Back in the 1950s the City of Santa Clara was growing at an exponential rate. In 1950, its population was 11,702 but by 1960, its population was nearly 60,000, a five-fold increase.
Facing these exploding needs, the city council began considering a bond in the summer of 1959. Originally, two bond issues were considered — $13.5 million for general needs and $8.2 for utilities and sewers — according to an August 1959 Mercury News story. [1959_Mercury_council bond discussion]
The bonds wouldn’t require tax increases, then-city manager Lloyd Brady told the bond study committee, “because the city receives $450,000 yearly from sales tax, which can be used to pay for the bonds,” the Mercury wrote.
Further, Brady told the committee, “The annual profit for $300,000 from the two utilities [water & sewer, electricity] is enough to pay their part of the bonds.”
However, the bond would require an increase to the $0.35 sewer fee currently paid by residents, they said.
In September, the council approved a special October election for a $20 million bond measure — $216 million in 2024 dollars. Voters approved the bond in a landslide vote on Oct. 28, 1959. [1959 Mercury Bond Election Landslide]
“Jubilant city officials here [Santa Clara] are starting plans for a series of city improvements authorized by voters Tuesday when they approved twenty million dollars in city bonds by a 7-1 margin,” wrote Staff Writer Dick Cox in the Oct. 29, 1959 edition of the Mercury News.
Another interesting insight from that bond measure was who decided what projects the money would be spent on: the Director of Public Works Don Von Raesfeld.
The first projects to hit the drawing board were two new 60,000 volt electric substations, Cox reported.
“[City Manager] Von Raesfeld predicted that the $5,700,000 bond issue for streets, highways, bridges and traffic signals will be high on the list,” Cox wrote. “Priorities on other jobs will be recommended to the City Council shortly, by department heads.”
Then-city manager Brady was lauded by his peers at an International City Managers Association convention, where “the almost unheard of margin of approval [for a bond measure] caused a sensation,” wrote the Mercury News on Nov. 10, 1959.
There was an unanimity in the vote that has been rarely seen in recent times. It also highlighted the social change that was taking place.
“Since the days shortly after WWII when subdividers began bulldozing the first orchards for tracts there has been a noticeable division between ‘Old Town’ and ‘New Town,’” Cox wrote.
“Santa Clara’s older neighborhoods always cast the heavier vote. The newcomers, or the ‘westsiders’ usually voted only one-third or one-fourth as heavy,” Cox continued. “The political sages used to wisecrack that the tract people ‘are still busy planting their lawns but wait ‘til they wake up.’”
Apparently they woke up in time because, as Cox reported, “when the vote was in the newcomers had voted just as heavy and just as solidly for the bonds as the older residents.”
As another Mercury New headline put it on Oct. 30, 1959, “Santa Clarans Display Municipal Maturity.”
It remains to be seen if today’s Santa Clarans have similar “municipal maturity.” [1959 Mercury Bond Election Success]
Mary Hanel, retired Local History Librarian at the Santa Clara Central Library, contributed to this story. She has done significant research on the Harris family of the Harris-Lass Museum, and is a preeminent authority on the historical and genealogical archives and resources in Santa Clara County.