Los Gatos Weekly-Times Photograph by George Sakkestad They don't call it the Dammit Run for nothing. The trek up the face of Lexington is grueling. And it's everyone's favorite organized run. The Best of Los Gatos 1998 Community Pride From their homeowners' associations to their churches, Los Gatans are involved in the life of the community. More than a suburb of San Jose or a bedroom community for Silicon Valley, Los Gatos continues to be a real town, with all the charm and character of the old-fashioned and independent town it has always been. It's not just coincidence that nearly every new proposal that comes before the Planning Commission or the council is judged in relation to its impact on the town's character. This town's citizens take pride in their community, and they have a vested interest in keeping Los Gatos a town with old-fashioned charms. Accordingly, the Children's Christmas and Holiday Parade is still a parade for children, and the Lions Club still sponsors a town picnic; some citizens are regulars at Town Council meetings, and some volunteers just keep giving of themselves. Best Community Organization Lions Club After 52 years as an active community organization in Los Gatos, the Lion's Club continues to stay closely involved with the town. The group, with about 100 members, works to raise funds for the annual Christmas parade, puts on the town picnic every summer and helps the vision-impaired with its annual White Cane fundraiser. Lions also donate to the Santa Clara Valley Blind Center and the Diabetes Foundation and provide scholarships each year to five seniors at Los Gatos High School. The local club also helps support Bingo Nights in San Jose to raise funds for Lions projects. The Lions also have their own youth service group, the Leos. This group, made up primarily of high school students, helps out with Lions and other fundraising efforts. But it's not all work for the Lions, who have earned a reputation as a lighthearted group of old friends who love to tell jokes and tease one another at meetings. Los Gatos Lions Club, 356-1266 Best Town Event Christmas Parade When participants in the Children's Christmas and Holiday Parade first marched down S. Santa Cruz Avenue in 1956, the ranks were a little thin at 17. Last year, about 3,500 children marched down N. Santa Cruz Avenue and E. Main Street to Los Gatos High School, past an audience of about 30,000--mostly made up of proud parents armed with cameras and camcorders. The parade marks the beginning of the holiday season in Los Gatos, with the official town Christmas Tree lighting in the Town Plaza the night before the main event. The parade is organized by the Los Gatos Lion's Club and the Los Gatos-Saratoga Department of Community Education and Recreation, and funded by the annual Christmas Foundation cotillion. Last year's parade featured dogs in costumes, highland dancers, unicyclists, Big Bird, jugglers, a country & western band and the antics of the Stanford Marching Band. Not to mention a gaggle of kids and cloven-hoofed participants, including camels, llamas, reindeer and a kangaroo from TV-land. Children's Christmas and Holiday Parade, 354-8700, ext. 26 Photograph by Jeff Kearns Lee Quintana says Town Council and Planning Commission meetings are more entertaining than watching television, which explains why she seldom misses a meeting, and why she was voted the best council watcher in Los Gatos. Best Council Watcher Lee Quintana Lee Quintana isn't a hard woman to track down--if there's a Town Council or Planning Commission meeting, she's almost always sitting on the back bench on the right. "I'm one of those crazy people who actually enjoy the meetings," she says. "It's more interesting, at times, than watching television." Quintana, who sits on the General Plan Committee, is no stranger to the mundane innards of municipal policy--she retired in September after working in the Planning Department in San Jose, where she was a specialist in environmental review for long-term and regional planning. Quintana has also served on the Town of Los Gatos Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board since 1992, and in December she was appointed to a seat on the General Plan Committee. Now that she's retired, Quintana says that she's seriously considering a shot at the Planning Commission, which she wasn't able to apply for in the past because of her position with San Jose. In the meantime, she'll be there watching every first and third Monday and second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Best Organized Walk/Run Dammit Run Walking up the front side of Lexington Dam in the August heat is hard enough. But running? Maybe the challenge of dragging one's body up the steep grade of Lexington Dam and maintaining a steady trot is what makes the annual Dammit Run one of the most popular foot races in the Bay Area. Serious