The timeline was extremely short, as outlined below, but, in short, the whitepaper was written at the beginning of February, the idea for the forum was hatched in mid-March:
- In response to Campbell Union High School District’s request for input on how money should be spent from a Bond spent on revamping Del Mar High School on April 26th, 2017 I submitted a letter to the CUHSD suggesting that teachers’ housing be part of the plans (see bottom part of this post). CUHSD never provided any feedback.
- On January 29th, 2018 I was forwarded the South Bascom Urban Village plan and the first thing I noticed was that Del Mar wasn’t included in the plan. This started an exchange of emails with the Del Mar High School principal and President of the CUHSD Board, where I suggested that “given that much has changed since the last community input from 2014, it seems like CUSHD should engage the city to see what opportunities there might be to incorporate the aforementioned housing at Del Mar as part of San Jose’s Urban Village Plan.”
- That led to a white paper, which provided more detail than what I had submitted in April, 2017 – https://winchesterurbanvillage.wordpress.com/2018/02/05/a-proposal-to-help-combat-silicon-valleys-crisis-of-community/ – The intent was to eventually submit that paper as input to the South Bascom Urban Village plan, as I was unable to attend the 2/15/18 South Bascom Urban Village Community Meeting.
- In late February, we met with the president of the CUHSD board, which led to a meeting with the CUHSD Superintendent on March 14th, 2018. The outcome of the meeting was the idea to convene a forum of experts to address the excellent questions posed by the Superintendent.
- At that point, we began planning the forum and looking for speakers, securing the Del Mar facility and beginning to promote. On April 3rd, we announced to the superintendent that we had selected a date (May 29th) and followed up on April 5th with an announcement at the CUSHD Board meeting.
- On April 12th, the WNAC sent an email to its mail list notifying them of the Forum. Around the same time, the event was added on Nextdoor and open to all neighborhoods.
- On May 4th, the following document was submitted to the city council with some ideas for the South Bascom Urban Village Plan. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zX0hh3CgdmGgkAaahGhS7sec7XYnHCzl/view?usp=sharing
- On May
- In the meantime, we were getting speakers and organizing the panels. The final speaker was secured on May 28th, the day before the panel. The programs were created on May 29th.
This was a 100% volunteer effort. Especially appreciated are the volunteer efforts of the Del Mar Don students and parents in keeping us fed and organized.
