Lemme guess: google employee? Part of what the city council has been blocking is (according to the linked Verge article) stopping Google from doing an environmental report necessary to develop land adjacent to one of their campuses. Why? Because, surprise!, the council members noticed that the environment reports paid for by large companies always happen to come back with a result favorable to the company who paid for the report.

In short, read the article -- lots of sides to the story: http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/26/5444030/company-town-how-g...