Saratoga News

Who is truly anti-senior?

By Jim Stuart

The last several weeks have provided dramatic evidence about who in Saratoga is really anti-senior. The answers may surprise you.

The background: The city's environmental impact analysis for the Odd Fellows' project concluded that the proposed massive three-story buildings and doubling of the number of elderly residents on the site would pose a significant risk from fire, natural disasters or other medical emergencies. As mitigations, the report recommended a secondary emergency access road, off San Marcos Heights, and extra staffing at the fire district.

The city and the Odd Fellows found both of these unacceptable and agreed instead that the Odd Fellows would provide 24-hour advanced life support (ALS) service on site, and that they would purchase an aerial pumping fire truck for the Saratoga Fire District.

At the 23rd hour, however, the Odd Fellows told the fire district they had no intention of purchasing the required fire truck. The Odd Fellows went to the final Planning Commission meeting and the subsequent City Council meeting and told the commissioners and council members that the fire truck was not needed. They presented no analysis, no data and no expert testimony.

The Saratoga Fire District was forced to hire a law firm to represent itself in front of our city government. The fire district protested that it did not want to be back in front of the City Council answering why elderly lives had been lost because they did not have the equipment they needed to protect project residents.

The result was that both the planning commissioners and the council members completely and totally ignored the expertise and concerns of our fire district. They approved the Odd Fellows' project without the required fire truck and with no guarantees that the ALS services will continue one day beyond the duration of project construction.

Many other commitments the Planning Commission made to project neighbors along the way were similarly ignored in the end.

How is all this possible? It may have helped that the Odd Fellows' attorney was former Saratoga Mayor Linda Callon, and that their land-use consultant was former Saratoga Mayor Virginia Fanelli. Their prior law firm was headed by former Saratoga Councilman Norm Matteoni.

Now everyone can see that this is really about money, not about concern for seniors. The Odd Fellows organization is willing to endanger its own residents to save money on this project. These are the same Odd Fellows that argued seven years ago that the city had to approve the San Marcos Heights subdivision quickly so that the Odd Fellows could use the money to upgrade the deplorable, and in some cases dangerous, living units in their main building. The city did what the Odd Fellows asked, but none of that money from the San Marcos Heights subdivision was ever used to improve housing conditions, which are today exactly as they were seven years ago.

For the Odd Fellows, it's obvious that money matters more than the safety of their residents, but what possible excuse explains the actions of our Planning Commission and City Council?

Jim Stuart lives on Allendale Avenue.