For Ed Rast, who has lived all over the country and the globe, becoming a Willow Glen Neighborhood Association board member meant working to preserve the small-town feel amid a metropolitan city. As the most-established neighborhood grass-roots group nears its 30th election on May 12, these two board members reflect on what has made Willow Glen a choice community.

When Ames arrived in Willow Glen after fleeing the cold winters in Wisconsin, California was still in the throes of the 1970s' energy crisis, with cars lining up to buy gas. So he looked for a home that was within walking distance of Lincoln Avenue and the Willow Glen library and a bicycle ride from the train station, he says. He researched flood zones, flight zones and earthquakes before buying his new home two weeks after arriving in California. Ames didn't know it then, but his interest in his surroundings was laying the groundwork for his becoming a neighborhood activist.

The same year he moved to Willow Glen, he joined the neighborhood association, because he remembered his parents attending homeowner association meetings in Virginia.

"I thought that when you get a house, that's what you do," Ames says.

He adds that the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association board meetings were more informal in those days and were held in the president's home, whereas today they are held at the Willow Glen United Methodist Church on Newport Avenue.

He says he can't remember the size of the membership when he arrived, but the association didn't need to advertise for members because of the "hot button issue" that led to the group's founding in 1973. The city wanted to lay a four-lane highway down Race Street and Cherry Avenue, but the association's founding members bought the house that stood in the way.

"It's been grass roots since the beginning," he says.

Although the highway opposition issue was over when he arrived, other changes he wanted to see were a revitalized business district and city bike trails.

Two decades ago, "Lincoln Avenue was not a destination for a business district," he says. He adds that at that time there were no trees along the street or fancy restaurants. Ames says it looked "barren" and had approximately seven second-hand-clothing stores.

As a concerned resident, he wanted to see some improvements that would enhance the downtown. So he participated in the Lincoln Avenue Study Task Force that researched what could be done to give a facelift to the business district in 1982.

He credits the combined efforts of residents and business owners for working to improve downtown Willow Glen. Then-District 6 city Councilwoman Nancy Ianni obtained the block grant to do the Lincoln Avenue study and provide small loans enabling business owners to beautify their storefronts and the streetscape.

As an avid bicyclist familiar with the city-planned greenbelts of Madison, Wis., Ames says he was surprised a warm place like San Jose had limited options for pedestrians and cyclists.

Like Willow Glen Neighborhood Association board members before him, Ames says he became a "citizen advocate" for the creek trail.

Once Ames even encouraged the city to negotiate an easement with the water district and wrote grant proposals to fund urban stream restoration. With the $66,000 awarded by the state's water resources department, 200 volunteers planted trees by the creek in 1996.

He says that District 6 city Councilman Ken Yeager was "very instrumental" in the creek trail's development and that the city has also appointed bicycle and trail coordinators. The Los Gatos Creek Trail, Coyote Creek Trail and the Guadalupe River Trail have taken more than 20 years to establish. But Ames says, "The creek trail has made this a much more desirable place to live."

The creek trails are not the only local feature he cares about; parks and historic homes also rank high on his list. Ames has served as county park commissioner, been an adviser for the Santa Clara Valley Water District and is part of the Victorian Preservation Association.

Although Ames says he likes being involved in community affairs because he meets interesting people, he took a seven-year hiatus when his children were young, from 1986 to 1993. But when he returned to the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association board, he took on a pioneering role.

In the mid-1990s, with the explosion of information technology, Ames set up electronic bulletin boards for the association to use, before email service or surfing the web became common. They were the precursor to the now heavily used WGNA elist.

"We predated the World Wide Web," he says. "This is Silicon Valley. Who else would be on the cutting edge?"

He helped the association launch the current website, www.wgna.net, in January 1997 and the WGNA elist in 1999.

While technology has changed daily life, Ames doesn't think that Willow Glen will be much different in 50 years.

"In a certain sense, it hasn't changed in the last 50 years," he says. "Some things change. There are no canneries for jobs; instead, we put data on microprocessors. But we still work and eat and live. The sense of community will be the same."

The challenge will be to embrace change without losing the neighborhood's history, he adds. Given that city officials want to increase the population density, it's up to today's residents to see that the housing infill enhances community, he says.

"Rather than all suburbs or high rises, I look forward to more communities like Lincoln Avenue," Ames says.

For local activist Ed Rast, the choice to move to Willow Glen in 1989 was like coming home. Born in San Francisco, he'd lived in New York, Virginia, Texas, Europe and Asia. He says he had a choice between locating in Europe or California, but he wanted to come to San Jose.

"I chose to live here like many of us," he says. "The thing I like about it is it's a small-town feeling in a big city."

He says with neighborhood activities like Dancing on the Avenue and Destination Willow Glen, the place reminds him of growing up in small-town New York.

Like Ames, Rast has a dizzying list of commitments. He's a Willow Glen Neighborhood Association board member, attends the North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association meetings, is a board member and chair of the United Neighborhoods of Santa Clara County and is on the Project Area Committee for the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative for the Greater Gardner Area.

He says he became involved because the city rated his street, Spencer Avenue, one of the top 10 worst-maintained roads. Once the San Jose Redevelopment Agency planned to upgrade the Greater Gardner area where he lives, Rast wanted to be able to affect the changes that would be occurring in his neighborhood.

He says his neighbors on Spencer Avenue formed a block group that could address issues pertaining to their street, to increase their influence and visibility with the city.

Rast's primary concern is similar to Ames': That development be done so that it contributes to residents' quality of life. But achieving this goal requires the city to act proactively. He's dissatisfied with the city's lack of public notification on quarterly changes to the General Plan, policy procedures that determine a development's parameters, he says.

He adds the city's notification procedure, which occurs later in the San Jose Planning Department process, gives the appearance of public outreach. "But once the General Plan is amended, it's a done deal."

So Rast is part of the San Jose Planning Department's Outreach Focus Group that includes residents, developers and the city, which is trying to work out a smoother process. He adds that he likes San Jose's willingness to facilitate discussions to find a solution.

The next large task neighborhood associations will tackle is defining quality-of-life standards, he says. Because development is necessary, it needs to enhance rather than detract from existing communities, he says. Defining quality-of-life standards will help the process because once a set of guidelines is established, it will be easier to negotiate with developers proposing new projects, Rast says.

Ames and Rast's continued energy and desire to preserve the quality of their neighborhoods and surrounding areas where they work and play has benefited the entire Willow Glen community.