Proposed Google Mega-Campus: Group Calls Town Hall Meeting

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA -- A community town hall meeting is taking place this evening on a
proposed 6 million-square-foot Google mega-campus near the Diridon station in San Jose. The South Bay Labor Council will host the meeting that starts at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Mexican Heritage Plaza at 1700 Alum Rock Ave. San Jose Vice Mayor Magdalena Carrasco will be among the attendees, organizers said.

The meeting is being billed as an opportunity for residents to voice their thoughts on the effects the proposed major project will have on affordable housing, access to quality jobs and education.

The City Council voted in June to begin exclusive talks with Google on the project, which is expected to bring up to 15,000-20,000 more jobs to the city.

The labor union said Thursday's meeting will have "learn-ins," breakout sessions and a larger discussion of what the community's vision of the project will be.

The meeting is also claiming to be the first opportunity for residents to voice their concerns on the project. The labor union said this should be the first of several meetings to bring together the community and
share its vision of the project with the mayor, City Council and Google.

Google, the world's largest online search engine and one of the largest tech companies in the world, is currently based in Mountain View. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo announced in June that the city was in discussions with the web giant to bring the proposed campus downtown.

The Diridon station connects the Silicon Valley with the majority of the Bay Area. It's the region's major travel hub, hosting rail service from Caltrain, Amtrak, the Altamont Corridor Express, light-rail service from
the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and bus service from the VTA, Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District and Monterey-Salinas Transit.

It is also a planned future stop for California's high-speed rail line and Phase Two of BART's Silicon Valley extension.

City officials said in June that the proposed mixed-use campus would accommodate the thousands of new jobs, along with a public plaza, paseos, retail shops and a public greenbelt/park along Los Gatos Creek.

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By Bay City News Service

Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press