Was the Levi’s Stadium weeknight curfew waived for the Rolling Stones Aug. 18 concert and were Santa Clara City Council Members informed? These seem to be the preoccupying questions these days in Santa Clara.
The answers to these questions are both ‘yes’ and ‘no.’
The City Manager planned for the concert to go to 11 p.m., but technically didn’t extend the curfew nor waive the fine, according to extensive records provided by the City about the concert.
This is somewhat different than information given to The Weekly by the City Manager’s office on Aug. 20: “Santa Clara Stadium Authority’s executive director authorized extending the curfew by one hour for Sunday night’s Rolling Stones concert at Levi’s Stadium.”
In an email to Santa Clara City Attorney Brian Doyle on Aug. 26, City Manager Deanna Santana explained that when the tour was rescheduled last Spring because of Mick Jagger’s heart surgery, “the Stadium Manager reached out to try to work toward rescheduling a weekday summer event that may go past 10 p.m.
“When that did not happen,” she continued, “I was realistic about the likeliness of it going past the 10 p.m., took significant actions to mitigate community impacts, and authorize public safety resources to plan operationally for an event past 10 p.m.”
On May 2, Santana met with Council Members Debi Davis, Raj Chahal and Karen Hardy and on May 3 with Council Members Kathy Watanabe and Teresa O’Neill and Mayor Lisa Gillmor. At those meetings, she provided “an update on the rescheduling of the event during the Budget meetings and I was clear about the strong possibility of the event going past 10 p.m.”
Later that month Santana wrote that she “advised the Council Members that I believed the concert would be confirmed for August 18, 2019 and the inevitability of it going past 10 p.m.”
At a May 22 meeting with the 49ers, Santana “advised Jim Mercurio and Larry O’Neill that I knew the concert would go past 10 p.m. and that I would likely issue a fine notice,” she wrote. “There was no objection from either of them. This is no different than the Cold Play concert where it was well-known of the concert’s likelihood of going past 10 p.m. and the likeliness of a fine notice.”
“This was a reality-based set of actions,” she told Doyle. “I focused on the operational side of a safe and successful event. I did not pretend that it was not going to happen; instead I discussed the reality of it happening with the Stadium Manager and Board members and the need to authorize staffing to operationally plan.”
“It is my understanding that some Councilmembers remember clearly, some vaguely, and some do not remember at all,” she told Doyle.
Santana also noted in her memo, that the ‘reality-based’ focus “was largely successful…no complaints were received by the City the night of the concert.”
The City received only two subsequent complaints, she said, and those “were about the long wait time for food at the concessions and traffic congestion experienced by concert goers in exiting the event.”
this sounds very two faced of the city. One day it’s not ok to go past a curfew the next it’s ok. One day they know they next they don’t.
Suddenly there are no complaints of noise
During my entire time campaigning in 2018 in northside near the stadium, a majority said the stadium noise was limited and small considering the number of events. They then asked the questions what is with the city vendetta they were the ones that signed the deals and brought it here. Most complaints were from traffic and not noise related.
Sometimes I wonder if the noise complaints were politically driven to drive an agenda, or they are valid. To be honest I don’t know who to trust, the city telling us the problems or the people.
There were a lot of upset VTA bus customers. Apparently someone forgot to tell VTA about the new curfew. Some people walked two miles + to get home. Rideshare companies had their rates jacked up too.
Very sad the transportation issues from Levi are still a problem.