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San Jose Mercury News San Jose's
most important development decision in decades is likely to go before voters since foes of Cisco Systems' Coyote Valley campus Tuesday submitted well over the number of signatures needed to qualify a referendum. The vote
ultimately may be seen as a referendum on Silicon Valley growth, pitting the interests of San Jose's largest private employer and the benefits it brings to the economy against the frustrations of traffic and rising housing costs.
Critics of the $1.3 billion project organized as People for Liveable and Affordable Neighborhoods, or PLAN, said they turned in more than 53,000 signatures to the city clerk for a referendum against the project. That
would be about 72 percent more signatures than the 30,684 needed to qualify a referendum-about twice the margin suggested by experts to ensure enough are valid. "We feel pretty confident about it,'' said PLAN spokesman
Brian Grayson. City Clerk Pat O'Hearn said ballot measures need about 30 percent more signatures than the minimum, and when asked whether PLAN's margin appeared sufficient, said, "I would think so.'' "That's
quite a few signatures above what they need,'' O'Hearn said. Cisco countered PLAN's petitions Tuesday by announcing the company has gathered more than 110,000 signatures from eligible city voters in support of its
development. The San Jose-based networking giant and its development partners said they were confident they would prevail in a referendum. "We have a very strong head start,'' said Eric Morley, spokesman for Coyote Valley
Research Park, the development partnership for Cisco's campus. "Clearly, as evidenced by our signature-gathering effort in a two-week period, voters of San Jose recognize the value of Cisco Systems and the importance of this
campus to San Jose neighborhoods and city services.'' The city council in October unanimously approved Cisco's 688-acre campus, moving to fulfill San Jose's long-held dream of bringing high technology to the farmlands of
Coyote Valley. Mayoral spokesman David Vossbrink said he was dismayed by the referendum drive, likening it to the presidential election morass in Florida, but still confident the campus would prevail. "It's a
rearguard effort to stop or slow a project that's enjoyed very widespread public support and unanimous support from the planning commission and city council,'' Vossbrink said. "The Cisco project was well-reviewed. There were
many opportunities for questions and concerns about the project to be identified and addressed, and in fact they were addressed.'' Supporters say the project, which will employ 3,000 workers in two years and eventually
20,000, will generate $6 million annually in tax revenues for city services. Environmentalists and cities to the south say the sprawling development will worsen traffic and drive up housing prices. Santa Cruz County, the city of
Salinas and local chapters of the Sierra Club and Audubon Society last month filed three separate lawsuits challenging the project on environmental grounds. The city clerk's office today will begin manually counting PLAN's
four boxes of petition sheets to make sure there is a likelihood the referendum will qualify, a process expected to take a day or two. The petitions then go to the county registrar of voters office, where the names will be
entered into a computer and a random sample will be checked to determine what percentage appear invalid, said registrar spokeswoman Liz Johnson. To be valid, the signatures must be those of registered city voters. The
registrar's office has 30 days after receiving the petitions to verify them. An election most likely would be held in late April or May, O'Hearn said. Cisco foes face long odds of winning a referendum, San Jose
State University political scientist Terry Christensen said. Cisco, one of the nation's richest companies, has ample cash to battle opponents, whose volunteer base was so thin they had to hire petition circulators, he said. And
Cisco is locally appreciated, while much of the project's opposition is south of the city, he said. "They're not the big evil corporation in most people's minds,'' Christensen said. Page last updated November 4, 2001. |
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