April 22, 2005

On April 19, the San Jose City Council voted to dissolve District 8’s community-based land use project—the Evergreen Visioning Project—and replace it with a brand new Specific Plan Task Force.

The ramifications of this paralyzing blow could be far-reaching for Councilmember Dave Cortese, who convened the EVP Task Force, and the 31 Evergreen community and neighborhood leaders who make up the Task Force.

All have tirelessly volunteered two years of their time and effort to determine the appropriate development limits of vacant parcels in Council District 8 while using development money for traffic improvements and community amenities to offset the development and improve quality of life.

The recommendation co-authored by Mayor Gonzales and Councilmember Nora Campos assures that the tremendous amount of work already accomplished by the EVP would be used as a “foundation” for a new Specific Plan Task Force.

Yet the risks are clear. The EVP’s previous work may not be leveraged fully or overlooked entirely. Worse yet, Evergreen’s involvement could be greatly reduced, hampering the community's ability to affect the outcome of development in its own backyard.


Mayor, City Council derail Evergreen Visioning Project

By Bea Baechle
Editor

Call together the Evergreen Visioning Task Force for a meeting and the members could rattle on for hours, months and even years with hundreds of varying viewpoints and implications about the future development of District 8.
Coming to consensus on anything is a monumental task because the stakes are high and the final decisions will permanently alter the landscape of the neighborhoods they live in—the neighborhoods they love.

District 8 Councilmember Dave Cortese broke the stunning news to his Evergreen Visioning Project Task Force that the city council had voted to disband the Task Force and create a new one with appointed members from the Mayor, District 5 and District 7. City of San Jose Planning Director Laurel Prevetti defended the EVP process in a two-hour debate prior to the devastating vote.

Yet ask this same group of 31 community and neighborhood leaders what they feel about the City Council’s April 19 decision to shuffle two years of painstaking work to a brand new Specific Plan Task Force of only 20 members, and an unprecedented EVP unity prevails to counter this.

Then explain that the city council feels this new Specific Plan Task Force should include appointees recommended by Mayor Ron Gonzales, District 5 Councilmember Nora Campos and an interim chief of staff from District 7, currently without a councilmember, and the unity of the EVP Task Force steps up 10 notches to a district wide appeal to reverse the actions.

A turning point for EVP
That’s exactly what happened at the regularly scheduled EVP Task Force meeting April 20.

In the wake of the tsunami that hit Councilmember Dave Cortese at the City Council meeting the previous evening, a bewildered and shell-shocked EVP Task Force met to better understand exactly what had happened and why.

Rather than proceed with the previously planned EVP agenda items, they worked with their newly appointed outside facilitator Eileen Goodwin to field questions, voice opinions and create an action plan moving forward in light of city council vote that basically deemed the group defunct.

At the city council meeting just one night before the EVP Task Force meeting—fully anticipating council acceptance of his update report on the Evergreen Visioning Project—Cortese instead encountered a memorandum crafted by Gonzales and Campos just prior to the council meeting.

The memo expressed concerns about citywide impacts, citywide policy issues and adjoining neighborhood concerns about process and potential impacts.

Further, it recommended that council defer action on the Evergreen Vision Project’s update report and instead create a brand new “Specific Plan Task Force” to include stakeholders who they felt should be directly involved but were not included on the existing EVP Task Force. It also suggested that Campos serve as Vice Chair of the Task Force.

Carpet bagging?
“District 8 neighborhood leaders should advise what happens in District 8, prior to the full city council making their decisions, not some rubber stamp task force led by the mayor and his special interest friends,” said Cortese.

“It’s very disturbing in the sense that it’s extremely unfair to disrespect the work of 31 citizens, and it’s obviously politically motivated,” he added. “To try to morph everything we’ve done to a new process—without including everyone who has been involved—is unprecedented.”

Simply put, by dissolving the EVP Task Force and adopting the more structured Specific Plan Task Force model, 31 representatives from Evergreen will reduce to 20 representatives appointed by the mayor, Campos and a representative from District 7 in addition to Cortese’s recommended appointees.

Do the math: four government officials making recommendations for just 20 seats means that Evergreen representation on a task force determining land use on four parcels of land located in District 8 will be greatly diminished from the 31 members currently serving on the EVP Task Force.

Yet after a heated two-hour debate, the city council voted to defer approval of the EVP update report to look at restructuring the EVP. They supported the mayor’s recommendation with an 8 – 2 vote. Cortese and District 4 Councilmember Chuck Reed cast the only “no” votes.

EVP Task Force rallies around Cortese
Suddenly any past policy and procedural kinks seemed trivial to members of the EVP Task Force.

In a memo drafted by five of its members, they suggested rallying with Cortese to present a unified effort, vision and focus.

