 |
|
|
|
Photograph by George Sakkestad
When you love your job, it's hard to even think of it as a job, says Michael Buress, the Saratoga Fire Department's Wilbur William Worden Memorial Award winner.
1999 Year in Review
January
The Saratoga City Council passed a measure to provide sheriff's deputies patrolling Saratoga from the Westside Substation with top-of-the-line in-car video cameras and radios. Money for the new equipment came from the Citizen's Option for Public Safety (COPS) program, which gives state money on a per-capita basis to California cities for local law enforcement.
Sheriff's deputies arrested a Saratoga High School student for possession of two pipe bombs and other destructive materials. The 17-year old student's parents informed the Sheriff's Department of their son's suspicious activity. Deputies took the boy into custody without incident at the SHS main office. A search of the boy's home turned up ingredients for making bombs and two additional pipe bombs. The teenager was booked into Juvenile Hall to await court hearings.
The West Valley-Mission Community College District Board of Trustees elected Chris Constantin to be the group's youngest president ever. The 22-year-old San Jose State University student was believed to be the youngest in the nation's history to hold such a position.
A section of Highway 85 between Quito and Prospect roads in Saratoga was named in honor of CHP motorcycle officer Scott M. Greenly, who was killed during a routine traffic stop on the highway by a driver under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The name change became official Jan. 7, and a dedication ceremony with more than 100 guests, including family members and law enforcement officers, took place at West Valley College.
Saratoga firefighter Michael Buress was honored with the annual Wilbur William Worden Memorial Award, the most prestigious given by the Fire Department. Buress was chosen for the award by 20 of his co-workers at the Saratoga Fire District because they felt he best embodied the character qualities and high standards set by the late Capt. Worden.
A fire burned Le Mouton Noir restaurant, forcing owners Jeff and Karen Breslow to close the popular French restaurant during the busy holiday. The cause of the fire was investigated.
After four months and $117,000 in renovation, the two-bedroom caretaker's cottage at Hakone Gardens was ready for a tenant. The city of Saratoga wanted to rent the house to a low-income, possibly retired couple.
The Saratoga Chamber of Commerce named Pat Anderson Outstanding Businessperson of the Year. Anderson owned the Backyard Pool Center for the past 14 years and had planned and coordinated special events in Quito Village, where her business was located.
Photograph by George Sakkestad
Hakone's executive director, Lon Saavedra, says the garden is a great place to escape the linear world.
February
About 25 residents, mostly from the Marshall Lane area, had their say about the playing fields proposed at four sites in Saratoga at a City Council meeting. Some voiced support but others expressed concern over increased traffic and noise in the neighborhoods near the proposed playing-field locations. Funding for the fields, which would be used for community recreation programs and local schools, would come from the more than $2 million in park development funds.
The City Council put off writing a resolution to condemn the Saratoga Union School District Board of Trustees' for cutting down 10 eucalyptus trees at Saratoga School before beginning a renovation plan on the campus. The council waited so they could tour the school grounds with Superintendent Mary Gardner and hear her explanation of the board's decision.
Photograph by George Sakkestad
Adrian Bedard was the first student on the bus that would take him to his new adventure in kindergarten. Students from Saratoga School and Redwood Middle School sixth-graders are attending Strawberry Park School in San Jose while construction work is underway at their schools.
SUSD board members made another big decision when they approved sending Redwood sixth-graders along with Saratoga School students to San Jose's Strawberry Park School next year. Because of three major construction sites at Redwood, the group jointly decided the move would be best for the students based on safety concerns and traffic congestion. The district would provide transportation to and from school.
The Saratoga Community Center, bursting at the seams with people young and old participating in its activities, took a big step in making expansion and upgrade dreams a reality. City Parks and Recreation Director Joan Pisani presented a needs assessment, recently completed by an architectural firm, to the Parks and Recreation Commission. If approved, the project could move into the fundraising stage. The community center hopes for more space, but it would at least like to upgrade the antiquated cabinets, carpeting, air conditioning and heating and water systems. The city had about $500,000 earmarked for the renovation.
