Local News

THE MERCURY NEWS » SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2019

News on your phone:

Download the Mercury
News mobile app for
iPhone or Android
MORE LOCAL NEWS » THE MERCURYNEWS.COM 111 SECTION B

CUPERTINO DISPUTE

County orders quarry trucks off city streets

Company needs permit
before it can keep buying
and processing materials
By Thy Vo
tvo@bayareanewsgroup.com
CUPERTINO » To the relief of
neighbors, Santa Clara County
has ordered Stevens Creek Quarry
to stop hauling crushed rock from
neighboring Lehigh Permanente
Quarry in the Cupertino hills un-
til it obtains a use permit to do so.
That order should put an end —
at least for now — to the proces-
sion of trucks taking mined rock
up and down Stevens Creek and
Foothill boulevards in Cupertino
between the two quarries. Nearby
residents have been complaining
that the trucks make a lot of noise
and kick up dust in their trips,
which according to a city staff
report average 169 a day.
News of the county’s deci-
sion was included in a staff re-
port posted online Thursday in
preparation for a meeting of the
Housing, Land Use, Transporta-
tion and Environment Commit-
tee on Feb. 21. The report ref-
erences two letters sent to the
quarries Friday, the day after the
report was posted.
But an attorney for Stevens
Creek Quarry said Friday morn-
ing he has not received any cor-
respondence from the county
and cannot comment until then.
A representative for Lehigh also
said Friday afternoon they have
yet to receive a response from
the county.
The trucks started using
city streets in August after the
county shut down a service road
on Lehigh’s property, which
leads right up to Stevens Creek
Quarry, that Lehigh widened
without permission to haul the
aggregate directly to its neigh-
bor.
Early last year, Lehigh began
selling the aggregate to Stevens
Creek, which processes and re-
sells the rock product, according
to the county staff report.
The county’s order is a re-
sponse to the city of Cupertino’s
request on Jan. 31 to halt both
quarries from transporting the
aggregate, which cited a vari-
ety of issues including a lack of
proper approvals, creation of a
nuisance to nearby residents and
environmental concerns.
According to the staff report,
the county on Friday issued a no-
tice of violation to Stevens Creek
Quarry that stated importing,
processing and selling materi-
als mined off-site is an expan-
sion of the company’s operations
that requires a new permit, and
constitutes a public nuisance.
Separately, the county also
sent a letter to Lehigh seeking
more information about whether
operations relying on the road
widening would intensify or sig-
nificantly change surface mining
operations on its property.
QUARRY » PAGE 4

BAY AREA STORMS EL CAMINO HOSPITAL

Subsidiary
bids $1.27M
for five Verity
medical clinics
Unclear whether the clinics will
close during ownership transition
By Thy Vo
tvo@bayareanewsgroup.com
MOUNTAIN VIEW » A subsidiary of El Camino
Hospital has offered to buy five health clin-
ics for $1.27 million from Verity Medical
Foundation, whose parent company is go-
ing through bankruptcy.
The El Camino Hospital Board voted
unanimously Wednesday evening to submit
an offer on behalf of Silicon Valley Medical
Development for three clinics in San Jose,
one in Gilroy and one in Morgan Hill.
If the bankruptcy court approves the sale,
it is expected to close April 1, according to a
spokesperson for Silicon Valley Medical De-
velopment.
It’s unclear whether the clinics will close
ANDA CHU — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
during the ownership transition.
The sun breaks through storm clouds above San Jose International Airport as a passenger airliner comes in for a landing in “We seek to minimize a gap in service,”
San Jose on Friday. Kris Naidl, a spokesperson for Silicon Val-
ley Medical Development (SJMG), said in an
email. “We will work collaboratively with

RAINFALL PUSHES PAST SJMG physicians and other community or-

ganizations to best preserve the patient-phy-
sician relationships in place and provide con-
tinuity of care with as little disruption as

