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Letters
Resurface Hwy. 85 and noise will drop
According to the Saratoga News article on June 2, the Board of Supervisors can allocate funds from Measure A and B for noise reduction from Highway 85. We live about a mile from the freeway and easily hear it day and night. Gone is the peace and quiet in the Saratoga residential area.
Arguments that resurfacing with asphalt might not reduce the noise or may not adhere to the concrete are false. Anyone who's driving on concrete and makes the transition to asphalt surface can easily hear a significant reduction in noise. Resurfacing over concrete has been done on many highways once the concrete begins to crack or the slabs become corrugated.
Signals on Highway 85 were designed to maximize traffic flow and have contributed to the high levels of noise. We have the technology to reduce the noise. Rather than keep procrastinating with endless studies and discussions, we strongly urge you to take action.
Ray and Betty Froess
Ljepava Drive
Not everyone happy with parks decision
I have spent these last few days trying to put a handle on the deep sense of loss I have felt since hearing that the City Council is no longer considering working with the school district and sports user groups to develop a park at Blue Hills School/Azule Park. My feeling of loss goes far deeper than what one feels when a project of five years is rejected, because now I realize that everyone involved loses:
The Blue Hills schoolchildren lose because they will not get upgraded fields. They will continue to sprain ankles, do their long runs on uneven surfaces, etc.
The Blue Hills children also lose because they continue to be stuck with a traffic and parking pattern that is exceptionally dangerous. The upgrade plan would have moved more parking off the street and out of the too-small main parking lot, and would have allowed for a way to protect bike traffic from cars.
The school district loses because it cannot afford to upgrade the existing field or maintain an upgraded field to the level necessary.
The surrounding neighborhood loses because it will not get a beautiful park at Azule. A small neighborhood park does not fit into the city's recreational priorities, and without sports fields, there will be no funds to maintain a newly developed park if it did.
The soccer families from Saratoga lose because there are not enough fields for their children to play. More and more Saratoga children will be playing soccer in surrounding cities, where they continue to be more generous to our children. The two leagues will have to battle for existing field space, and there will be no fields to use during upgrade of Congress Springs.
All of us who have put so many hours fighting for fields lose because we have given up precious family time to fight a fruitless battle. We leave empty-handed, without satisfaction of knowing that our ideas for compromise were ever given a chance to be heard. We leave never having ever gotten to the bargaining table. We leave our children noting that if you complain loud and hard enough, you'll never have to consider difficult compromises.
This was a one-time opportunity. The school district was willing to cooperate, the user groups were willing to maintain, and there was recreation money available to upgrade. The money will now be shifted to other sites and other neighborhoods as requested.
Hopefully, there will be new fields somewhere by the time our elementary children graduate from high school. Hopefully our little community will come back together and mend.
Debbie Lillo
Kristy Lane
Shadowing day was really special for local students
Approximately 40 teenagers from Los Gatos and Saratoga High Schools spent a day shadowing professionals in industry, government and the arts as part of the annual Career Shadowing program offered by the American Association of University of Women this spring.
It is terrific to find professionals willing to contribute their time and knowledge toward fostering the development of students in these busy times in this hectic valley.
We wish to thank the mentors from the following organizations, without whom this program would not have been possible: American Medical Response; Full Circle Productions in San Francisco; Blizzard North, San Mateo; Santa Clara County District Attorney; Foothill School in Saratoga; Good Samaritan Hospital; Children's Surgery Center, Mission Oaks Hospital in Los Gatos; Kaiser Hospital, Santa Teresa; NASA/Ames Research Center, Moffett Field; Nordstrom at Stanford; San Jose State University, Psychology Dept.; Symphony conductor Barbara Day Turner; Take Charge Financial in Los Gatos; Trend Micro, Cupertino; Trimble Navigation Limited in Sunnyvale; Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara; University of California at San Francisco; Facilities Planning, Warren Heid & Associates, Saratoga; West Valley Pet Clinic, San Jose.
Exposure to real-life experience is what is most often missing from school and what is so beneficial to students. It is a kind of learning students cannot get in textbooks.
One student went back for a second day at the invitation of the mentor organization. Two students volunteered to be beta testers for a company. When a hearing at the courthouse was canceled, the mentor arranged on-the-spot for her student to meet judges, attorneys, and other staff.
Another student helped unwrap and put together a new art show. One student said her mentor talked to her about the specifics of the profession that she never would have thought to ask about, even if she had been doing a research paper. Several students said they had a day they will never forget.
One mentoring group said that their student asked particularly knowledgeable questions; the student said she learned so much, that going in to observe, she would say she had been clueless.
All the students who took part in shadowing said they would do it again, and more often if possible, even though they had to juggle their schoolwork around it (much like the mentors juggled schedules to meet the students). A special thank-you to all who helped create the upbeat days of career shadowing.
Jean Ricket
AAUW Career Shadowing Coordinator Saratoga
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Saratoga, California Since 1975
