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