Shell Game or Prudent Planning? The latest Santa Clara RDA money shuffle

Despite the ostensible urgency that demanded an emergency meeting of the Santa Clara RDA/Stadium Authority Monday to transfer $4.5 million to a SF 49ers business entity called Stadco, no one seems to know who called the emergency. 


"[I] Can't pinpoint exactly who was the driving force," is how one member of the City staff -- who have been working on the details of the resolution round-the-clock since Thursday -- answered a direct question from Jamie McLeod. Details of the 26-page proposal -- plus about 50, mostly critical, emails -- were not made public until 5:10 p.m. Monday afternoon. 

Despite the fact that no one is quite clear whose idea it was, the City Council was crystal clear in approving it; with Council Members Lisa Gillmor, Pat Kolstad, Pat Mahan, Jamie Matthews, and Kevin Moore voting in favor, and Will Kennedy and Jamie McLeod opposing. "This is an excellent document," said Council Member Kolstad in his ringing endorsement of the proposal.



Predevelopment Agreement for Stadium Site Infrastructure

The move is the latest in a series of efforts to shield money that the City has allocated to redevelopment agency (RDA) projects. Like many other RDAs, Santa Clara is attempting to protect control over RDA assets by transferring them to city government. However, as the legislation continues to evolve, some fear that transfers between municipal agencies may not secure the assets. Their logic is that the only way to protect RDA money may be to put it in private -- not public -- hands. 

The proposal currently on the table in Sacramento moves control of redevelopment assets to currently unspecified local "successor agencies." And those successor agencies are not necessarily city governments. This raises the specter of successor agencies selling parks, libraries and fire stations to private owners.

Further, it's difficult to pinpoint just how the tax increment pie will be sliced, should the RDAs shut down. (Tax increments are the central funding mechanism for redevelopment, and divert the increase in tax revenues resulting from redevelopment back to the RDA). Presumably, after the first year -- where money will flow back to the state to close the budget deficit -- any revenue above what's needed to pay off debt will be divided by the same formula that is used for distributing other tax revenue. 

What won't happen is that all the RDA assets will flow into municipal coffers, although school districts will see more revenue. Combined with California's zany school district boundaries, this fans the fires of  a zero-sum competition between school districts and municipal governments as each vies for a bigger slice of a diminishing pie. 

For example, if the San Jose RDA is abolished, Santa Clara Unified School District will receive its proportional share of north San Jose property taxes. Currently, those property taxes are diverted by the San Jose RDA, leaving SCUSD to deal with a potential doubling of its student population with no additional revenue. Either SCUSD loses or San Jose 

Santa Clara voters approved a ballot measure last June to go forward with a 49ers stadium project. However, the Stadium Authority and Stadco are still negotiating the project's terms and conditions and  the complex financing plan for construction has yet to be completed or approved. Should the project fall through, "the advanced funds that are spent for makeready work will not be recoverable," explains City staff analysis of the measure.

The "predevelopment funding" aims "to ensure that the $4 million previously earmarked for this project, as well as the project tax increment are protected and are used for the purposes which the Council has identified and the voters have confirmed," said Deputy City Manager Carol McCarthy, in presenting the proposed resolution.

The $4.5 million that the Santa Clara Stadium Authority (SA) will advance to Stadco will pay for "make ready" infrastructure such as demolition, clearing and grading, design, relocating high voltage transmission lines, and regulatory compliance on city-owned land. This infrastructure would be needed for any development on the city-owned land, according to McCarthy. The site is currently leased by Great America for overflow parking.

"It is expected that the City, as owner of the Stadium site, will benefit from the work installed on and adjacent to the site," continues the analysis, "however it is possible that the work may not have value for future development, depending upon the nature of future development on the site."

All of this presents unacceptable risk for Santa Clara say opponents of the measure."The 49ers LLC is an entertainment business operating in our city," Santa Clara resident Clysta McLemore told the City Council. "It is not a bank. Our property tax dollars belong in a public agency to be used for the public good. Tonight's proposal opens the city to absorbing more front-end risk while our city services are being cut, city employees are being furloughed, and school budgets are being decimated," adding that "Measure J didn't discuss predevelopment costs."

