4/6/2016 -- Board Meeting Minutes

Post date: Apr 19, 2016 3:40:23 AM

River Oaks Neighborhood Association

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Elan Meeting Room, 7:00-8:00pm

Attending

From RONA: President Jean Marlowe, Secretary Laura Carns

From City of San José, Council District 4 Office: Jonathan Padilla

From Santa Clara Valley Water District: Richard Santos

Lan Diep, Candidate for San Jose City Council, District 4

and about 10 other community members.

MINUTES

1. The May meeting will have representatives from the Transportation Dept to discuss traffic and bike lane issues on ROP.

   1. Will discuss the future of the bike lane. City has money in budget for bike lane improvements, could be spent on changing the ROP configuration. Many community suggestions. Consensus seems to be that bike lane idea is good, but improvements needed for safety and effectiveness.

   2. Will discuss the improperly installed and very noisy manhole covers. Concern that DOT has not been responsive: need maintenance to actually make changes, not just visit and shrug shoulders.

2. Agnews School

   1. The slides. For more information, www.santaclarausd.org/agnews or email communications@scusd.net.

   2. Jean went to the meeting on the 29th, along with about 20 other people. Laura went to the meeting on the 18th, with about 70 other people. Paraphrased notes from both:

      1. Community meeting to get feedback on choice between 2 or 3 schools: K-8 or K-5 and 6-8, and a high school. Various attendance numbers and concept drawings in slides.

      2. Schools will be "urban" style, at least 2 stories. Attendance estimates in slides are just to give people an idea of how class sizing and cohorts will work, they still haven't gotten the demographer to look over the numbers. Environmental Impact Report had maximum capacity of 2800 students.

      3. After school hours, fields become parks.

      4. 55 acre school, 29 acre city park. However, rumor is that city does not have the funds to develop the park.

      5. Expected opening Fall 2019.

      6. Expect ~2000 extra trips/day along Zanker for school drop-off. Will focus the traffic on Zanker, keep it off ROP. Will work with traffic engineers to make sure the drop-off flow works well. Will have some students walking/biking.

      7. Why the choice 2 or 3 schools? Well, K-8 are generally smaller and have less flexible resource that make it hard to have electives and extra-ciricular. Don Callejon is running into this issue. Also it would be a very big K-8, hard to manage. No matter what we do, the district-wide need is to have a mixed-cohort middle school grade (where you pull middle grades from multiple elementary schools). Mixed cohort K-8 generally don't have high success metrics. Whereas a elementary + middle model lets the elementary school and middle school focus on their key job: education. Educational Services staff found almost 0 Pro's for K-8 and many Con's. Whereas they found many Pro's for elementary+middle and fewer cons. So they highly recommend the 3-school E+M+H.

      8. Plan is to make all 3 schools "21st century" ready, with STEM focus and maker spaces, etc.

      9. Not even started on district boundaries discussions. No plans to close any schools. No discussions started on whether Don Callejon remains K-8 or goes K-5.

   3. Vlad is on the oversight committee. He points out that the bond money has been available for a few years yet to construction has happened. Wants to see an audit.

   4. Historically SCUSD Board is considered to have transparency issues.

   5. Farmer's market would be nice to have. District 4 can discuss with any community, VTA, or coporate space.

3. Cadence on Innovation Dr. will be adding more buildings. ETA for construction?

   1. NSJ Vision 2030 update.

      1. Phase I all residential is built out. Given current office development, could be 5 years before we get to Phase II. Given the housing crunch in the Bay Area, the mayor and CM Nguyen want more housing now. Focus on affordable housing that wasn't built out in Phase I. Focus also on high-density housing within 1/2 mile of transit. Will be discussed at the net council meeting. RONA is concerned that there hasn't been an opportunity for community feedback.

      2. Concern that we have too much housing without traffic, retail , or schools.

      3. News article: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2016/04/12/mayor-open-north-san-jose-to-more-housing-with.html

      4. Maps of 1/2 mile from VTA stations: NSJ and ROP.

      5. Jean attended the 4/12 city council meeting. Her report here:

      6. Hi All,

      7. I went to the City Council meeting 4/12/2016 and spoke on Item 4.1. Mayor Liccardo wants the city planners to move fast on his recommendation of moving forward 1500 residential units from Phase II. He is looking for the city to come back in August so they can vote on it. Staff said they will do their best.

      8. I've attached the Memorandum, Item 4.1, and a transcript of the actual meeting. Here are links for the video, audeo and transcript, if you'd rather look at it that way:

      9. links to the City Council Meeting from April 12th, 2016:

      10. Video: http://sanjose.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=51&clip_id=9056

      11. Audio: http://media-10.granicus.com:443/OnDemand/sanjose/sanjose_410a3244-e54f-4584-bc1f-0e3fbc276531.mp3

      12. Transcript: https://docs.google.com/gview?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsanjose.granicus.com%2FDocumentViewer.php%3Ffile%3Dsanjose_8a54ff6ae11a58f25d489b1b4c100bcb.pdf%26view%3D1&embedded=true

      13. Please note that our Councilperson for Dist 4, Manh Nguyen, sponsored this item along with Dist 3 Peralez and Mayor Licardo.

      14. Attachments:

      15. Status Report on the Update to the North San Jose Area Development Policy

      16. Agenda Item 4.1

      17. Transcript of Agenda Item 4.1