Saratoga's first Mayor Burt Brazil (left) with Bill Bullier, a member of City Council.
By Willys Peck
When incorporation was approved by a rather narrow margin of voters in 1956, Saratoga had been a settled community for more than 100 years; so, the recent 40th anniversary celebration may seem a bit incongruous. Nevertheless, it can be argued that Saratoga's step in becoming a city was as significant as William Campbell and his sons building a sawmill a couple of miles up the canyon, which is pretty much what got the whole thing started. At the time of incorporation, Saratoga had an estimated population of 12,900 and covered an area of 12 square miles.
The impetus for incorporation 40 years ago could be summed up in two words: San Jose. That city's territorial ambitions were more or less personified by its city manager, the late Anthony P. "Dutch" Hamann, a public official of great persuasive powers who punctuated his utterances with the adverb "basically." Basically, he envisioned San Jose extending from one side of the valley to the other, and he worked very hard toward that goal. He also had a lot of help.
In the perspective of time, it's rather difficult to say just how deep San Jose's penetration into the present Saratoga boundaries would have been. Given the track record of the metropolis, though, and the legally "uninhabited" area (orchards) existing in 1956, it seems safe to say that a lot of the eastern and northeastern part of this city would have become known as the Saratoga district of San Jose--much as is the case with Willow Glen, where, in the contemplation of real estate people, the boundaries seem rather elastic.
The original Citizens Committee for Incorporation was headed by J.G. "Stub" Stollery, a former newspaperman who, at the time, operated the Saratoga Springs resort. He was later succeeded by Dr. Robert J. O'Neill, a family practitioner in town. Opposing the incorporation movement was the Saratoga Protective Committee, led by a retired military man, Col. Fred Buechner. The position of the anti-incorporationists was that nobody was going to be annexed by another city if they didn't want to be, and, since Saratoga was being well-served by the county and various special districts, there was no need to introduce an added layer of government with its attendant taxation.
Another aspect to the opposition was represented by John S. Langwill, who subsequently was elected to the first city council. Langwill, whose home was up Bohlman Road a way, and others in the west and southwest hillside and Glen Una territory, had no objection to the Village area being incorporated as long as they were left out. However, the arbiter in this matter was the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, and the disputed area stayed in.
For anyone remembering the incorporation campaign that led up to the vote on Sept. 25, 1956, the current disputes over Measure G and various zoning issues are but muted replays. You want a spirited campaign, just try forming a new city.
At the election itself, which was a special one since the general election was in November, the issues were whether Saratoga would be incorporated and, if so, which of 14 candidates would be elected to the five-member city council. According to newspaper accounts, almost 75 percent of the 4,473 registered voters within the proposed boundaries cast ballots, including those who voted only on council candidates. The count was 1,729 to 1,570, including absentee ballots, a margin of 159 votes in favor of incorporation, hardly a landslide.
That first council consisted of Burton R. Brazil, an assistant professor of political science at San Jose State College, now University; Dr. Barney V. Rosasco, longtime Saratoga dentist; Harold C. Jepsen, a former county road commissioner who was then running an auto supply store in Los Gatos and a cattle ranch in San Joaquin Valley; Raymond L. Williams, a retired Cleveland, Ohio, industrialist and a true patron of the arts; and Langwill, a Westinghouse sales engineer who had come to Saratoga in 1945.
Langwill was the only one of three incorporation opponents on the ballot to be elected to the council, but he was anything but an obstructionist. In fact, he won reelection to a full term in 1958 when his two-year term expired. Williams, the other two-year-term councilman, did not seek reelection, and he was succeeded by William E. Glennon, who will be gratefully remembered by future generations as the one who spearheaded acquisition of Hakone Gardens as a city park, saving it from almost certain subdividing.
Starting a city is no piece of cake. There was no city-owned property as such and no city staff to carry out the many duties thrust upon a new municipality under state law.
How did the city of Saratoga manage to get started in a manner that now enables it to look back on four decades of achievement?
That is a subject to be covered next week in Willys Peck's column.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, October 16, 1996.
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