Community leaders look ahead to the new year
Public safety, economy emerge as top concerns
While the issues that plagued us in 2020 will still be with us in the new year, plenty of local residents were happy to show the old year the door. Community leaders are expressing cautious optimism about what 2021 has in store for the South Bay as the pandemic wears on.
“We’ve been inspired by our community’s incredible generosity and resilience during the unprecedented times of the past year,” says Mayor Larry Klein. “I’m thankful we have a strong city team committed to serving Sunnyvale and helping our residents and businesses heal and recover.
“Our tradition of prudent financial and policy planning has gotten us through tough times before, and I’m very confident we’ll get through this, too,” Klein adds.
The mayor has done his part to help keep Sunnyvale’s economic engine running, visiting 175 restaurants, coffee shops and food trucks in Sunnyvale and documenting them at Klein’s Sunnyvale Restaurant Project website, www. larryklein.com/restaurantproject.
While restaurants remain open for takeout and delivery during the current round of sheltering in place, Sunnyvale nonprofits have had to come up with creative ways to keep the doors open. The Sunnyvale Heritage Park Museum had to cancel its fundraisers this year and couldn’t rent out its meeting space.
To make up some of this budget shortfall, the museum held its holiday boutique in the museum’s foyer to allow for socially distanced shopping. And while a planned January reopening is on hold, maintenance and administrative work continue at the museum.
The Historical Society is trying to capture this segment of history and record it for future researchers, while at the same time keeping the museum afloat,” says museum director Laura Babcock. “We will reopen as soon as it is safe to do so with a fresh new look at our role in society and community. We plan to expand our exhibits and to expand our interaction with the community as we move forward.”
The Sunnyvale School District is moving forward with plans for in-person instruction, with a focus on support for students who are not able to access learning adequately in a virtual school program. Families wishing to keep their children in virtual school for the remainder of the school year will have that option.
In a Nov. 30 letter to district families, Superintendent Michael Gallagher stressed that the plan’s implementation will depend on whether Santa Clara County has moved out of the purple tier, which indicates that the coronavirus is widespread in the county.
For the full text of the letter, visit https://www.sesd. org/domain/1106.
Communications coordinator Rachel Zlotziver, says Fremont Union High School District has a similar plan in the works.
“We are looking forward to any and all opportunities to bring back those students that we know are struggling or not engaged with the distance learning environment for a variety of reasons,” she adds. “While the majority of FUHSD students will continue with distance learning for the first six weeks of the second semester, we are hoping to move forward with our plans to bring small cohorts of students back to our campuses for instructional support when we return in January.
“As we bring students back to our campuses, we will be utilizing the safety protocols that we shared with our families before the Thanksgiving holiday.”
There is, of course, hope that the pandemic will abate in the early months of 2021, and that schools and businesses will be allowed to reopen. Says mayor Klein, “Sunnyvale will continue to work together to overcome any new challenges and plan for sunnier times this summer.”