Looks like a long night.
We start the evening with a closed session regarding the Building Industry Association of the Bay Area vs. Sunnyvale. As you may recall, we increased the city’s park dedication fee last year, and an organization representing developers isn’t happy with that action, so they’ve sued us.
This is followed by a rather interesting study session about the One Bay Area planning process, ABAG, and the housing numbers (RHNA) that ABAG always saddles us with. This will be interesting in no small part because we are formally questioning the most recent housing allocation that ABAG gave to us. As the Merc/Sun article says, we believe the required numbers are wildly unrealistic.
Then it’s on to the general meeting. First up is the annual fire safety poster contest, which is always a lot of fun.
The consent calendar is a big one, mostly contracts and housekeeping. There’s an item to approve funding for the Peery Park Specific Plan, which has been a pending issue for a long time. Peery Park is (generally) the area bounded by Mary, Mathilda, 101, and Maude, and it’s slated for industrial development. We’ve had it on our wish list to develop a comprehensive plan for this area for some time, but due to the expense, it’s never been done. If I’m reading this right, a developer has agreed to fund almost half of the cost if we’ll fund the rest and pull the trigger on it, and staff is recommending that we do so.
There are some other interesting items on the consent calendar, including funding for sidewalk work related to Safe Routes to Schools, funding for this year’s allocation of sidewalk/curb/gutter/driveway repair work, city-wide computer replacement, and some other stuff.
Item 2 under general business is possible appointment of a new planning commissioner. We had a resignation because a sitting commissioner had to move out of the city, so we have a chance to fill the vacancy.
Item 3 is possible appointment of Joan Borger as our new City Attorney. Mrs. Borger is currently an Assistant City Attorney for Fremont, and before that she was both an Assistant City Attorney and the Interim City Attorney for Sunnyvale (between Valerie Armento and David Kahn). We conducted our interviews and reached a tentative agreement with Mrs. Borger, and this item is to approve the appointment and ratify the agreement, if we so desire. If everything works out as proposed, Mrs. Borger would assume duties on December 3rd.
Item 4 involves an application to rezone a piece of property on Fair Oaks north of 101 from R-3 to R-4 to support a proposed rental residential development.
Item 5 is the return of the study issue from our last meeting – the cultural heritage of Sunnyvale. It’s kind of long and detailed, so I won’t attempt to summarize it here.
And item 6 involves the appointment of two councilmembers to the Santa Clara Valley Water District Recycled Water Joint Committee. I believe this is an outgrowth of our recycled water efforts, which led us to pursue partnerships with both San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley Water District. It appears that the meetings with the SCVWD led to a recommendation of forming a joint committee so we can better collaborate. This is a mayoral appointment, so councilmembers will express an interest (or not), and the Mayor will appoint two people then or possibly later.
And that’s about it.
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