that complex from the year 2000 – that’s 8 years old information.
Wow 8 year old information! How can we honestly say that we can be guided by such outdated and old information? Yet the city does this on a regular basis. And when residents inform the city and reporters that the information is old or that they have witnessed the information in the reports not to be true it all falls on deaf ears.
If this meeting the Santa Clara General Plan is setting up allows us as regular citizens that live in the city - then I recommend you be there or be square. Find out how your thoughts, actions and commitment to your city can make a difference.
There will also be a survey posted at the end of all these general discussions. Will we see the negative comments along with the positive comments? I ask this as there are some general plan documents already floating around that only give the ‘brighter’ ‘happier’ ‘positive’ comments about Santa Clara and their Staff.
Speaking of Staff and the general plan – do you think perhaps staff should live in the city? Wouldn’t that be beneficial to the residents. Employees who live and work in the city would perhaps understand the residents issues. And isn’t that the intent of the Planning Commissioners idea to increase housing in the city – have people work and live in the city. Which brings up a Question – do the City Planners, Managers and senior appointments live and work in the city? Just curious. And if they do that’s GREAT – perhaps we could ask that the developers come and live in our city for a year as well.
If city planners do not live in the city fulltime – perhaps residents could make this a request and requirement of future paid employees that their taxes support.
©Letters From Silicon Valley 2008
From time to time at resident gatherings I have heard residents surprised to learn that Dominic Caserta has a real estate license. Yes it seems to be that he continually forgets to mention that he has an active license. In fact his license is held at the Gillmor Real Estate company. This is the same company that another Santa Clara City council hangs his license, Kevin Moore. It’s not as though Dominic has let his license lapse or that it’s old because he’s had this since 2003 and it is current till 2011 for memory.
I’m surprised that with his various political advertising for when he ran for Assembly I have not found to-date a clip that has him mention his real estate license. There are a number on YouTube that his organization has posted. I particularly like the one where he discusses how he has been a teacher for the past 11 years and how he talks in a way that makes him look like the main person responsible for many great initiatives in Santa Clara. ohhh well, sigh … illusions of grandeur come to mind.
Here is another youtube clip that Mr Caserta where he was advertised by Comcast (I wonder if this is a paid for advertising interview?)
Perhaps Mr Caserta should be a little more mindful of the fact he holds a license and his respect to his constituents. Or do you think that perhaps this little clip again on youtube is really how he views the Santa Clara residents.
It makes me shudder that we put people in office who door knock claiming to be a poor teacher kid who just wants to make a difference for residents when in truth that is something that seems far from the truth.
I know it doesn’t seem PC (politically correct) in America to do the tall poppy syndrome treatment on a wannabe politician but it seems to me that Mr Caserta’s lack of memory and what appears to be his contempt for his constituents should be pointed out. Perhaps it is just a case of being a bit too young to be having such a position of power. After all, let us not forget that this young man has for his political campaign accepted donations from the various developers that are either building or attempting to build in Santa Clara. At the same time this young man has, it appears, not excused himself from any of the voting on council that relate to these developers or real estate deals. When in fact you would think he has a morale right to abstain from such votes given he has accepted financial backing and also holds a somewhat forgotten but current Real Estate license. sigh…. oh to be young ….
©Letters From Silicon Valley 2008
It’s well know that many of the major developers work their magic by getting their developments accepted at planning and city council by donating to the council. Donations are varied as I see it.
You have the donation to the cities capital fund for projects like, parks and recreation, sewers, roads. You know something that the city feels needs to be addressed – that’s probably why Santa Clara and Dominic Caserata can say we don’t have a pothole in Santa Clara. The city gets the developers to contribute towards the ‘pothole’ fund. It’s worth noting that Fairfield Residential has not contributed to the ‘pothole’ fund as yet but I’m sure they will find the appropriate ‘pothole’ – personally if I was them I would make a contribution to the largest ‘pothole’ the ‘International Swim Center’ I’m sure Mrs Mahan would love that being built in her time perhaps they could even call it the Mahan Swim Center? Though in my humble opinion it should be the Mark Spitz Swim Center given he really ‘begun’ his career in that very swim center. And Mark is a one of my favorite swimmers – along with a bunch of great Aussie Atheletes, Gould, Thorpe, Fraser, Rose, Perkins and the wonderful gentle giant Klim! But Mark had the guts to state what he wanted and win the gold everytime. He also is someone you can look up to – he managed to win all those medals during a very difficult and trying game. To understand these games read this at wikipedia.
