Letters

Town tried an end run against will of the people

I totally disagree with the editorial in the Nov. 17 issue of the Los Gatos Weekly-Times in which you criticize the Planning Commission for its inability to do its job in regard to the North Forty Specific Plan. Their decision to send the rewritten plan with comment from the community and the commissioners was the only logical thing they could do.

It was clearly done this way because the plan is so badly flawed that it could not be approved or amended in the format in which it was presented from the Plan Rewrite Committee. The only thing the planning commissioners could do would be to return it for a complete revision which was not in their purview.

It needed to go next to council, and from there it should be sent on to the Task Force Plan Review Committee that is still seated. The Task Force Plan Review Committee can with little effort and little time make the needed suggestions that the community and commissioners brought up and forward it back to the Planning Commission.

It is clearly my opinion that it was not done this way to begin with because the town saw which way the Task Force was leaning to begin with and tried to make an end run around the will of the people.

In America, it is the people who are sovereign and not the ruling body. The last comment made by the Planning Commission reinforced this belief saying that it is most important that the public be invited to participate in the early stages of planning or the result is inevitable, and that is exactly what happened here.

It is most unfortunate that we have gotten this far with the North Forty plan to find this out. We have buried our heads and worked on past historical assumptions as guidelines. We lost a lot of time and money to have to, at this point, redo this plan. Thanks to the Neighborhood Alliance it was caught in time or we would have 70,0000 square foot of retail in the North Forty.

Let this be foreshadowing to the council if they treat the General Plan revision in the same manner.

Larry Arzie
Los Gatos

Who's a newcomer certainly depends on perspective

This letter is in reply to recent articles in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times concerning people who are trying to keep others from moving in due to "density issues" or to "potential traffic impact."

I've lived in this valley on and off for almost 50 years. A few decades ago, there was hardly any traffic, and Los Gatos (and especially Monte Sereno) were considered less than favorable places to live because of their distance from places of employment.

The chip changed all that. People came streaming into this valley in a way that made a lot of us cry.

You talk about density--my favorite hunting ground was carved into 15 lots. My favorite road to walk down was closed and rerouted. I couldn't even get out of my driveway in the morning to get on Highway 9. You probably couldn't even envision Santa Clara or Campbell as sleepy little towns surrounded by fields and orchards. Their tranquil characters were all but obliterated when you guys moved in.

With all due respect to my "new" neighbors (that is, anyone who built in this area after I moved in during the '50s) you were "unwanted," too. You stepped way over the bounds of what I considered "traffic impact" and profoundly violated my sense of space.

Should we have kept you out? Should this valley have been made off-limits to you? You built your house and ruined someone's view or displaced someone's memories or added traffic to your street, but now you're not going to let that happen to you.

Does anyone see the irony in all of this? It reminds me of the freeway at rush hour: You fight like heck to get in the fast lane, and then you fight like heck to keep everyone else out.

Warren Smit
Monte Sereno

Blame the flawed
specific plan,
not planners

The editorial in the Nov. 17 issue of the Los Gatos Weekly-Times criticizing the town Planning Commission for its action on the draft North Forty Specific Plan was misplaced. You should have leveled your criticism at the Town Council for ignoring the overwhelming sentiment of town residents and forging ahead with a plan that focuses exclusively on commercial development.

You need to re-read your issue of July 7, 1993, to relive the magnitude of the opposition to the commercialization of the North Forty. This sentiment was reaffirmed when, in 1997, the General Plan Task Force circulated a questionnaire to residents on a variety of issues. With respect to the future of the North Forty, the greatest percentage of respondents preferred that the property become a public park, remain an orchard or become a town cultural arts center. A small minority preferred a shopping mall, hotels or large retail. And most recently, in public hearings before the Planning Commission, strong opposition to the commercialization of the North Forty was reiterated.

The Town Council, however, ignored the citizens and plowed ahead with a totally commercial plan, now in draft form. In addition to ignoring the will of the citizens, the draft also ignores the mandate of the Open Space Element of the town's General Plan, which requires the following: use open space to preserve the natural environment, scenery and agricultural lands; use open space to define boundaries of the town and scenic roadways; do everything in the town's power to protect any producing agricultural lands for as long as the owner wishes to farm the land; maintain adequate open space in the Route 85 corridor; use an open-space corridor as a central north/south axis and as a northern boundary along Route 85.

The Planning Commission's hearing on the draft plan opened with a presentation by local schoolchildren who, having studied the issue, offered their ideas on the future of the North Forty. It is telling that every single plan they presented contained provision for significant open space, yet there
was no such provision in the draft document. It seems that children have more sense than the professional drafters.

To make matters worse, the draft is written in a manner which would permit construction more reminiscent of your worst nightmare mall than in keeping with the small-town character of the town.

The Planning Commission did what it could with a profoundly flawed document. Its only disagreement was whether the draft was so inadequate that it would have to be totally rewritten or whether comments on its contents should be forwarded to the Town Council. It chose the latter.

Their comments are thoughtful, incorporate the feelings of residents and deal with design and development issues. I hope the Town Council will
direct that the draft be rewritten to comply with the commission's comments.

Woody Nedom
Los Gatos

Vindictiveness to blame for mess at Hillbrook School

I find the mess surrounding Hillbrook School, in a word, disgusting!

My son attended Hillbrook from kindergarten to eighth grade. Hillbrook was a very peaceful, pleasant and efficient country school, and his experience there allowed him to enter high school a full year ahead of his peers
in English, mathematics
and language.

Now, there evidently is an atmosphere of anger, distrust and suspicion, which is being played out in the press like a 60 Minutes broadcast, without regard for the institution or, more importantly, the students.

Each willing participant--the police department, the district attorney, the anonymous tipster--operating in lockstep, are under the assumption that they are doing something productive, while they are, in fact, destroying an institution that we are fortunate to have in Los Gatos.

There is no doubt that this court case is a blatant overreaction brought about by vindictive individuals and has been allowed to spiral out of control. The students will bear the brunt. The blame has to be placed squarely upon the board of trustees.

This matter should have been defused long before now. There are times when a slap in the face, or a kick in the butt for that matter, are an appropriate response. The board needs to kick a few butts, if that is what it takes to get to the bottom of the problems at the school.

I personally know of two teachers, who were highly respected by my son and his parents and have left Hillbrook as a result of disagreements with the new headmaster. However, it is commonplace in industry, that the appointment of a new CEO (especially one from outside) precedes a march for the door by some.

Whatever her shortcomings--and it has not been proven that there are any--this matter has gotten out of control. It will be very difficult for Sarah Collins Bayne to regain the respect of the students and faculty after she is acquitted, and I'm sure that she will be acquitted. This is vicious, undeserved and has no place at Hillbrook.

This whole matter has been a slap in the face (pun intended) for all of us--the town, Hillbrook School and, most of all, the students.

Chuck Weber
Los Gatos

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