On June 12 members of our community attended a meeting sponsored by the San Jose Unified School District to discuss the expenditure of Measure F funds at Willow Glen Middle and High schools.

What we encountered was really a charade by the district. It appears as though they called this meeting to pretend they were involving the community in what they kept referring to as their draft. However, they plan to vote on this draft in the beginning of July.

In the midst of discussion Chuck Corr—t he district's director of facilities and construction—abruptly announced that the meeting was over. And no follow-up meetings with the community are planned before the vote. A cafeteria full of neighbors went home frustrated and angry.

Let me tell you how your tax dollars will be spent in a small section of Willow Glen High School because some of these propositions show absolutely no financial responsibility.

The four tennis courts, which were refurbished in 2002, are gone. The new volleyball court, which was also built in 2002, is gone. The existing landscaping, mature trees, and rose bushes are gone. The plan is to bulldoze this area and make a parking lot and bus drop-off and loading zone.

There currently is a road, which begins in front of the church and runs through campus directly to this newly planned parking lot. The plan is to obstruct that very road, with new landscaping then build a new road across from the private residences on Dry Creek Road as an entrance and exit for buses and cars into this new parking lot.

The baseball diamond will have to be moved, and the price tag for this is a mere $1,094,620.

Why would you obstruct an existing road then build a new one; why build a road that would impact residents when there is an existing road that could be used to do the same thing and does not impact the residents?

Absolutely no traffic studies have been done as to how the residents directly across from these roads will be impacted. The city traffic department knew nothing about this until I informed them the day after the meeting.

We need to put a stop to this misuse of funds before they are all squandered on ripping out what was built last year, building anew this year and asking the citizens to pass Measures XYZ next year, so that they can repeat the cycle.

Who is benefiting from this? Not the students for they have lost four tennis courts and a volleyball court. Not the classroom teachers, and certainly not the neighborhood. It looks like reckless spending. At least if the money is mandated to be spent on infrastructure needs the school district could come up with context sensitive solutions that benefit the school and the community.

My recommendation is to leave things as they are, retain the athletic facilities and stop the busing, Let's open up the local schools to the neighborhood children, just as Carol Myers, Trustee, wrote in the Willow Glen Resident recently.

When the bus zone on Dry Creek Road is eliminated and the street is returned for regular parking then we will not need a new parking lot.

Last year on a walk around the campus with former Willow Glen High School principal, Patrick Day, a neighbor and I were told that educators would never allow the removal of athletic facilities. He was not present at Thursday's meeting.

San Jose Unified School District administrators have lost all credibility in this neighborhood. Is it any wonder that Measure A went down to defeat?

—Helen and Ken Brady, Dry Creek Road


Censorship a clear violation of rights

In response to those upset by "The Vagina Monologues" posters on Lincoln Avenue, I would like to add my voice to this discussion.

I am a mother of two and grandmother of three. By the time I was 5, I knew that I (and all other girls and women) had a vagina (yes, THAT word!), the correct name for a female body part. What I didn't know then and for several years thereafter —and perhaps this is where the problem lies—is that it was a sexual organ.

If your daughters are old enough to read and ask, a simple explanation is all that is necessary. If you don't believe that the word should be used publicly, then this is the perfect opportunity to explain your values. Sexually explicit material offends me too, but to remove a poster advertising a play, which by the way, is very good and exceedingly funny, is censorship and a clear violation of our First Amendment rights.

—Marti Wachtel, Willow Glen