Tonight the Alum Rock Neighborhood Coalition (ARNC) held a meeting to provide information to residents of the Alum Rock neighborhood on the annexation by the city of San Jose of areas of our neighborhood that are currently in unincorporated Santa Clara County.
I attended tonight’s meeting. Here is my overview on it:

It was a useful and informative meeting on the annexation plans for 4 areas in the Alum Rock neighborhood. Although for me, they did not provide enough detail about the effects of annexation for me to determine if I support it or not. We reached the 8pm end before being able to revisit the details. The key points from the meeting from my perspective:

• The majority of the Alum Rock neighborhood is in unincorporated Santa Clara County.
• There are 5 areas within the Alum Rock neighborhood that are not currently part of San Jose but rather are unincorporated. 4 of the 5 are up for annexation in 2010. See the ARNC map at http://www.arnc.org/UrbanIslands2009_SanJose_Alum_Rock_v3.pdf .
• The area within the San Jose Urban Service Area (red dashed area) is within San Jose’s rights to annex.
• Areas under 150 acres within that area can be annexed by approval of the San Jose City Council. These are the 4 green areas on the ARNC map. That is, while they do want to hear your opinion, if you want to affect the decision you have to affect the vote of the San Jose City Council. It is only their vote that ultimately counts.
• Areas greater than 150 acres within that area can be annexed by approval of the San Jose City Council, but objections to the annexation can potentially result in the annexation being put before the voters (we didn’t go into detail here).
• The 4 green areas, if the annexation goes through, is targeted to be complete in December 2010.
• The 5th area, in orange, is greater than 150 acres. It is not part of the current annexation effort. This is the biggest portion of our Alum Rock neighborhood. However it is expected that eventually it too will be annexed. Think 5 to 10 year timeframe.
• There will be notices of meetings in the first quarter of 2010 where residents can express their views on annexation of the 4 areas.
• Clear impression was that while they want to hear residents views, both the city and the county expect the annexation to go through in 2010.
• The city representative of the planning commission said that their assessment was that residents of annexed areas should expect a very small increase of costs/fees/expenses and should receive better/more services and a greater voice. They did not provide details and, to me, it is not clear as to exactly what are the tradeoffs.
  • www.sanjoseca.gov/planning/annex/; click on Annexation Answer Book; Contact Laurel Prevetti, Assistant Director, City of SJ Planning Dept @ laurel.prevetti@sanjoseca.gov
    o See SJ city website, LAFCO’s website or contact Bill Shoe, Santa Clara County Planning Office @ bill.shoe@pln.sccgov.org
  • For openness, I personally live in the 5th area that is currently unincorporated but is not part of the 2010 annexation effort. I am undecided on whether I support annexation.
• Both the county and the city have information on their website to help residents understand the annexation issues:
  If you have questions, ask – I’ll try to answer them. Steve Pollock, VP of ARNC chaired the meeting. I’m sure he’d be glad to answer any questions as well.

Regards,
- Al Hinkle
  ahinkle@kiostar.com