"What it looks like from the outside … [is that] you are acting in parochial interests to sequester funds that are ours, not the team's," City resident William Ray warned the Council. "And in doing so you are acting against the interests of the people of California, of which we are members. The idea of racing the clock ahead of the governor and legislature is unconscionable," adding that in his previous home of Palm Beach County, FL, three recent county commissioners -- Tony Masilotti, Mary McCarty, and Warren Newell – are currently serving federal prison sentences for corruption and bribery.

Summary of pre-development funds transfer:

Stadco Predevelopment Costs

• Stadco has incurred a lot of predevelopment costs to date
• Stadco will advance the sa the $40 million for the benefits of SA
• Predevelopment costs includes SA operating costs

Payment of Initial Make-Ready Funds:

• SA advances $4 million to Stadco upon execution of agreement
• Kept in separate account along with any interest earned
• May be used only for make-ready work and SA operating costs in accordance with appropriated budget
• SA will hold RDA potion of development fees in separate account
• Funds returned/retained by SA if stadium is not built

Does the Monday's Emergency RDA Meeting Violate the Brown Act?

One question that is begged by Monday's short-notice RDA meeting is whether the meeting violates the California's 1953 Brown Act, mandating that public agencies conduct their business in a way that is open to public scrutiny. 

The Brown act requires agencies to post meeting agendas at least 72 hours in advance, in a "freely accessible" location, and to describe each item of business – including items discussed in closed sessions – with "enough information to enable members of the general public to determine the general nature of subject matter." Further, public agencies and boards may not discuss, nor take action on, items that aren't on the agenda.

The law allows three exceptions to the agenda requirements: emergencies, a situation requiring immediate action, and items posted on previous agendas. Closed sessions are permitted to discuss personnel matters, pending litigation, real estate negotiation, and labor negotiations. Minutes from closed sessions are exempt from public disclosure rules.

Technically, the meeting and a one-page agenda were posted on the City website Friday, just within the 72 hour limit. But Friday March 18, 2011 was a furlough day -- City offices were closed. However, according to the City attorney, the one page agenda that was posted on Friday does comply with state law. 

"The people, in delegating authority," says the introduction to the Brown Act, "do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know." 
The administrative panic about the threat of RDA shutdown might lead some to think that Santa Clara's City Council doesn't agree. 

AeONsafe Brews Free, Secure WiFi at Bellano Coffee

These days, free wireless hotspots are commodities, not competitive advantages, for cafes. But one Santa Clara cafe has upped the ante.

Bellano Coffee on Stevens Creek Blvd. offers free, secure WiFi from AeONsafe. Aeon does it with a unique key it automatically creates for each user's communications. Read more about in this article from the Santa Clara Weekly.

900 Kiely Developer NOT the company in bankruptcy -- who knew?

The Fairfield Residential business division developing 900 Kiely (the former Kaiser hospital site) was not part of the business that filed for bankruptcy last year, according to company representative Ed McCoy at tonight's City Council meeting.

In that case, one might ask why McCoy didn't offer this information -- or return the Weekly's calls -- last year when I was reporting on the story. Inquiring minds do wonder.

Illuminati Beware: Preeminent Gathering of Conspiracy Theorists Celebrates its 10th Year in Santa Clara

The annual conspiracist mind meld, Conspiracy Con, celebrates its 10th birthday – and 10^th year in Santa Clara – on June 5 and 6 at the Santa Clara Marriott.

Conference organizer Brian Hall, describes the event as "a forum for… the most controversial speakers in the world," on "Mind Control, Secret Societies, Shadow Government, The Federal Reserve, 9-11, Occult Technologies, Suppressed Knowledge, New World Order, etc."

