![]() | Parts of this article (those related to name change) need to be updated.(July 2015) |
Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority | |
---|---|
OSA | |
![]() | |
Established | 1993 |
The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority (OSA) is an independent special district in Santa Clara County, California, U.S. [1] [2] A bill signed by Governor Wilson in 1992, SB2027, created the district as the Santa Clara County Open Space Preserve as of February 1, 1993. [3] In 2015, Governor Jerry Brown signed California Senate Bill SB422 to rename the authority with "Valley" instead of "County." [2] The OSA serves areas of the county outside the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District with the exception of Gilroy. [1] The OSA uses $4.2 million per year from a $12-per-parcel property-tax assessment to hire open space technicians and to open land to the public. [4]
The Open Space Authority currently owns or manages the following public open space preserves: [5]
Mission: The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority conserves the natural environment, supports agriculture, and connects people to nature, by protecting open spaces, natural areas, and working farms and ranches for future generations.
The Guadalupe River mainstem is an urban, northward flowing 14 miles (23 km) river in California whose much longer headwater creeks originate in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The river mainstem now begins on the Santa Clara Valley floor when Los Alamitos Creek exits Lake Almaden and joins Guadalupe Creek just downstream of Coleman Road in San Jose, California. From here it flows north through San Jose, where it receives Los Gatos Creek, a major tributary. The Guadalupe River serves as the eastern boundary of the City of Santa Clara and the western boundary of Alviso, and after coursing through San José, it empties into south San Francisco Bay at the Alviso Slough.
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), is a special district responsible for public transit services, congestion management, specific highway improvement projects, and countywide transportation planning for Santa Clara County, California. It serves San Jose, California, and the surrounding Silicon Valley. It is one of the governing parties for the Caltrain commuter rail line that serves the county. In 2023, the VTA's public transportation services had a combined ridership of 26,610,000, or about 87,100 per weekday as of the first quarter of 2024.
Mount Umunhum is a peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, located in Santa Clara County, California. It is the fourth-highest peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, after Loma Prieta, Crystal Peak, and Mt. Chual. Most of the mountain is located within the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve.
Coyote Valley is an area located in a narrowing of the southern Santa Clara Valley, in Northern California. Coyote Valley is approximately 7,400 acres (2,995 ha) in size and largely composed of farmland, orchards, open space preserves, and homes. Coyote Valley is generally divided into three sections: North Coyote Valley, the unincorporated village of Coyote, California, and South Coyote Valley.
Santa Teresa is a neighborhood of San Jose, California, United States, located in South San Jose. Founded in 1834, Santa Teresa was originally established as Rancho Santa Teresa by the Bernal family, a prominent Californio clan. Today, Santa Teresa is largely a residential area, but also home to numerous Silicon Valley tech campuses.
Coyote Creek is a river that flows through the Santa Clara Valley in Northern California. Its source is on Mount Sizer, in the mountains east of Morgan Hill. It eventually flows into Anderson Lake in Morgan Hill and then northwards through Coyote Valley to San Jose, where it empties into San Francisco Bay.
The Santa Clara County Library District is a public library system for Santa Clara County headquartered in Campbell, California. The library serves the communities and cities of Campbell, Cupertino, Gilroy, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Milpitas, Monte Sereno, Morgan Hill, Saratoga, and all unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County. Other cities in Santa Clara County run their own library systems. In addition to these libraries, the library provides mobile library service with a bookmobile which visits preschools, retirement communities, migrant farmworker camps, and rural communities without easy access to library services. In 2020, SCCLD also launched a new website featuring a 24/7 online library.
Anderson Lake, also known as Anderson Reservoir, is an artificial lake in Morgan Hill, located in southern Santa Clara County, California. The reservoir is formed by the damming of Coyote Creek just below its confluence with Las Animas Creek. A 4,275-acre (1,730 ha) county park surrounds the reservoir and provides limited fishing, picnicking, and hiking activities. Although swimming is prohibited, boating, water-skiing, and jet-skiing are permitted in the reservoir.
Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259 as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County form the San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara metropolitan statistical area, which is part of the larger San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area. Santa Clara is the most populous county in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Northern California.
