I am relieved that the Saratoga City Council will be discussing, at its Sept. 7 meeting, preventing a left turn from Aloha to Highway 9. This turn has been virtually suicidal for many years, the tall stone wall preventing seeing the approaching traffic. An approaching car hitting a left-turning vehicle would hit on the driver's side, causing serious injury or death.

In previous years, I met with two different Saratoga Safety Commissions to discuss this hazard. They all agreed about the extreme danger of a left turn at that location. The hang-up was explained as due to different jurisdictions, city and state, both having control of that intersection. I met with a previous director of public works who agreed with me; but he, too, could not facilitate any change.

Turning right from Aloha to Highway 9 does allow adequate visibility, and that turn can be made with safety. If the intersection were to be made one way only--exiting Highway 9 to Aloha--that would cause unnecessary delays, and would greatly increase traffic on Vickery, and on Komina.

Art Anderson

Komina Avenue

Starbucks will be nice
addition to the Village

I would like to compliment the editorial staff at the Saratoga News and the Saratoga City Council for their courageous and predictably unpopular stand on the Starbucks issue. As a 20-plus year resident of Saratoga, and a 50-plus year resident of the west side of the Santa Clara Valley, I have been chagrined to watch the slow decay of the Village, while every attempt to revitalize it is met with the mantra of "not in my town" by a vocal few.

Everyone yearns for the bygone days of quiet streets, meandering shoppers and little if no traffic. While this bucolic scene might do well in the days of Norman Rockwell, it has little bearing on solving economic problems of a Silicon Valley bedroom community in the 21st century. If Saratoga residents want a vital downtown and the corresponding benefits that are associated with it, they must be willing to accept some sort of transformation from the status quo of 30 years ago.

I admit, I seldom venture downtown, because many of the stores I used to patronize are no longer there (Henrietta Hen and Marjolaine Bakery, just to name two). There has to be some reason to go to a downtown, especially in an area as competitive as this one, other than to "support the local merchant."

I don't condone a massive "franchisation" of downtown Saratoga; I do believe, however, that "if you build it, they will come." And who, today, has the capital to take a risk other than people with deep pockets, such as Starbucks? Yes, I said risk, because opening a successful new business in downtown Saratoga today probably carries about the same risk as going to Las Vegas and laying that same money on the craps tables. I salute Starbucks, the Saratoga City Council and the Saratoga News for having the collective intestinal fortitude to realize what must be done to begin to bring our Village into the 21st century. I'm not a huge coffee drinker, but I will be patronizing the new Starbucks when it opens.

Ronald E. Cali

Arroyo De Arguello