Even including, Hall continues ominously, "the manipulation of humanity by non-human intelligences...alien, inter-dimensional, demonic, satanic... operating on (and in) this planet, that looks upon humankind as sheep and cattle to be herded and slaughtered at will."

This jeremiad seems surprising coming from the preppy 30-something Hall, a Livermore resident who looks more like a Young Republican than the eminence grise of contemporary American conspiracy theory.

Indeed, Conspiracy Con's success is likely due more to Hall's talent for business administration – and friends in the event-planning business "who held my hand" – than his knowledge of secret cabals. Hall chose Santa Clara for Conspiracy Con for many of the same reasons the 49ers give for wanting to build a stadium here.

"The cost is less and right along there is hotel row," he ticks off methodically. "There are great convention services. It's much closer for me [than San Francisco] and it's much easier to get to. It's very close to the airport."

(This is invariably disappointing to those who expect the city to be a vortex of cosmic power, or the Illuminati's home away from home. Although -- hat tip to blogger Adam Gorightly -- I bet if you plotted it on a map, you'd find that the Santa Clara Marriott sits at the mystical center of secret Kabbalistic geography connecting the Rosicrucian Museum, Winchester Mystery House, Santa Cruz Mystery Spot, proposed 49ers stadium, and the CERN super-collider in Geneva.)

Anyway, Hall's business acumen paid off. The conference draws hundreds every year and features a veritable who's who of the contemporary conspiracy scene.

Past guests include George Noory, host of the popular all-things-conspiracy radio talk show Coast to Coast a.m.; 9-11 Truther movement founding father Richard Gage; and memory-recovering, MK-ULTRA sex slave Cathy O'Brien. This year's lineup includes host of the syndicated late night cult film TV show Cinema Insomnia, Mr. Lobo (www.cinemainsomnia.com).

Hall is vague about what exactly he did before starting Conspiracy Con – "not a heck of a lot." More to the point is what he calls his "waking up journey," which began 15 years ago and culminated in launching Conspiracy Con.

"Some friends showed me some materials that went against everything I had been told. It made its point well enough to [make me] look further.

"There are things going on here right under our noses that are much more serious," he continues. "What is commonly known as the global elite. Are they connected? Is there a conspiracy? No one was putting on a conference on the research, to generate awareness."

ince then, Hall has been a man with a mission. "I see a great imbalance on this planet that gets greater every year. From Kennedy [assassination] to 9-11 and beyond, it will lead to the same people: the people that have manipulated human events for eons." Getting the message out, Hall says, "is the most important thing I can do."

Conspiracism's All-American Pedigree

Conspiracism is as American as the proverbial apple pie, according to Professor Jeff Pasley who teaches Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracies in U.S. History and Culture at the University of Missouri.

"For example, one thing that was widely believed [before the American revolution] was that the British were going to force Americans to become Catholics, based on Quebec's act tolerating Catholicism," Pasley explains. "[This was seen] as the first step in the plan to Catholicize America."

Conspiracy beliefs also use the language of enlightenment, "exposing truth by gathering proof," Pasley explains, while neglecting the rest of the scientific method – experimentation, data collection, analysis, peer review, and retesting.

The age of mass media adds fuel to the conspiracy fires, says Pasley. People have access to a lot more data, but their powers of analysis haven't grown to match it. "Most people's idea of weighing evidence is, 'It's hot today so it must be global warming,'" he says.

The flaw here isn't in the conclusions. Human beings do, in fact, engage in conspiracies; for example, Watergate. The flaws in our global warming conclusion are classic reasoning fallacies: questionable correlation and unsupported assumption. A further problem with conspiracism is un-testability: Contrary evidence is just evidence of a cover-up. For example, the reason you don't agree with me about the reality of global warming is that you're manufacturing the evidence to discredit me, you're just revealing yourself as a tool of the puppet-masters, etc.

Of course, conspiracy theorists have no monopoly on fallacious rhetoric. Politics inspires it in spades. Consider for example: "Dolores Carr: Supported by law enforcement. Jeff Rosen: Supported by bail bondsmen." (Questionable correlation, unsupported assumption, loaded words, impugning motives).

