Saratoga News Saratoga Stereopticon Willys Peck Saratoga boasts a tradition of preservation The current ferment over preserving--or destroying--eucalyptus trees in connection with the expansion of Saratoga School points up a characteristic of this town that's worth noting. It isn't peculiar to Saratoga, this urge to retain an essence or distinguishing characteristic; you'll see it in many places where historic or scenic attributes are especially valued. And it's more than just resisting change or progress; it's the idea of preserving elements with an intangible but deeply felt value. Such efforts here have an extensive background. For instance, Saratoga owes its status as an incorporated city to this kind of community reaction. In the early 1950s, San Jose was sending its panzer-like annexation thrusts across the valley, solidifying that city's status as a metaphor for ungainly urban sprawl. At that time there were still enough orchards hereabouts to constitute "uninhabited annexation" bait and bring San Jose's city limits to within practically a grenade's throw of Saratoga Village. OK, so I'm exaggerating, but I don't think Cox Avenue would have been in anybody's 95070. In an earlier Stereopticon column I described the incorporation effort, which had its pro and con forces at work, resulting in a rather close vote in 1956 favoring cityhood. A good move, I say. Not long before incorporation there was another expression of community concern, this time over the prospect of a major north-south highway--the term "freeway" was bandied about by opponents--along the existing Saratoga-Sunnyvale and Saratoga-Los Gatos roads. Such a move would have effectively bisected the Village area, even though proponents maintained that it was incorrect to apply the F-word to the project. Whatever may or may not actually have been on the drawing board, local opponents formed the Saratoga Highway Association in the early 1950s to head off any such possibility. Keep the highway out of downtown, the association urged; build it along the railroad tracks. And a funny thing happened on the way to the millennium: That's exactly what the state did with Highway 85 almost four decades later. It's hardly likely that agitation by the Highway Association had anything to do with the ultimate route of the freeway, and the mixed-blessing aspect of Highway 85 in its present location couldn't have been envisioned back then. Who could have imagined the volume of freeway traffic that we now see, and the stream of cars pouring onto Saratoga Avenue because of the on- and off-ramps thereon? In my darker moments during rush hours, I have been heard to mutter that the best way for a pedestrian to cross Saratoga Avenue is to be born on the other side. That Saratoga Avenue traffic also triggered another community response, the petitioning of the city by residents, led by Larry Fine, to have the street designated a Heritage Lane. One of the motivating factors, at least on my part, was to try to forestall any possibility of widening the street to four lanes, robbing the community of one of the few scenic city approaches left in the entire region. Meanwhile, back at Saratoga School, another preservation effort comes to mind, this one taking place almost 15 years ago when there was a real possibility that the school itself might be closed as the district faced the prospect of diminishing enrollment. For a time it looked as if either Saratoga or Foothill School might be closed. There was, of course, a community preservation effort in the form of a Save Saratoga School Committee. That's the group that contacted actress Olivia de Havilland, Saratoga Grammar School Class of 1930, who dispatched a telegram from her home in Paris urging the committee "to do all you can to ensure the continuing life of Saratoga Oak Street School which has contributed in such a first-class way to the lives and education of so many children." The telegram, read by member Don Sturdevant at a meeting of the committee, inspired a predictable response. Whatever its effect on the deliberations of the district board, the school is still there. [ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Saratoga News, February 10, 1999. ©1999 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.