Item A: Ordinance Adopting New PROS Comprehensive Plan

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.,:."0 lv1essage Page 1 of2 WEISS Carolyn J From: CARLSON ,Jim R Sent: Friday, December 23,20059:00 AM To: MEDLIN Johnny R; COREY Kurt A; WEISS Carolyn J Subject: FW: PROS Pian FYI ~----Orlginai ~"'essage----- From~ Ellen Hyman [mailto:elly47@comcast.net] Sent: Thursday, December 22,,2005 10:17 AM To: *Eugene t-1ayor and City Council Cc: TAYLOR Dennis 1\'1 Subject: PROS Plan Dear Mayor, Councilors and City Manager: '1'his is the "new and improvedH version of my public testimony on the PROS Plan, It was important to have the record to remain open until 12/31. Hopefully others wiB give testimony on this well-intended, but seriously flawed document. As almost everyone who spoke agrees, the priority list is the heart of this plan. \Yithout it, the document rings hollow. The priority list is what holds the department and the city accountahle to the voters. It's the means by which \ve can an see and measure what has been accompHshed-or not Tv!y particular interest, as you aU well know, is Santa Clara. Reading the proposed plan document with the hindsight 0 f the 1989 Plan and the 1998 POS bond measure, it's little ~ . wonder that the people of Santa Clara are a little skeptical about it As Kate Perle said in her testimony, promises were made and not delivered. At some point the folks in Santa Clara must have really made some decision makers angry because we've seen little effort to effect real balance and equity (two pet phrases in the 2005 PROS Plan) out here. Since the 1970's there have been public record statements, campaign slogans and heartfelt concem about the need for parks and open spaces in Santa Clara. Reading these documents one would think there's a huge comrnitment to ensure the core PROS Plan value to l!distdbute parks, open spaces and recreation services equitably throughout the comnmnity'l. But \vithout the priority list nowhere in this document does it say how that equity \-'lill be achieved. To give you an example-in the section "Strategies", B-1 reads "provide a total 01'20 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. . ." In 2003 Santa Clara had a population of 16j806 people. According to B-lj we should have a minimum 320 acres of parkland. \Ve have 26.36. There is no mention of how our 20 acres per 1000 will be achieved. Take this one example and multiply it throughout the community and you begin to see the scope of the problem with this document. There are numerous other issues that also need to be clarified before the document is adopted, 12/28/2005