Saratoga News

Letters

City Council kept Saratoga in mind

I feel that the Saratoga City Council acted responsibly in representing all Saratoga residents on the school boundary issue.

To have school boundaries match city boundaries will benefit the Saratoga School District as well as the community as a whole.

This issue has been a long time coming and should have been resolved when Saratoga became incorporated as a city in 1956.

Geraldine Barrett
Marilyn Lane

The hillside deer are a problem

The recent article regarding the ever-increasing deer population in the Saratoga foothills was very welcome. My husband and I happen to live across the street from Nicola Gordon, so we can strongly confirm everything she reports--and more. Such as opening your front door and confronting a buck 10 feet away munching on your lemon tree, or seeing two does walking up you neighbor's stairs to their front door and devouring their entry plants. As was noted in the article, due to zoning restrictions, we cannot erect "deer-proof" fencing. As far as Mr. Brian Hunter's comment about large, barking dogs [is concerned], numerous times when there are six deer munching away on what's left of our hillside ivy, we have opened our fenced dog run and let our golden retriever chase the deer from our property. Before we can get her back in our house, the deer are back.

The deer have become much more than an autumn problem: They are here year-round, and we haven't had any leaves on our ivy-covered hillside for the last 18 months. The monetary consideration and property-value loss are considerable. We are about to spend thousands of dollars to replant our hillside with something that is currently "deer-resistant" for a practical reason--to control erosion on our now bare property!

We think the small deer population that we had in this area five years ago was "charming," and it was possible to protect the few special plants from them, Now, the situation has become unbearable, and the uncontrollable destruction, from both monetary and erosion points of view, needs to be addressed.

Lucy Bradford
Deepwell Court

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