January 27, 2005


Preservation groups accuse city of favoritism toward sports fields project

McKean Road Sports Complex files found
in San Jose City attorney’s office

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

Questions surrounding the legitimacy of the controversial sports field complex project in rural Almaden Valley have surfaced leaving opponents saying its paper trail reeks of favoritism toward the nonprofit organization assisting the city to nail the deal.

San Jose City Attorney Rick Doyle shows the four piles of documents related to the contentious McKean Road Sports Complex, which his office now stores after several news organizations, including the Almaden Times Weekly, filed Freedom of Information Act requests to study the records on behalf of the public. Photo by Sheila Sanchez

And they charge that the Almaden Youth Association (AYA) has been the recipient of such favored treatment because former San Jose Vice Mayor Pat Dando pushed the project for nearly a decade, doting it with preferential treatment other nonprofit organizations and private developers never receive.

“How many other developers and projects get this kind of privilege?” asks Nancy LaScola, president of the South Almaden Valley Rural Alliance (SAVRA). “There are nonprofits representing under-privileged children and under-privileged families turned away for $6,000. It’s really sad. The city needs to show us who else it’s done this for. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Where are the files?
LaScola also complains that the city has made it difficult for project opponents to access documents related to the project, having to resort to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) public records requests to learn about the project’s progression.

Others falsely accuse Dando of purposely taking project documents with her when she left office at the end of December, even though Dando denies taking any files.

The files are now in San Jose City Attorney Rick Doyle’s office at the Health Building next to City Hall. Doyle inherited them because of the media’s interest in the documents. Several news organizations, including the Almaden Times Weekly, have filed FOIA requests to study the records on behalf of the public.

The termed-out Dando says an attorney has contacted her about media reports he considers slanderous regarding her involvement with the project and accusations that she illegally removed the files and committed a felony.

“My integrity is being challenged. I’m hesitant to fight this legally because I’m not comfortable with bickering. It turns the public off to government. People are already disinterested in government because they feel most politicians are looking out for themselves. I hate to be a part of that and lower myself to that level, however, if the libelous remarks continue then there may come a time that I would have to do something,” she says.

“My records are all in the city attorney’s office,” Dando says. “If there’s need to review any records on AYA, my files are there. They’ve been there for two to three months.”

Similar projects
As an example that the city is not playing favorites with the project, Dando, AYA President Dan Smyth and Doyle cite the Jake’s Play Lot project, a tot lot located at Parma Park at the intersection of Camden Avenue and Little Falls Drive, which received money from the City Parks Bond Measure passed in November 2000 and community groups which raised money for the Jake Thomas Eby Memorial Fund.

Dando explains other city projects have also received similar treatment. She says many are managed by nonprofit organizations, which also contribute money such as the Police Athletic League (PAL) Stadium, a public project managed by PAL; and the Children’s Discovery Museum, a public project partly funded by the Junior League of San Jose and managed by a nonprofit.

LaScola, however, says the projects mentioned by the fields’ proponents never received such a liberal amount of money—more than $2 million so far—from such a wide variety of sources. “Pick me off the floor when I’m done
laughing,” says LaScola. “Most of these projects are open to the public and are not exclusionary.”

Dando counters by explaining LaScola’s assertion is wrong because a number of city projects have received millions of dollars and are operated by nonprofit organizations such as the Tech Museum and the Mexican Heritage Garden.

Money matters
LaScola says SAVRA and the Committee for Green Foothills (CGF) have spent “oodles of money” to file a lawsuit against the city to stop the project. She says the groups would ask the city to pay their legal bills, should they prevail in the courts.

“If the city can hand over $2 million to the AYA to put a project outside the city in an area with severe impacts, then the city will risk the cost of all legal fees,” she says.

LaScola also wonders how appropriate it is for city planners to invest time, money and effort on the project and then receive city compensation for their work. “I’ve joked around with city planners that at least this project is keeping them employed,” LaScola says.

Doyle calls the project another “public-private partnership project,” explaining that during challenging financial times the city relies on private partners to make contributions to municipal projects. “The AYA will make substantial contributions to build these fields,” he says. “This is not uncommon. The city is the applicant because it’s a public project. The city is on the hook for the project.”

Doyle says questions about the appropriateness of money paid to city planners for their work on the project is a “non issue.”

LaScola’s view is that it might be a “non issue” for Doyle but not a non-issue for taxpayers.

Project applicants
Initial project applicants were the San Jose Unified School District (SJUSD) and the AYA. The city officially became the project applicant in mid 2003 with the county’s encouragement. The three groups are now defendants in a lawsuit filed Jan. 13 by SAVRA and the CGF to overturn the project’s final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and the city’s general plan text amendment.

Doyle explains both sides will enter settlement talks over land use issues raised by the lawsuit to see whether they can agree on any aspects of the project as required by state law before a judge holds hearings on the case. Doyle says the talks would occur within the next 45 days.

“We’ll work with their lawyers and get everybody at the table,” Doyle says. “If we can’t come to some sort of settlement this will go to court. I’m hopeful that we can address concerns. If the issue is that people don’t want these fields built then that’s a difficult problem. But if the issues are concerns about water and public safety, then we can address those. We need to have a conversation.”

LaScola says: “This was very much pushed by her (Dando). She claims that she’s been doing this for the children. If she’s doing this for the children, why aren’t they playing on the water district land? Why aren’t they playing in the undeveloped area of TJ Martin Park?”

