Saratoga News

Letters

Rain causes more than just damage

With all the rain we've been having of late, there is one problem of safety that has been overlooked. In the schools, especially the lower grades, the children are not being monitored sufficiently during recess and lunch breaks.

Teachers are contractually granted lunch-hour breaks. In their stead, playground monitors keep order. In good weather, this system works. But in bad, the students are dispersed into many classrooms, which the playground monitors attempt to control by periodically ducking in and out of each room on a rotating basis.

In some schools, volunteers or even upper-grade students perform this function. Students are instructed about how to behave when the monitor is absent, and for the most part, they do. But how long does it take for a wired second-grade boy to get into trouble?

I'm sure that most mothers are under the impression that from the time they drop off their children at school until the time they pick them up in the afternoon, they are under complete supervision. This is not always the case, and on rainy days they are left alone often.

In the best of all worlds, the children could move indoors to a gymnasium or large dining hall and the playground monitors would move inside with them, and all would be well. Unfortunately, not all our schools have these facilities, so they resort to classrooms.

So what is the answer? Build gymnasiums? Too much money. Build large dining halls? Too much money. Hire more monitors? Too much money.

Enlist more volunteers? Maybe. Building and hiring seems to be out because of the perennial funding problem. But how about staggering the recesses and lunch hours so that the students occupy only enough spaces to match the number of existing monitors? Our schools are trying to do the best job they can with the resources they have. Rainy days are just another problem they have to cope with. Leaving students unattended, however briefly, is not a solution.

Kenneth Johnson
Puente Court

Cartoon should have been cut

For the past three years, the Freeway Noise Abatement Committee has been working to alleviate a problem that impacts the lives of thousands of Saratogans: noise from Highway 85. The Saratoga News has been helpful and cooperative in covering our work and progress.

Why would the editorial staff allow a nonsensical, misguided and misinformed piece of "work" such as DeCinzo's cartoon (Feb. 11) to appear in the Saratoga News?

Never has anyone on the committee said or implied that we were unaware of the highway on the maps. Many residents, during the many public hearings held during the '80s, expressed great concern about the noise, traffic and pollution we feared Highway 85 would bring to Saratoga.

We were repeatedly assured this road was the most environmentally sensitive road ever built in California. We were assured that only those with homes right on the wall would hear the noise, and that those of us living across the street had nothing to worry about.

We were assured of this by many different people and agencies. In fact, few sound measurements were taken other than right at the wall, or 50 to 100 feet from it.

The reality is that thousands of Saratogans hear Highway 85, even as far as a mile away. The FNAC has been working for three years to improve this situation, to help restore the tranquility that was once Saratoga's.

Is that a reason to ridicule those of us who have donated countless hours of work? We've done research, attended meetings and done whatever was asked of us to get help with resolving the noise issue. We were misled about the traffic and the noise impacts.

While we expect the news to be fully reported, we would ask that in the future, the editorial staff exercise better judgment and more discretion in its choice of "cartoon" material deemed suitable for publication.

Joan Hershkowitz
Co-chairwoman, FNAC

Is oregano sale really a crime?

I thought I had seen every conceivable form of idiocy in dealing with the drug issue until I read the Saratoga News story about the "drug" incident at Redwood Middle School.

We all know, now, that it is a crime to possess or sell any legal substance that we think is really an illegal substance. Is it actually possible to commit a crime by mere thought? With concepts like this, along with the rampant drug testing all across America (that presumed innocent clause always was a tiresome bother), is it any wonder the war on drugs has become one of the best examples of government's "unintended consequences"?

Zero-tolerance programs allow bureaucrats to virtually turn off their brains so as to comply with an ever-increasing number of laws attempting to control behavior, and now, it seems, thought. Stories of honor students being expelled for giving a friend an aspirin underscore the absolute lack of logic, and science, on the subject of drugs. How much longer are we going to allow such nonsense to continue? The next time you hear a politician or a bureaucrat talk about being "tough on drugs," remember this story.

Oregano--the new threat to the children.

Martin Kavanagh
Sarahills Drive

DeCinzo cartoon was plain cruel

DeCinzo's cartoon (Feb. 11) depicts members of the Freeway Noise Abatement Committee complaining about the construction of Highway 85 after years of notice of its construction. In fact, the FNAC, as its name implies, focuses on noise abatement. It is the unnecessary and unexpected volume of noise caused by the method of construction, not the construction itself, which is at issue.

In the same publication as that in which the offending cartoon appeared, the News reported on the meeting of the City Council at which the recent study commissioned by Caltrans was presented. That study, which supported the assertions of the FNAC, led to reiteration by the City Council of support for the FNAC goals.

Had Mr. DeCinzo based his criticism on fact, it would be acceptable; however, in this instance, his ridicule is purely cruel. Mr. DeCinzo owes an apology, at the very least, for ridiculing Saratoga citizens and other community citizens.

Ruth Gipstein
Charters Avenue

Correction

In the Feb. 4 edition of the Saratoga News, Saratoga Recreation Department Director Joan Pisani was incorrectly cited as having recommended last year that the city cut the Saratoga Community Parade. The decision was made by the City Council based on budget constraints.

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