By Robert Haugh
At its December 17th Special Council Meeting, the Santa Clara City Council approved setting aside over $20 million to move the current City Hall.
According to multiple city staffers familiar with the plan, City Manager Jovan Grogan is working with developers to move the civic center campus to the Oracle campus at the old Agnews Hospital site.
Grogan has discussed swapping land with Valley Oak Partners, the developer who has an option on the Oracle campus.
Valley Oak had planned to build a total of 584 housing units, 120 affordable apartments, 416 townhomes, and 48 single-family homes. But much of that acreage will be used in the proposed City Hall land swap.
That plan drew criticism from a Santa Clara downtown resident and leader, David Kertes.
“This is bad for the downtown effort. (Downtown Councilmember) Suds Jain made a terrible mistake,” said Kertes.
“I agree 100% with Mary Grizzle and Dan Ondrasek that if the City Hall is moved, it should be moved downtown onto city-owned land to jumpstart the reclaiming of our downtown.”
At the special City Council meeting, Jain suggested that the money could be used to relocate the City Hall to downtown.
But multiple sources said Jain is familiar with the Oracle campus plan championed by Grogan and that there are no plans to help downtown.
Grogan has been engaged in meetings with the developer for over a year. He’s met multiple times with Doug Rich of Valley Oak Partners.
Grogan has also briefed over a dozen city employees and leaders about the plan.
“He’s personally super excited about the site and the plan,” one source briefed by Grogan said. “It’s legacy stuff.”
At the December 17 meeting, Mayor Lisa Gillmor was the lone vote against the $20 million land swap proposal.
“The City Manager and the City Council know where this $20,350,000 amount (is going and) where it surfaced,” said Gillmor. “And it has nothing to do with downtown.”
“We haven’t had any public participation in this at all. So I think it’s disingenuous,” she said. “We haven’t done it professionally and transparently with our public.”
According to City policy, this allocation of funds was done outside of the normal budget process. So, for approval, it required a super majority, or five votes of the Council.
It passed 5-1, with only Gillmor opposed. Vice Mayor Kelly Cox was absent from the meeting.
“Councilmember Suds Jain was the swing vote that put a dagger in the heart of the reclaiming our downtown effort,” said Kertes.
Mayor Gillmor nailed it: “We haven’t had any public participation in this at all. So I think it’s disingenuous,” she said. “We haven’t done it professionally and transparently with our public.”
And this comment is from someone (me) who will probably benefit from this move.
Good idea or bad idea, it should done more transparently.
I’m going to miss Mayor Gillmor when her term is over. We need to clone her.
100% agree on clone! I’m very, very worried.
Once again the public is completely left out of a major decision-making process. And the clueless Council majority goes along with this attack on transparency and the right of the people to know what their government has been doing with public resources. Disgusting!
Question: Is this where part of our recently approved bond money is going?
Observation: This would move Santa Clara City Hall further away from the geographical center of the city. Why is this good?
Jimmie Viso has returned to inhabit Suds Jain!
I feel sorry for Mary and Dan. They seem terribly naive.
Grogan and Jain both need to lose their jobs. Just horrible for Santa Clara. This plan has obviously been in the works for a while and explains why nothing has gone on with rebuilding the original downtown area.