The disgruntled LaScola goes for the kill against Dando. “She realizes the project will impact families who depend on water and safety. If Pat (Dando) wants to run for mayor when all this is over the people out in the Almaden Reserve would not be able to vote for her, so it doesn’t appear that the rural community’s concerns make much difference to her. She doesn’t have any obligations to them. They’ll just have to do something to correct the problem.”

Dando says the project has nothing to do with the politics of who can vote for whom, but rather trying to meet the needs of hundreds of families and their children and that it’s not unusual for neighbors who live near a contentious project to oppose it. “If their concern is really about water and traffic, I believe we can address those. However, if it’s simply they don’t want the property across from them developed, then that’s another story.”

Water availability and traffic along McKean Road have always been concerns for both groups. The water study in the final EIR indicated that conservatively up to five acres could be developed with natural turf. The remainder of the project may be developed with drought resistant landscaping and artificial turf. In times of drought, water would not be used at the expense of residents. Dando recommended that phase one of the project develop up to 20 acres consisting of natural and artificial turf. The estimated cost of this phase is approximately $5.2 million.

Dando also recommended transferring an additional $500,000 to the project from District 10’s Future Parksite Acquisition and Development Reserve to the Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services to address traffic concerns brought up by project neighbors. The AYA will continue to actively raise funds to leverage limited city dollars with private contributions. The funds will cover the actual construction of the project.

“AYA’s role has been to keep the community energized and get ready to do the fundraising because we are going to bear a large part of the financial burden,” Smyth says.

Funding sources
In the immensely complicated city fiduciary picture, San Jose council members depend on a variety of funds and reserves with intricate names to pay for their park projects and other programs. The districts can reserve portions of what is called the Construction Tax and Property Conveyance Tax Fund for their projects.

Up until August of 2004, the city had allocated $594,000 toward the project. The AYA will reimburse the city $100,000 for the EIR and it may not receive $150,000 of the Healthy Neighborhoods Venture Fund Grant because it’s on a reimbursement basis, bringing the total down to $344,000.

On Dec. 7, the San Jose City Council unanimously adopted an appropriation ordinance in the amount of $739,000 to the Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services for the McKean Road Youth Sports Complex and $550,000 from District 10’s Future Parksite Acquisition and Development Reserve.

The money transferred from the reserve will be used to address the neighbors’ concerns regarding traffic and water, with $50,000 being used to install water monitoring equipment and provide three-years of monitoring ground water level. The $500,000 will be used to address traffic concerns, Dando explains.

That same day, the city council also unanimously adopted a resolution authorizing San Jose City Manager Del Borgsdorf to pay an additional $20,194 to RBF Consulting for environmental consultant services for the McKean Road Sports Complex, increasing the compensation for the final EIR from $294,000 to $314,194.

According to city planners, due to the complexity of and public interest in the project, city staff requested the consultant’s attendance at several additional meetings with staff, the school district, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and public meetings with area residents. The scope and number of the meetings were beyond what was provided for in the original scope of work for the consultant, but were necessary to adequately address all issues for the EIR preparation.

According to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the city has also made three grants to AYA related to the project. In 1998 it gave the AYA a grant for $25,000, in 2002 the city gave the AYA a grant for $50,000 and in 2003, the city gave the AYA a grant for $100,000.

Project history
On Aug. 25, 2004, Borgsdorf presented a report to the city’s Rules Committee stating that council candidate Nancy Pyle was requesting an audit of the project. Pyle wrote in a letter that she thought there was no legal or financial oversight over the project, along with an absence of agreements between the AYA and the city.

Borgsdorf’s memo states that a team made up of staff from his office, the Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services, the City Attorney’s Office, the Department of Public works and the Department of Planning Building and Code Enforcement were responsible for moving the project forward.

San Jose’s Planning Director Stephen M. Haase was unavailable for comment by press time. City planners Janis Moore and Stan Ketchum declined comment and referred all questions to Haase stating the project is now in litigation.

City officials, Dando, the AYA and other sports organizations have been complaining for years about a deficiency in youth sports fields in South San Jose. For the past decade, Dando has worked hard to identify land to accommodate the local youth soccer, softball and little leagues. The dilemma led to the exploration of 77 acres of land owned by the SJUSD on rural McKean Road. The area is commonly known as the South Almaden Urban Reserve.

In November 2002 the city and the AYA met to discuss the potential to develop the youth sports fields on the unincorporated county land and the preparation of the necessary environmental documentation under the California Environmental Quality Act to build the fields.

Dando believes the area is the best place to build the fields because the district already owns the land, purchased 30 years ago for a future school site. The district, under the leadership of former SJUSD board member Gary Rummelhoff, now a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Education; former Superintendent Linda Murray and current Super-intendent Don Iglesias agreed to lease portions of the property to the city for $1 a year as reflected in the MOU between the city and the AYA, unanimously approved by the San Jose City Council on Dec. 7, 2004.

The MOU’s terms specify the AYA will be responsible for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the fields, in consultation with the city.

On Nov. 25, 2003, the city entered into an agreement with RBF Consulting to prepare the EIR. A draft EIR was prepared and released for public comment Aug. 13. The San Jose Planning Commission voted 5-2 on Nov. 29 against recommending a change to the city’s general plan, but certified the final EIR. The certification, however, was appealed to the San Jose City Council, which held a public hearing on the appeals on Dec. 7 upholding the document’s final certification.