"The greatest making of the future will be from a small piece of land." Abraham Lincoln

Santa Clara City Council Meeting
July 18 , 2006
Educational Urban Farms
was on the Agenda

The concept of farmland inside city limits is continuously questioned by the Santa Clara city staff as well as the Santa Clara City Council. For months we have tried to give a complete presentation about the viability and success of an educational urban farm. Finally, on July 18, 2006, we were able to do just that. Linda Perrine gave an 11 minute presentation on why Santa Clara should care about preserving agricultural land in Santa Clara, examples of successful educational urban farms (both in California and in other states), and how all of this can be done without costing the City of Santa Clara any money. Too good to be true? No. Just listen and find out how.

While the presentation was wonderful, the Mayor's rules and regulations around it were not. Not only did she not allow any public comment, she forbid any mention of the word BAREC (i.e., censorship). We are all wondering what laws or rules she was using to prevent any public comment to an agenda item. SaveBAREC has written the City Clerk, Rod Diridon, Jr. and the City Attorney, Michael Downey, for an official response whether this is even legal. There is still no comment from the City Attorney. The Mayor basically did not allow any public comment on the matter...not just SaveBAREC members, but ANYONE from the public. Further, she later went on to say that others could speak during the Public Comment section on the agenda (item 11). However, that section specifically says, "This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons desiring to address the Council on any matter not on the agenda." It says right there "NOT ON THE AGENDA!" Well, this item was on the agenda and the Mayor eliminated all public comment.

You can view the full 14 minute section of the meeting via video below. Additionally, we have broken-up the video into multiple segments, allowing you to see specific testimony from the Mayor and citizens, making it easier to hear the information you are interested in. Simply click on the person and you will see and hear the video stream to your computer. Hand-outs given at the meeting are linked below each person.

Agenda Item 8B - Need for Educational Urban Farm

Mayor's Introduction (including censorship):

> Mayor Mahan (1.5 minutes - 800KB)
Linda Perrine's Presentation on Urban Farms:
> Linda Perrine (11 minutes - 6MB)

-- Linda Perrine handout Please download this and follow along with the video.
> Santa Clara citizen tries to comment and gets the microphone turned off on him (20 sec - 200KB)

Videos require: Microsoft Window Media

Agenda Item 11 - Public Comment

Public Comment (After most citizens left):
> Kirk Vartan (3 minutes - 1.5MB)
> Mayor Mahan responds (23 sec - 200KB)
> Brian Everette (1.5 minutes - 750KB)

Entire video of the relevant parts of the meeting:
Complete Item 8b video (14 minutes - 8MB)
Complete Item 11 video (5 minutes - 3MB)

For comments or questions, please email us at: info@savebarec.org or call 888-BAREC-80 (888-227-3280).
This is a project of VIVA (Valley Initiative for Values in Urban Agriculture and Horticulture) and SaveBAREC