December 5, 2006

From the Mayor’s Desk

A fond farewell after 21 years

By Jeanette Watson, Mayor
Special to the Times

This has been an interesting year in the city and in my personal life. Although we try to keep them separate, they never are because the person I am in private life is who I am as a council member and mayor.

Many of you know I sold my historic home of 46 years this past January, and now live in an apartment. It’s been a challenging year health wise, but a good year. I have learned to live with my handicap of only one functioning hand.

It has been a good year for the city. We have seen our city gain a vibrant downtown thanks to many new businesses that have arrived and are taking an active part in its rebirth.

The economy has affected our being able to do as much as we would like such as improving more streets and roads than we already have done, but we have witnessed many positive happenings. Kohl’s, Bed, Bath and Beyond, as well as some other unique computer businesses have helped boost our tax base. New condos being built will also add to our property tax base.

The city was quite different when I was first elected in 1985. As the first woman elected to the Campbell City Council, we were front-page news. The cultural aspect of the community was about to change. The progress in 20 years has been quite remarkable and I am pleased to have contributed to it. There are too many projects to mention here, so I’ll just highlight a few of them.

We now have a great museum, which is the envy of many cities. We have preserved our heritage by relocating the Ainsley House as well as identifying other historic buildings. We have a community center, which is heavily used by the public, John D. Morgan Park, Edith Morley Park, Jack Fischer Park, Hyde Park and a revitalized Virginia Park. All of these facilities are much enjoyed by our community. We are also a Tree City USA. And we have vibrant shopping centers, which bring people in from surrounding cities.

This council has been fabulous, and I want to commend my colleagues because of their hard work and conscientious efforts to keep this city a favorite destination in Silicon Valley to live, work and play.

Over the 21 years I have served on the council, and the preceding years, I have been working for the betterment of our city. In 1967, I served as vice-chair of the Campbell Citizens for Beautification, which passed the bond issues to build this City Hall, our library, a fire station and public works improvements. The passage of these bonds, I believe, kept the city of Campbell a city. In 1968 and 1969, I chaired the Campbell Citizens for Beautification bringing home two national awards for our efforts to beautify and clean up the community. We built Joseph V. Gomes (Gomes was my father) Mini Park totally with volunteers, planted trees, conducted a cleanup of the creek and had a business beautification contest covering every business in our city. We did, indeed, begin the beautification of this community.

I became the founding chair of the Campbell Civic Improvement Commission after studying the unmet needs in our city. We established a senior coordinating committee to meet the needs of all seniors. We established the museum as a bicentennial project of the city, which now reaches out to all third graders in the Campbell Union School District. And we studied the social needs al all ages and the variety of needs of the Campbell community. Along with the help of Barbara Conant, we were successful in having the 1951 fire station preserved and renovated with state bond monies.

The crown jewel of my efforts besides my Campbell historical book is the Heritage Theatre, and I have enjoyed being the cheerleader of this project. There were those who doubted it could happen but with the Friends of the Heritage Theatre collecting donations and a city manager who understood what a theatre would do for the city, we brought our dream to fruition. (Just wait until you see it decorated for Christmas Dreamland!) It makes all the worrisome hours working on this project worthwhile and every time I enter the theatre for a performance, I stand in awe of what we have done for our city and the Valley.

To the citizens of Campbell who voted for me...many of whom I’ve never met…I know that without your help I could not have succeeded. To all of you associated with this fine city, I remind you how lucky we are to be in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Campbell will always be the center of my universe!