Los Gatos Weekly-Times

General Plan Task Force presents findings Jan. 26

By Jeff Kearns

After months of researching the collective mind of Los Gatans, the General Plan Task Force will report to the Town Council on Jan. 26 its findings on prevailing attitudes about issues like growth, high-density housing, traffic and, of course, parking.

Council approval to appoint a task force came about in April; at that time, it was decided that some 30 people, representing a broad cross-section of the community, should be appointed. Twenty-eight people from varying professions, backgrounds, opinions and neighborhoods were selected in June to serve on the task force.

"We suffer problems that all metropolitan areas suffer, like commute patterns, and before we address those issues, we need to have a very clear idea of what they are," said senior planner Bud Lortz, who staffed the task force.

In the process of identifying the most important issues, the task force also surveyed almost 1,400 Los Gatans to determine their attitudes about such issues as the town's character, property rights, businesses, schools, bike lanes and high-density housing--which 83 percent of residents said they opposed.

"It gave us a real slice of what the community was thinking," Planning Director Lee Bowman said. "The council's goal was to get as much grassroots input on this as possible."

The task force also turned a collection of ordinary citizens into a group highly motivated to keep working with the community. Ten members applied for the vacant seats on the Planning Commission in December, and Paul Bruno, who will present the findings to the council next week, was appointed to the commission.

"The task force was extremely valuable," member Lois Hanson said. "It got so many people involved in the town who otherwise would not have been, and there are a lot of us who are going to keep participating in town activities. I'd like to see other people share this opportunity. It's exciting to plan our own future."

Committee member Suzanne Müller called it an interesting learning process.

"The diversity added a deeper dimension to the discussion," she said, "so we weren't just rubber-stamping ideas. When people have different opinions, they can cause people to look at things from another point of view. We also learned how complex the issues really are."

One task force member, a recent émigré from Poland, added a new perspective at one meeting, when he spoke about dealing with a communist government.

Lortz said that the results will likely set the tone for the upcoming year of policy-making in the town, as the council starts to put the task force's findings into practice.

The main areas, however, are already familiar to most residents: growth and traffic. "All of us recognized that this is a unique town, and everyone wants to live here, but there's just no space left, and everyone wants to limit growth," Hanson said.

The task force will present its findings to the Town Council Monday, Jan. 26, at 7:30 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall.

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