As warm, dry breezes brush past the hills and fields that make up Coyote Valley, Nick Perry recalls overlooking the landscape with his grandfather, and deciding he would help protect it. Perry now serves as Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority’s Coyote Valley project manager.
A migrant farmworker who lived behind a powerplant in the distance, Perry’s grandfather taught him that once all of Coyote Valley was nothing but natural habitat until development crept in. The place they stood, still undeveloped, gave a glimpse into what the entire valley once looked like. Then, in 1999, the technology company Cisco Systems entertained a 6.8 million-square-foot corporate campus in one of San Jose’s last remaining undeveloped areas on the valley floor. Amidst a slowing economy, the plan was put on hold in 2002
All Perry could ask was why? Why expand into the beautiful green fields? He started a website called Save Coyote Valley which introduced him to city planning. That led him to his eventual and current role in working to restore the lands, animals and floodplains between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range…