From Terry Christensen to the BART Transit Village Advocates,

The Community Working Group for the BART station formerly known as “Alum Rock” met on April 13th. The Power Points for the items discussed are available for download in PDF format.

Mostly we heard up-dates on funding and other issues. We also heard a report, that had been requested by members of the Working Group, on the prospects of gentrification and displacement including some mitigating measures the City of San Jose has adopted.

AND the name of our station was discussed. As you will have seen 5,596 votes were cast in our survey, with “Little Portugal” winning 63.62% of the vote (maybe a little campaign was underway?).

City and VTA staff expressed appreciation of the input from the survey and proposed spending some time working on a name that would make the location of the station clear and accommodate the wishes of the community — possibly a hybrid name such “Little Portugal/28th Street” or “Little Portugal/East San Jose.” BART will also have something to say about it, of course. Settling on a name may not happen until after the November ballot measure to fund BART to San Jose. If that’s the case, the Working Group insisted that language in the long version of the ballot measure explicitly state that funding would be for “three stations in San Jose” or even better “stations for East San Jose, downtown and Diridon” (presumably plus Santa Clara).

Our voices have been heard — but of course we’ll need to stay engaged through this long process.

Terry