This ad doesn't tell me anything about Rosen, but it does tell me one thing about Carr. Namely, that she's a lawyer, judge and District Attorney who's willing to put her name on this mean-spirited propaganda. It's enough to make me vote for Jeff Rosen, but that would be another questionable correlation: Because Carr runs an ad that I find ethically questionable, therefore Rosen would be a good DA.

Where was I?

Oh yes. In the final analysis conspiracy theories don't stand up to pragmatic test that the best 

explanation is usually the one requiring the fewest unsupported assumptions. In other words, if you hear hoof beats, it's probably horses, not zebras.

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School District Boundaries Update

Update on last night's back-to-back special Santa Clara Unified School District board meeting and County Office of Education, Committee on School District Organization public hearing:

The skinny: By a unanimous vote, SCUSD board of trustees gave a qualified nod to Santa Clara south-of-Pruneridge residents' request to move the neighborhood from the Campbell Union school districts to Santa Clara Unified. The question now is in the hands of the county Committee on School District Organization, which then heard from neighborhood residents.

SCUSD's qualifier is that, because Santa Clara schools are already over capacity, the district needs time to find additional space for roughly 150 new students – almost all of them currently in elementary and middle school. However, new residential development in city – both planned and currently under construction – means that the district will need additional capacity in any case.

The county Committee on School District Organization was primarily there to listen – which they did very generously, allowing speakers to make their points even when they ran over the two-minute limit.

The Campbell districts' case is that they will be hard hit financially without the tax revenue from that neighborhood. In K-8 grades (Campbell Union school district), Santa Clara residents represent 2 percent of the students and 4 percent of the revenue. In 9-12 grades (Campbell Union high school district) Santa Clara residents, 15 to 20 students, represent $600,000 in district revenue.

Campbell's status as "basic aid" funded district hangs by a thread at 0.1 percent over the cutoff. The proposed change would return the district to "revenue limit" status. (Basic aid districts are less vulnerable to state funding cuts and benefit more in a rising real estate market. However, they are more vulnerable to declines in local tax revenue).

Despite these favorable imbalances in cost and revenue – a "goldmine" is how county School District Organization Committee member Phil Nelsen characterized it – the Campbell districts closed all three schools near Santa Clara, sending students to Lynhaven elementary, Monroe middle and Del Mar high schools. Residents also pointed out that inter-district transfers – suggested as an alternative by district administrators – are approved about as often as the Bay Area has a blizzard.

The unedited "feed:"

SCUSD special board meeting:

Facilities are the critical factor. Schools overcrowded already, some are already over-capacity. "We're portable-ed to death," was how Trustee Pat Flot put it.

"Regardless of financing, it's a foregone conclusion that we're going to have to open new schools so we might have to do this sooner," said Trustee Albert Gonzalez. "As I see it the financials are positive." The change would increase SCUSD's per-student funding by about $170.

"The numbers indicate that it would be favorable to us," said Trustee Andy Ratermann. "The [construction bond] debt we have out there is new, mostly amortized, so I don't see an issue there. I think if we get enough time we can do this, but if we don't it's going to be a great strain. All of that about [Campbell districts' assertion that petitioners' objective is] improving property values, I don't find at all compelling."

After voting against the staff recommendation to deny the request, Trustee Andy Ratermann put forward a motion that the SCUSD board was "favorable" to the change, "but concerned about timing and ability to provide adequate facilities." That passed unanimously.

SCC Committee on School District Organization hearing:

"I've lived there [Santa Clara] 44 years," said resident Richard Harrison. "We thought we were in SCUSD [when they bought their house]. But didn't matter because [CUSD's] Parkway elementary school was there [on the corner of Saratoga and San Tomas]. Then they closed that and moved everything to Lynhaven. Then they closed Cypress middle school [Cypress and Stevens Creek] and moved everyone to Monroe. Then they closed Blackford high school [Moorpark and Boynton] and moved everyone to Del Mar.

