March 14, 2008

Change in our community

By Councilmember Forrest Williams
Special to the Times

The New Year has brought some significant changes and positive light to our community. The Police Substation groundbreaking, Endenvale Housing Grand opening and construction of the new Santa Teresa Library are significant changes that are shaping our community while providing resources to community members.  

With the new police substation, policing and safety will improve not only in District 2 but throughout the entire City of San Jose as well.   Presently, we are the only large city in the country with only a single centralized police station.  The substation, scheduled to be completed in October 2009, is located at Great Oaks Boulevard and Brooklyn Avenue.  This project is being funded by a $159 million public safety bond, which was approved by voters in 2002.  

This month we also had the grand opening of Edevale Supportive Housing. The development houses 15 units that were built to serve persons with developmental disabilities. Funding for this much needed project was derived from a number places including: the City of San Jose’s Housing Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, The State of California’s Multi-family Housing Program, Santa Clara County, the Housing Trust of Santa Clara County, and the Housing Choices Coalition. The Edenvale Supportive Housing will bring a better quality of life for its residents.  

I am extremely pleased to see that the Endenvale Library is a great success; it is the second most used branch library in the city, only second to the downtown Martin Luther King Jr. Library. The Library provides our community with numerous resources. During the construction of the new Santa Teresa Library there has been increased traffic at the Edenvale library and a request has been made for additional parking.  This topic of concern is currently being investigated by city staff and information is forthcoming. The construction of the new Santa Teresa Library was made possible as a result of the Library Bond Fund, and the library will be serving the community by 2009.

Ways to Contact Councilmember Williams
If you have something that you would like brought to my attention, or something that you would like to discuss with me, we can meet together in several ways:

Office Hours/Mobile Office Hours: The Office Hours for the months of March are as follows: Saturday, March 15, 2007 from 10 am 12 noon at the Edenvale Library and Thursday, March 27th from 3:00- 5:00 pm at the Southside Community and Senior Center.

My Mobile Office Hours will begin at 9 am on Saturday, March 29th at the Silver Leaf Neighborhood and will continue throughout the surrounding neighborhood

If you would like to know where I will be walking in future months, please refer to the District Two Web site at www.sanjoseca.gov/district2 and click on the “Mobile Office Hours Schedule” link.

Contact Information: As always, you can reach me by calling my office at (408) 535-4902 or by e-mailing me at forrest.williams@sanjoseca.gov. You can also visit the District Two Web site for more information: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/district2.