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Council gives $2G to Celebrate Sunnyvale 2K
By Sam Scott
Margaret Lawson thinks people are getting a little too uptight about the coming turn of the millennium and all the attendant Y2K disaster theories. She sees it as a time to celebrate, not to stress, which is one reason she's chairing Celebrate Sunnyvale 2000.
"Part of it is to alleviate the anxiety around Y2K. That's no way to go into the millennium," she says.
In November, Celebrate Sunnyvale will start a 14-month celebration of Sunnyvale and the new millennium, she says. Plans include a parade on Jan. 8, hanging of banners through out the city during the year, and the building of a time-line wall. The parade and banner are definite. The time-line wall--which would lay out the significant dates in the history of Sunnyvale, the state, the nation and the world--has yet to find a home. Lawson says she would prefer to house it on public property to ensure its longevity.
The idea for this celebration came to Lawson while she was attending a party with friends. "We were standing around at a party a year ago, and there was so much stuff coming up about Y2K, and we said, 'You know, we should do something here in Sunnyvale.' "
Lawson says she envisions her group as being an umbrella organization for all types of Sunnyvale groups that want to celebrate the occasion. Much of what will happen is yet unplanned, she says.
"We want to encourage other organizations to do things and put them on our calendar," she says. "The only criteria we have is to look back on the past, to envision the future and to be thought-provoking and to celebrate the diversity of 2000."
Leslie Lawton, chair of the time-line wall committee, says she is collecting important dates for placing on the wall. People with suggestions can contact the Chamber of Commerce, she says.
Like many involved, she sees it as a chance to leave her mark. "This is the only millennium that I am going to live through," she says. "I just wanted to be a part of leaving something behind that would celebrate our millennium to the generation that follows."
The City Council voted to give the group $8,000 seed money, despite concerns voiced by Councilman Stan Kawczynski that they lacked a clear business plan laying down the uses of the money.
Councilman Jack Walker, who says he'll probably be in the parade, says the quality of the people involved in the project compensated for the absence of concrete details about how the money would be spent. He says the group "is made up of business people with a track record of doing things and doing them well."
Walker says that the council has a duty to take advantage of this situation: "The issue was that we're supposed to celebrate a sense of community and this is an opportunity for us to do that."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