"We have been disenfranchised as far as academic facilities," he concluded. "This school [Santa Clara HS] is closer than for kids than Prospect."

Santa Clara native Ann Leno pointed out that a growing number of young Santa Clarans "have made a conscious decision to stay in Santa Clara."

In today's world where two incomes are necessity, not a choice, having a school within walking or public transit distance versus a school that you have to ride a school bus to, spells "huge differences in students' ability to participate meaningfully in after-school programs. Most of us work in the opposite direction," she said. "We take our kids to school and then have to head the opposite direction to 101, Central Expressway."

CUSD Superintendent Joanna VanderMolen and Deputy Superintendent Jim Crawford took a different view in representing CUSD board's vote against the transfer.

VanderMolen laid out the financials. This year Campbell became a "basic aid" funded district, topping the cutoff point by 0.1 percent. "The district receives 4 percent funding and gets 2 percent of students [from Santa Clara] so the neighborhood is providing a 2 percent subsidy from these students. Plus our district has charter schools. So this would mean $1.5 million in cuts. It would just wipe the district out at this point."

The funding advantages of a basic aid district enable a better education for students, VanderMolen said. "I'm here really being the advocate for the 7300 kids who want that better education If we lose these properties we will step back out of basic aid just as we stepped in. the impact of losing these children at this point in time and going back to revenue limit would cause further cuts."

Campbell Union High School district would take a "$600,000 hit for this transfer of property out," said Pat Gaffney, deputy Superintendent CSUHSD. "Proximity is a big issue here. I went to Google and took the distance between Mike O'Halloran's [lead petitioner on the request to the county OOE] house and Del Mar. The distance is shorter to Del Mar than to this high school.

"There's so much technology these days we can take the opportunity to use communications technology to [reduce the impact of distance]," Gaffney continued. "I wasn't able to find anything on SCUSD's site on any of these programs [referred to by residents]. We can certainly make folks aware of the opportunities in Santa Clara."

"Forty minutes ago SCUSD board voted not to deny this request," said SCUSD Superintendent Steve Stavis. "The question of facilities currently remains an issue. [The change would represent] $170 per student more than we're currently getting. The biggest impact would be on facilities and reopening a school to the cost of about $11 million."

"As educators we have to put children's best interest at the highest priority," said former Montague teacher Joann [name]. "As my sister said, "adults need to get out of the way and do what's best for kids."

"Why do we – 131 students – have to bear the brunt of this school budget crisis?" said Megan [name].

Several speakers spoke about requesting inter-district transfers and being told that no transfers were given.

"When I ask how do our kids get to school and they looked at me and said "I don't know" and they weren't going to help me find a safe way to get to school," said Santa Clara resident Barbara Drummer.

"I'm really concerned with the sense of community and being part of a community," said Santa Clara resident Joseph Goschy. "It's really about the kids and what's right for the kids, what's right for the community and our future. There's a lot of spreadsheets and discussion. If we had one kid with a safety issue, I think we'd be rethinking all this. We understand that it's not an overnight change. We're open to some long-term cooperation to work together to resolve this."

"I'm a 45 year resident of Santa Clara," said Kay Harrison. "I'd like to see the little kids growing up in our neighborhood be part of Santa Clara schools."

"I sympathize with the petition," said county School District Organization committee member Nick Gervase. "There's no question there's more identity with Santa Clara. However, we have to speak to some reality. We are faced with a requirement on how and what to vote on. There are nine criteria you have to meet. We have to vote on all those criteria."

Of those nine criteria, three are potential showstoppers, Gervase said:

• No significant disruption of educational programs: Campbell is going to say that their educational program is going to be affected
• No significant additional costs for housing students
• No substantial negative effect on fiscal status of district

Committee representative Phil Nielsen concluded the meeting with this observation. "This area is paying a lot on a per-student basis – more than their fair share. You're [Campbell] basic aid by 0.1%. It seems to me you've lost it already. You get 4 percent of funding for 2 percent of students – it's a goldmine. In high school you're getting $600,000 for 15 students – another goldmine."

