JANUARY 2009
VOLUME1II/ ISSUE 1
| DISTRICT 3 | JANUARY 2009 |
VOLUME1II/ ISSUE 1 |
|
||
|
|
A Midterm Exam At the halfway mark of my four year term, we find ourselves caught in the conflicting winds of our deepening economic crisis and glimpses of hope from changes in the national political landscape. More locally, it seems an appropriate time to take stock in our efforts thus far; to assess priorities, to measure progress in reaching key goals, and to make mid-course corrections. Here are five key priorities that I’ve articulated repeatedly within our office and in the community:
In these difficult times, I’ve focused on opportunities to bring more jobs and resident-serving retail into the district. With the recent commitment of Safeway to come to Tower 88, we’ll have a major grocery store open downtown within months, to complement Su Vianda and Zannotto’s. Mayor Reed and I have sought to save construction jobs by authoring measures to allow fee deferrals on high-rise residential projects in the core, and to accelerate new developments in North San Jose. Mayor Reed and I have also spearheaded an effort to push development west of Market Street with the Peralta Plan, and we’ll soon have a council vote on the retail element of that Plan, the urban market at San Pedro Square. We’ve engaged businesses within the Spanish-speaking Willow Street district to form an association to gain a voice at City Hall, and we’ve invested in significant street, parking, and aesthetic improvements in Japantown, where several new businesses have opened.
In 2007, I spearheaded an effort to create a citywide inclusionary housing policy in San José, an eighteen-month effort that ultimately succeeded because of the support of the South Bay Labor Council and many community advocates. As a result, San José will become the largest city in the nation to ensure that developers make a percentage (15%) of new units affordable citywide, or pay fees to support affordable development nearby.
As a transit advocate, I’ve long sought to extend BART into downtown San Jose, a consistent effort of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG). Working with Carl Guardino and his team, we won approval of Measure B last November to finance the expansion. Construction on the first phase will begin in Alameda County this year. During my tenure on the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) board, we’ve increased bus service frequency and ridership in the downtown by cutting less efficient routes elsewhere. I’ve led initiatives to boost bicycle usage downtown and to embark on a regional pilot “bike share” project. As the VTA Board’s Vice Chair, I’ll continue pushing cycling and other alternatives to the internal combustion engine.
Our downtown benefited from the collaborative efforts of the Valley Medical Foundation and Working Partnerships last November to pass Measure A, which (in addition to helping rebuild the Valley Medical Center) will add $50 million to our effort to expanded primary and urgent care in our downtown core, particularly for the uninsured and for Medi-Cal recipients. We’re working actively with the Gardner Health Center to expand facilities and services at a site on East Santa Clara Street, and we continue negotiations with other potential health partners with an interest in locating downtown.
We’ve focused on facilitating the empowerment of our neighborhood associations and the democratization of city governance. Through monthly meetings with our neighborhood leaders in the Neighborhood Advisory Group (NAG), we’ve sought to prioritize our energies. The NAG has resulted in a community-based budgeting process for capital spending on district parks and community amenities, and we’ve identified priority lists for traffic calming needs in each neighborhood. With NAG leaders advocating at Council, we convinced my colleagues to repair and re-open three neighborhood pools. We’ve spearheaded Measure M, a successful citywide measure to boost nonprofit and private-led endeavors in our community centers and parks. Our office also facilitated a neighborhood-led solar “bulk-buy” project that helped dozens of downtown residents obtain discounts on installing solar panels on their homes. There’s more to come as well, as our neighborhood leaders will soon embark on a district-wide effort to engage adult mentors for at-risk kids in our community. As we move forward through this time of severe economic challenges, what should our priorities include in the remaining two years of this term? Please let us know, by emailing me at sam.liccardo@sanjoseca.gov. Sincerely, Sam Liccardo |
Contact Us D3 Staff |
Check Before You Burn – Winter Spare the Air
Green Gardener Program Graduates 60 Green Thumbs!
