Last week Metro wrote about how Santa Clara Mayor Patricia Mahan was caught on tape muttering a warning to stadium opponents that they were wasting their time. Somehow this resulted in a certain amount of anti-government cynicism among local citizens who spoke at that July 17 meeting. It must be going around over there, 'cause another vocal Santa Clara group has been getting the "You're wasting you're time" vibe as they pushed their cause for over two years without budging the mayor or other city leaders. Save BAREC activists, who have opposed a large-scale housing development on an old 17-acre research farm that's still open space, took a huge blow when the City Council finally voted to rezone the agricultural property for residential use last month. It might have meant the end for most citizen groups, but these folks never say die. They had only 30 days to collect nearly 8,000 signatures for a referendum, which will force the council to reconsider their decision or let voters weigh in on the zoning change. Activist Kirk Vartan said his group had nearly 60 volunteers helping with the effort. The registrar of voters has verified over 10,000 signatures, more than enough to put the zoning change back on the council's agenda at their next meeting on Aug. 21. Says Vartan on the idea that his public input time could have been put to better use: "I hope the City Council will see they made a mistake by not really listening to the citizens."click on these links: http://www.metroactive.com/metro/08.08.07/fly-0732.html - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI5wEW0oLkI
NOTE: when i turned in my claim file to the city of santa clara regarding my lawsuit against them, i noticed that ron diridon jr. now works in the city clerk's office - and since he once told me to call him if i ever needed any help, i decided to take him up on it...i called him at the city clerk's office (since he was at the city council meeting where the ex-mayor gave me permission to feed the ducks) and asked him if the footage from the meeting where i spoke was available - he said all speakers at city council meetings are recorded and archived, and if i wanted to get a copy of the footage, i had to put in a request for it...but when i put in my request for the video footage, all i got was a microsoft word document which had no mention of the mayor giving me permission to feed the ducks, and was also told that after 6 months, all footage is destroyed unless an official request is put in for it!? - so why did ron diridon tell me the video footage from that council meeting would be available when it clearly is not, and was the footage evidence illegally destroyed?
