The organization California Forward has a very nice article about Sunnyvale’s public safety model, highlighting some of the benefits and costs associated with our model. It does touch on the real challenge that other cities would have in converting to our model – the significant start-up costs associated with it. The public safety model is definitely a long-term commitment, and we’re lucky to have initiated it back in the 1950’s.
FollowThe Milken report is about to come out with its annual survey of the economies of the nation’s metro areas, and the survey will rank Santa Clara County as the best performing economy in the nation.
The report states some things that I’ve blogged about before. Every new high-tech job we add results in five additional support jobs on average, and a tech boom tends to precede both a housing boom and a retail boom. Since Sunnyvale is already built out, “housing boom” is a relative term. But the retail boom in particular will be a welcome addition to Sunnyvale.
The Sunnyvale City Council is approaching its 2013 Study Issues Workshop, and the deadline has now passed for submission of new study issues for this year. Accordingly, I’m rolling out my annual resident study issues survey. This is an opportunity for you to go through the exact same process of ranking study issues that Council goes through, and to give me your opinion on what issues we should or should not pursue as a city over the next year. Last year’s survey had a great response, and the results definitely influenced the way I ranked the study issues. I hope to see the same this year.
To participate in my survey, click on the “2013 Study Issues Survey” menu option above.
The deadline for submitting your survey is 11:59 p.m. Sunday January 27th. I will then summarize the results, make the results available to my colleagues prior to the study issues workshop, and post the results online. Your submissions and your email address will remain anonymous.
Thanks for taking part in my survey!
Very short agenda.
We start the evening with a closed session involving “anticipated litigation” (further described as “significant exposure to litigation”). I know nothing more than you do. [UPDATE: I’ve been informed that the closed session has been cancelled]. We then go to a study session for the Lawrence Station Area Plan, where the Planning Commission and Council will jointly receive an advance peek at the recommendations from the LSAP Citizens Advisory Committee and make suggestions to staff, prior to this issue returning for a public hearing. This should be very interesting.
Pretty short and simple night.
We went straight into the meeting this time, despite having a closed session regarding the city manager. The procedure was a little different for this closed session because of either a change in the law or a change in our understanding of the law, I’m not sure which. As a consequence of the Bell mess, the public noticing rules for certain types of closed sessions changed. And because this closed session was scheduled after the agenda was published, it could not be held before the general meeting – it had to be done as part of the regular meeting (we just left the meeting running and went into a room, then came back). I still don’t quite understand the changes to the law, but our new City Attorney was on top of the issue.