Thanks to all of you who called, sent emails, and spoke at the San Jose City Council meeting Tuesday night on the issue of the Water Pollution Control Plant. The City Councilmembers received hundreds of emails on this subject alone!
Unfortunately, we cannot call this a victory. The City Council agreed to adopt one of the items (no solar facilities in open space or wetlands) in the memo that Councilmembers Liccardo and Kalra put forward, and adopted a modified version of another item (the Nortech Road extension – they would not vote to eliminate it entirely, but voted that it would be routed around the owl reserve). Otherwise, all of the modifications proposed that would have improved the plan for burrowing owls and riparian and wetland habitat were rejected. The final vote was 8-3, with Councilmembers Liccardo, Kalra and Chu voting against the plan.
The next step will probably not be for a few more years, when San Jose will begin accepting applications from developers for commercial and industrial development on the site. We will continue to monitor this issue and will fight for the habitat on this site every way we can!
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