Saratoga News

The City Council and Measure G

By Jeffrey A. Schwartz

Mayor Paul Jacobs' commentary (Saratoga News, July 24) is muddled and inaccurate. It is time to set the record straight about Jacobs and the City Council's reaction to Measure G.

The basic premise of Jacobs' commentary is that the people who voted for Measure G wanted to stop all change in Saratoga, and now expect the initiative to accomplish that. This premise must be from a distant and obscure source; it is without factual basis or logic.

Jacobs invokes countless clichés ("a piece of the American Dream," "We grow old, and we die") to describe his concern for the poor residents who believed that Measure G will stop all home building and second-story additions in Saratoga. He says that "these people will be confused, then angered" when these things do not happen. Jacobs and the City Council are wrong again.

Saratogans are not ill informed, and they are not stupid. They did not vote for Measure G thinking that it would stop all home building. In fact, there is every indication that residents understood the initiative very well, well enough to recognize that Jacobs and the Council were using lies and scare tactics to try to defeat the measure.

Jacobs' commentary then makes three additional points: that since nothing will stop all change, why bother to try anything; that legislation cannot be used to stop or control change; and that since we are all the beneficiaries of some kind of development, we have no right to oppose anyone who wants any other kind of development.

The first and third points are just silly, but one has to wonder whether Jacobs really believes the second point. What are zoning ordinances if they are not legislative mechanisms for controlling change and growth? Of course we can control growth and change with legislation. We have been doing that since the city was incorporated, and it was the reason for our incorporation--to stop San Jose's urban sprawl. The important questions have to do with what will be controlled, how is it controlled, and what are the objectives we are trying to achieve. Jacobs deals with none of this.

The plain truth is that ever since Jacobs and the City Council were resoundingly defeated in the Measure G election, they have expressed their contempt for the will of the people by doing everything in their power to undercut the initiative and to punish those of us who had the audacity to vote against them. They have interpreted the measure in the most Draconian fashion possible, and when they are able to create a potential problem with their extreme interpretation, they crow about how bad the measure is.

It is particularly ironic that Jacobs uses Measure A, Saratoga's 1980 Hillside Preservation Initiative, as an example of a failed attempt to control growth and protect our hillsides. If Measure A was a failure, why was it extended from the northwest hills to all of Saratoga's hills unanimously by subsequent City Council actions? And why has almost every group and individual that publicly opposed Measure A in 1980 acknowledged since then that the legislation has been beneficial and effective?

Since the beginnings of Measure G, the City Council has distinguished itself with arrogance, demagoguery and prevarication. Mayor Jacobs' commentary fits squarely within this tradition. Reading the mayor's commentaries and his rather juvenile letter to the Montalvo neighbors, two questions occur.

If Jacobs believes most residents are so ill informed and selfishly motivated, why does he wish to serve as our mayor? And why do the other councilmembers endorse his exercise in nastiness and condescension?

Jeffrey A. Schwartz is a supporter of Measure G.