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Letters
Return Bogosian and Waltonsmith
At the debate of the city council candidates, Chuck Page reasserted long-discredited throwback views of former council members concerning the pollution problems in Saratoga Creek. Unfortunately, Mr. Page arrived at his conclusions without talking to any of the people who have worked for years to assess and improve the condition of creek.
If Stan Bogosian and Ann Waltonsmith are reelected, I am certain that they will continue to provide the leadership needed to achieve real improvements in the health of creek.
Don Whetstone
Vickery Avenue
Waltonsmith, Bogosian have proven leadership
Ann Waltonsmith and Stan Bogosian deserve to be returned to the Saratoga City Council. They have proven to be thoughtful, reasonable council members with a balanced view of our community's needs. They have also demonstrated an ability to get things accomplished.
Stan and Ann have placed the highest priority on maintaining Saratoga's natural beauty and environment, as witness their work with Saratoga Creek and their success in permanently preserving the Heritage Orchard. They have been tireless in working to expand recreation opportunities, particularly soccer fields, for school age children, and the planned expansion and rehabilitation at Congress Springs is a direct result of their efforts.
At the same time, they have initiated a civic center master plan that will include a large expansion of the senior center. They, and the other members of our current council already have taken more specific steps to improve the climate in Saratoga for small businesses than the prior several city councils combined.
They established the office of economic development coordinator and have actively solicited destination establishments, like Patrick James. Ann and Stan have also maintained strong law enforcement services for Saratoga's residents and merchants alike.
In addition to an impressive list of specific accomplishments, Stan and Ann have played key roles in changing Saratoga city government from a hotbed of dissension and personality disputes into the kind of accessible and service-oriented city government that almost all of us want. As council members, Ann and Stan have both demonstrated patience, humor and a respectful attitude toward other council members and members of the public. Please join me in voting on Nov. 7 to return Ann Waltonsmith and Stan Bogosian to the Saratoga City Council.
Meg Caldwell
La Paloma Avenue
Kniss has proven track record and judgment
When we go to the polls on Nov. 7 to vote for our next District 5 Santa Clara County Supervisor, we'll vote for Liz Kniss. Liz has the judgment, integrity, experience and track record that prove to us that she will best represent our Saratoga interests and properly oversee the expenditure of our tax dollars.
Liz Kniss has done it all--business woman, public health nurse, school board president, city mayor, open space defender, recycling promoter, housing trust fund sponsor, light rail creator, and founder of a family resource center.
Thirty-five percent of the county budget is spent on health care. Shouldn't at least one of the five supervisors have a background in public health and health- care policy? The same five supervisors oversee $2.5 billion budget for 16,000 employees and 22 unions. Shouldn't our supervisor have served and run a full-service city and demonstrated she can fairly and effectively hear and reconcile diverse and competing interests? Saratoga and West Valley interests cannot afford less.
Join us in supporting Liz Kniss for District 5 Supervisor. Get experience, judgment and leadership responsive to Saratoga and West Valley priorities.
Tom and Rosemary Tisch
Encina Court
Personalizing issues not helpful to Saratogans
A letter from Planning Commissioner Cynthia Barry, in the Oct. 25 issue of the Saratoga News, ends with "Personalizing the issue in an erroneous and misleading way is not helpful to Saratogans or to the commission." I was pleasantly surprised to see this sensible advice from the wife of Jeff Schwarz, who, in a recent letter to your newspaper, blamed the Saratoga Creek lawsuit on a city manager who has been gone for three years, the city's attorney who was winning against Mr. Schwarz's lawsuit, and one of the five mayors during the time the city fought the suit.
The city fought the lawsuit, not because anyone was in favor of pollution, but because the council members of that time did not believe the citizens of Saratoga wanted to spend large sums of money in the hope Saratoga might possibly be able to make a recreational resource out of Saratoga Creek. The current incumbents settled with Mr. Schwartz presumably because they believed Saratogans were indeed willing to be required to spend several million dollars in that hope.
Straightforward differences in understanding what the voters want do indeed tend to become personal differences between candidates for office, but people should remember Mrs. Barry's advice that personalizing is, not in fact, helpful.
Tom Moran
Farwell Avenue
Chuck Page should be only choice for council
Chuck Page is my only choice for the Saratoga City Council. Chuck is fair-minded and professional. He is not part of any political faction. He respects and follows our city's laws and ordinances. He truly communicates and is working towards the betterment of our entire community. As a small business owner in Saratoga, I have found the current council, other than Nick Streit, to be unresponsive and uninterested.
This past year, I have continually been forced to defend my rights before the city council. My latest difficulty has been with our lighted signs at Azule Crossing. Signs that meet the city's sign ordinance.
Signs that are professional and designed under the city's criteria, yet we are being forced to turn them off. Why? I have no idea, but I am sure it has nothing to do with maintaining the commercial land base in Saratoga and everything to do with the upcoming election. Make your vote count. Vote for Chuck Page.
Kristin Davis
|Zorka Avenue
Candidate's statement taken out of context
I would like to respond to the out-of-context statement referred to by Mr. David Yancey of San Marcos Road in the Oct. 25 issue of the Saratoga News. If Mr. Yancey had bothered to actually get the quote right, and given the whole quote, there might have been some truthfulness in his statements. At the candidate's forum, in response to a question about the fact that some of our Saratoga firefighters are seeking to merge with the Santa Clara County Fire Department, I responded that we "must provide the highest level of service to Saratogans as our first concern". I then added, "But we have a responsibility to ensure that the firefighters are happy in their work environment, too ... " because job satisfaction is a key to top performance. Perhaps Mr. Yancey has never had the experience of living in a community where the police force or other critical service had a work action such as a "blue flu" sick out.
