The Sunnyvale Sun
News
Council picks 41 issues to focus on during 2008
By Cody Kraatz
The Sunnyvale City Council decided on Jan. 25 that a controversial left-turn lane from the Kaiser Santa Clara Medical Center onto westbound Homestead Road will be studied in 2008.
It was one of more than 120 "study issues" that the council waded through during a daylong workshop. The council ended up ranking the 41 projects that will be the city staff's priorities for the year.
Just because these issues will be studied does not mean the council will adopt them as policy. Instead, the studies will present the council with information, analysis, options and a staff recommendation. City boards and commissions will review some of the issues.
Here are some of the other study issues:
- A study of the study issue process itself.
- A human rights/relations board or commission.
- A more aggressive approach to code enforcement.
- Encouraging solar businesses to locate in Sunnyvale.
- Revisions to mobile home park conversion rules.
- An auto mall along a freeway (Onizuka Air Force Station at N. Mathilda Avenue and Route 237 is to close in 2011).
- A branch library around E. Maude and N. Sunnyvale avenues.
- A community theatre downtown and an evaluation of the Community Center Theatre.
- Reaching for a "zero waste" policy beyond recycling.
- Parking in the neighborhood north of the Caltrain station, and a sound wall funded by residents.
One study issue that was dropped was eliminating city council members' retirement benefits through CalPERS, something newly elected Councilman Dave Whittum proposed but that city staff said would not allow for CalPERS health care coverage while in office.
Descriptions of all the study issues, how they ranked and the study issue process are online at studyissues.insunnyvale.com.