Recent court rulings against San Jose and beating the VTA to the
ballot with a proposed sales tax give county supervisors power over
numerous local issues
Morgan Hill – Santa Clara County is on a winning streak.
In the last two weeks, the county prevailed over San Jose in an ugly dispute over the county fairgrounds, won an important court ruling in a case about San Jose development and beat the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority to the ballot with a sales tax measure. It’s enough to make long-time political observers say that the county’s new very heavy gorilla is … the county.
“There is an ebb and flow, but they’ve always been the 900-pound gorilla,” said former county supervisor Rod Diridon. “The policy was never to overtly flex that muscle because typically it wasn’t necessary. But when the muscle needs to be flexed, people need to realize that five supervisors don’t have as much visibility as other elected officials, but they’re very powerful.”
And lately, unbeatable. If voters approve a half-cent sales tax increase in June, county supervisors will gain a huge say in if, when and how BART is extended to San Jose.
In late February, the county beat back San Jose’s efforts to stop construction of a concert venue at the fairgrounds, and a judge ruled recently that the city must help the county cover the costs of increased traffic from development of San Jose’s North First Street.
The county has asked for as much as $70 million to settle those disputes, and it’s leaders hope that San Jose, home to more than half of the county’s 1.6 million residents, is ready to come to the table on issues before they end up in court.
“San Jose has gotten three whacks on the head and they need to pay attention,” said County Executive Pete Kutras. “It foreshadows what we’re doing in our discussions with them and the challenges we’re going to make to them on their Coyote Valley development. The board of supervisors is a force to be reckoned with and they need to listen. They can’t just wave their hands and ignore what’s being said.”
When Diridon became a supervisor in 1975, the county and city had a good rapport. Then came San Jose’s redevelopment agency.
Widely credited with bringing some luster to San Jose’s downtown, the agency took the shine off its relationship with the county. The county sued the city over its use of redevelopment funds.
The parties reached a settlement in 2001, but relations have been tense ever since, mostly because the redevelopment agency cuts into the county’s tax revenue for a sum of about $18 million a year.
“When I was a member of the [San Jose City] Council, there were some problems, but not as much hostility,” said Supervisor Jim Beall, who joined the board of supervisors in 1995. “In the last decade, San Jose has done a lot. They have enormous resources and been able to do most of the larger-scale projects with redevelopment funds.”
But the city balked at the county’s plan to revitalize the fairgrounds, located within San Jose city limits, with a concert venue. In 2004, San Jose sued the county, charging that it was in violation of the 2001 redevelopment agreement.
The county prevailed in February, but the suit left a lot of bruises. Kutras said the suit was the city’s selfish effort to restrict development to its own downtown.
“It was a very cynical attempt to stop the theater,” Kutras said. “They are understandably trying to feed one particular downtown at the expense of all the other downtowns, but when it begins to affect regional decision making, I think it is wrong.”
But more than the setbacks in court, Beall suggested that San Jose is scuffling from the troubles of Mayor Ron Gonzales. Gonzales admitted last year he made an improper deal to secure garbage contracts for the city. With the mayor removed from a number of his appointed positions, and three city council members vying to replace him as Mayor later this year, San Jose has something of a leadership void.
It may not be a coincidence that the VTA’s plan to build BART began to come apart just as the mayor was swallowed in scandal.
And while VTA board members dickered over a possible sales tax measure, county supervisors swooped in with their own.
“It’s a combination of the board being pretty assertive in getting things done and the mayor’s weakness,” Beall said. “The mayor, his power has been watered down quite a bit by the various problems he’s had, the scandals. San Jose has a divided opinion because three of them are running for mayor.”
Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez is one of those candidates. She also replaced Gonzales as head of the VTA.
Last week, she brokered a deal to create a new spending plan for BART while trying to meet transportation needs in the rest of the county, a plan that likely will ultimately depend on the cooperation of county supervisors.
“My great hope is that the county and the city do their level best to work together because we represent the same people,” she said. “We have the same responsibility to help people. I think the very best way to improve our relationship is to communicate. We need to talk to each other as often as possible.”
The biggest issue on the horizon is the city’s development plan for Coyote Valley. San Jose wants to put 25,000 homes, 50,000 jobs and 80,000 residents in the largest rural area between the city and Morgan Hill. Some of the land in the Coyote Valley plan belongs to the county.
And a development of that size will inevitably have huge implications for South County, not unlike the concerns over North First Street that ended up in court.
Councilwoman Nancy Pyle, who replaced Gonzales as co-leader of the Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force, said the committee, which has been meeting since 2002, proves the city and county can work together. Supervisor Don Gage sits on the task force, as does a representative from the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority. Gage could not be reached for comment.
“We both have a vested interest,” Pyle said. “This is something we absolutely need to cooperate on and work out as many problems as we can. There’s a huge desire on our part, and on the part of the county, to get this worked out before we get the plan completed.”
