Guest Column
By Steve Borkenhagen
Downtown San Jose has suffered for decades from a severe lack of retail activity. We have a number of entertainment venues, museums, restaurants, bars, offices and (more recently) housing, but we have not had a vibrant retail area in the heart of our city since the 1960s. Generations of South Bay residents have never experienced retail excitement in Downtown San Jose. The San Jose Public Market has the potential to change this.
It is likely our last real hope for a retail cluster Downtown in the next 10 years or more.
Anyone who has visited Pike Place market in Seattle or Chelsea Market in New York understands how a market like this, filled with small stores selling interesting products, can transform an area, making it a gathering place full of activity and entertainment and the heart of a community. The success of the current San Pedro Square Farmers’ Market shows that there is demand.
This is not an attempt to create another Santana Row or Valley Fair. It will not be populated with the standard mall tenants, but instead house local independent businesses. In addition to adding much needed retail energy, the Public Market will be a critical part of creating a successful residential community.
I can’t think of a better investment which will leverage public and private dollars.
The cowardly and anonymous attacks on the McEnery family related to this project are despicable. The charges related to “lobbying” are simply absurd. The much-needed lobbying/sunshine rules of Mayor Reed’s administration were not aimed at principals promoting their own projects, but rather an attempt to stifle the mercenary influence-peddlers who have muddied the political waters in our city. This complaint is an abuse of that system.
Few individuals or families have done more to make Downtown successful than the McEnerys for many generations. When most businesses and building owners gave up on Downtown during the 1960s-1980s, the McEnerys stayed. Again they are stepping up and risking much to support the downtown. Funding for this project would have been given to any other developer without so much as a word from the project’s current detractor. This project has received more scrutiny than other projects which received ten times the funding in the past. The current controversy is nothing more than a cowardly personal vendetta which should not be tolerated.
Let’s stop the contemplation and move forward with a much-needed boost for all of the small businesses downtown. This public market should be approved. Let’s see if we can finally have a place downtown where we can buy fresh fish, meat, flowers, or a gift for our kids. This is probably our last chance for a long time. Please support this fine project.
Steve Borkenhagen is the owner of Eulipia Restaurant in Downtown San Jose.
It is unfortunate that this issue has come to light at the expense of a family that has done so much for San Jose. But maybe it took that name, and its close ties to local politics and power, to shine the light on a practice that is long overdue to be stopped.
The time has come to stop using public money to assist private developers. Our local government should get back to providing the most basic of services.
By all means, borrow from a local bank, a local financier or anywhere you can. Develop a market, build mixed-use retail/housing, whatever the owners would like. I will be the first customer in line when they open.
But my opposition, and many others, has nothing to do with the people involved, it is the practice itself.
Redevelopment Agencies have outlived their usefulness. While RDAs may have had noble objectives early on, they’ve morphed into bizarre, disappointing and self-serving organizations.
It’s time for the State to end the gravy train and dissolve RDAs. Tax revenue is too damn precious to waste on frivolous and unnecessary projects.
Steve, I agree with most of what you said. But if, as you said, “The much-needed lobbying/sunshine rules of Mayor Reed’s administration were not aimed at principals promoting their own projects,” then there is a loophole in the ordinance large enough to drive the world’s biggest truck through.
Whether you are a consultant, lobbyist, or a principal approaching the government for tax dollars to subsidize your project, the same rules must apply. There is no exception in The Brown Act for meeting with princiapls vs. meeting with lobbyists. If there is such an exception in The Reed Reforms, it needs to be eliminated right now.
If public money is going to public space that merely complements private development, what’s the problem? We just have to make sure that the city is paying for sidewalks, plazas, etc. That’s our space to begin with, and we should value it even before a market. I understand McEnery may want more, but there’s nothing wrong with meeting half-way. Now is not appropriate for a backlash or soapbox affair.
Steve,
The bottom line is that the city’s current lobbyist ordinance defines Tom McEnery as a lobbyist. That’s why he files a quarterly lobbyist report. He acknowledges that he is a lobbyist.
Besides, you sat on the Mayor’s transition committee, which made recommendations on how to reform the city’s lobbyist ordinance. That was the committee co-chaired by Tom McEnery. Mayor Reed then implemented those recommendations and has touted that fact ever since by checking off Reed Reform #20.
If there’s anyone that should understand the reforms made to the lobbyist ordinance, it should be those who actually recommended that they be made in the first place.
But now that McEnery is in trouble, having been accused of violating the very same ordinance he helped shape, you argue that the law should be different – like the City should change it so that it doesn’t apply to in-house lobbyists like Tom McEnery.
You don’t get to try and change the law AFTER being accused of breaking it. You had your chance BEFORE McEnery allegedly committed multiple, blatant violations of the lobbyist ordinance.
Stick to your arguments about the benefits the project will bring. People like restaurants. They like shopping. They don’t like hypocrites.
By the way, seeing as the allegations against McEnery are very real, I suggest you learn a little about the requirements of lobbyist ordinance before you jump in front of your good friend Tom. I would argue that the time to learn about the ordinance was before you made recommendations to Mayor Reed, but I guess its really a moot point now.
What I miss about downtown from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s was the small stores that survived the initial redevelopment blitzgrieg after somehow surviving the slow death of downtown in the 60’s and 70’s. Some of these were old, some were new small businesses. Today its all corporate crap or ultra-crap or name brand chain blah with a few exceptions.
I’ve been thinking about San Jose losing its Flea Market, something cheesy, cheap but fun.
One of the things that would make such a project work is the availability of true public space, as opposed to privately owned quasi-public space like that in Santana Row.
By a stroke of luck, historic Pellier Park lies adjacent to the proposed development, and our Mr. Swenson has already pledged to restore it to its Bicentennial glory, in compensation to the city for being permitted to demolish the previous park and make use of it as a storage area for an extended period.
The restored park will provide a fine setting for the handsome equestrian statue acquired by Mr. McEnery during his time as mayor, and add a charming greenspace area to encourage pedestrian traffic.
In fact, considerable thought should be given to making the area pedestrian-friendly, if the concept is going to work. Photos of old San Jose shows ample provision of awnings and sidewalk roofing (is there an architectural term for this?) to shield walkers from the summer sun and occasional winter rains—a concept that seems to fill our current city planners with horror.
There is an example of a successful business area featuring interesting locally owned businesses much closer than Pike Place—downtown Mountain View. And dare I mention Willow Glen? These might be more realistic models.
I applaud the Public Market project. Not only is it a terrific plan, but is proceeding with little public subsidy.
Redevelopment has become a piggy bank for local “special projects”. It is much easier to get into the piggy bank if you are connected. The projects they want to emulate (Pikes Place, Ferry Building) were not started by millions of tax payer dollars. Good ideas work on their own. Bad ideas suck up tax dollars (Grand Prix) and then explain why they did not work.