February 10, 2006

Evergreen Visioning Project Task Force receives ‘Good Neighbor’
award from Councilman Dave Cortese

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

Wearing shiny blue ribbons on their lapels, the members of the Evergreen Visioning Project Task Force received the annual Good Neighbor Award from District 8 Councilman Dave Cortese during the State of the City address.

District 8 Councilman Dave Cortese gave members of the Evergreen Visioning Project Task Force, now the Evergreen/East Hills Visioning Strategy, the annual “Good Neighbor Award” during Mayor Ron Gonzales’ State of the City address Wednesday evening at City Hall. Photo by Jeff Frazee

The group of 35 neighborhood association leaders, school district representatives and nonprofit professionals began convening in August of 2003. The purpose of the EVP was to look closely at District 8 and to propose a new set of growth limits for the area faced with the possible construction of 5,700 new homes and several amenities.

The group later became the Evergreen/East Hills Visioning Strategy. San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales and the City Council reformed the task force last year to plan for Evergreen’s growth in the southeast part of the city with a broader representation.

Cortese said the group was chosen for recognition because during the past two years it worked relentlessly on evenings and weekends to understand and negotiate development proposals, affordable housing, school impact, environmental issues and traffic level of service to provide District 8 with the highest return on investment.

Task force members sacrificed hours from work and family to visit smart growth neighborhoods in the city and the county so they could recommend products and proposals they believed in and observed, he said.

Group members are said to have become experts in many development issues to negotiate the best deal for District 8’s quality of life.

“They put a lot of work and a lot of time into what they were doing. They spent hundreds and hundreds of hours to the effort of planning the future of Evergreen,” said Cortese.

The District 8 office had a list of five possible recipients for the award, but Cortese singled out the group because he felt the taskforce hadn’t received that much credit for the work it had done.

“The whole city commends them for what they’re doing,” Cortese said, adding that each task force member went above and beyond the call of duty to immerse themselves in smart growth, affordable housing, transportation level of service, park impact and dedication, and residential developer pro formas to effectively participate and negotiate in the grassroots community planning effort.

Cortese said task force members have continued in their roles as emissaries and advocates of integrated land-use planning and community involvement by participating in the new reformed group attending community forums and communicating with District 8 neighbors on the importance of growth limits.

“I personally appreciate the recognition from Dave Cortese and the District 8 Office, but the most rewarding aspect of the award was being present with my fellow neighbors and community leaders while receiving this recognition. This is a very talented and dedicated group of people with whom I’ve worked since August 2003... and there’s still a lot of work yet to be done,” said Jim Zito, a member of the task force.

Alan Covington, another task force member, said even though the group is “past history” he appreciated Cortese honoring it with the award.

Covington lamented the old group’s disbandment, as he said it has “diluted the representation from Evergreen.”

Covington said claims that the group wasn’t broadly based enough and didn’t consider impacts to adjoining districts weren’t true.

“I thought we were making good progress,” Covington said. “We were working well with the developers before that effort was disbanded.”