"For Campbell it's all about the money," one person leaving the meeting was heard to remark. "I've been in budgeting and layoff meetings in corporate American that were more humane."

For more information about the School District Organization committee, visit the committee's website or contact Suzanne Carrig in the Center for Educational Planning at (408) 453-6869 or suzanne_carrig@sccoe.org.

California's Governator Turns Ballot Initiatives to Bullet Initatives

I can only wish!

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Santa Clara – A Livable Town

About four years ago, when I interviewed Gary Gillmor for the Weekly, the former mayor described Santa Clara's character this way:

"The personality of Santa Clara is a true middle class community. We cut our city up with the transportation -- Central expressway, Lawrence expressway… We created jobs, we created a tax base. [By contrast] the personality of Los Altos, Saratoga -- they don’t want any industry."

(Cue apoplectic blasts from those who see Gillmor as the evil genie who popped the lid on Pandora's box and let out a swarm of developers.)

Having grown up in one – Brooklyn, NY in the 1950s and 60s -- I'm a big fan of comfortable-for-ordinary-folks communities. And in 2008, what it takes to create or preserve one is different than what it took in 1958.

I've had many conversations on the middle-class-ness of Santa Clara. It comes up whenever you're talking about development – high density or otherwise -- "affordable" housing, or urban planning.

Lots of people pay lip service to this idea, but the pious jaw music is often just a lead in for objecting to whatever project or plan is at hand. I can't help but observe that many who are most hostile to policies and projects that might retain Santa Clara's middle-class quality, wouldn't be here in the first place if it hadn't been that kind of city.

Let me tell you how I came to Santa Clara 25 years ago. (I recognize that some will rest their case against development on this alone.)

It was the tech boom of the 1980s and my new employer, a now-defunct software company, had just moved from pricier real estate in Sunnyvale to brand new – and cheaper -- digs on Mission College Blvd. I rented an apartment 15 minutes away on San Tomas – even in rush hour – and a stone's throw from the Acapulco. My husband and I lived there for three pleasantly affordable years and only moved when we bought our townhouse.

The townhouse was in a new development and within our budget -- unlike the single family detached houses we had looked at. Now, we were hardly struggling at the lower rungs of the Valley economy. My husband was an HR manager for a national retailer and I was a software product manager.

I'm sure there were people then who didn’t want us moving in, as there are people who would prefer not to have my new neighbors moving in. But my new neighbors are the people who make Silicon Valley an exceptionally interesting place.

You know, the kind of place where you might have Dave Packard or the Steves Wozniak and Jobs tinkering in the garage next door, inventing new industries in the process. Way back when ordinary people could still afford to live in Palo Alto and Cupertino.

For example, right next door to me lives Lasandra Brill, author of the Marketing in a Web 2.0 World blog. Brill is not only an evangelist for these new generation ways of bringing things to market, she likely invented some of them, too.

Down the street a bit lives Ivaylo Lenkov, another "Web 2.0" pioneer. You haven't heard his name, but Lenkov is changing the equation for building and operating your website. Lenkov's start-up SiteKreator – also based in Santa Clara -- lets anybody create a professional-looking website by clicking-and-pointing, without any technical knowledge. The price is right, too – the entry level is free.

Another guy you might have found yourself sharing a lunch time walk to the roach coach with is serial entrepreneur Jon Fisher, whose third startup, Internet security company Bharosa, was right next door to the Santa Clara Weekly office. Last year Oracle bought Bharosa and Fisher has gone on to, among other things, teaching the secrets of his success to aspiring entrepreneurs.

They all chose Santa Clara for the same reasons I did – it was a comfortable, affordable town, plus it's easy to do business here.

When I'm having this conversation about livability, I often ask people, "Would you want Santa Clara to be like Los Altos or Woodside?" And sometimes they answer, "What's wrong with Los Altos and Woodside."

