“Throwing a Long Shadow” is the title of a new exhibit opening Sunday at the Los Altos History Museum featuring CGF’s cofounder, the author/environmentalist Wallace Stegner. More information about the exhibit is at the museum website. The Merc has a good article on the man other authors have called the only American author who deserved...
Category: News
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Proposed casino moved away from Santa Clara County
In somewhat-good news for controlling sprawl in Santa Clara County, a proposal to place a Native American casino right across the border in San Benito County has been moved further south, to just north of Hollister. The original location was in an environmentally-sensitive floodplain and wildlife migration corridor shared between the two counties, and was...
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Coastside: Bedford Falls or Pottersville?
Last week’s Half Moon Bay Review includes a thought-provoking editorial by Montara resident Barry Parr, who compares alternate realities for the San Mateo County Coast. This is just the kind of long-range thinking that inspires those of us at Committee for Green Foothills. As the editorial says, together we CAN create the positive vision provided...
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Secret developer access exposed
The Pinnacle newspaper in south Santa Clara County did an in-depth article about the issue CGF exposed – developers are given access to draft environmental documents to review those documents and argue for changes while environmentalists are excluded. Two points we can add here – County staff said giving equal access to environmentalists would be...
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San Jose to worsen the jobs-housing balance
San Jose has long (and justifiably) complained that north Santa Clara County cities would build tax-revenue-increasing business developments while failing to provide tax-revenue-decreasing housing. San Jose and areas south and east are then forced to provide housing for the North County jobs, resulting in sprawl and long commutes. Taking this lesson to heart, San Jose...
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Stanford’s improved finances to affect construction?
There’s been relatively little construction on Stanford campus pursuant to the 2000 General Use Permit, but much of that lull could be attributed to finances. Things may be changing: “The university’s investment returns last year were $1.7 billion. The university’s endowment is now $9.9 billion, up from $8.6 billion a year ago.” We’ll need to...
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News roundup
San Jose is considering a new “Downtown North“. It will have 100,000 jobs, supposedly, and 24,700 new residences. Shades of Coyote Valley where, once again, San Jose is not providing housing to balance all the people it is trying to attract to the region. On the other hand, this development will destroy much less open...
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Local connection to global warming – sardines?
An interesting article in today’s New York Times discusses a newly-discovered connection between the lack of sardines and global warming. It appears that these tiny fish eat, or used to eat, massive amounts of phytoplankton, which are tiny plants floating in ocean currents. With the sardines exploited and overfished, the phytoplankton proliferates, dies, and rots....
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New guidebook for local open space
We just learned of a new guidebook to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District‘s 25 preserves and 200+ miles of trails. “Peninsula Tales & Trails” by David Weintraub ($19.95 from WestWinds Press, available at Kepler’s) promises a preserve locator map, historical, cultural and anecdotal material, including a table with trail use info (bikes, dogs, horses)....
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Pushing for change
CGF has found serious problems with County planning processes, where developers are given access to government documents that are not shared with the public, and given a chance to influence the final version of those documents without input from the public. We have more information about this illegal practice here. We are now beginning to...