A second way Developers donate to cities is to make part of their plans is to build affordable housing in the development. So for instance in the million dollar plus development on Prunridge and Lawrence that boasts Cupertino schools. Also known as the Enclave there are four units in there that are not as large or expensive that have been made available through a system to those that could not afford to normally buy into an area like that. Great concept – something that the Dutch have done for years – nothing new. But what does annoy me is that the developers have this hoity toity attitude that they are doing us all a favor – what a lie. The council deems it part of the agreement to build and the average joe blow knows that the developer factors in the cost of everyone of those units into the bottom price of the other units so the middle class Joe blow pays for this puppy. Give me a break I wasn’t born yesterday. One way the developers look better to the council is that instead of giving the minimum per cent in affordable housing they give more so instead of say 10% they give 15% – how sweet is that? Sweet to whom?
The third way they give money is to pay for different city councilmen/women’s political campaigns – legal donations to campaigns. Ask Mr Caserta he knows how that works – and then ask him how he voted on each and everyone of those developments of the developers that supported him. I’m sure as we go into an election this year we might see developers supporting other city council candidates. Oh and developers are tricky – to deflect the controversy over this they get company individuals to donate. Heck that’s totally legal right – so if you have a big family – say you are one of 100 family members – each member gives the minimum dollar amount which let’s say is $100 you now have 100×100 – you do the math! Then when you look at the list of who contributed and you see $100 from every Wong or Smith – you know why. What’s worse is that that same city council member now does not excuse themself from the vote on that development. That’s just WRONG and STINKS in my book. I wonder if I were to get 1000 voters to campaign against high rise development and each of them to ‘pay’ oops I mean donate towards a council persons campaign could I now ’sway’ their vote? hmmm food for thought – no that just smells of good old fashioned bribery. Doesn’t it to you?
Meanwhile I came across this article in one of the Australian Newspapers on line – the Developers are now saying that they feel the controversy of supporting political campaigns. The public is creating a back lash against the developer and they are feeling the heat and the developers are not going to fund political campaigns. About time – I think developers should be held accountable for their actions and that citizens should start to question their involvement in city politics. Good for the Aussie developers for taking the lead – I predict the same will start to happen here. Developers should rightly keep their money and their nose our of politics and do what they said they would do develop. As it’s been said to me many times – the developer comes, makes a mess in a city and then leaves. Leaving the havoc and the mess to those that now live in the city to clean up. A lot of this mess is because they think they are doing great things but never really look at the bigger picture. Here is the article.
PS Fairfield Residential if you are looking to ‘donate’ to Santa Clara City Council ‘pothole’ fund I recommend $400,000 because that’s how short the city was in rebuilding the Swim Center and as a result the project got shelved another year! And we all know by next year that $400K will be $600K!
©Letters From Silicon Valley 2008
So if you wanted to get a bunch of Santa Clara Residents to Unite and take up action against the current city Council what do you think should be done?
How would you rally your average Joe Blow or Jane Smith to get involved in their community. Clearly community involvements seems to come with a price. For years people are always complaining or bitching about something but when push comes to shove do they do anything. No they get off their soap box and return to the box and watch the show from the couch.
So the question remains how can a bunch of clearly diverse and yet concerned residents fire up more out there to realize what is going on in their community. It’s clear if you read blogs, newspapers and talk to the regular few that attend planning department meetings, go to city council and developer meetings that there are a few that are interested. And then the few that are interested might drift away as the battle become too hard or too embittered. Sad as it may it is evident that people get upset that change takes time.
