Saratoga News
Letters & Opinions
We offer a little balance to our letters section
We don't usually respond to letters to the editor. We believe that our Speak Out pages offer readers a forum to express their opinions, even if those opinions cast our newspaper in an unfavorable light. We believe that it's cheap-shot journalism to respond. The newspaper can always get in the last word, but it shouldn't.
However, when those letters are as mean-spirited, accusatory, inaccurate and vindictive as those we have received over the past few weeks, we feel the need to respond.
There's a mean spirit in Saratoga, especially among those supporting the slate candidates in the current election. Disagree with them, and they get angry. We know. We have endorsed Hab Siam, Kathleen King and Chuck Page in the race for the Saratoga City Council this year, and in the process warned Saratoga residents about a powerful political group that works behind the scenes to promote candidates they feel are best qualified to lead the city and further their agenda.
We learned, as candidates have in past years, that you don't cross the members of this group. They get angry; they get personal and some of them don't let the facts stand in the way of their attacks. They have questioned our journalistic integrity and ethics, because we have the audacity to endorse candidates other than their own--we must have ulterior motives, they say.
It couldn't just be that we believe the three candidates we have endorsed are the three we consider best for the job. It couldn't be because we believe that running a slate of candidates in a city council election is inherently wrong. It couldn't be because the three slate candidates--Marilyn Marchetti, Jill Hunter and Jim Sorden--failed to perform as well as the others in the League of Women Voters forum and in our endorsement meeting.
It's amazing--disagree with these people and they go on the attack. They claim we must be pro real estate because our newspaper runs real estate advertising. They say we must be pro sports because our editor is also a sports writer. And our favorite: We must want to see San Jose take over and swallow up Saratoga because our editors have the audacity to live in San Jose.
Saratoga's old guard is hoping to preserve what is a beautiful community, and it should be preserved. However, they are doing so at a cost very great to this city--alienation of the young families who also live here. Saratoga has to be for everyone. A longtime resident does not own this city any more than a recent one. They are equal partners in the ownership of this city, just as all of the residents are, regardless of their time of residence here.
There is a divisiveness in this city because the old guard is not willing to share Saratoga with the young, or with anyone who disagrees with their model of what the city should be.
It's for that reason that everyone, young and old alike, must turn out at the polls to vote on Nov. 7. Only that way can Saratoga get a true representation of what the residents want in their council members. If voters don't turn out and let a minority voting block determine the election's outcome, residents will get what they deserve.
