By Robert Haugh
Tomorrow’s Santa Clara City Council meeting has several interesting items on the agenda.
Here’s a list of agendized items:
- Closed session — Public Employee Performance Evaluation — City Attorney
- Proclamation of March as Youth Arts Month
- Proclamation of March as Red Cross Month
- Public Hearing: Actions to Allow the Development of 1,792 Residential Units and Associated On- and Off-Site Improvements on Property at 2518 Mission College Boulevard, including an Addendum to the Freedom Circle Future Focus Area Plan Environmental Impact Report and Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program, General Plan Amendment, Rezone, and a Vesting Tentative Subdivision Map
- Informational Report on Super Bowl LX – Spring 2025
- Public Hearing: Adoption of a Resolution Ordering the Abatement of a Nuisance Consisting of Growing Weeds in Association with the County Weed Abatement Program for 2025.
- Public Hearing – Adopt a resolution approving the California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA) issuance of tax-exempt bonds relating to the financing of a 59-unit multifamily rental housing project for low-income households at 3941 Stevens Creek Boulevard.
- Adoption of a General Plan Amendment to Incorporate the Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Program into the Safety Element of the City’s General Plan.
Brian offers a good summary. The city manager is a big spender and there’s no public scrutiny on his expenses. Remember how the former administration got criticized for having filled four previously budgeted positions (under Julio and Rajeev) at the assistant/deputy city manager level? Word around city hall is that Jovan is going to add a sixth assistant/deputy city manager and spends generously all around. Why does he need so many execs? Is he really that incompetent that he needs six, plus the directors, to manage a mid-sized city? Where is the outage from residents for his overspending?
The CM needs to make up for the incompetence of some of his hires. Have you listened to Chuck baker give a stadium authority report and try to answer questions that the CM seems to end up answering?
The Super Bowl staff report reveals that the Stadium Authority public dollars will pay for at least some of the public safety costs of the Super Bowl preparations: “The Stadium Authority covered the estimated balance of $32,610 to support additional training of public safety personnel.” Other parts of the report indicate that additional unreimbursed public dollars have been spent on the two City Manager’s office junkets to last year’s Super Bowl in Las Vegas and this year’s to New Orleans. It also looks like no costs incurred prior to July 1, 2024 will be reimbursed. Remember all those political hit pieces about the former City Manager’s trip to Paris on the public’s dime? Why are this City Manager’s publicly funded junkets exempt? Could it be because his trips are in service to Santa Clara’s overlord, Jed York?