The site of the old Scotts Valley Diner will soon be home to a new Jack in the Box, pending under-review building applications. Lucjan Szewczyk/Press Banner
The Scotts Valley planning commission reviewed and approved the project in September, and if all goes according to plan, construction of the new Jack in the Box should start within the first couple months of the New Year, senior planner Michelle Fodge said.
“It’s at the building permit stage,” she said. “The building permit application is being reviewed as we speak.”
The Scotts Valley Jack in the Box will employ 85 workers and was approved for a 24-hour drive-through, according to the project’s description.
“They indicated they will not open for 24 hours, but they got approval for it,” Fodge said.
Jack in the Box’s Santa Cruz restaurant on Ocean Street often has a packed drive-through, especially after bars close at 2 a.m.
Pepe Abundis owns Cafe Carlos, right next door to where the new Jack in the Box will be built. Abundis said he hopes the fast food giant will help with his restaurant’s visibility.
Cafe Carlos is easy to overlook, he said, because it stands behind Chevron on Scotts Valley Drive.
“This could be potentially very good for business,” he said. “More people will see my restaurant, I hope.”
VeVe Norton, owner of Wendy’s in Scotts Valley, also thinks Jack in the Box will help her fast-food restaurant more than it will hurt it.
Norton said that Wendy’s does not get much business from Bethany University students, but it does serve quite a few from Baymonte Christian School.
“We think it’s great,” said Norton, who’s owned Wendy’s for 16 years. “It’ll bring people off the freeway, and they’ll see us, too.”
Information on Jack in the Box’s plans was available on the city’s Web site for a short time. After the planning commission approved the proposal, however, the listing was removed.
Fodge said that happened because the city is short-staffed.
Scotts Valley resident Paul Bach said he worries about the lack of public information and doesn’t think the city needs another fast-food chain.
“I think the location is an eyesore, and it’s good to do something with the empty building. I just don’t think a fast-food restaurant is the best idea,” said Bach, who heads the Responsible Local Development Political Action Committee.
Jack in the Box plans to remove the 3,506-square-foot Scotts Valley Diner and put up a 2,492-square-foot Jack in the Box in its place at 6014 Scotts Valley Drive.
However, the permit to build or demolish has not been issued yet, Fodge said.
“The first step will be to demolish the existing building. It will be open this year, but I can’t say when exactly. This economy makes it so hard to predict,” she said. “But they are excited and anxious to build.”
• To comment, e-mail reporter Michelle Camerlingo at michelle@pressbanner.com, call 438-2500 or post a comment at www.pressbanner.com.
"These people—if you can even call them that—deliberately violate every social norm without ever pausing to consider how their selfish behavior might affect others. It's as if they have no concept of anyone but themselves."
January 4, 2010
Dear Sue Westman,
I did not received a response to my December 29, 2009 email to you regarding when the information about the Jack in the Box in Scotts Valley would be posted to the Planning Department’s Recently Approved Projects webpage. In your December 16th email you indicated that the information about the Jack in the Box project wasn't posted to the City Planning website Recently Approved Projects because the project hadn't "generated a lot of public interest".
Hopefully you have now had a chance to review the Press Banner article which as of this morning has had 918 online views and which has 39 public comments – most of these comments oppose the project. These numbers clearly confirm that the project is of significant interest to the citizens of Scotts Valley. The article can be found at:
http://www.pressbanner.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Fast-food track &id=5290115&instance=local_news
It now appears that the City has decided to remove access to all “Recently Approved Projects” rather than post the information about the Jack in the Box project.
http://scottsvalley.org/planning/planning.html
Please correct me if I am wrong but at 10:10am this morning the City completely removed the Recently Approved Projects tab from the Planning department menu on the City website.
We hope that this was simply a mistake by your webmaster and that the City will reconsider this action which has further eroded public access it information within the City of Scotts Valley.
Sincerely,
Paul Bach,
RLDPAC
831-430-9655
However, any money that gets taken away from that tight wad, Baby Hughey idiot at McDonald's is a good thing, IMHO.
Nice to know what Council members think of our home town.
Roll out the rug and over the redwoods.
Remember the Titanic, they said it could be sunk..
Time for Transparent Government (and new leadership)
"jack-in-the-box will bring people to our town to see what we have"
They would say: Wow, there sure are alot of:
Traffic Signals (15)
Fast-Food Joints (5)
Starbucks (3)
....and then, "I guess they don't have many restaurants (open past 9pm) besides JUNK food, let's just go to Santa Cruz/Los Gatos"
NOT looking forward to MORE fast food GARBAGE in SV.
Having just read the email thread between Ms. Westman and Mr. Bach I don't see the alleged attack that you speak of. I do however see a valid concern that the City is not being as forthright and open with information as it should be.
The City provides a public information webpage labeled Recently Approved Projects. What we have now learned is that this webpage is in fact a subset of approved projects and doesn't actually include all recently approved projects. At any given time there are very few Recently Approved Projects and as such there seems to be little justification for restricting the information as posting the electronic documents to the web would take little effort.
Anyone that visits a City Webpage labeled Recently Approved Projects should reasonably expect to find a complete listing. As has already been pointed out, the City should not be in a position of selectively and perhaps politically choosing which project data it is willing to present.
If you find this too an attack of Ms. Westman perhaps you should consider rereading the email thread.
Way too late for a massive dose of FOLIC ACID to turn this one around!
You cannot turn it around because they will have armed guards at the door to the meetings.
Isn't Lind supposed to be an Internet expert?
Seems that that posting a page on a regular basis takes nothing more than the desire to do it. The Internet is the great equalizer,as we know, so there is no excuse for not posting online. It is not a question of budget, but a question of will.
Bustichi has said that the Council is ultimately responsible for the behavior of Director Sue Westman, So we are wondering why they have not directed her to post these projects? Where is the leadership on this issue?
Time for new leadership.
We should be electing leadership that thinks we deserve basic courtesy, especially when it costs nothing to do so.
Paul Bach