Saratoga News

Letters

Beanie Baby theft ruined a happy day

My name is Adam, and I turned 8 years old in March. I am in the second grade at Foothill School. I joined the Saratoga Little League Farm Division and played for the Angels. We had a nice team and a nice coach. The closing ceremonies were on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Congress Springs Park. The closing ceremony was fun, but I didn't stay the whole time. I went home and then to a friend's house who was on my team. We were playing with our Beanie Babies at his house, then went back to Congress Springs Park at 3 p.m. for our team party. I wrapped all of my Beanies in my blanket and put them on our picnic table with our team's stuff for the party. After our coach gave us trophies, we went out on the field to play baseball with our parents. When my dad and I came back to the table, my Beanies were gone.

I am trying to understand who would want to steal from a kid. The blanket that my beanies were wrapped in was my baby blanket that I have had since I was a baby.

My favorite Beanies were a yellow tiger, a white tiger, a teenie dog and a teenie cat. Some of the toys weren't real Beanies. I had Buzz Lightyear and Woody from Toy Story, a sand person from Star Wars and five dinosaurs. The other real Beanies I had were a snake, a puffin and a sea otter. The teenie Beanies I had were a pelican, a koala, a giraffe and a platypus.

I am hoping that someone knows who has my stuff. Even if no one knows who has my Beanies, this letter would be good to read to other kids. It will help them to be good citizens. Stealing is wrong. No matter how much you want something that someone else has, you should never just take it. It makes the person feel really bad, like I feel.

If you know who has my Beanies, you can call my mom, Beth, at 867-9070. Thank you.

P.S.--My mom helped me write this.

Adam George
Saratoga

TCI has no respect for Saratoga desires

On June 15, the people of Saratoga suffered a grievous loss delivered by TCI Cablevision, "our cable company." On that day, the company made several channel changes, as they had announced. But acting as the monopoly that it is, TCI also altered the programs delivered to radio subscribers without announcing those changes.

Two important assets to Saratoga residents were destroyed. Our city is in an area where signals from San Francisco stations are damaged or destroyed by the intervening hills, and the company dropped all programs from KQED-FM and KDFC from the cable.

KQED was a source of much objective news and intelligent comment, plus the wonderful humor of "Car Talk" and Garrison Keillor.

KDFC was our only classical music station, as well as our only source of timely notes and advertisements about things in the Bay Area.

At the same time that our programs were dropped from the cable, the company raised its monthly charge for basic cable from $12.10 to $14.40, an increase of $2.30.

When I telephoned the two radio stations, I was told that I was not the only one making inquiries about what might be done.

The total disregard of TCI for what Saratoga listeners value from our subscription is unconscionable. I hope that public opinion and the Saratoga City Council can exert influence on this monopoly to restore our programs.

Frank Dutra
Fieldstone Drive

Thanks to residents for all the support

The children, parents and staff of Notre Dame Montessori School would like to thank the community of Saratoga for the support we received in our efforts to continue our school. Many good wishes and expressions of concern came from different parts of the community. Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and Immanuel Church were both open to working with us on the possibility of relocation.

Through the cooperation of Sacred Heart Parish and the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, the Montessori school will relocate at Sacred Heart and become part of the Sacred Heart Parish community.

We are most excited at this prospect and look forward to welcoming the preschoolers of Saratoga for many more years.

Staff and Board
Notre Dame Montessori School

K.I.D.S. commend councilmembers

K.I.D.S. is a grassroots organization of concerned parents founded to protect minors from accessing pornography on Internet terminals in public libraries. Saratoga Councilmember Stan Bogosian is the Joint Powers Authority representative for the Saratoga Community Library.

Our group would like to thank Mr. Bogosian for his involvement in this issue. He personally brought the issue before the Saratoga City Council and was asked to convey to the JPA Saratoga's position of opposing minors accessing this material. He has consistently voted at library board meetings to safeguard the children using the county library system. Mr. Bogosian could not attend the JPA meeting of June 4 and so asked Mayor Don Wolfe to sit in for him. Mayor Wolfe was instrumental in procuring the wording of California law against displaying pornography to minors as an "Introductory Screen" to all Internet terminals. K.I.D.S. Group wishes to thank both Councilmember Bogosian and Mayor Wolfe for their work on this important issue.

Sandi Zappa
Co-founder. K.I.D.S.

Thanks to all the bond supporters

"It takes a village to raise a child," and June 2 we came together from three towns as a community to pass Measure B, funding renovations and ensuring the continued excellence of our Los Gatos and Saratoga high schools. We owe a debt of thanks to the tireless efforts of many volunteers, but especially Cindy Ruby and Joan Henricks, who co-chaired the campaign committee, as well as our school superintendent and school board members, who provided visible energy and leadership. There are hundreds of others who gave a few, or many, hours to the tasks of addressing envelopes, data entry, walking precincts, raising funds and making telephone calls.

On election day, many of us spent the day calling people and urging them to vote. We had fun being creative when leaving messages on answering machines for the third, fourth and fifth times. Thanks to all of those we called many times, who may have felt harassed, because in the end we came together and through Measure B we will continue a legacy of greatness for our community.

Barry Posner
Monte Sereno

[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]