Why is it that Santa Clara has plenty of money and always seems to be short of it? Have you noticed we never seem to have enough and when we do have some extra funds, they are redirected to things other than our deteriorating infrastructure?
Even simple things like our city water fountains that went dry during COVID stayed dry for years even after the pandemic. Do you think restoring our water fountains was a monumental engineering phenomenon? No, it is more a reflection of routine priorities being ignored, similar to our International Swim Center that was ignored to the point of closure.
Now we have a much larger issue with one of our most important and productive properties. Levi’s Stadium, which produces millions for our community, is in need of repairs, replacements and updates.
But … we have a mayor that has been feuding and fighting our stadium ever since it was built. Rather than promote a property that preserves our powerful place with a pragmatic plan of polish and paint, she has poo-pooed our stadium as a non-priority.
This mega-million-dollar-producing property is now in need of updates, repairs, replacements and love. Our stadium has put Santa Clara on the map, made Santa Clara millions and we need to maintain our status, reputation and highly successful events. It’s time to break open the bank account and get these repairs completed now.
City staff and council are considering construction of a new city hall. While it’s a good idea, it doesn’t make any sense to commit tens of millions to a new capital investment before we maintain a major revenue machine.
Our city council should prioritize what produces ahead of what consumes. While a new city hall would be a pleasure for our hundreds of employees and staff, it will not produce more revenue.
Urge your council representative to keep our stadium in the national limelight and continue producing cash from major attractions. Make the repairs; update our stadium so it continues to attract the world’s biggest events and produce major funds for our city.
Levi’s Stadium is a gift that keeps on giving. However, neglecting this profitable asset will cost the city a snowballing list of lost opportunities.
Santa Clara doesn’t need a billion-dollar albatross.
Previous Milestones:
Milestones – Gillmor’s Power Play – Opinion
Milestones – Late to the Party – Opinion
Milestones – Bullet Train to Wealth Tax? – Opinion
Milestones – You Have to Ask Why? – Opinion
The city has it’s priorities out of whack. It is simple and obvious that it is the thumb of none other than Mayor Lisa crooked Gillmor. Her rule has put Santa Clara in this position of not being able to have nice things like other city’s in the bay area. Yet voters keep sending Gillmor and her loyalists back to office under the guise of helping public safety. Yet public safety will bankrupt the city before high salaried management does. Regardless it is unsustainable and this city that gives out loyalty perks like free candy will ultimately punish the residents. The stadium lacking money for maintenance goes along the lines of other city facilities that were failed to be upgraded from city hall to the swim center and convention center. The failure roots from one single person and her political machine using the city like her own personal piggy bank. City management stands by as they are either afraid of her of are complicit in the allowing of all this. Never should this city have gone to a bond measure, and stupid that the city council agreed to it because now Gillmor will claim she and Mayor candidate Kathy Watanabe saved the city. They didn’t save the city they got a band aid to a bleeding wound. One that keeps hemorrhaging revenue to political perks rather than the infrastructure or the things that city’s like Sunnyvale get. Santa Clara never learns and they keep letting the wolf run the city. Gillmor lives in a kleptocracy stealing from you and others to fund her agenda https://www.svvoice.com/letters/the-wrong-robin-hood/. Until Gillmor is banished from city hall and Watanabe is not given the Mayorship, nothing is going to change and the city will continue to backlog fixes and even maintenance to the stadium. So then Gillmor can again and again call it a money loser or out of date. Again and again the only money loser and individual out of date is Mayor Gillmor and her old rusty dirty political machine. Wake up Santa Clara do you see what they have inflicted on your city. I will wait for Gillmor’s loyalist fans to defend her here, defend all her failures, her crimes and her lack of accountability.
Audit Santa Clara and audit Mayor Gillmor. Where is all the money going ?? Where are the investigations, where are the indictments. Where is the sanity in Santa Clara and city hall. How can the center of what’s possible be this broke and be such slumlords like their slumlord Mayor?