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  But some of the reports within the EIR are already outdated.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  How can we honestly say that we can be guided by such outdated and old information?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