Forbes has put out yet another of their ubiquitous lists, and this one doesn’t speak well of us, for a change. The San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara metro area is ranked the 8th dirtiest in the nation. Forbes cites the presence of a dozen superfund sites (five of which are in Sunnyvale) and high ozone levels as the primary reasons.
FollowAt last night’s council meeting, the City of Santa Clara hired Julio Fuentes to be their new City Manager. Mr. Fuentes comes from the City of Alhambra, where he worked as their CM for 20 years.
Compensation for Mr. Fuentes will be $290,000 per year, plus a $29k moving allowance, $6400 car allowance, and participation in a deferred compensation program. And all of this is on top of Santa Clara’s requirement that employees take mandatory unpaid furlough days – Santa Clara has had serious problems with the recession and had to implement furloughs across all bargaining units to minimize layoffs.
I point this out because this is a reflection of the very small recruiting pool that Sunnyvale competes in for the better City Manager candidates, as well as a reflection of just how valuable to a city’s operation the City Manager truly is. Santa Clara has about 120k people, roughly 16% smaller in population and 20% smaller in area than Sunnyvale. Alhambra, the city Mr. Fuentes comes from, has about 83,000 people and a total annual budget that’s about a third of Sunnyvale’s.
From the city’s latest press release:
Online Crime Reporting Enhances Public Safety Services
SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Sunnyvale’s Department of Public Safety has launched a new online reporting system that allows victims of non- emergency crimes to enter their information online and have the police report reviewed and issued within 24 hours.
“This new service is not an alternative to having an officer respond. An officer will always respond when requested,” emphasized Lt. Shawn Ahearn. “We’re simply enhancing the service we already provide by helping a victim more quickly and conveniently get what they need most in these circumstances — a copy of the police report.”
This is going to be a very long night – several very big issues with long RTCs. And note that Councilmember Moylan will be teleconferencing from Connecticut for this meeting.
We start the evening with a study session regarding land use alternatives for the East Sunnyvale industry-to-residential area. I would assume this is referring to the area around DeGuine, but I’m not positive about that.