By Correcting some Masons terminology
As a member of Los Altos Masonic Lodge No. 712, Free and Accepted Masons, I was very pleased with the excellent article in your April 4 edition, reporting on the 50th birthday celebration of the Lodge. I must, however, nitpick just a little with some of your terminology.
The title “Grand Master” is reserved for the man who presides over all of the Masonic Lodges in the entire state of California. The presiding officer of a single Lodge, for example Bill Malmstrom in Los Altos Lodge, is known simply as Master of the Lodge.
Also, the regular business meeting of the Lodge takes place on the first Monday of each month at 7 30 p.m., preceded by a family dinner in the Lodge dining room at 6:30 p.m. For further information, you may call 941-6615.
Dan R McDanielPast Master Los Altos LodgeLos Altos
Trash hurting ‘European atmosphere’
We love living right downtown in Los Altos. It’s like living in a small European village, only with a lot more fast food bags and paper coffee cups laying all over the streets. Living so close to our stores and favorite restaurants is great - until we walk up to Main and Second streets on a Saturday morning. Then it looks like somebody just tipped over a garbage truck.
We find it interesting that you are anxious to add a hotel or a movie theater, yet we aren’t able to pick up our streets.
We appreciate that you are asking for input on the downtown development options. We are not really sold on either of them, but if we have to pick one, we would vote for the small theater with retail shops and residences. The idea of a great financial return by investing in a hotel may be great for the city funds, but it sure is not going to save the small European village atmosphere that we love so much.
Please do not build a hotel. Please do add more trash cans downtown. If people have a place to put it, they just might keep it off the streets. While we are at it, why are there no trash cans in the parking lots where some of the downtown workers eat and dump their trash in the bushes? Let’s give them an option - a simple trash can.
Bob and Nancy MooreLos Altos
The Spa a ‘precious resource’
As a member of the Los Altos Spa, I can attest to the fact that the facility offers invaluable health benefits to the women who need them most. The pool and exercise equipment are essential to the health and maintenance of an aging population. The Spa is a precious resource for older women who are not anxious to share such close quarters with men; some of the women would rather not exercise if it meant giving up their privacy.
The Spa of Los Altos has had a long life. It is well known and has a good reputation. It is an efficient and solvent community resource and it deserves to be granted a hearing (to be considered for the city-owned property at First and Main streets).
The point has been raised that the facility unjustly excludes men, but for a long time women have been kept out of social and recreational clubs; the Spa is a health facility.
Pauline Yellin(No address given)
Covert proceedings for city resolution?
I find it incredulous that a resolution was approved by the City Council at a closed session on March l3 that would allow “staff” to use condemnation proceedings in order to take over the leased businesses at First and Main streets. I find it even more disbelieving that its passage was unintentionally omitted from the council minutes.
We probably should have seen it coming when Mayor King Lear moved, at an earlier council meeting, for a closed session to discuss the lease issues. It appears that the mayor has decided what is best for the residents of Los Altos and is not about to let a few lease options stand in his way. This is an immoral act by the City Council and is akin to the Chapter 11 practices being used by many theater chains in order to extricate themselves from unprofitable theater leases. The businesses currently at First and Main signed lease agreements including extensions and these agreements should be honored by the “staff,” whomever they may be.
Who assigned the weightings for the criteria used in making a decision for the ultimate use of this property? It will certainly not be a balanced decision when public opinion is accorded only 12.5 percent of the pie. Why not 50 percent for public opinion? Additionally, why is Mayor Lear pumping up the population of Los Altos from 28,601 (Chamber of Commerce data) to more than 40,000 by calling it the “greater” area? What is this hyping of numbers supposed to accomplish? Why not include all the residents of Santa Clara County?
The City Council was elected to serve the residents of Los Altos and it cannot be said that they are performing that duty when they attempt to shove things like this down our throats.
Edward KelleyLos Altos
Theater would add downtown vibrancy
I recently moved to Los Altos from the Midwest. This is a very peaceful community and the downtown district is beautiful with many unique shops. However, there is a vibrancy missing to downtown Los Altos.
On any given night, we have driven into town only to find it so quiet and dark and empty that we would prefer to go elsewhere. I have wondered from the moment we moved here why there was not a theater. Later, we visited the movie complex in Mountain View and I was appalled. It has the atmosphere of a bus station, whereas smaller theaters, surrounded by bookstores, coffee shops and restaurants are satisfying and pleasant. Going out to the movies is a social experience and the big multiplexes are a disappointment..
Downtown Los Altos restaurants, coffee houses and shops would all benefit greatly from a movie house. It is such a pleasant experience to WALK about town before or after a movie. People congregate near movie houses and that can only be good for merchants.
A movie theater would add much needed ambiance for Los Altans of any age. An active, engaging downtown would further foster a sense of community, something that many towns are short of these days.
And, I would rather spend my money here in Los Altos than support huge multiplexes anyway. Thank you, whoever you are, for offering to donate $1 million!
Marilyn Yeomans
Los Altos