Project Sentinel, a housing watchdog agency in Palo Alto, challenged the city's guidelines for renting the low-income housing unit at Hakone Gardens. The agency argued that the guidelines were discriminatory because the city had expressed a preference for an older couple. Project Sentinel sent a request to the city asking to be part of the tenant selection process. City Manager Larry Perlin told the City Council that the city hoped to hire an agency to serve as an independent landlord to manage the rental of the Hakone Gardens house and to handle all of the issues that go along with that, such as compliance with fair housing laws.
The Hakone Foundation hired Lon Saavedra as its new executive director, a position to help establish Hakone Gardens as one the premiere cultural centers in the Bay Area.
Saratoga's Teri Lynn Baron, who often rode her horse, D.J., on the extensive trails above Saratoga, received a grant from the city to help shore up a portion of one of the most hidden trails in town. Baron pushed along the city's trail master plan, which was created in 1991 to map out the needs of the existing trails and to build more of them to be enjoyed by residents.
The 4-year-old lawsuit between the city of Saratoga and two environmental groups over pollution in the Saratoga Creek came near a close. Saratoga Mayor Jim Shaw came out of a closed session to announce that an agreement had been reached with the Friends of the Santa Clara County Creeks and Baykeeper, the two plaintiffs in the case. The details of the agreement were not revealed.
Saratoga Fire Chief Ernie Kraule took the first step toward getting a new fire station built on the corner of Highway 9 and Saratoga Avenue. He presented an artist's rendering of the new firehouse to the City Council. The fire district hoped to get a bond initiative on the November ballot, which two-thirds of Saratoga voters would need to pass before a new station could be built in late 2000. The current fire station had been in use since 1923, when it was converted from an auto-repair garage and service station.
Photograph by George Sakkestad
Workers removed old paint at Saratoga Elementary School on Oak Street as part of the asbestos-removal stage of the renovation.
March
Soon after Matthew Hahn, 18, was charged with 12 counts of burglary, four counts of grand theft and one count of possession of stolen property, Stuart E. Patrick, 19, was charged with felony drunk driving after smashing into a tree on Montalvo Road and seriously injuring his passengers. Ironically, the Safe Rides program, a proposal by and for teens to help decrease drunken driving, was just getting underway. Toward the end of the month, crime statistics reported by Safe Schools showed the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District was well below the statewide high-school district average.
In business news: Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Sheila Arthur retired after 10 years. The Basin, a hip restaurant and bar, opened on Big Basin Way to cater to the area's younger business-minded individuals. Local housing developer Bill Hirschman announced that he and a group of investors bought the Mountain Winery from Ravi Kumra. Hirschman told the county he intended to file permits to legalize the existing events at the winery by the end of the month.
KSAR received word that TCI cable planned to boot the station from its coveted position on cable Channel 6. TCI said it had to move the station to make room for KICU-TV of San Jose, citing KICU's federal "must-carry" rights.
Assembly member Elaine Alquist sponsored a bill granting a one-year reprieve to the nine cities in the county scrambling to come up with an alternative animal-sheltering agreement by July 1. Alquist's bill delayed the starting date of a new law mandating longer stays for animals in shelters before euthanasia.
West Valley College received a $250,000 donation from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to refurbish its aging theater. It was a matching grant.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa came to town and visited the Hakone Gardens, where he took part in a tea ceremony in the gardens' Cultural Exchange Center.
City Council members spoke of the qualities they would like in their new city attorney while then-City Attorney Mike Riback advised them. Council members said they wanted a full-service local firm or an individual experienced in municipal governments and expertise in contract, employment and environmental law.
And after much controversy and many postponements, a decision by the board on whether to accept the negative declaration for Saratoga School's renovation was delayed until April. Many parents and community members had insisted the report was flawed.
1999: The Year in Review
April - June 1999
July - September 1999
October - December 1999
|
|
|
|
Saratoga, California Since 1955
