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Council Watch
Community musters to clean up and beautify the 'hood
With help from Fiscalini, residents aim to get headstart on spring cleaning
By Jessica Lyons
Willow Glen residents and District 6 Councilman Frank Fiscalini's office are teaming up to make the Glen greener and cleaner.
On Oct. 30--the second scheduled Willow Glen Clean-Up Day this year--the Gregory Plaza Neighborhood Association and Fiscalini's office will collect garbage, post anti-graffiti fliers and plant eight sycamore trees at the corner of Gregory Street and Fuller Avenue. The event signifies the first official tree planting as part of the city's "2000 Trees for the Millennium" project.
The aptly titled project aims to plant 2000 saplings in San Jose neighborhoods, school yards, park corners and street medians by mid-spring 2000.
It's also a first for District 6 community relations assistant Olivia Nunez. "We're going to dig the holes, plant the trees--this is my first tree planting," she says.
Nunez and volunteers won't be left to their own resources, however. Tree experts will be on hand.
The empty lot at the corner of Gregory Street and Fuller Avenue will eventually be an access point for the Los Gatos Creek Trail, completing the bike trail from Lincoln Avenue to downtown San Jose.
"We're trying to beautify it right now before they start putting the bike trail in," says Norma Mendez, treasurer for the Gregory Plaza Neighborhood Association.
Volunteers will meet Saturday at 8 a.m. at the Gregory Plaza Tot Lot for a light breakfast of coffee and doughnuts before planting trees and posting anti-graffiti fliers at 9 a.m.
Twenty-eight dumpsters will be located throughout the neighborhood as well, and from 7 a.m. to noon, residents on Prevost, Drake, Gregory, Helen, W. Virginia and Harrison streets, and Spencer, Warren, Fisk and Coe avenues, will get at least one shot at dumping their garbage.
"Ties, appliances, everything can be dumped except chemicals," Mendez says. "We want to make sure everyone gets dumped at least once, and if there's room, they can have more dumps."
Following the cleanup, Gregory Plaza volunteers will be rewarded for their hard work and tree-friendly endeavors with a dinner at Sangria restaurant from 4 to 6 p.m. Only the early birds will catch the burritos, however. Because of limited space, only the first 100 volunteers will be fed.
Gregory Plaza Neighborhood Association president Mary Pizzo encourages new and old neighbors alike to come out for the cleanup. "If all the neighbors work together, we can get a lot done," Pizzo says. "The people who have been working as board members have been shouldering this for two years, and we really would like to get the perspective of the new neighbors, as well as old-timers who have seen our progress through the years."
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