When many years ago a group of young inexperienced students decided to take on the Australian Union of Students over a $2.50 levy for their coffers everyone said you can’t take on the Unions. And at worse, the largest Union – but one guy said ‘watch me’ Robert took on the Unions – he health suffered over the years and he became disenchanted I believe but he survived and later was a State politician. Years and years later one of those other involved young student citizens went on to form an alliance with some other students who all then entered Federal Politics. Together people like Michael Yabsley, Peter Costello, Eric Abetz and Tony Abbott (and I’m sure a few more others who weren’t in seats but assisted these guys) did manage to change the law and those compulsory student fees were squashed and the ‘tight’ control the Australian Union of Students had was squashed. So to the likes of Kevin Park of Live forever or die trying for it or other resident who are concerned about Santa Clara I say – hey others have done this and though they then ended up in Government there is plenty of reason to continue voicing your opinion and bringing up your concerns about the over 2000 proposed residents on Lawrence/El Camino intersection. Or if you are just learning about this for the first time and are concerned about what is going on in Santa Clara and stumbled across this blog – go to this site about concerned Santa Clara Residents.
I don’t know how long it took the Liberal Students and the Jewish Students Alliance and the Center Unity students to fight the likes of the Labor Students or the Trots and the Maoists and the far left of center anything, but eventually the good guys won.
You may say but it was only $2.50 per student but if you multiple that money by over 1million students you start to see a bigger picture. And then if you were to argue that that money went to good causes for students I would challenge you and say really? Since when was sending money to rebel forces in Indonesia or unknown countries in Africa good causes? That was the crazy things the Australian Union of Students were doing. I can live to talk about it because I watched some of those truly radical left wing wierdos try to justify why they should send X amount of money to some odd named country for some wierd cause. I sat on council floor as they debated the merits of sending students money to these places.
Now bring us back to Santa Clara and I can’t help but have de ja vu and watch city council discuss where and how they are going to raise money from developers to fix a long desired project. Or place low income housing in a developers project because they feel they are addressing a housing issue by having the developer pay for it. Come on do you think these developers aren’t in it for the money and don’t cost in these ‘give away’ housing units? And when were you born? So if you have an interest in politics or you have a desire to give back to your community and desire nothing in return might I suggest you get involved with these guys Citizens for Responsible Development in Santa Clara – find out what is really happening in Santa Clara and don’t be like some citizens that stumble upon planning departments proposed building plans in their street or citizens that discover their back yard will now be in shade 24/7/365.
Residents – just your average Joe or Jenny or Jack or Jane are starting to ask questions of Santa Clara City Council – why not join in and be part of a new movement. It’s summer get off the couch!
©Letters From Silicon Valley 2008
One thing the city of Santa Clara gets right is the 4th of July Fireworks in Central Park. People come from all over to sit and enjoy the fireworks. Since we live in walking distance to the park our family leaves late in the evening to find our spot and wait. We have this ’secret’ little spot.
This years events were spectacular and the police definitely had the whole thing under control. This year they had Kiely drive completely closed off. With Kaiser closed there was no need to have the street open except for residents with parking passes or a drivers license with the same street address. This made navigating the area on foot much easier than in the past.
Just before the fireworks started someone came to the podium and welcomed everyone to Santa Clara. I was surprised he didn’t do an advertisement for over 2,000 proposed new apartments and homes. Hey here was a chance to really sell Santa Clara – the city is always wanting to let people know what a great city it is, they had thousands of people there why not some unashamed blatant promotion? Are they not always looking for more people to come and live here and pay taxes?
I was also a little surprised that our Major Ms Mahan was not there to say something or perhaps some other City Councilmen/women. Heck what would it take to be there and say a dozen words at one of the cities biggest events that brings out most of it’s residents and people from other cities. I’m okay if you promote yourself – George Bush does it, Obama would do it, Mclean would jump at it. I’m surprised our star wannabe politician Mr Caserta wasn’t there promoting his favorite developers – he could have said something about the Fairfield Residential complex – in fact the city could have had someone from Fairfield tell all these residents about the wonderful 806 proposed residents they are going to build and the 536 of them that will be for rent that will over look the park. Man what a golden opportunity to sell your product. Or maybe they just aren’t proud of this development …. makes you wonder.