Berryessa/North San José station is an intermodal transit center located in the Berryessa district of San Jose, California, United States. The station is served by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) buses. The transit center opened for bus service on December 28, 2019, and subsequently for BART service on June 13, 2020. The station is the southern terminus of the Orange and Green lines.
The Silicon Valley BART extension is an ongoing effort to expand the Green and Orange Line service by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) into Santa Clara County via the East Bay from its former terminus at the Fremont station in Alameda County. Planned since at least 1981, the project has seven stations in three sequential phases.
The Bay checkerspot is a butterfly endemic to the San Francisco Bay region of the U.S. state of California. It is a federally threatened species, as a subspecies of Euphydryas editha.
Alamitos Creek or Los Alamitos Creek is a 7.7-mile-long (12.4 km) creek in San Jose, California, which becomes the Guadalupe River when it exits Lake Almaden and joins Guadalupe Creek. Los Alamitos Creek is located in Almaden Valley and originates from the Los Capitancillos Ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains, near New Almaden. This creek flows through the Valley's Guadalupe Watershed, which is owned by the Santa Clara Valley Water District. The creek flows in a generally northwesterly direction after rounding the Los Capitancillos Ridge and the town of New Almaden, in the southwest corner, before ambling along the Santa Teresa Hills on northeast side of the Almaden Valley. Its environment has some relatively undisturbed areas and considerable lengths of suburban residential character. Originally called Arroyo de los Alamitos, the creek's name is derived from "little poplar", "alamo" being the Spanish word for "poplar" or "cottonwood".
Samuel Theodore Liccardo is an American politician from California who served as the 65th mayor of San Jose from 2015 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, Liccardo was elected mayor in November 2014. He was reelected in 2018 with 75.8% of the vote. As the leader of the California Big City Mayors Coalition, Liccardo advocated on statewide issues including homelessness and COVID-19 response.
Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Department, sometimes referred to as Santa Clara County Parks Department or Santa Clara County Parks, is a government department in Santa Clara County, California. The department manages 28 parks with a total area over 52,000 acres (21,000 ha).
Máyyan 'Ooyákma – Coyote Ridge Open Space Preserve is an 1,859-acre (741 ha) publicly owned open space preserve in southern Santa Clara County. It opened to the public in August 2023 with 5 miles of trails. There are 3.9 miles of trail designated as a portion of Bay Area Ridge Trail, a regional trail system that is planned to run 550 miles along the ridge lines that encircle San Francisco Bay.
Fisher Creek is a 13.8 miles (22.2 km) stream that flows northwesterly through the Coyote Valley in southern Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is a tributary to the largest freshwater wetland in Santa Clara County, Laguna Seca, a seasonal lake important to groundwater recharge. From Laguna Seca, Fisher Creek was connected to Coyote Creek by an artificial channel.
Calero, also known as Calero Lake and occasionally as South Almaden Valley, is a rural neighborhood in the Almaden Valley district of San Jose, California. Located in South San Jose, Calero is notably home to Calero County Park, which surrounds Calero Lake.
The Santa Clara Valley Habitat Conservation Plan (SCVHCP), also known as the Santa Clara Valley Habitat Plan, is an initiative issued in 2012 by the County of Santa Clara, the City of San José, the City of Morgan Hill, the City of Gilroy, the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD), and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA). These governmental agencies are collectively called the "Local Partners" in regards to the Santa Clara Valley Habitat Conservation Plan. The plan's goal is to protect and encourage the growth of endangered species in Santa Clara County. It is a 50-year plan, costing an estimated $660 million as of 2012.
Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve is a 1,678-acre nature preserve in the eastern foothills of Santa Clara County, California. The preserve is managed by the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority and was opened to public in 2002.
Santa Clara County Open Space Authority is an independent special district – rather than a part of county government – and is governed by an elected board of directors.
The new district would be a key part of a comprehensive, long-range strategy for protecting the county's future quality of life by preserving the overall quality of the environment.
The agency also has $26 million left from the 2008 Supreme Court settlement. But when that money runs out...it won't be able to hire more rangers or open more of its lands to the public -- and only about 7,500 acres are open now.