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Photograph by Dai Sugano
A 'Cot Pickin' Idea
The battle over available parkland is about to heat up again in Saratoga, as the City Council revitalizes debate July 13 on where to put a "Central Community Hub." The Saratoga-News takes a look at the history and potential of the Heritage Orchard, another piece of land that's sure to be fiercely protected.--Editor
Pickin' 'cots. There's a rare breed around these parts that still uses those words. The people exist in Saratoga and other nearby communities where small chunks of orchard space have been preserved. Some of them hang around Saratoga's historical museum. Most of the others get up at dawn and rustle through the trees. They're a rough-lookin' bunch, those 'cot pickers.
Actually, this is 1999 and local farmers have big machines that can rattle a tree as well as an itchy rhino can, shaking those sweet, orange pieces of fruit down from the highest of heights. Still, the guys who mind the land on those orchards aren't your standard Silicon Valley types, although they tuck their shirts in.
They've got big hands, rough and gnarled, with dirt under their nails. And guys like Saratoga farmer Matt Novakovich are really tan, not like lifeguards or beach bums, but like farmers. They've got big boots and dirty jeans. They're not afraid of the dirt, and they use words like "ain't."
Some of them curse like sailors.
But get a guy like Charlie Olson, Sunnyvale's most prominent orchardist, in a room with a city council, and people listen.
These 'cot pickers, they know a lot. They know a lot about the history of a place, because they are the history of a place. They command a community's respect, and were around before "fields" weren't vicious magnetic ones that could wipe out a hard drive. They've been here longer than everyone, really, or at least their families have been.
Nobody could afford to buy 10 acres of land just to plant some trees anymore. The going rate these days is about a million an acre.
The cover page of the April 1955 'Del Monte Shield,' a publication for employees, affiliates and subsidiaries of the California Packing Corporation, featured W.A. 'Bill' Fraser (left) inspecting prune blossoms in Walter Seagraves' ranch. Seagraves is at right. A small piece of his orchards have been preserved as Saratoga's Heritage Orchard.
Other orchardists are fairly young, like Novakovich, 45 years old and heir to the Novakovich family orchards. He's also one of the last people to farm a big piece of land in Saratoga. Farming is all he knows, which is funny for a guy in his 40s. It's funny in 1999, anyway, in the capital of high tech, where the term "Heart of Silicon Valley" is used everywhere. Everywhere used to be the "Valley of Heart's Delight."
You may have even seen his orchard, there on the corner of Fruitvale and Saratoga avenues. It's a potential-filled and under-producing forest of apricot, cherry and prune trees that hasn't seen a great harvest since 1994.
It's not really his land, but the city of Saratoga's. Novakovich just works there, but the city provides about $20,000 a year for the water and some equipment costs.
Sometimes, depending on the season, Novakovich spends 18 hours a day out in that field, watering and moving the pipes that carry that water through the 14 acres.
You could get lost out there among the trees. And there's a certain smell to the orchard, if you get close enough to it. Like fresh leaves, soil and rotten fruit--really fresh, unlike the choking fumes of Saratoga Avenue, just steps away.
As Novakovich pulls up in his old, off-white Ford and walks through the orchard, his big crusty hands grab onto a branch that's been bent in two on one of his infant trees, and blames it on the deer.
Deer still roam through that orchard, one of the last boundaries between urban and agricultural landscape in Saratoga.
"NIMBYism got pushed over here," Novakovich laughs. "Now everything's on hold. Everytime we get a new council, we get new ideas."
As discussion starts heating up again for the July 13 meeting on where to put playfields in the city, Novakovich makes a good point: Heartstrings are attached to that piece of land. "This soil and this climate," he says, "is probably the best in the world for growing apricots and prunes. Even for wine, it just creates the sugar, the same sugar that's in this fruit."
Novakovich talks as if he were biting down on one of them 'cots right now, and speaks about how an experienced tongue can tell the difference between a 'cot from Saratoga and a 'cot from Sunnyvale.
Even though the city owns the land--even Novakovich shrugs in response to what may someday happen to it--one thing's for sure. The Heritage Orchard is one of the last tangible pieces of agricultural history left in Saratoga.
Originally owned by Milton Walter Seagraves, it was passed on to his son, Walter Milton, who turned it over to his son, William Walter. The Seagraves family at one point in its history was one of the largest landowners in Saratoga.
William Walter Seagraves is survived by his wife, Margaret, who unfortunately could not be interviewed for this story because of personal matters.
Nick Miljevich, a barrel-chested 74-year-old with a certain affection for the property, farmed the land for the Seagraves after it was sold to the city.
He ran the orchard for six years, and then turned it over to the Novakovich family--Matt is William Walter Seagraves' nephew--about 20 years ago.
Not one to hold back from speaking his mind, Miljevich cringes at the thought of anyone pulling trees out of the orchard.
"It makes me sick," he says.
Walter Seagraves is seen working in his orchards.
Living Museum
Sunnyvale is another city where the past has met the present and future. Unlike Saratoga, Sunnyvale is filled with sprawling, suburban neighborhoods and massive industrial complexes. It's a big city.
Somehow, however, it has managed to maintain a few of its orchards over the years.
But even Charlie Olson has sold his most recognized piece of property. Pretty soon, a mixed-use retail/housing development is going up on the corner of El Camino Real and Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road, where he owns an orchard and keeps a successful fruit stand.
There's another 10-acre plot of orchard left, however, behind the Sunnyvale Community Center near Remington Avenue, that's recently been approved for salvation. It's not going to be developed, except into a living museum.
Enter architect Joe Gutierrez and his pet, the Orchard Heritage Park and Interpretive Exhibit. It's an ambitious project, and one that's almost halfway through raising a total of $400,000. His group hopes to break ground in 2000.