Now, I have friends living in both those towns and I don't hold it against them. They made their beds and now they have to lie in them, not to mention paying PG&E and driving 30, 45 minutes to work somewhere else. But by my middle-class barometer, there's plenty wrong with those towns.

First, your neighbors have so much free floating anxiety about the value of their real estate that they will torment you ceaselessly about the color you paint your window frames, the height of your fence or your magnolia tree, your nocturnal escapades in the hot tub, or your kid's friends.

One Los Altos couple I know practically had to put blackout shades on the front of their house to keep the neighbors across the street from spying on their social life to see if they were entertaining "undesirables" -- if you know what I mean and I think you do. My friends, you see, had moved there from San Jose, and you never know about those people.

The deed to their house still has archaic covenants specifying that blacks, Asians and Mexicans will only go to the back door. Santa Clara, on the other hand, was home to one of the county's first black community leaders, William James, and elected him sergeant-at-arms for the volunteer fire department.

Second, those towns are like living in a museum.

Sure your next-door neighbor could be some guy (and it will almost certainly be a guy, and often a shiny new trophy wife) who changed the semiconductor industry, developed the first commercially successful database software or wrote the first online shopping cart program. But these triumphs happened 10, 20, 30 years ago or longer. Learn about it at the Tech or Computer History Museum – it's cheaper.

Right here in Santa Clara I'm next door to people who are doing things today that are changing business and the world now. And that makes it an exceptionally interesting place to be. So my view is, let's make sure that future Brills, Fishers and Lenkovs will always be attracted to this comfortable-for-ordinary-people town.

And for those who disagree? Well there's always Woodside.

On the Street Where I Live

Last week I had an interesting conversation with Kevin Park of Concerned Santa Clara about Fairfield's development proposal for the old Kaiser hospital site — 900 Kiely. One of the things that we talked about was the fact that the plan doesn't include any retail space — which we both agreed was a mistake.

One of the surest ways to get people out of their cars and onto their feet is to bring everyday services and shopping into their neighborhoods. From that perspective I have an enviable address.

In the 21 years that we have lived in our townhouse, a lot of people have come and gone. Young people buy here with the grand plan of moving to a free-standing house in a more "residential" area as soon as they can. But to me, this address is a destination.

First, I'm in the City of Santa Clara -- the little city that works.

Second, I'm right across the street from Lucky's, Long's, Starbucks, San Tomas Liquors, Carl's Jr., a pizzeria (not to be compared with Slice of NY, but still, it's right there), a drycleaner, and a sushi bar. Walk another block, and there's a 7-11, Vanna Nails (where I've been going for 15 years and which is one of the most expert nail salons around), 4-5-6 Chinese food, a laundromat, a shoe repair, three hair salons, the Pruneridge golf course, and, if you hustle pool, the Sportsman's.

We used to have one of Santa Clara's best restaurants, Brigitte's, until the building owner jacked up the lease beyond what the traffic could bear. That piece of real estate acumen sure paid off — the space has been vacant for 18 months.

Not only does neighborhood shopping make you feel virtuous about all the $4-a-gallon gasoline you're not burning, it also builds community. You see and talk to people. You get to know something about the people you share your neighborhood with. Sure I wish this was a more attractive, downtown-like spot. But I'll take the cash and let the credit go.

I like having people around me. I like casual conversation — the kind women used to have over the backyard clothesline and neighbors shared sitting on the front porch (we called it a stoop in Brooklyn) on hot summer evenings.

It makes me feel sorry for people living in Los Altos or Woodside. How dull to be cocooned in your one-acre lot and multi-million dollar house, having to fire up the Mercedes just to be able to while away a rainy afternoon with a book and a cappuchino, watching the world go by. Sitting by yourself in your private media room is not the same thing — not at all.

I'll be following the 900 Kiely proposal as it unfolds. And I suspect that, as usual, I won't make any side of the question entirely happy with my coverage. And I'm sure that the final development won't be perfect — like everything else in this less-than-perfect world.

But some shops and cafes would sure make it less imperfect.