January 13, 2005

AVCA nominates new board members, discusses transportation concerns

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

The Almaden Valley Community Association (AVCA) Board of Directors nominated on Jan. 10 candidates for president, vice president, treasurer and secretary.

Nominees are Lee Dimmitt, president; Ray Strong, vice president; Gary Soule, treasurer; and Carol Hallett, secretary. Each will serve a two-year term beginning March 1.

The association also announced during its monthly meeting at the McDonalds Restaurant on Almaden Expressway and McAbee Road that it will have its about 80 due-paying members vote next month on the nominees and include members from its e-mail loop group in the process. The association’s dues are $15 per year or $30 for three years.

After serving as president for four years, longtime Almaden resident Bob Boydston will step down, but will remain active as an advisor. He predicted the association’s key concerns this year will be the sports complex on McKean Road and the development of Coyote Valley.

Before becoming AVCA president, Boydston served as treasurer for four years.

“Eight years is enough,” said the retired engineer who will soon turn 80 years old. He cited a need to devote more attention to his nonprofit foundation, the Robert E. and Adele M. Boydston Foundation, started in November of 2003, to give educational, artistic and environmental grants to different community organizations.

The association, Boydston said, will also continue to submit a regular opinion piece for the Almaden Times Weekly, as it has done for the past four years, but will do so quarterly instead of monthly, as requested by the newspaper’s editor. Boydston said the association would use letters to the editor and its e-mail loop group to communicate with Almaden Valley residents as necessary.

Boydston said the association has tremendously improved its treasury running on a small budget each year. The McDonald’s restaurant where the group meets every month in a quiet back room does not charge for its use and the Santa Clara Valley Water District headquarters, on Almaden Expressway, also allows the AVCA to use its boardroom free of charge.

“We don’t need too much in way of outside funds. We like to sign people up as members so they feel like they’re part of the association,” he said.

The AVCA board also reviewed how it can execute better influence on the San Jose City Council as it’s recently lost two battles, one against the location of the sports complex and the other against the removal of the Winfield Boulevard bridge from the city’s general plan.

To get the community mobilized, Boydston said the association relied heavily on its e-mail group, but noted that, “We don’t think people pay much attention to that. We will now concentrate on our district representative.”

On. Nov. 10, new San Jose Councilwoman Nancy Pyle also resigned as an official AVCA board member.

To make their voices heard, Boydston said the association would make an appointment with Pyle and make presentations about issues it’s concerned about as he said speaking before the council is often too late to get the group’s point across.

“We get two minutes to talk. They (council members) don’t ask any questions. We don’t ask them any questions.

They say nothing and then they vote. You get the feeling that they already know what they’re going to do and they’re just letting us vent our lungs and making us feel good. We want to have direct access to our representative with questions and answers back and forth,” Boydston said.

In other news, the association also heard a presentation from retired engineer Art Boudreault, the association’s new transportation chairman, who spoke about the impact of the planned Coyote Valley community expected to have 25,000 homes and create 50,000 jobs.

“We’re concerned about the impact of the Coyote Valley on traffic on Almaden Expressway,” Boydston said. “We’re interested in the external infrastructure. Bailey Road is one of their thoroughfares and that’s going to empty out into McKean Road and Almaden Expressway. We won’t be able to handle 25,000 homes out there. We’re going to get a lot of that traffic. We want to know what is their infrastructure plan.”

Boydston predicted the planned community would also impact Monterey Road and Highway 101, plus the Bailey Avenue extension to Almaden Expressway.

For north San Jose, Boudreault said the association is concerned about a proposal to relax level of service requirements on roads that traverse through the valley. Level of service is affected by wait times that Boudreault described as lasting between 40 and 60 seconds for drivers waiting for a green light. He said excessive wait times are caused by traffic light cycles greater than two minutes.

“All these things will impact traffic in the valley,” he said, adding that such long wait periods also irritate drivers and can create minor traffic incidents.

Boudreault also expressed concern about delays in time to drive from Highway 85 to O’Grady Road/Almaden Road, a distance of about six miles that should be accomplished by most motorists in about eight minutes going at the recommended speed of 45 miles per hour. However, it takes motorists about 13 minutes to accomplish the task now due to slow speed because of lack of light synchronizations and too many intersections and traffic lights.

Boudreault echoed Boydston’s concerns about the Coyote Valley development whose residents are expected to come into Almaden Valley via McKean Road, placing a desire to extend Almaden Expressway to Bailey Avenue and dump 5,000 additional vehicles a day on already congested Almaden Expressway.

Boudreault suggested planning for such growth by working with city and county officials and responding to their requests for assistance rather than reacting after decisions have been made.