Saratoga News
Letters & Opinions
Speak Out
Main concern of PG&E
arborist is safety
As an arborist and PG&E employee who oversees the tree pruning program in Santa Clara County, I wanted to address the concerns of a recent letter written by T.M. Blaisdell ("Reader says PG&E trimmers butcher trees," Feb. 20). At PG&E we make customer satisfaction and listening to customer concerns an important part of our daily task. I have met with Mr. Blaisdell, and I felt his concerns should also be addressed in this letter. We at PG&E feel our customer concerns should be resolved in as complete, efficient and timely manner as possible.
My primary concern is keeping our customers safe from trees that may come into contact with high voltage power lines. Any tree pruned to keep it away from power lines will look different, and this occasionally elicits complaints from our customers. We trim trees so that when we return to the same tree one year later, it will still be a safe distance away from high voltage power lines.
To help ensure safe and reliable electric service, and to reduce the risks of fire, PG&E spends more than $165 million annually to trim or remove about 2 million trees a year in a 70,000-square-mile service area that covers most of Northern and Central California. For the past 12 years, we have been awarded the Tree Line USA award for urban tree programs by the National Arbor Day Foundation.
For the health of our trees, PG&E follows the International Society of Arboriculture and the National Arbor Day Foundation guidelines of natural target pruning. Natural target pruning, also called directional pruning, is now the recognized standard of both of these organizations for how best to trim trees that can conflict with high voltage power lines. In addition we work closely with all city, state and county arborists, have a quality control program directed at our pruning practices and have more than 200 certified arborists on staff.
The utility also sponsors programs to encourage customers to plant the "right tree in the right place." This means planting "power line-friendly trees" near high-voltage power lines. "Right" trees do not grow taller than 25 feet and should pose no threat to high-voltage power lines. In cooperation with Caltrans, other utilities and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, PG&E helps maintain a website of these "power line-friendly trees" for its customers. This website can be found at http://selectree.calpoly.edu.
For more information on PG&E's tree trimming practices and to learn more about what types of trees are safe to plant around power lines, please visit our website at www.pge.com or www.safetree.net. If you are interested to see if your tree qualifies for a free removal, please contact 800.PGE.5000.
Chris Hughes
PG&E Co.
Eggs his cars on Cox,
both on Friday nights
Both my daughter and I have had the experience of driving along Cox Avenue toward Saratoga Avenue on a Friday night and having a raw egg thrown at the windshield of our car. Since this happened to us months apart, I believe it is too much of a coincidence to think we are the only ones who have been egged.
It is the perfect crime: It is dark, suddenly you are blinded and are desperately trying to keep your car on the road and not hit the wall on the Highway 85 overpass. By the time you clear your windshield enough to see, the perpetrator of this crime is long gone. And how can you call 911? You never saw who hit you. So please, avoid Cox Avenue on Friday nights between 10 and 11 p.m.
Karen Burley
Solana Drive
Abrams property should
not be zoned commercial
I understand that city council members Kathleen King and Chuck Page want the city council to consider re-zoning the two-parcel Abrams property (the pumpkin patch/Christmas tree lots) on Saratoga Avenue to commercial from its current professional administrative office designation.
I urge everyone in Saratoga to think about the impact re-zoning that property to commercial would likely have on all of our neighborhoods and our quality of life. Re-zoning to commercial means that a big box store or "strip mall" could be constructed on that property. Consider the increased traffic on an already impacted Saratoga Avenue, as well as the effect increased traffic will have on our arterials, many of which are located in or abutting our neighborhoods. Rezoning that property to commercial will impact every Saratoga neighborhood, including our hillside residents.
Every city council member has promised to respect and protect our neighborhoods. We should insist that our council members do just that.
The matter has not yet been placed on the council agenda but will likely be agendized shortly. Be willing to voice your opinions on this proposed re-zoning.
Marcia Fariss
Glen Place
AT&T sings the same old
story with different tune
I could not believe that AT&T would host a Saratoga Chamber of Commerce meeting to promote its state-of-the-art 2007 technology for TV and the Internet [called U-Verse] when it still does not deliver 1990's Internet technology to most of Saratoga.
Many of the gathered business owners on Jan. 22 (mine has been in Saratoga nearly 20 years), after hearing years-old excuses and alibis from AT&T of why their high-speed Internet service is not available, attended this Chamber meeting expecting that AT&T's new '07 technology would at least improve their Internet delivery to the standard of the previous decade.
No. The meeting was another AT&T disappointment and the same old song, simply sung a different day: "It's coming. Really it is."
At least when Gen. Douglas McArthur said, "I shall return," he showed up three years later. AT&T hasn't come to the table in Saratoga for a decade ... and counting. Based on its past performance, promises about its future suggest history will repeat itself as the new U-Verse technology is not available to all of Saratoga. Yet, AT&T lists Saratoga as one of the cities where its new technology is available.
As always--and especially with AT&T--truth lies in the fine print.
In our market--a world leader in technology and our city where many high tech leaders live--AT&T proclaiming its technological leadership here when the company doesn't even deliver basic Internet service; well, "embarrassing" is a kind description.
"Inexcusable" captures it for me.
Bob Ray
Big Basin Way
