Saratoga News

LETTERS

Recycling confusion

What's happening to our plastic recycling? I'm now so confused, secondary to the various changes and literature I've received the last six months, that I find myself throwing most of my plastic items into the garbage can.

Since the early 1970s, when we had to bring our cans and bottles to the various collecting places in Los Gatos and Saratoga--rain or shine--I've been an avid recyclist. That was the job for me and my two boys, and occasionally my husband would join and fling the bottles over the edge of the glass bin to have them explode with a shattering crash on the multi-colored heap inside that container.

Depositing has become easier, but now my brains are exploding with all the do's and don'ts. Will the day return when we, recyclists, can deposit most every plastic item in the blue bin again?

Anne-Marie Wiggers
Mellowood Drive

Legal fees excessive

Mr. Wolfe's letter [July 31] about Saratoga Creek pollution contained the astonishing admission that the city has already spent more than $100,000 on this matter in legal fees and expenses. How is this possible when the city has not yet had one day in court or depositions?

If the case is wholly without merit as Wolfe, Ann Marie Burger and Harry Peacock have repeatedly stated, how can it cost $100,000 to get a frivolous claim dismissed? At the rate the city pays per hour, that has to be some 700 hours of billed legal time. Isn't that excessive for a "frivolous" claim? Perhaps the answers may be found in the city's representation arrangements. As this issue developed, the city attorney Mike Riback referred it to--the law firm of Mike Riback.

It is my understanding that when notices of Clean Water Act violations were first sent to the city and to the Santa Clara County Water District, the water district hired attorneys from a major law firm who had experience and expertise with Clean Water Act issues. As a result, the water district reached a positive resolution with no lawsuit ever filed against it. The city is represented by a firm with no specialization in this area.

If the water district recognized the gravity of this situation as justifying first-rate legal representation and a substantial settlement, why hasn't the City Council treated the matter seriously?

The best guess is that the staff and council arrogance and personality-based decision-making so familiar to many Saratogans has precluded the staff and the council from any honest evaluation of the facts.

James Stuart
Allendale Avenue