By AT&T Broadband is discriminating
My question concerns the expanded basic channel offering in Los Altos. We experience discrimination. In other cities in the Bay Area covered by your company the number of channels offered is greater. Cupertino, a short distance away, receives MSNBC, the History Channel, the Travel Channel, Comedy Central and others for the same price we pay. We would like very much to receive these channels. When is it going to happen?
Mario Bonicelli andVirginia ShawLos Altos
The ‘SPLASH’ over the end of Rosita Avenue
The neighborhood has already experienced how much traffic and noise two athletic fields and a small gym generate. Reopening a K-6 school with a day-care center can only make that worse.
The school district would like to think all students could walk or ride their bikes to school. However, we have children with backpacks weighing up to 40 or 50 pounds with all their schoolbooks and supplies. Many of the students live on the South Clark side of the school, yet the school district claims no vehicles will be using Rosita to deliver students to Covington School.
Even though the swimmers would like to return to a local pool, they want to increase their operation and run 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. Their literature states they were good neighbors. Many would disagree due to the loudspeakers heard in our residences with the windows closed during their swim meets. The children were not able to ride their bicycles on our streets.
A donation to SPLASH (Swimmers Promoting Los Altos Aquatics, Safety and Health) at this point is a donation to kill the Rosita neighborhood and endanger our children.
If the city council insists upon continuing to consider putting this special interest complex at the end of Rosita Avenue, they should refuse to accept the very flawed traffic and environmental report that SPLASH paid for and require a complete review after Covington School is up and running.
Robert HearnLos Altos
Los Altos needs a decent pool
A recent letter to the Town Crier called the proposed pool at Rosita Park a regional attraction.
The city of Mountain View offers a similar amount of water space at its Eagle Park pool and also enhances its pool capacity with Rengstorff Pool in the summers. Palo Alto Recreation offers a huge pool at Rinconada Park plus a terrific children’s wading pool.
Although pools in other towns aren’t convenient for daily kids’ swimming lessons, many Los Altos parents who are committed to their kids’ swimming are traveling to these pools now and they are all crowded. It’s apparent to me that the proposed pool is not a regional draw, but merely comparable to those in nearby cities and sized appropriately to meet our town’s needs. I’m delighted that the plan includes a small wading pool for toddlers.
Covington Pool was planned in the late 1940s and was built in the early 1950s. Our population has grown significantly in the intervening 50-plus years.
While Covington Pool may have met Los Altos’ aquatic needs in 1950, it was too small to meet the needs of our community in 2000, its last year of operation. As a result of having no pool in Los Altos, the future of the Covington Swim Team is in jeopardy since the parent group has not yet found a nearby pool with the capacity to offer practice time for our Los Altos children.
The Covington Pool being proposed is no Santa Clara Swim Center. It is a community pool similar to other city pools. Let’s continue to meet the needs of our community and keep the Covington Swim Team swimming in their own pool.
Brigid O’Loughlin-Fish(No address given)
Consider impacts on quiet neighborhood
I live a few blocks away from the proposed swimming pool. I was an avid swimmer and had been going to the Covington Pool regularly, before it closed. So I am quite familiar with the neighborhood and the swimming program in Covington School and have interest in both going for and against this project.
Obviously I have concerns about the additional traffic this might create for the neighborhood.
Many people living on Campbell have been complaining for years about the cars speeding through Campbell Avenue as a shortcut to Cuesta. This is true even during the time when Covington School was closed. We have tried to ask the city to help alleviate this problem (by setting up speed bumps, etc.) to no avail so far. I can only imagine that the situation will be much worse with the new pool.
For proponents who argue that this area has always been “high-traffic,” I’d say the new proposal will make it much worse than any time before:
1. The new pool was designed to serve not only Los Altos, but also neighboring cities. The old site at its peak use only served Los Altos.
2. The nature of the new pool will make this neighborhood “high-traffic” not only during weekdays (like before), but also during weekends.
I think it’s only fair that the city address the neighbors’ concerns before it goes ahead and starts making such a huge adverse impact on one of its own neighborhoods.
For example, why can’t this pool serve just Los Altos? As far as I know all other neighboring pools are located either right on really “high-traffic” streets (YMCA on Grant) or in the downtown area (Eagle Park in Mountain View), unlike Rosita, which is definitely a residential neighborhood. The argument that this has “always” been “high-traffic” just doesn’t stand, and overlooks the damage it could do to a once-quiet, residential neighborhood.
Why can’t the city put in speed bumps, etc., to relieve the long-running problem of speeding on Campbell Avenue?
Nick Huang and May Cheung
Los Altos