The fireworks were fabulous and clearly the city knows how to turn on a good show. Well done to the company who put on the show was Fireworks America - the music was great. And I guess as my first 4th of July as a citizen I found it all so more inspiring and patriotic.
Great Job!
PS Rick if what you say is true – then all I can say is she has a deep voice and sounded just like a man – perhaps she needs to take voice lessons.
©Letters From Silicon Valley 2008
Perhaps my praise of the Grand Boulevard initiative was too hasty! I read an article in the LA Weekly by Zuma Dogg today that makes you start to wonder about the benefits that developers are getting. Which leads me to the question what benefits are developers getting in general when dealing with City Councils?
Zuma Dogg has clearly done some major probe into this whole issue as you can see in his two page article at LA weekly. In fact I would dare say he has done some down and dirty work on discovering the benefits that these developers get. Thank you Zuma – it makes me the Aussie in the Silicon Valley burbs start to see developers differently. I’d seen them as big bad guys but this makes them big bad guys looking for tax concessions while me has no way of avoiding Uncle Sam! Darn it and I thought life was good! I knew that there was money involved but I hadn’t realized it was a two way street – I figured the cities were benefiting from this but appears, according to Zuma if you dig deeper you will find that the cities give developers big tax breaks. Corporate America at its best. No wonder we think of Britain and Australia as a country full of shop keepers and individuals and maybe that’s why I get so peeved by ‘corporate’ agendas.
Zuma commented once here that he should ‘franchise’ his methods – yeh to that. If Zuma is out there showing the little guys how to investigate and understand the big guy even more I’m all for that.
A group of concerned Santa Clara citizens plan to sit down next week and start talking to those people who are showing interest in standing for local government. That group is talking to either those planning to run again or those wishing to run – this group wants to understand peoples platforms before they actually go out there. The group sees the need to let potential candidates be aware that there is ground swell in the community that is not happy with developers and lack of consideration for current residents. Come on who can in their right mind build condominiums and shade neighboring homes 365 days of the year? I ask you who on planning or council can endorse that and say that they are representing their constituents? Who in their right mind can ignores advice from CHP over where a road intersects with a development? Who in their right mind can justify a project of over 800 units just because we are now getting a bike path behind the project? What city ignores the fact that a councilman has received fininacial benefits for his campaign and allows same councilman to vote on projects that the developers wants approved? I guess that would all be the Santa Clara City Council and it’s planning department. Nice one guys – common sense and reason rules the day.
PS I think I’m going to change my tag line to Zuma Puppie.
©Letters From Silicon Valley 2008
Wow imagine El Camino being considered a Grand Boulevard ? There is an initiative to have 19 cities come together and plan out the Road of the Kings! Even I’m impressed – maybe the House of Pain will have to move to Santana Row?
When I hear the words “Grand Boulevard” I think of Paris or Madrid but not El Camino. If you have been to Paris or Madrid or Berlin you know what a Grand Boulevard looks like. Gorgeous trees, parks as medium strips in the middle of the Boulevard. Fountains running day and night. Statues of Generals on Horses. Change of colors in the flower pots with different seasons. Oh and Traffic …. traffic and more traffic.
I remember when McDonalds came to the Champs Ellesse, Parisians were outraged they refused to go in there. It was some what of an insult to a city that has brought the world Haute Courtier. Anyway I should not be so snobby I think this is a great initiative and probably one that is needed. It’s worth noting that Santa Clara City Council to date has not become involved – perhaps there is just too much work to do in our section of El Camino that they feel they can’t do it yet – they have to fix potholes first.
Anyway take a look at this grand plan and be impressed and then perhaps ask Patricia Mahan why our city is not involved in this initiative. This is an idea to bring people together and work as a team – imagine that Team Work? Working together creating something for the benefit of all people not just a chosen few! I love it! Great Job to the Joint Venture guys!
©Letters From Silicon Valley 2008
