Photograph by Dai Sugano
Stan Bogosian, Saratoga's new mayor, still lives in the house where he grew up.
New mayor wants to extend measure G
Less commercial zoning will cut into the city's finances
By Kara Chalmers
Stan Bogosian, who has served as acting mayor of Saratoga since Jim Shaw died in August, was officially appointed to the post at the City Council meeting on Dec. 1. The council elected John Mehaffey as vice mayor.
Out of respect for Shaw, Bogosian had asked that the council wait until now to appoint him mayor.
"I think he'll continue to do an excellent job. I'm strongly in support of his program," said Council member Evan Baker, who noted that Bogosian felt strongly about remaining mayor pro tem until the end of Shaw's term.
Bogosian outlined plans for the coming year, which include extending Measure G to apply to commercial zoning districts as a ballot measure to be placed before voters in the November 2000 election. If this ballot measure passes, it would mean that a proposal to change a commercially zoned area to a residential area would have to be approved by voters.
"Over the past few years, the erosion of existing commercial zoning districts in the form of conversion to residential uses has accelerated to the point that I believe the viability of commercial activity in our city is seriously threatened," he said. "We deserve, and our citizens expect quality facilities to serve the community."
Mehaffey, upon being sworn in as vice mayor, said that he applauds Bogosian's initiatives. "I think over the next year, I agree we clearly need to pay attention to the infrastructure here in Saratoga," he said. "There is incredible high pressure from developers and landowners to build houses wherever there is a few square inches of land to put it on. We really need to resist that if we can to maintain our commercial districts and our professional and office space. People who live here want to have places to go."
Mehaffey said he agrees with Bogosian's proposed extension to measure G. "I think that the voters are the ones who really have a stake in it," he said. "It shouldn't be up to the City Council and developers with a lot of money to decide."
Bogosian and Shaw ran for and won council seats in 1996 and the posts of mayor and vice mayor in 1998. Bogosian said he and Shaw shared the same vision for Saratoga. Most importantly, they worked together on the Measure G campaign, the Neighborhood Preservation Initiative. Bogosian said their support of measure G helped them win the support of Saratogans.
He told the Saratoga News that the success of Measure G exceeded his expectations and is part of the reason he now wants to extend the measure to apply to commercial areas. Bogosian also said he thinks he has made good on his 1996 campaign promise to implement Measure G for the citizens. In 1998, Bogosian and Shaw pushed to change the implementation of Measure G, to provide that an applicant go through the planning process before going directly to an election.
"It made a lot more sense in terms of the spirit of Measure G and the intention of it," he said. "If it went the other way, it would really defeat the whole purpose of the initiative."
Bogosian, 47, grew up in the same house on Lomita Avenue where he and his wife, Sue, live today with their dog and four cats. He has lived almost all his life in Saratoga. Bogosian teaches traffic violation classes part time for ACCTS, a consortium of community colleges for traffic safety in Santa Clara County. He is the co-author of the curriculum and works on staff development there. Besides earning a degree in politics at UC-Santa Cruz, Bogosian's first foray into politics was on the Saratoga Planing Commission from 1990 to 1993.
"I had an opportunity to study political science, and I must say I did learn a lot about the history, but your first day on any kind of political job or a campaign, you're going to learn more in that first three hours than you did in that entire semester of classes."
When elected to the city council in 1996, he vowed to make City Hall more accessible to citizens. Today, all City Council meetings and Planning Commission meetings are televised on community access cable. The adjourned City Council meetings are now held in the community center rather than the administrative room, which is much smaller and forced members of the public to stand out in the hall, he said.
This past year, City Hall set up a website and is now working on a newsletter that is proposed to come out on a quarterly basis.
"This particular council has been very careful about allowing and providing and encouraging people to make public comments," he said.
Among Bogosian's other proposals for the coming year include plans to direct the city manager to look into forming a Joint Powers Authority with other cities in the county to solve the playfields problem long-term.
"I propose that the city pursue a joint powers approach as a possible long-term solution to playfields space needs," Bogosian said at the council meeting. He said he wants to direct the city manager to set up a meeting with representatives of West Valley cities to explore a possible JPA for playfields within the region.
"To have any success with this, we need to get started now," he said.
For temporary playfields, Bogosian said he wants to continue looking at West Valley College and Saratoga High School playfields, and hopefully set up an arrangement with them while Congress Springs is being renovated.
Bogosian also said he wants to bring Saratoga into compliance with California's low to moderate income housing requirements. "We must all think creatively to develop ways that we can meet the state's requirements," he said. "The alternative is completely unacceptable--do nothing and seriously risk a costly lawsuit by the state of California."
Finally, Bogosian wants to wrap up the updating of the circulation element of the city's general plan, since he said traffic is the number one problem in Saratoga.
Bogosian, the City Council liaison to the library commission has been involved with the library since the beginning of its effort to expand. He says he is happy about the bond measure to renovate the Saratoga Library and urges the council members to support it 100 percent. He said he also feels strongly about the need for a new fire station because the existing one is seismically unsafe and cramped.
In his personal life, Bogosian is also an amateur mineralogist with a collection from all over the country in his home. He just returned from a trip to Arizona over thanksgiving to the mining districts. He used to lead hikes for the Sierra Club and he hopes to do so again. He says that partly explains why preserving open space is important to him.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