“We want Dave to stay actively engaged in driving the community’s agenda,” stated the memo written by Evergreen residents Homing Yip, Jenny Chang, Mark Milioto, Mike Alvarado and Jim Zito. “To accomplish this, we will show Dave we are behind him and articulate his role as advocate for Evergreen and Mt. Pleasant, which he has done well to this point.”

Several EVP Task Force members agreed to meet over the weekend to concisely summarize what had been decided at the last EVP Task Force meeting so the results could be better communicated to the Evergreen community, as well as members of neighboring communities.

They also recommended acknowledging the need for wider community involvement to maintain support for the process and to win broad community support.

“The EVP Task Force must remain united to effectively represent our community and help Dave maintain his effectiveness as the advocate we need,” stated the EVP Task Force’s memo. “Based on the city’s track record, if the city takes over the planning process, the end result may be very undesirable to our and the surrounding communities.”

EVP Task Force reaction
EVP Task Force Alan Covington described the city council move as a “political hijacking.”

Cortese agreed that even with all the facts on the EVP’s side, underlying political power plays are at hand. These include an attempt to distract him from his mayoral campaign and defer credit of the $220 million of developer funds potentially pouring into District 8 to a “new” task force made up of many members outside District 8 development areas.

Bewildered EVP Task Force members expressed their concerns about the city council vote that would dissolve their task force.

EVP Task Force member Ike White commented that the council action begs the question, “How valuable was our work?”

Gordon Lund, another Task Force member, was stunned with the mayor’s concern about converting land previously zoned for industrial use to residential, an issue addressed more than a year ago. “Why did the council bring this up now? Why weren’t they educated? Why is this an issue now?”

Planning Commissioner Jim Zito, an Evergreen resident serving on the EVP Task Force, added, “I’m very surprised by the notion that the city council was kept in the dark about this entire process.”

The city’s Planning Director Laurel Prevetti, who has been prominent at most EVP meetings for the past two years, commented, “There are memos documenting our actions since January of 2004 … but this is the first time there was a formal status report.”

According to the Council District 8 office, three other EVP-related decisions have been made by the full council in the past two years, with the last dated March 2004. A complete documentation of the process, meeting minutes and decisions of the past two years are also available on the city’s Web site.

Mayor’s stance
The mayor’s Communications Director David Vossbrink reiterated that Cortese’s April 18 update was the first formal status report that the full council had seen, “triggering the mayor’s concerns about policy and process, shared and endorsed by the city council.

“These are serious issues that the council has always wrestled with, and to suggest they are merely political dismisses their importance to the entire community,” stated Vossbrink in an e-mail sent to the Times.

He raised a concern about the EVP’s process because the advisory committee appointed by Cortese did not include participants from adjacent neighborhoods and other stakeholders at the table.

“Policy issues include the suggested conversion of 300 acres of industrially-zoned land to potential residential use, which triggers a citywide issue of our economic foundation, long-term job creation and prosperity, and the tradeoffs between jobs and housing both in Evergreen and the city as a whole,” said Vossbrink’s e-mail.

“This is also related to the long-term traffic issues that still must be addressed, both in terms of identifying practical solutions and for funding,” he continued. “Finally, adjacent neighborhoods have raised questions about the suggested distribution of housing densities that they feel might not be equitable.”

He also stated that since Cortese’s report was not the final product, but rather the “first stage of planning,” there is still “much work to be done, and much opportunity to create a plan that is good for Evergreen and for the entire community.”

Developers
Despite the presence of many developer representatives who had been engaged in the EVP process, they remained conspicuously silent during the open comment section of the April 19 city council meeting.

At the EVP Task Force meeting the following night, Robert “Bo” Radanovich of Mission Valley Properties served as the spokesperson for the developers involved with District 8’s four parcels of vacant land. He admitted that the council action places developers in a precarious spot.

“We have an incredible amount of respect for the body of work that’s been done and the relationships that have been made during this process,” said Radanovich. “We may not agree with everything, but that’s not the purpose of this process. It’s not our intention to start all over, and it’s not in our own best interest.”

Yet he was quick to point out his feelings that “we have not completed the work.”

He expressed the developers’ wish to keep the negotiation of the maximum number of housing units in a range up to 5,700 units. Although the EVP Task Force’s recommendation of Feb. 24 was to limit the units to 4,200 units, they agreed to keep it open during this tenuous time.

“Everybody has worked so hard to dot every “i” and cross every “t.” What is the problem?” asked EVP Task Force member Vikki Lang.

“The sad thing is, this is emblematic of the mayor’s administration that has consistently and methodically disempowered the citizens of San Jose,” answered Cortese in a phone interview.

Reverse this course of action

This issue comes back before the Mayor and City Council on Tuesday, May 3, and the most important step Evergreen residents can take is to ATTEND THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING if they oppose the action.

For more information and details on what the EVP Task Force recommends to do in the meantime, click here.