It is unfortunate that Santa Clara Weekly’s publisher is so out of touch with the Santa Clara community. In his June 3 column Mr. Barber advocates the plowing under of more than a decade’s worth of volunteers’ work in restoring natural habitat at Santa Clara’s only open space reserve in order to facilitate the acquisition of the Youth Soccer Park by the San Francisco 49ers. This proposal is a legal impossibility for many reasons. But the overriding reason for rejecting this notion out of hand is that it has no public support whatsoever, including among the soccer community. After watching this issue for almost two years now it appears that the only people who advocate cutting the heart out of Ulistac are: Mr. Barber, Council member Kolstad, and our Southern California transplant City Manager Julio Fuentes. No others have stepped forward; while many, many others have expressed strong and heart-felt opposition. Indeed, Measure Q, a special tax assessment that can only be spent on Open Space, passed by a 67% margin in Santa Clara. Mr. Kolstad garnered only 38.7% in his last re-election. It’s time for Mr. Barber to take the pulse of the electorate and realize that his idea is truly a bad one.
