In an effort to save the North Campus facility for public use, Mallory--himself a former councilman--asked for a delay of the sale of the property on Prospect Road for one year to give the Saratoga Citizens Committee to Save the North Campus enough time to raise the funds needed to purchase the site.

The council majority did not agree. Mayor Kathleen King, Vice Mayor Norman Kline and Councilman Nick Streit chose to stay the course and put the property on the market this year. Councilwomen Ann Waltonsmith and Aileen Kao supported Mallory's request. It was by that 3-2 margin that the council had previously voted to put the property on the market.

The city is faced with a budget crisis. While council critics insist that the infusion of the one-time money that the sale would generate is not the answer to the budget woes, the fact is that the several million dollars the city would receive from the sale would go a long way to solving some of Saratoga's problems. What's more, it's not really one-time money. The sale would simply replace the dollars in the general fund that the city used to purchase the property in the first place.

The Saratoga City Council should never have taken $4.5 million out the city's general fund to engage in a real estate acquisition in the first place. But it did. In 2002, the city purchased the complex of buildings from the Grace Methodist Church. The plan according to Streit--the city's mayor at the time--was to move the senior center to the site and lease out the senior's space at the civic center to the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department. The deal never materialized.

The sale of the property now would replace those dollars in the general fund with money to spare.

Speakers at the city council spoke of the North Campus as though it is a jewel the city can ill afford to lose--calling the property "one of the last treasures" in the city. The fact is, the city has only owned the property for three years, and it's a far cry from being a treasure.

Saratoga can sell the property at a neat profit, allowing the city to replace the money in the general fund to use for infrastructure that would include road repair.

Certainly the Saratoga seniors need more space than they now have for their programs. The city must dedicate a percentage of the proceeds from the North Campus sale to improvements at the senior center.

"We need a partnership with the city to save this land," said Mallory to the council.

The city and the seniors certainly need a partnership, but not to save the North Campus--to improve facilities for the seniors. The city needs to sell the North Campus to replace the money in the general fund, and to provide additional space at the senior center. Money for road repairs and the city's seniors--now there's a win-win.