Saratoga News

What will the new year bring?

By Sue Fagalde Lick

Happy New Year? We've been writing 1996 stories for a couple weeks now. As we get to the edge, the years flow into one another a lot more smoothly than the big New Year's hoopla would indicate.

A person dies in 1995, and the obituary runs in 1996. A project is approved in one year and built the next. Money is earned in December and spent in January. Just as the clock ticks one day into the next, time moves inexorably forward. It takes with it all the baggage that came before.

Therefore, as we move into 1996, it's not so difficult to predict at least some of the big stories we'll cover between now and when we hang up 1997 calendars.

Politics will be hot in Saratoga this year. The Neighborhood Preservation Initiative, which the City Council on Dec. 20 voted to put on the ballot, has already engendered plenty of debate in our pages, at City Council meetings and at numerous public forums. Angry accusations have already been traded back and forth, and the campaign has barely begun.

If it passes, the initiative will take some of Saratoga's major development decisions out of the hands of the City Council and give them directly to the voters to decide. I expect a fight to the last hour of election day. I urge Saratogans on both sides of the issue to consider the recent Tom Campbell-Jerry Estruth mess and campaign with dignity and mutual respect. We all want the best for our city.

Also on that March ballot will be candidates for the county Board of Supervisors and the state Assembly, and those races promise to have some sizzle to them, too.

In June, we'll face another City Council race. Karen Tucker and Ann Marie Burger will be up for re-election, and several candidates are already mulling a run for their seats. If the last election was any indication, we're in for a Disneyland-style E-ticket ride.

Development will also be big this year. The Greenbriar homes are going up at blazing speed. By the end of the year, they should be finished and occupied by a whole new group of Saratogans, putting added burdens on our schools and the traffic on Saratoga Avenue.

Decisions will be made in 1996 on the Odd Fellows expansion project and the fate of Nelson Gardens. The future of the Kosich property and the Mountain Winery site may also be decided. This may be the year we run out of land to build on, a mind-boggling thought when you consider the vast acres that were here when the city was incorporated in 1956, only 40 years ago.

If the last election was
any indication, we're
in for a Disneyland-style
E-ticket ride

Highway 85 will continue to roar, and those who live within the sound of the freeway will roar back, seeking some way to damper the noise and return to the days when the only sounds were the wind and birds singing in the old oaks. Meanwhile, the shine is wearing off for the commuters who use 85. Weary of sitting at the metering lights, some are returning to their less-stressful pre-85 routes.

As I write, workers are felling the giant oak in front of Sacred Heart Church. The ailing tree is the victim of too much development and too little care. During the coming year, Saratogans will continue to quarrel over the best way to take care of the trees that are so integral to our image that they are part of the city's logo. Let us not get so bogged down in politics we forget that it's the trees, not the bureaucracy that we want to preserve.

Education, religion and community events will continue to dominate the lives of our citizens. We'll attend school festivals, plays and fundraisers. Our many churches will draw people together in a spirit of faith and love. Citywide events, such as the Rotary Art Show, Celebrate Saratoga!, the farmers' market and numerous ethnic festivals, will rekindle a small-town feeling despite our metropolitan size. And Saratogans will give of their time, money and expertise through countless charitable organizations, including the Lions, Soroptimists, Rotary, American Association of University Women, League of Women Voters, National Charity League, Junior League, Friends of the Saratoga Library, and many others.

The city will continue to be the "soul of Santa Clara Valley," as Councilmember Don Wolfe puts it, not only filling our stomachs with wonderful food, but also nourishing our hearts with some of the best music, drama and art around. We are blessed to have Villa Montalvo, Hakone Gardens, the Saratoga Drama Group, West Valley Light Opera, and several wonderful galleries in our midst.

We don't yet know yet what else the year will bring. If floods, earthquakes, fires or other tragedies are in our future, we can only do our best to prepare and hang together when they hit. But the surprises are just as likely to be wonderful. We'll have to wait and see.

Here at the Saratoga News, we have a new photographer already at work and will welcome a new reporter this month. They will both add a fresh viewpoint on the happenings here. With your help, we will continue to cover both the expected and the unexpected in this city, as we have for the past 40 years, one issue following another, just as the weeks follow one another.

Have a peaceful and happy 1996.

Sue Fagalde Lick is editor of the Saratoga News.