Lawsuit

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“It’s really a basic question of fairness,” said Edward Burg, a Los Angelesbased attorney representing the property owners. “We’re not saying that there’s anything wrong with the city’s desire to preserve Coyote Valley. What’s wrong is spending $96 million to buy properties right across the street and refusing to buy my clients’ properties when the goal is exactly the same.”

The lawsuit specifically takes aim at the inconsistent approaches San Jose has taken to preserve Coyote Valley.

In November 2019, the city of San Jose partnered with environmental groups to execute a historic $96 million deal to buy 937 acres in Coyote Valley from leading Silicon Valley developers Brandenburg Properties and the Sobrato Organization. As part of the deal, San Jose agreed to fork over $46 million while the Peninsula Open Space Trust, a nonprofit group based in Palo Alto, paid $42 million and the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority contributed $5 million.

Then, exactly two years later, the San Jose City Council on Nov. 16, 2021, approved a series of amendments to the city’s general plan aimed at further preserving Coyote Valley

“I think a bill like this only doubles down on the division and the fighting, and it’s really unfortunate.” The proposal, Shupe said, forces every business to be “an enforcer on their employees” and puts people who don’t want to be vaccinated in an impossible position.

“Are we forcing them to become homeless? How is that good policy?” he said, adding that he thinks the state risks losing jobs or tax revenue if the mandate passes.

Less sweeping earlier mandates also have prompted some resistance.

In San Jose, for instance, the police union and other public safety workers lobbied the city to scale back a vaccine mandate. And the proposal comes as some places, including most Bay Area counties, are rolling back mask mandates, and as people increasingly grow frustrated with pandemic restrictions. Republican state lawmakers have called for an end to California’s state of emergency. North in Canada, truckers have blocked a busy U.S. border crossing, snarling the movement of goods and shuttering nearby auto plants, in protest of COVID-19 restrictions.

“While other blue states are restoring freedoms, California Democrats are trying to further restrict them, making our workforce and economic problems even worse,” CAGOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson said in a statement. “The voters will hold them accountable.”

But health care workers, labor organizations and some business groups praised the idea of a universal worker vaccine mandate Friday.

The current patchwork of mandates varies from city to city, leaving many businesses struggling to keep up and forcing them into making uncomfortable, politically charged decisions about whether to require vaccines.

“We need a statewide standard,” said John Arensmeyer, CEO of the Small Business Majority, which represents nearly 20,000 small businesses in California. “Small businesses don’t want to be traffic cops in debates about public safety.”

Businesses, he said, “just want to put their heads down and run their businesses knowing they have certainty and stability.”

From a public health perspective, said infectious disease expert John Swartzberg, mandates work where education campaigns about the safety and e cacy of vaccines, as well as outright bribery, have not, and help reduce the strain on hospitals and exhausted health care workers.

Swartzberg acknowledged that “nobody likes being told what they have to do.” But, he said, he remembers years ago when seat belt requirements were controversial. “Look at the number of lives they save.”

Last year, Wicks developed a proposal that would have required not only workers but patrons to be vaccinated. That bill never went to print. The current version, which is limited to workers, will “focus the conversation a little bit more,” she said.

This year’s bill is part of a broader slate of legislation put forward by members of the state “vaccine caucus.” State Sen. Scott Weiner, a San Francisco Democrat, has proposed legislation allowing children 12 and up to get vaccinated without parental consent, and lawmakers also have introduced bills aimed at making sure students are vaccinated.

Richard Pan, a doctor and lawmaker who chairs the state Senate’s health committee, co-authored the worker mandate proposal and introduced a school vaccine bill, said the worker vaccine legislation would help protect the most vulnerable members of society, noting that though vaccines don’t entirely prevent transmission of COVID-19, they do keep people safe from severe illness and death, and reduce the likelihood of infection.

“This is so critically important,” Pan said. “We don’t want people to be worried when they go to work that they might be exposed to this disease.” for open space and farmland. As part of that vote, the city rezoned 314 acres of remaining undeveloped land in North Coyote Valley, which included land owned by the property owners who are suing, from an industrial park designation to agricultural.

In both instances, city leaders wanted to achieve the same goal: preserving the rural expanse of farmland and open space on the southern edge of San Jose.

So the notion that the city would pay one set of property owners millions to achieve its goal while leaving others empty-handed “unfairly discriminates” against the property owners who the city failed to compensate, the lawsuit argues.

“Our ask is that the city acts fairly and treat my clients’ properties the same as the Brandenburg and Sobrato properties,” Burg said.

City Attorney Nora Frimann declined to comment on the matter, citing the pending litigation.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo previously told this news organization that there “simply was no pot of money that the city has to pay everyone what they think their land is worth.”