Master Comment letter on Coyote Valley Fiscal Analysis

CGF sent the additional letter below, following up on many previous comments on the Coyote Valley fiscal analysis. We sure hope that it gets a thoughtful response by the city. -Brian————June 6, 2006 Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force Re: Master Comment Letter on Draft Fiscal Analysis for CoyoteValley Dear Members of the CVSP Task Force: Per the request by City staff for comments, the Committee for Green Foothills submits the following response that collect our previous concerns together, along with additional comments on the Draft Fiscal Analysis for CoyoteValley. We note that at the Technical Advisory Committee, staff and...

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Coyote Valley Farmland Mitigation Comments

CGF has submitted many comments to San Jose about preserving nearby farmland. Below is one of our comments submitted in relation to Coyote Valley on June 1. -Brian ———–Dear Sal, I hope the City of San Jose can accept these somewhat-belated comments on potential Agriculture Mitigation in Coyote Valley. The Committee for Green Foothills stands by the joint letter previously submitted by environmental groups on the subject, as well as all oral comments we have submitted to date. We would like to add two more items for consideration. First, an appropriate, additional use of fees exacted from developers who convert...

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Election Day tomorrow

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is Election Day, so people should remember to go out and vote! Committee for Green Foothills is a non-partisan organization, and we don’t endorse candidates. We do encourage people to examine the environmental issues in any particular race, however, and keep those in mind as part of the voting decision. The San Jose mayoral race is particularly important – the five front-runners will be whittled down to two candidates (unless one candidate gets an absolute majority). It is no secret that environmentalists have had a difficult relationship with San Jose’s current mayor, so any change is a new...

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Milpitas UGB – getting things straight

Santa Clara County LAFCo’s map of the Urban Service Area for Milpitas doesn’t match the restrictions that voters put in place in 1998. LAFCo met this week and postponed action to bring their map into conformance, but we hope it will happen soon. This will help clarify that sprawl is not allowed past a certain point. Our comment letter is below. -Brian———- May 25, 2006 Santa ClaraCounty LAFCo 70 West Hedding St , 11th Floor, East Wing San Jose, CA95110 Re: LAFCo Meeting of May 31st, Agenda Item #5 – Milpitas Urban Service Area Dear LAFCo Commissioners; The Committee for...

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We are here

Click here, and click on the white box, and that’s where Committee for Green Foothills is located. Wikimapia is a new project allowing people to add notes and comments to a global map. -Brian

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Supporting Water District independence

We sent the following letter in support of separating some leftover connections between the Santa Clara Valley Water District and Santa Clara County government, changing them from semi-separate to separate agencies. Both agencies wanted the change, and it should make accountability clearer. -Brian—————– May 15, 2006 The Honorable Joe Coto California State Assembly State Capitol Room 2170 Sacramento, CA95814 Subject: Notice of Support for AB 2435 (Coto): Santa Clara Valley Water District Dear Assembly Member Coto: The Committee for Green Foothills supports your AB 2435 to amend the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s (District) enabling act (Act). Our organization agrees...

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Preserving farming near San Jose

At the May 15th Environmental Issues Forum for the 2006 San Jose Mayoral Candidates, an event cosponsored by CGF, candidate Michael Mulcahy suggested that some sort of preference should be given to locally-grown food. The Committee for Green Foothills suggested a similar idea last year, and showed how new development could be required to help provide that preference in order to mitigate the loss of farmland in our area. We hope that Mr. Mulcahy, and everyone else concerned with local farms, continue to pursue these ideas. -Brian

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CGF Political Breakfasts

With the wonderful support of the Peninsula Community Foundation, the Committee for Green Foothills was able to put on two “Political Breakfasts” where community members could talk with two respected community leaders about environmental issues. Below is a brief write-up on the Breakfasts, and we intend to add more information to other parts of the CGF website. -Brian———–Political Breakfast: “Ethnic Diversity and Environmental Opportunity”, Tuesday April 4th, with featured speaker, Santa Clara County Supervisor Blanca Alvarado. Supervisor Alvarado talked about the importance of environmental issues to all communities, regardless of ethnicity. She referred to the statewide problem of the “fiscalization...

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More about Coyote Valley fiscal problems

Last week, we gave San Jose a copy of the previous blog post on the problem of unrealistic fiscal assumptions used to make Coyote Valley fiscally responsible, together with the short letter below. -Brian ——————————— May 8, 2006 Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force Re: Draft Fiscal Analysis for CoyoteValley assumes housing prices will increase faster than income indefinitely Dear Members of the CVSP Task Force: The Committee for Green Foothills submitted comments last month on the Draft Fiscal Analysis for CoyoteValley. Please see the attachment that details the reason why a major expense – housing prices – cannot forever...

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The problem with extending a trend forever

The Draft Coyote Valley Fiscal Report has a problem with extending a trend line indefinitely. It says that housing prices will increase at a rate of 3% above inflation indefinitely, for 50-60 years. This results in a similar increase in property tax receipts, which is then used to claim that Coyote will result in a fiscal surplus for San Jose. However, the report makes no prediction for increases in median household income. Fortunately, we found useful data here: income rose 10% over 10 years, or slightly less than 1% annually. You might see the problem already – if income increases...

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