Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Letters

Planning Commission has good reason for communication rules and regs

This letter is in response to an opinion expressed in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times on March 27 titled, "Planners need standards, accessibility" by Steve Boersma, executive pastor for administration at Calvary Church and chairman of the Los Gatos Boulevard Community Alliance.

Mr. Boersma stated, "Apparently, the current practice of the commissioners is not to make themselves available outside the public hearing process. The result is that often they are not privy to all the available information on a given project."

Possibly Mr. Boersma doesn't understand how to effectively communicate with the Planning Commission. If Mr. Boersma had inquired, he would have discovered the commission is accessible to him or anyone else.

The Planning Commission's policy is not to discuss matters on its agenda outside scheduled meetings. Commission members will, however, discuss matters that aren't on their agenda outside of scheduled meetings. Anyone may present their concerns regarding matters on the commission's agenda by writing an open letter to the commission. The letter should be presented to the Planning Department a week or so prior to the appropriate Planning Commission meeting. The Planning Department will distribute copies of the letter to all members of the Commission several days prior to the matter being heard by the commission. Open letters may also be written to commission members. Anyone may address the Planning Commission at scheduled meetings.

The commission adheres to strict communication standards in order to ensure fairness to all parties concerned. These standards ensure that information given to one commissioner is given to all commissioners. The commission's standards also ensure that any information presented to them is available to the public.

We should remember that our planning commissioners are dedicated volunteers who receive no financial compensation for their service to our community. They deserve our appreciation and support.

Larry Paulding

Los Gatos

Rejection of utility-users tax was refreshing

What a refreshing experience it was to wake up and find that the 2 percent utility tax was rejected by such a resounding vote of the people. This should send the word to the Town Council that they had better wake up and smell the coffee.

Maybe the council will take a long look at the functioning of the town manager. When he was hired, the town had a huge surplus, and now we are financially strapped. After spending a great deal of money to hire a firm to find and recommend him, he laid a big fat egg, and is into the town for a sum of $250,000 plus interest, and has been receiving bonuses and raises each year.

The same scenario was used to locate and hire the chief of police. Now the Police Department is policing another town when it can hardly handle our own town. It has been the sad experience of this writer and a couple of other victims of burglary in our town that the Detective Division, whose operating hours are from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., couldn't find the seat of its pants if it had a hold of them with both hands.

If the police service can be provided to the city of Monte Sereno at such a low cost that it beat out the Sheriff's Department, why hasn't the Town Council taken a long look at having the Sheriff's Department do the policing for the town of Los Gatos? In the midst of the present budget crisis, this might be an avenue to explore, and could save the town a bundle of money.

The people of Los Gatos should be congratulated for standing up and telling Lubeck, Attaway, Benjamin, and O'Laughlin that they erred.

Now that money is going to be tight, we may see a vacancy or two; so isn't it about time to replace vacancies in our town from within our own personnel, instead of going to outside research firms that cost the taxpayers money? If the councilmembers can't make a good judgment call on people they interview, why do they run for office anyway?

Bill Quigley

Los Gatos

Boulevard structure is appalling

The abomination being built on the southwest corner of Los Gatos Boulevard and Blossom Hill Road, one of Los Gatos' defining crossroads, is something many Los Gatans thought the town was trying to avoid.

Tall buff structures right in our faces are not only ugly in and of themselves, but they also block our view of the surrounding hills and mountains. Structures like this are creating a claustro-phobic ambience that Los Gatos used not to suffer.

San Jose continues to become like L.A. Los Gatos appears to be becoming like San Jose. Why make Los Gatos Boulevard look like schlocky Stevens Creek Boulevard?

Is it too late to do something about this atrocity/blight on our view of the hills and our perception of space at this major intersection?

John Walnon

Los Gatos

Los Gatos could reclaim glory days of local theater

Returning from a week at the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, I recall the days when Los Gatos was a theater center that brought in theater lovers and tourists from all over Northern California.

From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, the Old Town Theater was the venue for the Los Gatos Shakespeare Festival, which evolved into California Actor's Theater.

The combined efforts of Artistic Director Jim Dunn and General Manager Shel Kleinman brought season after season of top professional (Equity) theater to town.

The company had no support whatsoever from the town and relied on ticket sales as its major source of income.

CAT was forced out of Los Gatos when new owners of Old Town raised the rent to an unmanageable level; the new owners, in turn, went bankrupt when their restaurant business dried up.

At the height of CAT's success, it served more than 15,000 subscribers. This meant that more than 15,000 people went to Old Town every month to see a play. These people bought a lot of meals and spent a lot of money in town.

I recall town officials complaining about parking difficulties when CAT approached them about a grant for their children's theater.

Since CAT left, Old Town has never been as successful.

Although small, non-Equity theater companies have attempted to use the theater over the years, they have never received any substantial support from the community or from our elected officials.

With the defeat of the utility-users tax, it is time to reexamine priorities here in Los Gatos. The Old Town Theater could be brought up to professional standards for far less than a year or two's sales-tax income on the meals that would be sold to theatergoers. Professional theater is an industry that would appeal to locals and bring in consumers from throughout Northern California.

It might even be able to grow to the stature of the theaters in Ashland.

Greed and inattention by community leaders lost Los Gatos this marvelous opportunity some years ago. Let's rethink these possibilities now.

Don Thomson

Former CAT
Marketing Director

Opinion Policy

The Weekly-Times strives to present a full spectrum of community opinion on these pages. Letters to the editor, commentary pieces and cartoons reflect the opinions of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial opinion of the Weekly-Times.

Letters to the Editor

The Weekly-Times welcomes letters comment-ing on its coverage and on topics of local interest. Be sure to sign your letter, and please provide your address and daytime phone number so we can reach you in case of questions. We encourage letters to be a maximum length of 250-300 words.

Letters can be sent via
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The Weekly-Times reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity and to correct factual errors known to us.

Deadline is Wednesday.