Ray C. King
Monte Sereno
St. Mary's needs to pay its fair share of parking
While I agree with my fellow parking task force member Phil Micciche that the Tim Ware draft parking plan is deficient in many respects ("Paying to Pray" in Los Gatos Weekly-Times letters in the May 31 issue), I take strong exception with his attack on preferential parking in the downtown residential neighborhoods. The concept of preferential permit parking has been upheld in California and throughout the United States as a legitimate and nondiscriminatory means of managing urban parking for years. It is not a new idea but a time-proven concept that has worked in other cities as well as here in Los Gatos.
It is further disappointing that the first and only solution to St. Mary's parking problems put forth by Mr. Micciche, as St. Mary's representative on the parking task force, is that the residential neighborhoods should absorb St. Mary's excess parking. This is, however, consistent with St. Mary's historical head-in-the-sand approach to its own parking management.
Twenty years ago, when the downtown parking assessment districts were established to add and improve parking lots, St. Mary's elected not to participate (or pay), unlike for example, St. Luke's Episcopal, another downtown church. St. Mary's then stated that it had adequate on-site parking to handle its needs. The fact is that St. Mary's grossly miscalculated, and its increased membership and increased activities (both church and school) spill cars into the residential neighborhood in record numbers.
Now, 20 years later, once again St. Mary's asks the town to allow it to do what no other downtown business will be allowed to do under the proposed parking management plan--to simply dump its parking problem into the residential neighborhood. The town should not allow it!
Instead, this time, St. Mary's should be made to act responsibly and pay its fair share into the assessment district to build the parking lot behind Mt. Charley's. That would allow sufficient off-site parking only a short walk away. The elderly and infirm could be accommodated on-site at the church.
As to the issue of who was here first, the church or the residential neighborhood, my Victorian, as were many in the Almond Grove, was built in 1891, a decade or two before St. Mary's relocated from its former location to its present site at Bean and Tait.
Steve Zientek
Los Gatos
Council member says he's decided not to run again
I see campaign signs going up already and with my four-year term on the Los Gatos Town Council ending, it seems appropriate for me to announce my intentions.
Being on the council is helping me better know the people and places in this wonderful town. It is giving me a crucible in which to practice equanimity and helping me understand different perspectives. I'm showing up, paying attention, learning a lot. I'm keeping my commitment to vote according to certain principles such as improving communication, honoring neighborhood rights, maintaining a pedestrian-friendly downtown and respecting zoning.
I was originally asked to offer myself for office because the incumbent, Pat O'Laughlin, was physically unable to continue. I was moved to tears by Pat's opinion piece in the May 10 issue of the Los Gatos Weekly-Times. ("Is the Council Out of Touch?").
Without knowing how I had voted, he opined about three key council decisions. I was touched because in each case I had voted as he would have.
The experience of seeing local politics from the inside has reaffirmed my observation that any group is only as effective as the people in it. Having additionally involved, emotionally healthy citizens automatically produces better government and a better quality of life.
So I initiated task forces and town newsletters to bring the uninvolved into the system. This new human energy offers the possibility of a community more in touch with itself.
Yet, I've come to believe our advancement as a culture depends more on the "inner politics" of individual human transformation. So I'll be investing more energy "following my bliss," using yoga and body work to cultivate awareness, compassion and inner peace.
It's a calling I must make time to explore, thus, I will not offer myself for service on the council for the next four years.
I will remain active in "traditional" public service as board chairman of the San Jose Sports Authority, board member of the Los Gatos Community Hospital and fundraiser for the incredible O.I.C.W. job training program, along with numerous other charities and causes.
I also have a personal life as president of American Champion Media, producer of the kids TV show Adventures with Kanga Roddy and as husband to the wonderful Teri Hope.
Thank you for letting me work with you. It's a wonderful thing to have done.
Jan Hutchins
Los Gatos Town Council
Birds in parks can be heard, and identified
I walk through La Rinconada Park as part of my three-mile walk most days I'm in town. I developed a list of 80 bird species I had seen in the park. Since people would ask me about birds when I was in the park with my binoculars, I decided to try to provide residents with useful information.
I approached the Los Gatos parks commission with the idea of "Birds of La Rinconada Park." They voted to let me test the idea for two months. I did and the results were amazing.
In a tiny park like this one, 147 bird lists were taken in January and February despite the rain. I also did a write-up on acorn woodpeckers, since there are two colonies in the park. Due to the removal of oak trees, acorn woodpeckers are in major decline in our county.
In May the Los Gatos Park Commission voted to take over the distribution of the "Birds of La Rinconada Park" with the acorn woodpecker story on one side and the 80 species I've seen there on the other.
I've also been asked to put together a list for Oak Meadow Park since it is the largest of the 17 town parks. I will lead a field trip for Santa Clara Valley Audubon on Saturday, June 10, to help create such a list.
If you would like to join us, meet at the corner of Blossom Hill Road and University Avenue at 8 a.m.
Thank you, Los Gatos Park Commission!
Gloria LeBlanc
Los Gatos
Teachers touch lives of students
I was saddened to learn of the passing of Margaretann McKenna. She was my son, Jim's, third-grade teacher at Daves Avenue School.
Last spring Jim, Pleasanton's poet laureate-elect, wrote and read a poem honoring teachers at an educational fundraiser. He mentioned Miss McKenna and Fred Keplinger, another teacher we recently lost.
Here are a few lines from the poem that show how even brief moments in the classroom live in students' lives forever.
"I remember you/as if in black and white/snapshots in a school scrapbook .... I remember how the lessons from your life became the dreams for mine."
He then concludes: "And what were your dreams, Miss McKenna, Mrs. Williams, Mr. Keplinger?
"I never thought to ask you. Never talked with you to ask about your day, your life, to say thank-you.
"I'll never forget you, will never lose that scrapbook.
"I'll celebrate forever how you taught me--Not just the what, but the who.
"I will always remember you."
Janet Ott
Los Gatos
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