Safeway Calls Tower 88 Home
|
E-Waste Collection to Benefit San Jose High Academy
Supoort Your Local Branch Library - Joyce Ellington Support our newest downtown branch library and attend an upcoming program. On Wednesdays, starting at 6:30pm, Joyce Ellington Library will host bilingual family story time. It is a great opportunity to spend quality time with your family while listening to classic stories in an interactive setting. The event is free. In addition, Joyce Ellington is hosting Wii Tournaments for children and teens at 4pm on Friday afternoons. Tournament games include “SuperSmash Bros Brawl,” “Wii Sports,” “MarioKart” and “Guitar Hero III” and all will be played on a big screen. This event is also free. Joyce Ellington Library is located at 491 E. Empire Street, in between 10th and 11th Street. Parking is available behind the library building. For more information, please call 808-3043 or click here. Blendz Grand Opening Downtown is proud to welcome its newest business, Blendz, opening at 132 E. San Fernando (San Fernando and Fourth Street next to Santa Clara County Federal Credit Union). The restaurant will serve, “fun fresh food” including breakfast panini’s, burritos, salads, smoothies, and special energy blends. Blendz also caters. The restaurant is now open! For more information you can contact them at 268-0668 or www.blendz.com. 360 Residences Construction Update
|
Safety in the Home Three adults and five children were hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning in December, caused by a generator running in the basement of their home in unincorporated San Mateo County, a fire official said. A mother and her two children have been hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning after they used a charcoal grill to heat their Southern California home. These are examples of very tragic accidents that could have been avoided.
CO poisoning can be prevented by proper care and use of household equipment. CO alarms can provide early detection if CO leaks or accumulation occurs. Both are important for your safety. CO alarms are different from smoke alarms, and have different functions. CO alarms do not provide early warning of a fire. Smoke alarms do not provide early warning of CO exposure. Your home needs both CO and smoke alarm protection. Symptoms of CO poisoning are similar to symptoms of the flu, and can include headache, dizziness, nausea and shortness of breath. To distinguish between symptoms of flu and CO poisoning - if you feel better after leaving home and then worse again when you return, it may be CO exposure causing the symptoms. If you suspect that CO is leaking in your home, open windows and doors to ventilate the rooms, or in severe cases of CO exposure, evacuate the home. If you suspect CO poisoning in your home, call the appropriate responding agency, usually your local fire department or 9-1-1. Keep all emergency response numbers posted by every telephone. Many households run generators during a power outage and homeowners should take extra precautions to avoid injury. Gasoline or diesel fuel powered generators can produce potentially deadly levels of carbon monoxide and should be operated only in well-ventilated, covered, unheated areas – never inside. You should always practice extreme caution when using a generator to power your home. Before using a generator, make sure you have installed a carbon monoxide (CO) alarm near sleeping areas to alert you in the event of increased levels of CO in your home. Never connect a generator to the home’s electrical system; instead, plug what you want to power directly into the generator. Always follow the manufacturer’s guidelines and maintenance schedule. For additional information on other home safety topics, please contact either State Farm Agent Beatriz Quezada (www.quezadaagency.com) or Spartan Keyes NAC Resident Rudy Rodriguez at rjrpka@gmail.com.
|
Neighbors in the Chambers
From Idea to Action – February 21st - outlines the ways in which an idea can make its way to a city council meeting. This training was developed by the Office of the City Clerk, and will provide all the fundamentals of knowing where you can “plug-in” to make a difference and how ideas become policy. City Council Meeting 101 – March 21st - takes you through the components of a council meeting as well as providing tools for effective advocacy. This training is led by the Neighborhood Development Center and the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative. This section helps you understand the best ways to effect change and make a difference, while using examples of current neighborhood advocacy. The Effective Advocate – April 18th - uses the information from the previous classes to provide an interactive session designed to help improve your advocacy skills and foster community engagement. This training was developed by neighborhood leaders and will engage participants by taking a current issue which affects neighborhoods and move it from an idea to a mock city council meeting. For CAP grant applicants, if one or more representative(s) from your neighborhood attend all three sessions, you will receive credit for two CAP classes. These trainings will all take place from 10am - Noon in the Council Chambers at City Hall. Parking is available in the 4th Street Garage on 4th and Santa Clara Street. For more information or to reserve your spot, contact Ernest Guzman, of the Neighborhood Development Center at 723-4114 or ndc@sanjoseca.gov. |
