The Loma Prietan
March/April 2001
Save Coyote Valley from Development
by Ernie Goitein
People for Livable and Affordable Neighborhoods (PLAN), a coalition of the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club, Community Homeless Alliance Ministry, Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, Committee for Green Foothills and several other groups and individuals, is challenging San Jose’s decision to develop 1,440 acres in Coyote Valley. The initial proposed industrial office park is to be built in phases and is slated to be the home of Cisco Systems.
The proposed project encompasses the development of a 688-acre parcel that will provide office space for 20,000 Cisco employees. Once this exercise in sprawl and excess consumption is completed, the final 1,440-acre North Coyote development area would provide office space for up to 50,000 employees in an eye-sore series of campuses similar to that in north San Jose and other parts of Silicon Valley. The influx of workers, families, and the service personnel necessary to sustain this new “city” will easily add more than 100,000 new people and all of their accoutrements, especially motor vehicles, to Coyote Valley.
The San Jose development proposal does not provide for housing, schools, hospitals, adequate sewage treatment, police, or fire protection, and the other necessary infrastructure for this significant increase in population.
The site, located over 20 miles from the proposed BART line in San Jose, obviously lacks the necessary public transportation to sustain such sprawl, thereby forcing an additional tens of thousands of motor vehicles onto our already overcrowded and severely congested highways and surface streets, creating congestion far worse than we currently experience. Affordable housing, already scarce, would likely disappear. The impact that this would have on communities to the south of Coyote Valley would be enormous.
Environmental and
Community Impacts
Coyote Valley currently provides an important corridor for wildlife between the Santa Cruz and Mt. Diablo mountain ranges. The survival of the mountain lion population depends on the mixing of these populations. The environmental and quality of life impacts that this unnecessary development would have throughout the region include loss of open space and wildlife habitat, and increased traffic congestion followed by worsening air quality.
Coyote Valley is blessed with fertile soil and a thriving agricultural economy, reminiscent of the Santa Clara Valley of yesteryear, once called the “Valley of Heart’s Delight,” now the “Valley of Urban Blight,” with 23 super-fund sites and counting. Furthermore, increased housing costs for farm workers in southern Santa Clara County, San Benito and Monterey counties would have a devastating effect on the agricultural community.
Overcoming Petition Drive Obstacles
To stop the development of Coyote Valley, PLAN launched a signature drive in November of last year, and collected enough signatures to qualify a referendum for the ballot. 30,684 signatures were required and nearly 54,000 signatures were collected. Subsequently, the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters certified that more than enough signatures were valid to qualify the referendum for the ballot.
Apparently, neither Cisco, nor San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, nor the San Jose City Council, want the citizens of San Jose to vote on this issue. Initially, San Jose refused to turn over the necessary documents that would allow PLAN to prepare the referendum language for the petition. This was settled only after PLAN was forced to take the City of San Jose to court to make the public documents available, eventually allowing the petition drive to begin, at which point Cisco began circulating a ‘phony’ petition that had no legal validity and was used solely as a blocking and PR tactic. Cisco’s “petition” could have been signed by anyone (registered voter or not), regardless of age, city, county, state or even country of residence; regardless of whether the individual had already signed; and, in several documented cases, regardless of whether the person was even present or born (a pregnant woman was asked to sign on the behalf of her unborn child).
Such maneuvering by Cisco confused some citizens about the issue at hand.
Obviously, Cisco and Mayor Gonzales are afraid that the people will speak with their vote and resoundingly defeat a special interest industrial park that will enrich the few at the expense of the hardworking, taxpaying citizens of San Jose.
The latest chapter in this episode is the San Jose City Council’s refusal to set an election date as is required by the State election code. The City Attorney, in yet another transparent move to drain PLAN of financial resources and confuse the general public as to the important issues surrounding this destructive and unnecessary sprawling development, advised the City Council that the referendum language dealt with mere administrative, not legislative matters as required for a referendum.
PLAN’s legal experts, of course, know that the City erred in its judgment. As PLAN’s legal petition states: “Decades of California case law unequivocally establish both the patent legality of Petitioners’ referendum and the manifest illegality of the City Council’s attempt to usurp the judiciary’s function by allegedly deciding that issue for itself.” In other words, the referendum must be placed on the ballot by the City Council.
PLAN’s legal documents ask the court to mandate that the San Jose City Council either repeal the portions of the Master Development Plan in question or submit those amendments directly to the voters. PLAN expects that this matter will be resolved within the next month.
YOU CAN HELP!
To support this milestone litigation that will force the City Council to allow a vote of the people, PLAN urgently needs your financial backing.
Tax-deductible contributions may be sent to the Bay Area Action (PCCF) offices, at 3921 East Bayshore Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303. Checks should be made payable to the Coyote Valley Legal Defense Fund. For gifts of appreciated stock, please contact Ernie at the PLAN office 408/293-5314.
If you would like to volunteer your time to help
on the grass-roots campaign to stop sprawl development and protect the
Coyote Valley, call the Chapter office at 650/390-8411 or the PLAN
office in San Jose at 408/293-5314.