Pushing Back
Gary Singh starts his article (“Stadium Push,” Silicon Alleys, Feb. 22) by stating, “If I lived 1,000 feet away from a brand-new soccer stadium, I would welcome the fact that my property values would increase as a result”.
Sir, I live less than 1,000 feet from that above-mentioned soccer stadium, and I doubt that having tarp-covered aluminum bleachers filled with 18,000 excited fans [with] vuvuzuelas, air horns and other devices throughout the weekend will do much for my property values, but I guess that’s just me.
In any case, as many fans reminded me during the hearing, given the fact that I live next to a railroad, I have no basis to complain—in fact, let’s not only built a stadium but a BART station and an elevated high-speed train while were still at it.
Your article while it may appeal to the thousands of soccer fans, has little regard for facts. The neighborhood association never opposed the stadium; in fact, they tried to work with the Earthquakes organization many times to work on a solution that would satisfy both parties. But we could not feel but horrified when we saw that the original design given to the city—and for which a proper EIR was made—was not at all similar to the one that was going to be actually built. After all, aluminum bleachers sound like a great sound-dampening device, right?
But I guess that I should be grateful, as Mr. Singh quickly points out that “in a compromise, the team even agreed to refrain from hosting concerts at the new stadium, an outright appeasement.” Well, if he had bothered to read the EIR, he would know that this was not a concession but a finding of that report, that clearly stated that concerts would have a severe negative impact on the surrounding communities.
As a neighbor of Campbell Avenue, I could not feel anything but duped by the city of San Jose. After all, they were the ones that changed the zoning of that surrounding area from light industrial to high-density residential, knowing all along that they wanted to build a soccer stadium, a BART station and an elevated high-speed rail right next to us, which I find important to remark, was a fact that was never disclosed to us in the proposed area plan that was presented to us when close to 250 families invested close to $150 million buying homes on that small corridor.
If they have done so, I would have never purchased that house, and I’m pretty sure that many of my fellow neighbors feel the same way as I do. I think that when you misrepresent and withhold information, in many areas that is called outright fraud. But I guess that’s just me, Mr Singh?.
Ludmila Parada, San Jose