It’s a great day to live in San Jose! Here are just a few of the events happening right in the heart of our City. For more detailed information on any of the events below, please click here. MACLA Presents Madhouse Rhythm Joshua Walters' humerous tale delves into the mind of a man in the throes of a psychotic breakdown. Walters fuses his personal experience with a mix of vital urban art forms including beatbox, spoken word and hip hop theater. For more information, call 408-649-1968 or visit www.maclaarte.org . Lunar New Year Celebration Performances, activities and exhibits celebrating the Lunar New Year. Visit www.cdm.org for more information. Book Signing & Discussion Come hear from bestselling author, Jean Pfaelzer, present a slide show talk on her book Driven Out Roundups and Resistance of Early Chinese Americans. The talk emphasizes how the first Chinese Americans, facing violence and vigilantes, stood up for their civil rights. A book signing and light refreshments will follow the program. For more information, call 408-808-2397. Educating Change by Empowering Parents Workshop This workshop focuses on educating parents as to the opportunities for their children to go to college. Dr. Darlene Willis, educational consultant, motivational speaker and founder of Empowering Parents, will be present. The event is being hosted by East Side Union High School. To reserve your spot, call 408-977-4188. "Out on a Limb" Exhibit Opens A 1,200 square foot exhibit promoting outdoor exploration and nature play will debut at the Children's Discovery Museaum. The exhibit is designed and built onsite and will then tour North America as part of the Youth Museaums Exhibit Collaborative. Fore more information, visit www.cdm.org. "Beat the Statistics" Youth Conference The City's Youth Comission will soon host the 2nd Annual Youth Conference called "Beat the Statistics." Youth and teens encouraged to attend. For more information, please call Betty Montoya at 408-793-5559 or email betty.montoya@sanjoseca.gov. |
In an effort to make information more readily available to residents, the City’s Environmental Services website (
Last month, 30 landscape professionals proudly added their names to a list of graduates of the Santa Clara Valley Green Gardener Program, sponsored by the San Jose’s Environmental Services Department. With a total of 60 graduates after its first year, and a waiting list of applicants for the program, the Green Gardener Program became the third of its kind offered in California in 2008. There is also a bilingual Green Gardener Program which graduated 19 Spanish-speaking participants. The program aims to promote integrated pest management, resource conservation, and pollution prevention practices in the local landscape industry. Currently, the program is seeking grant funding from the State so the program can continue. More information, including a complete list of Green Gardeners in Santa Clara County, can be found at 
After several months of negotiation, and through a global economic collapse, Safeway has committed to occupy the 25,000 square foot space in the Tower 88 residential development at 2nd and San Fernando Streets. It is estimated the new Safeway will bring approximately 77 new, on-going jobs, and bring a net economic impact of $14 million a year to the local economy. During the five month construction period, it is estimated that an additional 142 jobs will be created. Tower 88 has public parking under the building, and serves as another milestone towards making downtown a vibrant place to live, while meeting the needs of the downtown residents, workers, and visitors.
If you have electronics to recycle, San Jose High Academy will host an E-Waste Collection Drive on February 7th, 2009 from 9am-4pm. Items accepted at the event are: televisions, computer monitors, computers, laptops, keyboards, printers, mice, hard drives, fax machines, microwave ovens, DVD players, vcrs, cables and cords, telephones, radios, shredders, stereo components, power supplies, tape and zip drives, oscilloscopes, pc boards, lab equipment, optical drives, cell phones, and other miscellaneous equipment. The benefits of this recycling drive will go to the San Jose High Academy Parent, Teacher, and Student Association. For more information, please 
As downtown awaits its newest highrise, The 360 Residence, currently under construction at 360 South Market Street, there will be some extended construction hours and road closures. The project will have extended construction hours and a street closure on San Salvador Street, between Market and First Street, daily from 7am until 6p.m. until Tuesday, February 3rd. The street must be closed so that the exterior service elevator can be dismantled and the building siding be installed. Beyond the regular Monday through Friday work hours; this stage of development requires that extended work occur on Saturday January 31st and Sunday February 1st from 8am to 6pm.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a deadly gas that is difficult to detect because it is odorless and invisible. As a result, it is known as “the silent killer.” According to the CDC, 450 people die and nearly 21,000 CO exposures occur each year. CO is produced by fuel-burning appliances and equipment in our homes. If you have heating, cooking or power equipment that uses fuels such as oil, natural gas, coal, wood, propane, gasoline, etc., then your home is at risk for potential CO poisoning. Homes with attached garages are also at risk, because vehicles left running in the garage can cause CO to seep into the home. 
Neighbors in the Chambers is a three-part training, created as a joint effort with neighborhood leaders, the Neighborhood Development Center – Strong Neighborhoods Initiative and the Office of the City Clerk. This training is designed to give neighbors the tools to become more effective and informed advocates for their communities. It will help explain and clarify the policy making process, and allow participants to become more comfortable engaging city government and elected officials. Here are the upcoming trainings;