As I’ve blogged here before, the city is actively exploring options for creating a branch library in the north, as well as investigating the possibility of a public/private partnership to replace our aging civic facilities. Both concepts are strictly in the information-gathering phase, to determine if some options are even viable, and to determine what possibilities may exist to solve some pretty massive problems that we face (problems that likely exceed $150 million in capital expenditures – with time pressure attached). The effort to gather some information will take some time before staff can even start developing proposals for residents to view. And if you haven’t heard something recently, that’s because there’s nothing new to hear (meaning I probably haven’t heard anything either).
Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped a couple of residents from speculating wildly, inventing details, and otherwise acting in rather irresponsible ways to defeat transparency and the distribution of meaningful and accurate information. So in an attempt to deal with the huge quantity of misinformation that is being deliberately circulated, the city has created a couple of official information resources for both concepts. The branch library details can be found here, and the civic center concept can be found here.
The City Manager put it pretty simply at our last Council meeting – if you ever have concerns about things you’ve heard about the city, email a question, and staff will do their best to answer it. We had a member of the public come to us concerned last week, because someone had told her that Sunnyvale is going bankrupt (not true – we’ve got a projected balanced budget for the full 20 years of our financial plan). Staff tries hard to get out the facts, whether good or bad, on anything that concerns residents, because it’s your city, and you should know what’s happening in it. And the best way to know is to give you the meaningful, accurate facts that you want. So read. And ask. And let me know when you have concerns.
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