By Robert Haugh
For two full days last week, the Council reviewed a long list of priorities for the year.
Listed below are the top items that they’ve asked City staff to spend time on researching or implementing. We’ll write about some of them in the coming weeks. It looked like Councilwomen Teresa O’Neill and Kathy Watanabe were the most successful in advancing their priorities.
Councilwoman Karen Hardy and Councilman Raj Chahal wanted the Council to explore expanding the stadium curfew. That’s interesting because both of them publicly supported maintaining the curfew when they ran for office. Their effort failed to get a Council majority. This is an interesting topic we’ll write more about.
Members of Reclaiming Our Downtown spoke a lot during the public testimony time. They want the Council to make their project a top priority soon. We’ll write more about this. More information should be coming in from staff and consultants in the coming months.
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Research noise at Mineta San Jose International Airport and options
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Explore “responsible construction” ordinance
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Conduct a capacity study for the city workforce
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Explore collaborative engagement software
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Explore partnership with Catalyze SV
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Reinstate International Exchange Commission
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Ensure community access to Levi’s Stadium
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Explore permit parking for northside residents
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Ensure more revenue from non-NFL events
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Research traffic mitigation
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Explore a community benefit policy
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Add arts as a priority
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Engage in proactive policing
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Research RV parking options
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Address homelessness
[…] was surprised to read your report on February 4th, about the City Council’s Goal Setting meeting and how Ms. Hardy said that she wanted to explore […]
Sam Kumar? who’s he? oh yeh the guy that ran against Karen Hardy. The one that moved into the district to run despite owning property in Fremont. and making out he lived here – when in truth he just rented a place to look like he did live here. Carpet Bagger is what they call this.
While Ms Hardy may be open to looking at the curfew it’s not the same as saying she will be in favor of it.
The North Side and the Whole City got screwed on that Niners Deal. Let’s face it it was a bad deal to start with and who were involved in selling their wares? Ms Patty, Ms Lisa, Mr Matthews, Ms Kathy, Ms Debbie, Master Caserta, and Kevin and a few others that have moved away after the chaos arrived. Ms Hardy has stood up to the niners. you and others come down on her but don’t on those that brought you the red and gold? No gold in our bank that’s for sure. Just bills, heart ache, law suits, traffic and no recognition for our city – after all even the Mayor of San Fransisco was sprouting about the niners before and after the super bowl because it’s still their team what a joke.
I say let them investigate and come back with honest answers. But while they are doing that have we seen the books yet from the niners? I doubt it.
Yet we continue to see their dirty dealings in our city funding activity to discredit our Mayor etc. Its ok for Ms Lisa to change direction / mind but its not ok for Ms Hardy?
lol you guys should start looking at those two fingers pointing back at yourselves before you start pointing the finger at Ms Hardy. Hypocrites. And don’t forget who championed the idea of having a stadium in our city … not Ms Hardy.
PS I take it Kumar thinks he’s running for council again? go ahead spend your money even buy property in the area if you can afford it but don’t have Stompolis as your campaign manager …. or write your letters to the editor.
I said many times during the campaign that I was open to looking at the curfew in a limited way. I have been consistent. I worked hard against Measure J because I saw many problems down the road. We are experiencing many of those consequences now and I don’t like being right. As a council member, because the stadium is a reality, I need to explore ways to make it work to the city’s benefit. The voters were the ones who “threw under the bus” the Northside residents who live close the the stadium and are directly impacted. I lived in that area in the 1980’s and watched the 49er’s build their training camp from my window. I felt then that the rest of the city was unaware of the northside challenges. Airport noise is the biggest complaint from the neighbors in that area from a recent survey, the airport curfew is 11 pm the stadium is 10 pm. I am choosing to listen to all opinions, keep an open mind and not accuse others of wrongdoing.
Karen Hardy U-turn on Stadium Curfew, Changing her strong campaign promise is truly appalling!.
I was surprised to read your report on Feb. 4th, about the city Council’s Goal Setting meeting and how Council member Karen Hardy said that she wanted to explore changing the stadium curfew. I thought may be you reported it incorrectly.
So I was even more surprised to read a few days later in your site’s comments that Ms. Hardy confirmed the accuracy of your report. She even wrote this line: ” I said many times during the campaign that I was open to looking at the curfew in a limited way. I have been consistent.”
