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Speak Out
A few thoughts about community centers
The announcement that the city of San Jose is using its powers of eminent domain to buy a parcel of land downtown in District 3 for a park just highlights the city's neglect of Sherman Oaks, a high-density, low-income neighborhood located in the center of District 6 and adjacent to a county pocket, the low-income, high-density Burbank neighborhood.
Sherman residents have been steadily calling for a park and community center since 1994. District 6 has no community center serving young people and the closest park to the Sherman Oaks neighborhood is over a mile away.
Meanwhile, the city wants to place the District 6 full-service community center at the far southern border of the Willow Glen neighborhood saying there is lack of land in the Sherman Oaks area and that few under age 19 live in the apartments in the area (The school district had to reopen Sherman Oaks School in 1997, to accommodate all the children the city says do not exist).
Recently, the last open spaces in Sherman Oaks are (the Kmart site, the Hudson site, the Stokes site, and the Dicks market site) have been slated by the city for high-density luxury housing and office buildings.
When the city asked the Campbell School Union School District to rent the old Sherman Oaks School cafeteria for a dollar a year so that it could run a community center as requested by large numbers of local people at a PACT action, residents of the neighborhood thought that the city was finally responding to their cries for a safe, supervised place for neighborhood children to do homework and to play after school and during the summers.
However, instead of asking for CDBG money to rehab the building for such a purpose, the city applied for federal funds on behalf of a senior center for Korean-American Community Services, an ethnicity not found in any significant numbers in District 6.
The city told the school district that KACS would use a portion of the community center for part of the morning to run a senior lunch program and counseling service open to all seniors in the neighborhood. It also said that KACS would run a grandparents program for young children at Sherman Oaks School and at Parkway Child Development Center, and county-run, subsidized child-care facility which shares the site with the school.
In contrast, apparently the city told KACS that it would be getting full use of the entire facility rent-free for 25 years for a community center, exclusively serving Koreans of all ages.
Interestingly, the city's lease to KACS, not enforced, says that KACS may use most but not all of the building, and only until 1:30 p.m.
The school district and the community have had to fight the city for the right of local children to use what is essentially the Sherman Oaks school cafeteria for after-school recreation, for the summer recreation program and for local seniors to be allowed on center-sponsored field trips.
Local people, most of whom are immigrants, are not welcome in the ESL and Citizenship classes run by KACS at the community center nor are local seniors welcome in the KACS-run senior lunch program. Sherman Oaks School serves neighborhood children, 75 percent of whom live in poverty. The majority of the students at the school are Latino, along with some Vietnamese, African American and Anglo students.
Opened three years ago, the school is already lacking space to enroll all the children of the neighborhood and to provide the enrichment programs needed to provide a quality education to all children, as now mandated by the state. The city has refused the school's request use of some of the space in the community center/school cafeteria building after 1:30 p.m., saying that KACS is using the spaces.
It is time for the city to provide programming at the community center based on an analysis of the needs of the local Sherman Oaks community, something it did not do when it placed KACS in the Sherman Oaks facility in 1998.
According to a June 1999 interview with Mrs. Choi, director of KACS, most of her membership resides in Cupertino, Sunnyvale, or Santa Clara. Census data reveals that largest numbers of Koreans are also found in Berryessa, Milpitas, and the far western edge of San Jose bordering Cupertino.
It is time for the city and the county to site a Korean community center closer to where Korean residents are located. It is not appropriate for the city to place an exclusive single ethnicity community center rent-free on public school property in a largely poor neighborhood made up predominantly of another ethnicity.
The residents of Sherman Oaks are looking forward to working with our new District 6 city Councilman, Ken Yeager, in addressing the needs of his constituents.
Susan Price-Jang
Sherman Oaks resident, parent of an ethnic Korean child and Neighborhood Services Coordinator, Sherman Oaks Community Charter School, Campbell Union School District
Don't frown on those without light displays
I would like to comment on the commentary in the Dec. 20 issue titled "Decorations are essential in WG."
I have been a Willow Glen resident for 15 years and resent the fact that I should feel like I won't "belong" if I don't decorate for the holidays. I am Jewish, and therefore, having a tree on my front lawn, with a string of lights around it, is not something that I would do or have ever done in the past.
Quotes in your article stating, "If you live in Willow Glen, decorating your house for Christmas is tantamount to belonging. If you don't go all out, ... you are at least encouraged to buy a little Christmas tree from your block's tree coordinator, stake it into your lawn, and hang it with lights," make me feel hurt and angry that I am supposed to do this in order to feel like I "belong" in Willow Glen.
Religion is a personal commitment and nobody should feel that they have to compromise their personal beliefs in order to "belong" to a neighborhood (or anything else for that matter). I also feel saddened by the fact that those individuals who do not practice the Christian religion feel that they have to do "something" (i.e. put up lights in the shape of dreidls) in order to succumb to peer pressure.
In the Jewish religion, Chanukah is a very minor holiday and, as such, treated as one. I have no problem with our neighbors who put up Christmas decorations and trees on their front lawns, but I don't feel that I should be frowned upon for not joining in. Your article almost encourages individuals to discriminate against those who do not share the same religion as you. Please try to refrain from these types of prejudices in the future and focus on how wonderful a neighborhood Willow Glen is because of the people that are in it; not the religion that they practice or how they decorate their houses for Christmas.
Mindy West
Willow Glen Way
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
