By Elizabeth Cloutman

An item that Los Altos Hills Mayor Toni Casey belatedly added to the agenda for the Sept. 6 city council meeting led to a heated response from some town residents at the council meeting and the Pathways Committee meeting that took place five days later. The item concerned the pathway element of the town’s General Plan.

Some concerned residents filled council chambers and spoke, sometimes heatedly, during both meetings on the possibility that dedication of property easements for off-road pathways could become voluntary rather than mandatory for residents applying for building permits.

Casey told the Town Crier she believed the strong turnout at both meetings was the result of an anonymous e-mail to residents by one of the committee’s co-chairmen, correspondence of which she and other council members were not made aware until Sept. 10.

Casey told attendees at both meetings that it was never her intention for pathways to become an item for action by the city council. Instead, she said, she was seeking the council’s permission to request recommendation from the Pathways Committee on creating a five-year capital program for new roadside path construction and the maintenance of existing pathways. The program is one of Casey’s goals for her term as mayor. She twice apologized for the item’s wording, which, she admitted, could have been misleading. “In retrospect, I could have worded it more clearly,” she said.

However, one of the campaign platforms on which she and fellow council members Steve Finn and Emily Cheng ran was making dedication of easements for off-road pathways voluntary. “Many residents strongly object to an off-road pathway on their property and have felt blackmailed in the past when they were required to donate an easement,” Casey told the Town Crier.

Opponents have said they believe such a move could destroy the long-established system of pathways that residents use for recreation and circulation between neighborhoods, and on which children can walk safely to Bullis-Purissima School. They believed pathways were an element of the town’s General Plan to eliminate through traffic and thus preserve the town’s rural atmosphere. State law requires cities to include certain land use elements, such as circulation and safety, they said, and any change could have legal ramifications.

At the council meeting several residents, including a council member’s wife, urged the council not to change the current policy. Many proponents for preserving the present policy held aloft small signs on which was written, “Save our pathways, our pathways forever.” Jan Fenwick, wife of Council Member Bob Fenwick, said, “This council has accomplished so much … You need to have a town that’s together to do this. I am pleading with you not to proceed with this. It’s going to tear this town apart. You’ll lose the goodwill of half this town.”

In a civil but tense exchange during the Pathways Committee meeting, Casey asked committee co-chairman Scott Vanderlip whether he was the author of the e-mail, titled “Safe Routes to School.” The e-mail stated, “The new approach will (move decision-making) from our elected officials, community input and planning commission to the sole discretion of the property owner or developer,” and urged residents to attend the Sept. 6 council meeting.

Vanderlip admitted he was the author. Casey reprimanded him, saying she thought the correspondence could have been misconstrued by residents as official correspondence from the committee or the city council since it included information on how to contact council members. She told the Town Crier, “Never has there been any discussion by me or any other member of the current council to eliminate the current off-road pathways … Scott’s e-mail was a deliberate attempt to create fear among our residents with his gross misrepresentation of what the council is addressing regarding our pathway system.”

Casey said when the council has gathered the necessary information, it will schedule a public hearing with a townwide notice so that it can get input from as many residents as possible before making a final decision about changing the Pathway Element.