Letters

City should remove flea market sign

I would like the City Council to have Prospect High School remove the gaudy, yellow, commercial, billboard, advertising sign on the wire fence on the corner of Prospect and Lawrence Expressway. In addition, I would like to see Christa McAuliffe Elementary School remove its plastic commercial billboard advertising sign from its school fence.

The billboard sign on the Prospect High's fence is a commercial sign advertising the Prospect Flea Market with a telephone number of PTAS Telephone Answering Service, 1275 Winchester Blvd., San Jose. This company takes reservations for flea market stalls located at Prospect High School; therefore, this constitutes a commercial sign and not an advertisement for a flea market event.

Furthermore, the billboard sign has been on the said fence since the beginning of March when it first advertised the March 27, 2000, flea market. However the date on the sign has now been changed to April 20-something, 2000. This is exactly a repeat of last year's advertising of their flea market where the billboard sign became a perpetual sign.

In addition, the Christa McAuliffe elementary school is a charter school and its plastic advertising sign, which has been on their fence for a number of months, belongs in the yellow pages of the telephone directory.

Saratoga's community development director James Walgren advised me in the past that the City Council has no control over the four corners of Lawrence Expressway and Prospect Avenue as far as the abuse of billboard advertising is concerned and that schools are exempt from city code enforcement.

However, this is the new millennium where there are so many different ways to communicate to the public other than abusing the entrances to our community.

And, one would surmise that Prospect High School and Christa McAuliffe School being educational facilities would teach our youth to respect the community in which their schools are located by refraining from using their school fences as billboards.

Christina Gulrich
Walden Court

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