Jim's Sunnyvale Blog | Former Sunnyvale Mayor Jim Griffith

State Issues Sunnyvale Water Reduction Requirement

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Jim Griffith

The State Water Resources Control Board issued its draft recommendations for mandatory water cuts for the various CA jurisdictions today. If I’m reading it correctly, they are telling Sunnyvale to achieve an additional 16% reduction in water use. They based their cuts on needing to reduce urban water usage by 25%, adjusted according to how much jurisdictions have voluntarily reduced their water use in recent years. In other words, areas that have already cut back aren’t being penalized for the work they’ve already done, and areas that have not are being told to do their share.

We will be addressing this in Council in the next few weeks, after staff has digested this and the legal requirements and developed a specific plan.

Bay Area Housing Development

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Jim Griffith

The Silicon Valley Business Journal has a story on housing development in the Bay Area, and it’s an interesting read. They took a look at how cities are building housing as compared to their Regional Housing Needs Assessment – basically the extent to which cities are supplying the housing to meet their projected housing needs for population growth. From the article:

Cities like Milpitas, Sunnyvale, Redwood City and Dublin have plenty to brag about. They at least build close to the number of housing units they needed to. Cities like Oakland, Palo Alto and Berkeley? Pretty dismal failing grades.

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04/07/2-15 Council Preview – Leaf Blowers

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Jim Griffith

Note that tonight’s general session will be opened and held in honor of fallen San Jose Police Department Officer Michael Johnson.

Looks like a pretty diverse night. We start the evening with another closed session to discuss ongoing labor negotiations. This is followed by an important study session regarding our sidewalk repair program. It will likely include an overview of how we schedule and prioritize our repairs, but the focus will almost certainly be on the budget for sidewalk repair. This is one area where our 20-year budget doesn’t cover the anticipated cost to maintain the work that we need done. This has been an ongoing area of concern.

We then go to the general meeting, where we start with two special orders, the first being recognition of National Library Week, the second being recognition of Fair Housing Month.

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03/24/2015 Council Preview

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Jim Griffith

Looks like a more normal night for a change.

We start the evening with two closed sessions. The first involves the various ongoing labor negotiations with the different bargaining units. The second involves discussion of a possible property purchase off of Charles. You may recall that we own about an acre of land on a block of Charles, but it’s not contiguous. There are four parcels owned by three individuals in the middle of the parcels that we own. This closed session involves those four parcels.

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Upcoming Sunnyvale Utility Rate Increases

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Jim Griffith

On Tuesday, we had a study session on the upcoming utility rate increases, to go over how rates are determined and what factors come into play. It was pretty clear from the fact that we had a study session that there wasn’t going to be good news, and I was right to think so. You can view the original powerpoint presentation here – it’s very interesting.

Keep in mind that all of this is tentative, and there are some factors that are still to be determined. State law mandates a certain process for changing utility rates, and that process includes an extensive review period, giving ratepayers an opportunity to protest rate increases. So we have to announce the tentative rates long in advance, and we can adopt the tentative rates or lower rates once the protest period ends. This forces us to plan for the worst and lower any increases as appropriate if facts change to our advantage.

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