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Letters
Developer is ignoring plans as specified
Am I the only one who is upset at the development on Lark Avenue? I could have sworn that the plans laid out for that housing development did not have the houses built up to the edge of that beautiful tree left on the lot. The back of the house touches the branches!
Also the plans specified landscaping along the front of Lark Avenue. After the driveway and road access is put in, we will be lucky if six feet is left between the sidewalk and inner road. The development is a wood and asphalt eyesore, and the town of Los Gatos better wake up and realize developers are not being held to their approved plans by the Town Council or the Planning Commission.
It is therefore up to the community at large to take note and remember this on election day. How sad.
Kyle J. Goldman
Los Gatos
It's a matter of taste and of maturity
How interesting that in the debate in the June 30 issue of the Los Gatos Weekly-Times over how much freedom the political cartoonist should be given, there seem to be only two views of a situation, without any acknowledgment of the range of views and positions between the two points.
Freedom or censorship. Are those really the only options open? DeCinzo is entitled to as much literary--or is it cartoon--freedom of speech as this paper will allow. The question for me is not whether he should be allowed to say whatever he pleases or be censored.
It is a question of how he says it. It is a matter of taste and maturity.
DiCinzo is the master of the cheap shot. He's skilled at hitting below the belt. It doesn't take any great talent or freedom to do that. Anyone can take almost any situation and make fun of it, not to mention some of the more painfully obvious cuts among DeCinzo's hatchet jobs.
It takes talent, training, skill and sensitivity, however, to address truly controversial issues. Given the plethora of insulting and disrespectful humor I see on TV, DeCinzo is not much different than his probable sources of humor. The cartoons he offers have more to say about the DeCinzo than those he so insensitively puts into his cartoons.
There have been many fine controversial cartoonists in history, ones that could truly raise a healthy controversy and frequently a public consciousness. I would wish that DiCinzo might put his talents into studying them and developing his own taste and maturity.
This is not a restriction on his freedom, but rather a responsibility that should come with such freedom.
Bobbi Fries
Los Gatos
Newspaper is free to publish what it chooses
Thanks for the creative idea of having Lee Fagot's and Steve Zientek's point-counterpoint on the issue of DeCinzo's political cartoons. Let me weigh in with a few thoughts that have occurred over the months and years on the subject.
It's not really an issue of free press or free speech. In this case, the "press" is the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, and, as a private entity, the paper can say whatever it wants, free of government or any other interference. That's called editorial policy.
In the same way the newspaper exercises editorial control over the letters it chooses to print and the op-ed columns it chooses to publish, it is perfectly free to exercise control over the cartoons it chooses to publish.
If DeCinzo's or anyone else's cartoons fall within that policy, the Weekly-Times is perfectly free to publish them. If not, the paper is perfectly free to not publish them, and it would not be "censorship" if it so chose.
Personally, the first thing I look for in a cartoon, political or otherwise, is humor or cleverness--preferably both. Second is a meaningful or instructive point of view on an issue or public figure of the day, whether I agree with it or not.
Sadly, these qualities are generally missing in DeCinzo's cartoons. Personal attacks and vendettas are not funny, tastelessness is not clever, and meanness is neither meaningful nor instructive.
Of course, these qualities--funny, clever, meaningful, mean, tasteless, etc.--are very subjective and impossible to define precisely.
All of us--readers, editors, and, yes, DeCinzo too--must judge for ourselves.
Mike Abkin
Los Gatos
Old Town needs places for its shoppers to cross the street
I have researched the possibility of replacing a pedestrian crosswalk from the pathway intersecting the building on the west side of University Avenue across from Old Town.
Now that the center is starting to attract people, the loss of a pedestrian crosswalk appears to make it difficult for people to walk directly across the street into the Old Town complex on the east side of University Avenue.
I understand the town is reluctant to add crosswalks other than at intersections, but I think we are missing an opportunity in this case to connect and make the Old Town Shopping Center a whole.
The crosswalk could be finished in pavers (as the old one was) to create a change of surface to let drivers know that there is a crosswalk. N. Santa Cruz Avenue is rife with crosswalks to facilitate pedestrian traffic flow.
We have patiently been waiting for Old Town to be completed and now we ask for this simple, essential finishing touch to make Old Town (east and west) a pedestrian-friendly experience.
Janice L. Benjamin
The Indian Store
Better to offend than be lulled into complacency
In light of the First Amendment to the Constitution, and in line with an unbroken line of federal court decisions relentlessly expanding the definition of free speech, it should be pretty much established that cartoonists, along with editorial writers and opinion-piece contributors, must be given as much creative latitude as they need to express themselves in a cogent and intelligent manner.
This of course does not mean that their efforts must comfortably coincide with the social, economic or moral tenets of the medium in which their materials appear. Or that their creations be tasteful.
Nor does it necessarily mean that what is presented be fair or unbiased. Those seeking to criticize someone or some thing are not in the business of producing "let's-all-get-along-with-one another" pieces. On the contrary, through undue emphasis, exaggeration and slanting, they are seeking to make a point or assume a position they feel important even though they may be stretching the bounds of credulity.
Despite its acknowledged unfairness, this one-side presentation or assessment works to the ultimate good of the community. It is much better for segments of society to be periodically offended by biased commentary about its leaders and their policies than lulled into complacency by spineless conformists and/or dishonest sycophants with private agendas.
Those who argue that the use or publication of purposely contentious or clearly prejudiced materials ipso facto destroys the credibility of the specific medium in question are permitting their thin skins or sense of propriety to blind them to a far greater danger.
In the present case concerning DeCinzo and the Los Gatos Weekly- Times, there are those who would have the paper's publishers and editor muzzle DeCinzo and insist he channel his energies along more harmonious community lines. Others would prefer to let him continue to vent his spleen as he does now with such glorious--if uneven--excess.
Which course of action more accurately reflects the essence of American political commentary? Which mode more faithfully captures the spirit of journalistic independence? Which avenue is more likely to lead to the truth? Which communications theory is more likely to serve the long-range interests of the community? Which of the various other small newspapers in the area can boast of having a DeCinzo on its staff and allowing him such artistic freedom?
And thus, which approach more favorably establishes the intrinsic credibility of the medium (read Los Gatos Weekly-Times) in question?
Frank Stagnaro
Los Gatos
Check second story possibility before building
Before we become involved seriously again in the subject of a new library for Los Gatos, it might be well to review some of the Los Gatos Weekly-Times' coverage of it when it was a paramount issue a few years ago.
The architectural design of the town's civic center was an award winner for the two men who created it.
Former Los Gatos Weekly-Times columnist Bob Aldrich told me at the time that he telephoned one of the two who designed it who at that time was living in the East Bay, and was informed that the center was designed and constructed to support second stories above the rooms that are there.
Aldrich said that the co-designer offered to come to Los Gatos to discuss this, if invited, but wasn't.
Enlarging the present library by adding another floor above the one we have seems to be the single most compelling argument against constructing a new library.
Vern Hansen
Los Gatos
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
