The city manager's office and the redevelopment agency met with representatives from Project Area Committees—made up of elected members from the Strong Neighborhood communities—and 19 Neighborhood Advisory Committees on Aug. 20 to shed some light on how the budget would affect their ongoing projects.

The redevelopment agency said they would pledge $38 million towards the Strong Neighborhood Initiatives (SNI) this year. But this amount depends on a $60 million bond issuance that is supposed to help fund projects, like the SNIs, which are being affected by the state-budget crisis. Yet some residents of the Greater Gardner Area are critical about the timing and whether it is financially prudent to issue a bond during an economic downturn.

"I have a big concern that the bond issue won't go through and that is where our money is," said Willow Glen resident Ed Rast.

Kevin Christman, president of Gardner's Neighborhood Advisory Committee and Neighborhood Association, said that his area would be meeting soon to discuss further possibilities of funding its list of projects. One alternative they are seeking is grants from the private sector.

"We have already sought a grant from San Jose Beautiful to plant flowers," he said.

Christman also added that Kip Harkness, of the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, is helping the group with funding, although the amount is still undetermined.

But not everyone is satisfied with how things are moving along.

Greater Gardner neighbor Harvey Darnell is frustrated with the way the redevelopment agency is spending taxpayer money.

"There is money. They just allocate more to downtown rather than to the neighborhoods," he said. "I think our council members listen to our concerns, and I am pleased with the support of Council members Ken Yeager and Cindy Chavez, but I'm not sure whether the bureaucrats in the redevelopment agency hear our concerns."

Darnell's concerns were representative of those of many citizens in attendance at meeting; most just wanted to stand up and make sure their voices were heard.

Christman echoed the sentiments of several people in the room after the meeting, when he said there is still a great deal of uncertainty about whether many of the items listed in each of the 19 neighborhoods will become a reality.

"Our neighbors have pride in the upkeep of the Greater Gardner neighborhood," Christman said. "But we can only do so much. We can fix our houses, but we cannot fix the streets."

He added, "Some of the things on our top-priorities list should have been taken care of by the city and shouldn't even be on our list."

During the meeting, Harkness did affirm that the Greater Gardner's fifth item on the priority list—new facades on seven commerce buildings—was definitely included in the redevelopment agency budget.

Harkness said that many of the projects budgeted for year one could shift into the next year or further depending on the projects' readiness. But it's too soon to tell what this means for the Greater Gardner area.

"We have low expectations for receiving money from the redevelopment agency," Christman said. " We are going to try and be proactive about this and push to do bigger and better things."