Santa Clara City Desk
By Carolyn Schuk

900 Kiely Changes Hands, Neighbors Worry New Owner Won’t Honor Agreements

It’s been nearly five years since Fairfield Residential first proposed a 536-unit residential development on the site of the former Santa Clara Kaiser hospital. But construction has yet to begin on the 26-acre site.

Now there’s a new development in a complicated history that includes Fairfield’s bankruptcy in 2009 and reorganization in 2010. It seems that the property has been sold to another company, Prometheus Development, which is proceeding with the 2007 project.

Fairfield project manager Ed McCoy contacted the Peppertree Neighborhood Watch organization to tell them about the change, a resident told the City Council on September 27. Residents are concerned that the new owner will honor agreements worked out with Fairfield.

One of the principal neighborhood concerns right now is tree preservation. "The EIR [environmental impact report] and all discussions...promised that these trees would be saved," neighborhood resident Kevin Park told the Council. Yet, "this week somebody tagged those trees with X’s. The large trees are being marked, the ones we had promises again and again [would be saved] from Ed McCoy who is no longer on this project...It sounds like there’s a big miscommunication between the new owners and...the EIR."

"The city has not been officially notified about change of ownership," said City Manager Jennifer Sparacino. "We’ve been having some conversations with Fairfield, but we haven’t had any confirmation [of the change]," added Santa Clara Planning Manager Kevin Riley.

After Acting City Attorney Elizabeth Silver pointed out that because the subject wasn’t on the agenda, the Council couldn’t discuss it that evening, City Manager Sparacino told the Council and neighborhood representatives that staff would follow up with Fairfield the next day and report back.

Residential Development on Former BAREC Site Inches Toward Groundbreaking

It’s been nearly 10 years since the state of California closed the 17 acre former Bay Area Research and Extension Center at 90 N. Winchester Blvd. (across from Valley Fair) and put the land up for sale. But the controversy swirling around the site - starting with former Governor Gray Davis’s alleged "backroom" deal in closing the agricultural research station - has not ceased.

State cleanup of arsenic- and dieldrin-contaminated soil on the site has finally been completed, and Summerhill Homes is poised to move ahead with its planned Santa Clara Garden residential development. The project includes 110 market rate single-family homes, and about 160 low-income senior apartments. The senior apartments will be built on six acres purchased by Santa Clara.

At the Sept. 27 Council meeting, City Manager Jennifer Sparacino responded to written questions from Santa Clara business owner Kirk Vartan about the Summerhill development, several specifically concerning the project’s financials.

Summerhill expects to close the sale on its share of the land in December, Sparacino explained. At that time, the Santa Clara Housing Authority must complete the purchase of the land for the senior apartments. The money, $11.6 million, was approved and set aside as part of the city’s capital improvement budget several years ago.

"The money is liquid and available," said Sparacino, noting that the money is Santa Clara Redevelopment Authority money. "No city general fund money will be used and no tax revenue [is] used for the project."

A representative of the San Jose North of Forest (www.northofforest.org) neighborhood group asked the Council to reconsider its approval of the project, as it was planned in 2002 and doesn’t take into account demographic trends. The presentation also raised the question of infrastructure costs.

The North of Forest organization indicated that the neighborhood group itself is interested in buying the land. However, Council Members didn’t show interest in revisiting their 2007 decision.

Santa Clara Director of Public Works Rajeev Batra noted that the group’s presentation used information he had provided about infrastructure costs in a way he claimed was out of context and misleading.

NOVA Job Training Successes Offer Bright Spot in Gloomy Economic Picture

U.S. working people don’t hear a lot of good economic news these days. But two Santa Clara residents are among the lucky ones who are working again, thanks to services provided by the North Valley (NOVA) Workforce Board and funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) - aka the Obama Stimulus.

"Nisha obtained her HR certificate from UC Santa Cruz Extension," Nova Workforce Board Member Steve Van Dorn told the City Council at the September 27 Council meeting. "She... completed [training] on March 31 of 2010. She was hired at Google in their HR department in April 2010.

"Michelle was having difficulty finding work because of her lack of database skills," Van Dorn continued. "She took the Oracle financial application training [in] 2009 and obtained a position with SONY Computer and Entertainment as a sales administrator in April 2010."

NOVA provides training and support services to jobseekers in Cupertino, Los Altos, Milpitas, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale. As of March 2011, the agency had helped 2,645 Santa Clara residents — 5 percent of the city’s labor force and nearly half of its unemployed residents. For the duration of ARRA funding (May 2009 through March 2011), NOVA provided a total of 205,791 services to 13,418 individuals at the CONNECT Job Seeker Center.

Over the last 22 months, NOVA provided services to 13,000 job seekers and has won many kudos in its three-decade history. This year alone, NOVA was named one of four top-performing workforce boards in the United States as well as being recognized as a top Bay Area workplace by the Bay Area News Group.

Carolyn Schuk can be reached at cschuk@earthlink.net.