runners and lollygaggers alike return every year for the race, which begins at Los Gatos High School, heads across E. Main Street, then up the Los Gatos Creek Trail to cross the face of the earthen dam--and back down to Los Gatos High School. This year's race, which is a fundraiser for the LGHS track-repair fund, marked 25 years for the grueling five-mile race. Of the approximately 900 registered entrants in this year's race, organizer Willie Harmatz said that 807 runners (and walkers) finished the course. Even the flier for the race warned that "the course is rough, rocky, dusty, with very steep uphill terrain and narrow trails ... this is not a race for the faint of heart or the timid." First place has gone for three years in a row to Stanford runner Jason Balkman, who this year shared the win with his friend and teammate Brad Hauser. Dammit Run, 354-7365 or 395-4311 Best Church St. Mary's Catholic Church St. Mary's , the only Catholic church in Los Gatos, isn't just a church with a school attached. The church sponsors a number of programs and activities for parishoners and members of the community alike. Every October, the Almond Grove neighborhood church puts on the Country Fair, a carnival fundraiser packed with activities for both children and adults, including food booths, bands, games and special meals. The church also organizes a giving-tree program every Christmas, which brought in more than 900 gifts last year. And every year, the ongoing Skip-a-Meal program brings in about $12,000 for local food banks and homeless shelters. The church also runs several religious-education programs for young people. The Playways program, for preschoolers through first-graders, takes place during Sunday services and is designed to help youngsters understand religion in ways that only kids can. Other programs cater to elementary school and middle school students, and for high school students, there's the Youth Ministry program. For adults, there's the Renew program, in which more than 400 parishoners meet in small groups to talk about how religion impacts their daily lives. St. Mary's Catholic Church, 219 Bean Ave., 354-3726 Best Neighborhood Association Rinconada Hills Homeowners Association At the Rinconada Hills Homeowners Association, which anyone can join if they buy a townhouse in the 434-unit development, the focus is on getting things done as much as it is on having fun. Since the development was built at the northwest edge of Los Gatos in 1968, the homeowners association has been around to help turn a group of neighbors into a community as well as getting the basic housework done. In addition to the seven-member board of directors, residents of the tiny town-within-a-town sit on several committees that run various aspects of the complex, including landscape, traffic, architecture, budget and the clubhouse. Committees also plan social events like potluck dinners and trips to the theater, or recreational activities like yoga and water exercise. Other committees manage the landscape maintenance and pool-cleaning and keep the tennis courts running smoothly. Rinconada Hills Homeowners Association, 100 Avenida del Sol, 374-3895 Super volunteer: Joe Pirzynsky Best Volunteer Joe Pirzynski When Joe Pirzynski helped co-found the Los Gatos Disaster Aid Response Team in 1982, Proposition 13 had recently gutted state budgets for public services--including search and rescue duties, which were mostly the jurisdiction of the county Sheriff's Department. Today, he commands the 60-member all-volunteer team, and is the only founding board member still on the team, which has become a model for other DARTs in the state. Since then, he's worked alongside Los Gatos police and other officials during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, last year's Cats fire, El Niño's deluge and several searches for missing people. In the '90s, Pirzynski also got involved with the grittier aspects of running the town by joining the General Plan Committee, the group that works on the town's blueprint for growth and development, which he now chairs. In December, Pirzynski was appointed to serve on the Planning Commission. He also sits on the board of the Los Gatos Community Foundation, which works to raise money for community projects that can't get public funding. And, as a candidate in this year's Town Council race, he's hoping to take on even more volunteer challenges. "It has its own rewards," he says, "If you're helping people in a significant way, a smile or a handshake or a 'thank you' is a big reward." Pirzynski works as a counselor and teacher at Archbishop Mitty High School and as a family therapist in Los Gatos. So where does he get the time for everything else? "The time frees itself up," he says. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, October 21, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.