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Support San Mateo in saying “no” to Stanford’s bad deal
Posted March 22, 2007
• What’s happening
• Why this is important
• What you can do
We want to share some heartening news on the impasse over the proposal to expand the Alpine Road sidewalk between Junipero Serra and Arastradero Road. The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors is set to vote on Tuesday, March 27th, at 10:00 am on a recommendation from Supervisors Rich Gordon and Jerry Hill to reject Stanford University’s proposal to expand the Alpine Road sidewalk instead of putting the trail on its own land, as required by their General Use Permit. Instead, they recommend Santa Clara County uses the mitigation funds required to be paid by Stanford University for a regional grants program that would be available to San Mateo County, local cities and park districts to spend on building trails elsewhere. We urge you to contact the County Supervisors to lend your support for this recommendation.
What’s happening
The location of Stanford’s new trails on its land has been a major priority of the Committee’s since 2000. Stanford promised to build two trails on its land to make up for development impacts, but is trying to evade building one trail by offering to pay San Mateo County for expanding the Alpine Road sidewalk instead. Santa Clara County approved Stanford’s attempt to change the original deal, without environmental review, so the Committee sued over that decision in a lawsuit that is still pending.
Meanwhile, San Mateo County formed a subcommittee of Supervisors Rich Gordon and Jerry Hill to review Stanford’s offer of $8.4 million to build this trail. After public hearings with local residents and attempting to work with Stanford, the subcommittee recommends that the Board of Supervisors reject the trail and encourage Santa Clara County to instead use the money to create a regional grants program that would build trails in the vicinity of Stanford. San Mateo County is now set to vote on this recommendation on Tuesday, March 27th at 10 am.
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Why this is important
Rejecting the Alpine Road Sidewalk proposal could put an end to a project that would cause significant adverse environmental and community impacts. As envisioned by Stanford, the existing 5–6 foot wide trail would be expanded to a 12 foot wide trail with four more feet of shoulder, causing safety issues where the sidewalk crosses the many private driveways in the Stanford Weekend Acres area, impacts to adjacent sensitive creek and riparian areas, the need to armor the creek banks, as well as cut into a steep hillside to move Alpine Road to make room for the expanded sidewalk.
If Santa Clara County subsequently agrees to create a regional trails grants program and is able to get the $8.4 million in mitigation fees owed by Stanford University sooner rather than the current 2011 deadline, then much better recreational trail projects could be funded and built, providing greater recreational opportunities to nearby residents in more cost-effective and environmentally sustainable ways.
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What you can do
Please contact the San Mateo County Supervisors before Tuesday morning to urge them to support the recommendation of Supervisors Jerry Hill and Rich Gordon to reject Stanford’s offer to build an expanded sidewalk along Alpine Road.
Rich Gordon
Mark Church
Jerry Hill
Rose Jacobs Gibson
Adrienne Tissier
Fax: 650-599-1027
Phone: 650-573-2222
For more information:
You can read the Board Memo from Supervisors Hill and Gordon online. For a copy of the Board agenda for the March 27th meeting visit the Board of Supervisors’ website.
To learn more about the history and background on the Stanford Trails issue, visit the following articles on the Committee’s website:
Thanks for speaking up — your voice does make a difference!
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