Our February 2013 Newsletter

Dear Supporters,

On December 4, 2012 we were invited to a tour of the Civic Center by the Assistant City Manager, Robert Walker.  This is mainly due to the emails you have written to the city council which Mr. Walker reads and takes seriously.  He pointed out the problems with the city hall, south annex and office annexes (“rabbit hutches”) across from the city hall.  Mr. Walker also gave us three studies commissioned by the city in 2002, 2003 and 2009 regarding the civic center and possible renovations to the site.  A report of the tour can be seen at our blog http://cspgs.blogspot.com/.  The studies are available at our NEW Website(!).  This can be reached by typing in: CSPGS.com (no “www” in front) which redirects to https://www.sites.google.com/site/citizenssunnyvalepandgs

One reason for a website was to provide a central location where anyone can go to download the many files of information and presentation that we have accumulated but can’t post on a blog.  These can be accessed at: https://www.sites.google.com/site/citizenssunnyvalepandgs/resource-center

We started out with the 3 documents we borrowed from Mr. Walker which are outside experts’ analyses of the Civic Center issues over the years.  We scanned them in by hand since Mr. Walker did not have electronic forms.  One of the key findings is that the traffic generated by the proposed massive commercial development of the Civic Center would double traffic delays from about 35 seconds per car to 65-75 seconds degrading traffic congestion to the lowest possible rating of F.  More on that later.

The web site is a work in progress.  We are using a template with a lot of sample features pre-filled with obscure Latin.  We would welcome any help in polishing it up.

We proposed to the City Council that a cost/analysis study of a small scale development of a new slightly larger office building to replace the Sunnyvale Office Center (AKA “rabbit hutches”) be considered as a study issue for this year.  Michael introduced this study at the City Council Meeting on January 8, 2013.  Decisions as to which study issues will be selected for the year considered by the City Council on February 1, 2013.  Our proposal for a study issue was selected for further study which required 2 council members to vote for it but ultimately was voted down by the board because City Manager Gary Luebbers claimed that it would be considered in a broader study.

Flyers are still being distributed in the city but if anyone would like to volunteer to help with the distribution, just send us an e-mail.  We certainly could use more help.  Financial contributions to defray the expense of the paper and the printing ink would also be welcome.  We are in the process of adding a paragraph to the flyer to clearly state that our main issue is to preserve the geography of the civic center as it is.  That we are also making suggestions to the city as to the possibilities for renovation to the buildings or, if necessary, for new construction.    The revised newsletter can be seen at our blog.

As an example, the new Lucille and David Packard Foundation building in Los Altos would fit perfectly into the current civic center site as a replacement for one of the buildings.  It’s located at 343 Second St.  You can see it at http://www.packard.org/.  A video is available at http://vimeo.com/45338217#at=0.  We will be suggesting this type of construction at a City Council meeting if the replacement of buildings is necessary.

In the last newsletter we wrote that we were extending an invitation to any council member who would like to meet with us.  We also said that we would be open to any corrections to our flyer.  We received no answer from any council member.