Jim's Sunnyvale Blog | Former Sunnyvale Mayor Jim Griffith

Sunnyvale Town Hall with Asm. Rich Gordon

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Jim Griffith

California State Assemblymember Rich Gordon is hosting a Sunnyvale Town Hall on Saturday February 23rd from 10-11:30 a.m., featuring civic leaders Mayor Tony Spitaleri, Sunnyvale School District Superintendent Ben Picard, Chamber of Commerce CEO Don Eagleston, and Sunnyvale Community Services Director Marie Bernard. The forum will be moderated by Roberta Holliman from the League of Women Voters. For more details and to RSVP, visit Rich Gordon’s web page.

Note that Assemblymember Gordon is also hosting one in Mountain View on the 21st, but that’s far less important…

Outright/GoDaddy Moves to Sunnyvale

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Jim Griffith

The Registry has good coverage of the opening of GoDaddy’s new offices in Sunnyvale, right in the heart of the Downtown. Outright was occupying space in Mountain View, but they’re projecting to double their headcount this year, and they needed more space. So they’re here now, right next to Plaza del Sol (which is probably going to get a major upgrade in the next year). While it’s great to have yet another company choose to make Sunnyvale its home, the article also has a lot of good stuff about other developments in Sunnyvale, particularly the work being done in the downtown area. Nice read.

2/12/2013 Council Preview

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Jim Griffith

We start the night with a study session regarding comprehensive revisions to Sunnyvale’s sign code. We’ve had occasional complaints that certain businesses can’t do what they need to do to make their presence known and attract customers. But it’s not as simple as just letting them do what they want, because there are certain types of signage that tend to be viewed by the public as blight – things like large hanging banners, colored flags, blow-up figures, and other non-traditional signage are often not well-received. So the city is looking at a comprehensive overhaul of the signage ordinances to address concerns that have been raised.

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Former Sunnyvale Town Center Developer Accidentally Destroys Heritage Palo Alto Building

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Jim Griffith

The Mercury News is reporting that Sand Hill Property, the former developer of the Sunnyvale downtown, accidentally destroyed one of two heritage buildings it was required to preserve as part of its efforts to rebuild Edgewood Plaza in Palo Alto. Whoops. Sand Hill hasn’t explained what caused the demolition to occur.

Now, Peter Pau is faced with rebuilding the destroyed building. The city wants him to rebuild using original materials, but oops, he destroyed the materials too. So now he has to come up with new materials that look like the old materials. In addition to rebuilding, the Palo Alto City Council may impose monetary penalties.

The best part is that Palo Alto’s staff is recommending that the city hire a consultant, paid for by Peter Pau, to review all of Sand Hill’s plans and to be on site to observe construction. In other words, Palo Alto wants someone watching over Peter Pau’s shoulder for the duration of the project, probably to make sure the other heritage building isn’t accidentally demolished too.

1/29/2013 Council Summary – Taxis and Leg. Positions

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Jim Griffith

Relatively short night, although those are the ones where we tend to opine a little too much.

We started the evening with a closed session regarding labor negotiations with the Sunnyvale Employees Association (SEA). I can’t discuss even generally what’s being negotiated, and I’m sure there are questions, since we only just signed a new contract with SEA. Nothing to worry about, I’ll just say. I’ll try to find out what, if anything, can be disclosed regarding this, because disclosure would be a good thing. [UPDATE – it turns out that information is part of the published MOU, section 22, so I’m permitted to elaborate. We agreed to revisit possible changes to paid time off and sick leave in February, in order to conclude the rest of the agreement in time to meet the state’s December 31st deadline.]

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