Community News

Last night, Eric Morley of the Morley Hunter Group, Inc., made a presentation to about 40 members of the community at the Los Paseos Homeowners Association. Mr. Morley is a consultant for Coyote Valley Research Park LLC, a development group that includes property owners Gibson Speno, LLC, DivcoWest Properties, LLC, and Cisco Systems, Inc. Many of the facts presented were contained in a project fact sheet handed out at the end of the meeting . Instead of duplicating the information contained in the handout, I will only add information not contained in the fact sheet and note some of the questions that were asked.

The Cisco campus property is in the City of San Jose and has been designated in the City of San Jose's General Plan for the past 16 years for exactly the type of campus proposed by Cisco. The planning commission and the city council will decide on the project. Hearings are expected to take place in the Spring of 2000 with the hope to start building in July of 2000. With the initial construction process from ground breaking to building occupation expected to take 18 months, the first employees could start working as early as January 2002. Substantial infrastructure changes are required most notable are the Bailey Avenue/101 Freeway interchange and the Bailey Avenue/Monterey Highway interchange. The city of San Jose is currently working on the Environmental Impact Report and it may be ready as early as September or October. The Highway 101/Bailey Avenue interchange, which is critical to the Cisco project, already has project clearance and environmental clearance from CalTrans.

Question: Will there be commercial property in North Coyote Valley?

Answer: No, not in the North Coyote Valley section. There will be commercial property when the Central Coyote Valley is allowed to be developed. Cisco provides many needed services such as ATM, dining and dry cleaning on site.

Question: How does this campus compare to the North San Jose Cisco campus?

Answer: The new campus will have 6.6 million square feet while the North San Jose campus has 4 million square feet. The North San Jose campus will remain for other Cisco employees.

Question: How does this project affect Almaden (especially the traffic situation with "Bailey over the hill?"

Answer: The city of San Jose will be looking into that as part of the EIR process.

Question: What about Bernal Road which used to go over into Almaden?

Answer: Mr. Morley said the road is currently a private road. After a follow-up telephone conversation, Mr. Morley will try to find out more information about Bernal Road.

Question: Is someone else making a presentation to a group like this one in North Carolina tonight?

Answer: No. There may be growth in other areas for Cisco such as North Carolina, but nobody is doing something like this in North Carolina. Cisco Systems wants to remain and expand in San Jose. Where and how Cisco expands must make sense from a business perspective.

The Cisco System proposed campus in Coyote Valley will be a high property tax, sales tax and utility tax generator. He expects to have some economic benefit data from the City of San Jose as they are currently looking at the economic benefits of the proposed project.

Someone from the audience said they had heard rumors that the City of San Jose likes Calpine since they offered to pay for infrastructure. Mr. Morley said he didn't know about that. This did prompt Mr. Morley to say that the proposed Calpine project in Coyote Valley is "inconsistent with the campus industrial area." Calpine is requesting a General Plan Amendment to remove the "campus industrial" land use designation from the adjoining property to the proposed Cisco project.

Question: Is the Calpine project connected in any way to the Cisco project?

Answer: No.

Question: Does Cisco need the energy produced by Calpine?

Answer: No. Mr. Morley did say that the Cisco project would have a PG&E substation on the project site but it would only be used for internal distribution of electricity.

Question: What concerns do you have?

Answer: The same concerns as the neighbors have. We have environmental and safety concerns. We have been researching the Calpine project quite a bit. We have hired consultants. We have "serious concerns." We are currently evaluating compatibility as one of the areas of concern.

Question: Has Calpine approached Cisco about offering any steam or waste heat?

Answer: No.

Question: What types of jobs would the Cisco campus have?

Answer: Office, Research and Development jobs. No manufacturing would be done since Cisco contracts that out.

Question: When will Cisco decide to continue with the North Coyote Valley area proposal whether Calpine will be there?

Answer: Don't know. We do plan to comment in both the California Energy Commission process and the city General Plan process.

Someone from the audience asked about the proposed interchange near Encinal School. Cisco has been talking to one of the school superintendents. Mr. Morley did mention that about $1 million would be going into Morgan Hill school district schools. He also encouraged people to go to the Cisco web site. He mention that 80% of their donations are in education.

Someone from audience commented about the traffic congestion vs. the kids who have to get to and from Live Oak High School. Would Cisco consider restoring the busing of kids to Live Oak so parents or kids wouldn't have to travel by car to high school? Mr. Morley did make a note of this question as it sounded like something new, but he also made a general statement that he doesn't believe Cisco can address every concern in this project.

Someone from audience asked about the trails that are supposed to be part of ridge trail system. Mr. Morley did say this project would have a trails element in it. He mentioned that there is a county trails plan and a city trails plan that has to be addressed.

Question: What percentage of the current Cisco workforce uses the VTA eco-passes?

Answer: Don't know the answer to that, but he will find out.

Mr. Morley shared some of the demographics of the current Cisco workforce. The average age of a Cisco employee is 29 with the average income of $70,000. Most of the employees live in the 85 corridor (West San Jose, Cambrian and Campbell areas).

Question: Does Cisco have a history like IBM of buying or renting homes in the area for relocation of Cisco employees?

Answer: Don't know.

This report has been clarified August 19, 1999 from the original posting.