Get ready for development avalanche
It’s the merry-go-round that just won’t stop. We’re talking about the runaway construction afflicting the entire length and breadth of our high tech/biotech corridor.
The latest report from the San Mateo County Assessor’s Office indicates that, within the next six to eight years, another 55 million square feet of new projects are scheduled to come on line.
Of that total, two-thirds are pegged to be commercial space (let’s hear it for all of those fresh tax dollars flowing into government coffers); the rest is residential.
No matter how you care to parse all of this, it means more congestion, more traffic, more disruption, more environmental challenges in an area that is constricted by vast, protected swaths of open space that cannot be touched by the wrecking ball or the woodsman’s axe.
In other words, new construction has to be crammed into parcels already developed, or under-developed, according to real estate interests and their enablers in positions of compliant civic authority, not to mention pressure from the state.
The great local irony in all of this is that many of the very same folks who approve, and will approve, this work are the same individuals who will then profess to be greatly concerned about the negative impacts of what they have done.
Gee, where did all of that increased traffic come from? Why is gridlock a regular daily occurrence? Why is city hall being inundated with complaints? Well, we have no idea.
The beat goes on.
Fiscal data
Several readers have requested help in finding online financial information about public school districts in Santa Clara County (last week’s column provided such data regarding all 23 districts (kindergarten through grade 12) in San Mateo County).
So here are some tips for accessing what you might be seeking: Go to the comprehensive website ed-data.org and find Santa Clara County on the state list and click on the “go” button; find “financial data,” then “revenues and expenditures.”
You can then find relevant fiscal material related to every district in Santa Clara County or, for that matter, any county in California.
A Mad moment
The announcement that Mad magazine was no longer going to publish fresh editions was a downer, the end of an era.
In 1952, when the revolutionary comic book made its debut in the midst of the Cold War, there was plenty of youthful anticipation as its popularity spread via word of mouth. It cost a thin dime.
Early on, it came out every other month. A full year’s subscription cost the princely sum of 75 cents, including shipping and handling. However, Mad was probably the last thing our parents wanted to see gracing their mailboxes. It was seen as dangerous for immature minds. No more.
How rude
Alfred E. Neuman would have loved that recent police report provided by one of the Peninsula’s free publications: Earlier this month in Redwood City, someone punched an inflatable clown in its bloated, artificial face. Good times roll in the town where, so it declares, “Climate best by government test.” But not for inflatable clowns, apparently.