By Robert Haugh

There’s a lot of routine items on the consent calendar on tomorrow’s Council agenda:

An important one is the contract with the Firefighters union, Local 1171.  Our firefighters will be getting a raise:

• Year 1 — 5.76% increase retroactive to December 17, 2017
• $200/mo. additional City contribution per member to the City’s Voluntary Employee’s Benefit Association (VEBA), retroactive to December 17, 2017 in lieu of increasing the City’s contribution to medical plans (as negotiated with other bargaining units)
• Years 2 and 3 – total compensation adjustments to result in 5% above the benchmark agencies’ total compensation survey average

Then the fire (pun intended) works should start.

The City Staff will present information on the November election – including background on past election forums. Why? They’re not happy campers. Here’s what the City Staff wrote:

Due to inquiries from the Council and the public, and in light of misinformation and false accusations in several media outlets, this report is being provided in an effort to set the record straight.

The Santa Clara Weekly was the first one and had the most inaccurate reporting.

The City Staff says the City can’t legally spend resources on political campaign things, like a candidates forum. But they’re working with nonprofit organizations so that they will hold one.

But there’s also a request by Councilwoman Patty Mahan to host a candidates forum for all Santa Clara candidates. The Anthony Becker for Mayor campaign has been making a lot of noise about this. Mahan is a leader of Team Becker so expect some fire (pun intended) works.

• There’s an Informational Report on the Status of Tourism Improvement District Financial Audit. We thought we’d see a final report this month. But according to City Staff, the Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce has not provided all the documents needed. That’s interesting. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. (Final pun).

On a development item, the City Staff picked a developer for the 2330 Monroe Street/San Tomas Expressway site.  It’s Freebird Development Company.

This is the site that the Sobrato Company wanted to build 200 “micro units” for the homeless. But the neighborhood objected. And the project was abandoned.

Good luck to Freebird, especially since they have a really cool name.