Gutierrez designed OHPIE's museum building, a glass-encased gem, smack in the midst of the trees. Inside, all sorts of exhibits will allow everyone from naïve schoolchildren to reflective elders to have a look at what it was like to work an orchard.
Gutierrez calls the project a joint venture between the city and private sector. The Sunnyvale Historical Society and Parks and Recreation department are sponsoring the museum, which is being funded through private donations, as mandated by the city. In the end, the city will pay for maintenance--all the OHPIE crew has to do is build it.
The land is a lot like the Heritage Orchard in Saratoga, owned by the city.
Nine years ago, Gutierrez says, he was approached by Charlie Olson to see what could be done to save one of the last remaining orchards in the valley.
"But because of the high costs, nobody donated land," he says. "It just wasn't in the realm of possibility."
The City Council voted to save the orchard instead of bulldozing and building on it, an alliance was formed and Gutierrez was volunteered to spearhead it.
"We want to show what the valley was like before high tech," he says. "There were canneries, a whole picking industry and lots of land and open space dedicated to orchards. Now, all that history is virtually gone. It's not what it is today."
The plan, Gutierrez says, has won widespread acclaim from city officials from all over as well as those in county seats. In response, he says, the park will be touted as a museum for the county, for all to come and see."I'm a preservationist at heart," Gutierrez says. "I live in Sunnyvale, and I've always had an interest in preserving history."
Farmers in Saratoga like Novakovich and Miljevich yearn for something like this museum here. Both men say they've pushed for museums to be created out of the Heritage Orchard, but to no avail.
Miljevich complains that he had all the equipment out there--perfect for a museum. The massive Seagraves' fruit dryer was on the corner where the library sits today, and he had tractors kids could sit on.
All that is gone.
Novakovich says he hasn't had any luck in getting the city involved with his idea, albeit a different one.
"We've cared for this orchard for 20 years," he says, "and they've just never given us the green light to develop the land to its potential. Now they want to expand the library. There's too many different groups throughout time that you deal with."
He wanted to build a water well, near the library, and finish filling the orchard with mature, healthy trees. Its last big planting took place between 1994 and 1997, with 917 trees planted--more could be, he says.
"In Sunnyvale, Olson got 85 tons of fruit off his trees," a jealous Novakovich says. "In the last four years combined, we probably got a quarter of that."
In Sunnyvale, another of the valley's orchard cities, the city has made a commitment to preserve the agricultural heritage with its planned Orchard Heritage Park and Interpretive Exhibit.
Hubbub
There are a lot of people in Saratoga who feel the same way as Gutierrez with his preservationist feelings. And this plan for the citizens of the world to come enjoy the community's heritage sounds a lot like some of the ideas being tossed around at Saratoga City Hall recently.
Last month, Councilman Nick Streit revitalized debate over the city's "Central Hub" concept, an idea that sprouted long before rumblings of playfields shook neighbors around Blue Hills/Azule and Marshall Lane Elementary schools.
With the hub concept, Streit initiated what's sure to be a huge brainstorming session over the prized property and the few areas of open space that exist in the city.
After he announced his plan, ideas flew: Raze the existing Community Center or add on to it, build fields on the corner of Cox and Saratoga Avenues and work with West Valley College to use its fields for sports like soccer and baseball.
WVC trustee Don Wolfe says he approached the board with the idea after it was mentioned at the City Council last month, but nothing has come of it yet other than a few raised eyebrows.
Wolfe said that he thinks field-protecting coaches at the college are somewhat skeptical of the idea, but could come around with a little nudge from the board.
The hub plan isn't new, and Streit doesn't claim all the credit for revamping the debate.
Talk of a community center hub goes back as far as 1996, when the City Council set aside $100,000 to study the idea and create a master plan, besides nominating a list of school fields in the area that could be considered for park development.
Also at that time, it was decided that the study would include a look at cost analysis, and speculation arose over whether bond money was needed to fund the project.
Now, Streit is just gearing up for what he thinks will be long debate on the issue. More than anything, however, he says he just wants ideas.
So far, the responses he's seen are of the "cautiously optimistic" kind.
"No one is committed to anything," Streit stresses, adding that he's hoping people come down to City Hall on July 13 to participate in the debate.
"Unfortunately, a lot of people don't come out and talk until something negatively impacts their neighborhoods," he says. "We don't know what people will say or do, but a majority of people would like to see something happen."
Streit said he's looking forward to seeing an inventory of possible alternative hub sites as well, something the council directed city staff to come up with at its last public hearing.
The WVC site is a consideration, as is the corporation yard behind City Hall and the Community Center. Either way, citizens want fields, and others want to retain history. "Nobody wants to bulldoze the orchard," he says.
Instead, Streit would like to see the orchard become a usable park, an idea he's mentioned to his colleagues on the dais at previous meetings. It may be decided that the orchard space could be used for both soccer fields and a park; nobody knows yet.
Most agree that two things are for sure: the Heritage Orchard will be staunchly defended, and something needs to be done about playfields in the city. It's what the people said they wanted years ago during debate at Playfields Task Force meetings at City Hall. The citizens' group is responsible for earmarking playfields as a desire in the city, which resulted in about $2 million being set aside for field development.
One other thing is for sure, as well, and Novakovich says it best:
"It's going to come down to the people in Saratoga. If they want agriculture, fine. We're not tied to it if it goes, but it's saying 'no' to what agriculture is left in the city."
The Saratoga City Council will begin entertaining ideas for the hub concept at its meeting on July 13, at 7 p.m. at City Hall.
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Saratoga, California Since 1975
