Political news, Local politics and government news reporting in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale.
The above statistic is: The result you get if you divide Santa Clara’s employee compensation/benefits ($142,341,810) by the number of full-time employees (924). An illustration of the adage, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” An accurate representation of what the city pays individual employees. A factoid in an emerging class … Read more
The 49ers stadium project continues to advance. At its July 5 meeting, the Stadium Authority (which is one and the same as the Santa Clara City Council), unanimously approved six agreements with the 49ers stadium entity (Stadco) covering subcontractor and concessionaire selection, stadium design, seat license sales (“Stadium Builder Licenses,” SBLs), and ongoing consulting services. … Read more
Pot – Not At last week’s City Council meeting, what was expected to be a routine motion to renew Santa Clara’s moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries turned into a two-hour discussion that highlighted the confusion and contradictions following in the wake of California’s medical marijuana law (1996’s Prop 215). The immediate issue in Santa Clara, … Read more
An RDA By Any Other Name… Tuesday night as the California legislature – or at least, the Democrats in it – passed a state budget that spells the end of California’s redevelopment agencies (RDAs), the Santa Clara City Council enacted another in a series of measures intended to dodge the RDA shutdown bullet. The Council … Read more
On June 14, the City Council took the first steps toward establishing a review committee to look specifically at Santa Clara’s at-large Council seats. This follows receipt of a letter from Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) legal director Robert Rubin threatening the city with a California Voting Rights Act lawsuit. Rubin’s grounds for this … Read more
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) legal director Robert Rubin claims that the City of Santa Clara is violating California’s 2002 Voting Rights Act. He should know. With Seattle law professor Joaquin Avila, Rubin helped draft the statute, which was passed by the state legislature and signed into law by former Governor Gray Davis. The … Read more
Santa Clara has a balanced budget this year. But the City has no choice. Since 2000, reserves were used six times to balance the City budget in the face of deficits – 2001-02, 2002-03, 2003-04, 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10 – leaving nothing much except mothballs in the emergency operating reserves. None of this should been surprising. … Read more
A year ago Santa Clara residents voted “yes” on a proposal to move forward with a plan for a 49ers football stadium in Santa Clara. If anything is surprising a year later, it’s how little has changed in the year since city voters passed Measure J – despite the San Jose Mercury News’ need for … Read more
In the coming year, Santa Clara residents and businesses can expect to see increases in city fees and service charges as the city aligns fees with the costs of providing city services in the face of flat or declining tax revenues. Water prices will go up $3.00 per month for average residential customers, due to … Read more
If you want to see the green energy ecosystem evolve, the City of Santa Clara offers a front row seat. For the sixth year in a row, Santa Clara’s city-owned electric company, Silicon Valley Power (SVP, www.siliconvalleypower.com), made the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL, www.nrel.gov) top 10 green power programs in … Read more