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San Francisco Chronicle News of a truce between Cisco Systems and the Greenbelt Alliance over the computer networking giant's plans for a huge office park in rural San Jose met with
opposition yesterday from other environmental groups and local governments. At a joint news conference yesterday, Cisco offered $3 million to help preserve open space in the Coyote Valley area and said it will join forces
with the Greenbelt Alliance to raise an additional $97 million for preservation. In exchange, the environmental group will not file suit against Cisco's proposed 20,000-worker campus. Under the agreement, Cisco will donate
the $3 million in increments after permits are issued and building begins on the Coyote Valley site. Of the additional $97 million to be raised, half will be sought from private industry and half from government and the public. The
Land Trust of Santa Clara Valley will receive $25,000 immediately to evaluate the possibility of raising $50 million in taxes with a ballot measure. If the fund raising is successful, the money will be spent to buy 45,000
acres of rural land to the south and east of the project site. While the agreement with the Greenbelt Alliance attempts to ameliorate one environmental concern about the Cisco project -- the loss of open space -- critics
said yesterday it makes no mention of increased traffic, pollution and housing demands that are of concern to neighboring communities. "If this is done wrong -- and it is poorly planned now -- we could see the area through
Coyote Valley all the way to Hollister and Salinas become something like the San Fernando Valley, lots of strip malls and housing and development with devastating impacts on several endangered species," said Craig Breon,
executive director of the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. Both the county of Santa Cruz and the city of Salinas have agreed to take legal action if Cisco's Coyote Valley plan is not significantly altered by the time
the San Jose City Council approves it on Tuesday, as expected. Other local governments are watching closely before deciding whether to join forces. "This is smoke and mirrors," said Santa Cruz County Supervisor Mardi
Wormhoudt. "If they can raise money and buy open space in south San Jose, more power to them. But if they have to raise $97 million, what do they need Cisco for? "It's a bit ironic that a huge corporation that pays no
(federal) taxes at all talks about the largesse of donating $3 million, and wants the public to come up with $50 million in taxes" for the project, Wormhoudt said. "If Cisco would just do what it's supposed to, we could
do away with the donations." But Tom Steinbach, executive director of the Greenbelt Alliance, also called the partnership "an innovative approach we believe will be very successful." The agreement
was lauded yesterday by San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, a strong supporter of the Cisco project, who called it an "out of the box approach to improving the quality of life and permanently preserving hillsides and farmlands in San
Jose." Steinbach said his organization has not endorsed the Cisco project and will continue to lobby for changes that will make it less destructive to the environment. "There are many more things that could be
done to make this a more environmentally friendly site," Steinbach said. Several representatives of environmental groups expressed deep distrust over the likelihood that the agreement will ever result in raising
anything close to $100 million for open space. "If they only are able to raise, say, $20 million after five years, that's it. Cisco has no obligation to go beyond that," said Dan Kalb, director of the Loma Prieta
Chapter of the Sierra Club. "You can say it's a modest positive step in the right direction -- money for open space is a good thing -- but I don't see that it is going to work because it is all based on hope."
Zoe Kersteen Tucker, a member of the Greenbelt Alliance Board of Directors, said she did not vote on the agreement, which was approved by a 10 to 6 vote on Sept. 23. She said she it would be a conflict of interest to do so
because she is president of the Committee for Green Foothills, another powerful environmental group that has been strongly against the Cisco project from the beginning. "Who is to say the agreement will work out the way
they say it will?" Kersteen-Tucker said. "Our stance is to keep our options open and perhaps apply pressure in appropriate ways, either to make the development go away or benefit the community to a greater degree than it
does now." |
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