I ran against Ms. Hardy for City Council Dist # 3 in 2018. I respect her. But on the stadium curfew issue, she is not even close to being consistent with her campaign promise. I remember her being strongly against it. To double check, I went back and looked at the questionnaire we filled out for Stand up for Santa Clara.
Here’s the question we were asked;
The 49ers want to change the weekday curfew that ends concerts at 10 p.m. to help residents who need to get to bed at a reasonable time to go to school or work the next day. The weekend curfew is 11 p.m. The team says they, as the stadium manager, and the city will make more money by changing the curfew. The residents say just because a concert ends at 10 p.m. doesn’t mean it’s quiet that early since it takes a couple of hours for crowds to clear out. Would you vote to uphold or change the weekday curfew?
We both said no. But Ms. Hardy was strongly opposed. Her answer was even stronger than mine. Here’s Ms. Hardy’s full answer:
My first reaction to the change in weekday curfew is “Over my dead body.” No, I don’t think the weekday curfew should be changed. Also according to Measure J, any change in the agreement would need to go to a vote of the residents citywide.
The questionnaire and our answers are accessible via the link https://www.standupforsantaclara.com/ for anyone to see and double check for themselves.
I’m disappointed in Ms. Hardy’s U-turn on this important curfew issue. I wonder if she would have made such a irresponsible move if the stadium were located in her Dist. # 3 neighborhood? I don’t think so… Ms. Hardy used to live in the Dist. # 1 neighborhood in the 1980’s and she ought to know better what it entails to be living in the neighborhood with all the noise factors. Ms. Hardy failed to show empathy to the residents of Dist. # 1 and she should extend her apology to all residents for going back on her campaign promises.
I’m further disappointed in Ms. Hardy’s U-turn on the stadium curfew issue. May be she wrote “Over my dead body” because she wanted to get votes in 2018. During the campaign, I never heard her say that she wanted to take a look at changing the curfew in a “limited way”. Unfortunately, this is why a lot of people don’t vote. They believe politicians say one thing to get elected and then when they get into office they change their positions, especially if a powerful lobbying group is behind it.
I still support the stadium curfew. I understand that the 49ers aren’t even paying the City what they’ve promised from stadium revenues. That’s another reason not to fatten their wallets’. I think Ms. Hardy and the City Council should focus on collecting money from the 49ers as a top priority. The high order of important thing is that we need to put our residents first. The 49ers are not struggling financially. They don’t need the City Council’s help to make more money at the stadium especially if it means making life miserable for our residents.
I Sincerely hope MS. Hardy will change her current position on curfew and be good to her campaign promises of 2018.
Sam Kumar
2/10/2020
Partnering with catalyzed sv means more parking and traffic issues. With their ultra high density agenda it’s not believable they care about existing residents. This is no different than the City partnering with big developers. A bunch of BS stack and pack
dressed as placemaking.
Affordable housing with a 10% discount. At best a $2700 studio. Move in the family but watch out for the flu.
Turncoats are feathering their nests. NIMDWC not in my district who cares. Someone needs to take over for Patty.
Councilpersons Hardy And Chahal going back on their word on stadium curfew. At least now we know you can’t trust these two. This is one example with district seats. They don’t care about the people on the north side, not their area. The passage of measure C will give the north side two council vote instead of one. Better representation for north side and other district issues.
Mini-mayors! Getting diretion from the best. Patti mahan and 49ers. say what you want. They opposed stadium but want to open curfew concern? they are examples of support for measure C. thank you for opening up your hypocrite mouths!
I am glad they are finally starting to realize that we need to lift the curfew to have the stadium make money. There is no reason the north side residents should hold the rest of the city hostage by trying to prevent events at the stadium during the week!
It would be a shame to partner with Catalyze SV, . They are basically a special interest group that wants to push high density housing, anywhere and everywhere. They are not doing this by changing the minds of the people affected but through political influence. It would be a mistake for the council to partner with them, it would be like partnering with a developer, IMHO.
Parking and traffic issues are mentioned several times in goal setting. A partnership with Catalyze SV will create more parking and traffic issues. This group is too political to partner with a municipality. We might as well as take the lead from other screaming liberals such as Scott Weiner, Gavin Newsom, or Sam Liccardo.
To further diminish SB50, https://www.livablecalifornia.org/
Thank you for your reporting. Your site is my go-to for local Santa Clara news.