100 PERCENT OF NORMAL

Storms send reservoirs overflowing, washing away fears of summer water shortages
By Paul Rogers
progers@bayareanewsgroup.com
The dead lawns and de-
pleted reservoirs that marked
California’s historic five-year
drought seemed a long way
off Friday, as a week of wet
weather — with a bit more
to come Saturday — pushed
rainfall totals across North-
ern California above 100 per-
cent of their historical aver-
ages.
Total rainfall since Oct.
1 was at 109 percent of nor-
mal for San Jose; 111 percent
for San Francisco and Sac-
ramento; and 102 percent in
Oakland. Further south, the
numbers were even further
off the charts, with Los An-
geles at 170 percent of normal
and San Diego at 166 percent.
“Just being above normal
makes people feel there’s not
a drought going on,” said Will
Pi, a forecaster with the Na-
tional Weather Service in
SAN JOSE POLICE SHOOTING
possible.”
Verity Health System has declined to com-
ment on whether the eight clinics owned by
its subsidiary, Verity Medical Foundation,
will be closed. But in a Jan. 25 letter to em-
ployees, the company said Verity Medical
Foundation “will permanently cease its op-
eration” of the clinics and layoffs are likely
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A MONTH MAKES year so far, also delivered 2 to begin starting March 31.
As of Tuesday, only 10 percent of California was considered to 4 inches to most Bay Area HOSPITALS » PAGE 4
to be in a drought (light orange means modest drought and cities, swelling creeks but
darker means more serious), a stark improvement from stopping just in time to avoid
Jan. 1, 2019, when 75 percent of the state fell into that category. flooding in most places other
than in Guerneville, where FREMONT
Jan. 1 Feb. 12
the Russian River peaked
Drought
severity
at 4 feet above flood stage
early Friday morning, caus-
ing some flooding in low-ly-
Old fire station
No
drought
Abnormally
ing areas.
“Overall, it has been a
needs to go, city
dry
Moderate
drought
great benefit,” said Pi. “Every-
thing is green. No fire danger.
And it washes the air pollu-
planners decide
Severe drought tion away.” By Joseph Geha
Saturday should see cooler jgeha@bayareanewsgroup.com
Exreme drought temperatures, Pi said, with
Exceptional drought lows in the 40s in most Bay FREMONT » An old fire station in Fremont’s
Area communities, highs in historic Centerville district should be razed
Source: U.S. Drought Monitor BAY AREA NEWS GROUP the 50s and scattered showers to make way for a major retail and hous-
giving way to sunny weather ing development that would reshape an en-
Monterey. “Until this week cleaned up from the atmo- Sunday, Monday and Tues- tire block, the city’s planning commission
we were below that. We’ve spheric river storm that day. A high surf advisory is decided Thursday night.
had a lot of rainy days this brought a drenching 7 inches in place this weekend at the The commission’s 4-2 vote, with Kathryn
winter, but this was the first in 72 hours over the Santa coast, where rip currents and McDonald and Reena Rao dissenting, dis-
storm that really dumped a Cruz Mountains, North Bay waves up to 25 feet are ex- regarded the recommendations of the city’s
lot of rain.” Hills and Big Sur area. The pected. Historical Architectural Review Board and
On Friday, the Bay Area storm, the strongest of the STORMS » PAGE 4 staff to preserve and rehabilitate Fire Sta-
tion No. 6, at 37412 Fremont Blvd.
The Fremont City Council will have fi-
nal say on the fire station’s fate, likely at its
March 5 meeting.
More than 30 people spoke at the meet-

Abducted UPS delivery driver hailed ing, many of them saying the firehouse is a
blight and shouldn’t stand in the middle of
a new development.

for thwarting carjackers during chase
By Robert Salonga
rsalonga@
bayareanewsgroup.com
SAN JOSE » A UPS driver ab-
ducted during a carjacking
on Thursday is being lauded
for having nerves of steel.
The armed carjackers
seized his delivery truck and
forced him to drive it, with
law enforcement officers in
pursuit. But he drove slowly
so that the police could keep
up and then, in an attempt
to derail his captors’ es-
cape, purposely hit the metal
spikes officers had placed on
the road.
“When you are accosted,
taken at gunpoint, and made
to drive, like something that
comes out in the movies, you
can’t train for the calmness
that man had,” San Jose Po-
lice Chief Eddie Garcia said.
Police say the UPS driver
was caught in the middle of
a violent sequence that began
with a chance encounter at a
South San Jose transit sta-
tion and ended with the fatal
shooting of a suspect by po-
lice Thursday night.
Sources identified the man
who was killed as Mark Mo-
rasky of Saratoga. Morasky
was on parole after serving
four years in prison for a 2012
carjacking and two robber-
ies in San Jose and Saratoga,
court records show.
Garcia said Morasky and
Joanna Mae Macy-Rogers,
23, were inside a black SUV,
parked illegally at the Val-
ley Transportation Author-
ity light-rail station at Pearl
and Chynoweth avenues
around 5 p.m. Thursday. The
SUV attracted the attention
of plainclothes deputies with
the Santa Clara County Sher-
iff’s Office. The Sheriff’s Of-
fice provides transit police
for VTA.
As the deputies approached
the vehicle to issue a ticket,
the car’s occupants spotted
them and drove away. A few
minutes later, when the dep-
uties caught up to the SUV,
Macy-Rogers fired at them
CHASE » PAGE 4
Others said the firehouse should be saved
and the developer required to rehabilitate
the building to serve as a touchstone to his-
tory and a public gathering space.
Sunnyvale-based SiliconSage Builders
plans to build 93 apartments with 26,000
square feet of ground-floor retail across sev-
eral three- and four-story buildings on Fre-
mont Boulevard, between Parish Avenue and
Peralta Boulevard. The project would also
include 72 three-story townhouses between
the apartments and Jason Way to the east.
Ten of the apartments would be desig-
nated as below market rate.
The staff and historical board had recom-
mended that the apartment buildings be re-
configured just north of the firehouse “to re-
duce upper-floor bulk.” That would reduce
the number of apartments from 93 to 81 and
retail space by 1,000 square feet.
FIREHOUSE » PAGE 4