No Garden of Earthly Delights
By Sharon Simonson
EAST SAN JOSE— Eleven years after the city and the Viet Heritage Society agreed to terms for the VHS to build the four-acre Vietnamese Heritage Gardens in San Jose’s Kelley Park, the city says that the unfinished project has become a health and safety hazard and that it must take control to finish the work.
But directors of the Vietnamese community organization led by Dr. Ngai X. Nguyen are contesting the pullback. They say in a letter to City Manager Norberto Duenas that the city “has always had total control,” including selecting the project contractor in 2011, and has “under-funded” the effort by more than $1.5 million.
They allege that the city foisted millions of dollars in infrastructure to prepare the property for development on the nonprofit while er...