I have, and it is frightening. We all know that the professionals on the force will do the absolute best and maintain their professionalism, and responsiveness, but I think that Yancey's thinking, "It can't happen here," is extremely short-sighted and very dangerous. I, for one, want to ensure that there is NO possibility of it happening. That is why I feel that it is important to understand the issue from the firefighter's perspective, too. The professionals providing the services are key to the excellent level of service we need to maintain, and we continue to thank them for the excellence they demonstrate daily.
Chuck Page
Saratoga City Council Candidate
County supervisor spot needs candidate Kniss
How often have you found a candidate you can support wholeheartedly and without reservation? This election year I have found such a candidate: Liz Kniss, who is running for District 5 county supervisor.
Liz Kniss has the experience, the knowledge, the preparation for the job. When you speak to her she really listens.
Liz Kniss has the track record of someone who actually gets things done. She is one of the original Mid-Peninsula Open Space District proponents and organizers. Our city shares 50 percent of its boundaries with the county (on both south and west sides) and Saratoga citizens look at, live with, and treasure the county hillsides daily. Liz Kniss will ensure that the county will be a good neighbor to Saratoga.
Mary-Lynne Bernald
Evans Lane
Supervisor choice is clear: It's Liz Kniss
After following Liz Kniss' career over the past few years, I have become quite impressed with her qualifications for our county Supervisor position.
Liz has a background that encompasses both the business and professional arenas, with a strength in health care. She has been involved in a broad spectrum of issues which gives her the knowledge and understanding of those activities she would have to face as supervisor; bringing to this task her open-minded and fair approach to any resolution.
Liz doesn't hesitate to listen to all sides and build consensus, which has meant that she really can bring issues to a closure that are supported by a broad coalition of her constituents. Her knowledge of transportation issues is firsthand and comprehensive.
I'm voting for Liz because of all these things. But more than that, she's believable.
Carolyn Blesch
Old Tree Way
Page has integrity and a business approach
Two years ago the citizens of Saratoga elected my husband, Nick Streit, to the Saratoga City Council based upon his integrity, objectivity, business approach to critical issues and determination to do what is right for all of Saratoga. You may not always like what he has to say, however, you can always be assured he has Saratoga's best interest in mind. On Nov. 7, the citizens of Saratoga have the opportunity to elect another gentleman with the same integrity, objectivity, and business approach to the critical issues that affect all of Saratoga's residents.
Chuck Page, a marketing executive in an Internet company, husband, father of two young girls, and resident of Saratoga, knows the pressures Saratoga families face today in our Silicon Valley lives. Chuck has no affiliations with any political groups in Saratoga, runs his own homegrown campaign, and will serve this city fairly with no personal agenda. I will be voting for Chuck Page on Nov. 7 for Saratoga City Council and I urge you to do the same.
Lynne Streit
Sobey Meadows Court
One candidate ignores city's sign ordinances
It is too bad that one of the three candidates for city council refuses to comply with Saratoga's city ordinances. Several years ago Saratoga passed an ordinance banning political signs from city property and the public right-of-way, restricting such signs to private property.
Chuck Page's campaign ignored this city law and put up his signs in the public right-of-way at Villa Fatima and at the Gateway on Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road. Chuck Page and his campaign ignored requests from the city to move those signs.
The city of Saratoga was forced to send a community service officer to Villa Fatima to remove the Page signs. Page responded by putting more signs up at Villa.
Why should we elect someone to the city council who thumbs his nose at Saratoga's ordinances? I plan to vote for Ann Waltonsmith and Stan Bogosian.
Nicole Shuman
Granite Way
Chuck Page can't run civil planning session
Why would Saratogans vote for Chuck Page for city council when he cannot run a civil planning commission meeting? When residents appear in front of the planning commission with a remodeling project or plans for a new house, it often represents that family's dreams of many years. Just because a planning commissioner has different taste or would have approached the project differently, is no reason to treat the applicant to sarcasm and snide remarks.
Yet, as planning commission chairman, Page regularly allows these kinds of verbal assaults by two senior members of the planning commission against residents or against more junior members of the planning commission with whom they disagree.
Sometimes Mr. Page joins in this kind of unnecessary and disrespectful behavior. The four newer members of our planning commission, all appointed by our current city council, consistently treat residents with courtesy and respect, and they handle disagreements with other planning commissioners without the need for personal attacks.
If your readers have any question about who to support in the city council election, they should talk to friends or neighbors who have attended planning commission meetings presided over by Chuck Page. His demonstrated lack of leadership will not serve this community well on our city council.
David Yancey
San Marcos Road
Cast only one vote this election, for Chuck Page
You do not have to vote for two.
On the official ballot for the upcoming election for City Council of
Saratoga, it says, "vote for no more than two." Well, I am only voting for one. I am enthusiastically supporting Chuck Page and am only going to vote for him. You do not have to vote for one of the other two candidates. Even though two people will be elected, it will show the current "power elite" in our city that we do not approve of their politics, petty bickering and self-promoting agenda. Please vote for only Chuck page and send a message.
Gene Bernald
Evans Lane
Election Results
Look for Saratoga City Council election results Nov. 8 at the Saratoga News website, www.saratoganews.com.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
