By LAH council wasting our time?

Los Altos Hills residents got quite a lesson in Democracy Thursday night at the much anticipated public meeting on the town’s pathway system. For the approximately 250 people who attended, there was a little bit of everything, from the folk singing protesters outside to the adept political maneuvering going on inside. After 4 hours of being led through the minutia of the towns extensive network of pathways, I was left with a vague sense of unease. Rather than seeking the advice and consent of the electorate, the current council seems to be merely going through the motions, leaving citizen participants in the process to wonder if they might just be wasting their time.

The process was punctuated by an almost universal outpouring of affection from the audience for our town’s cherished rural character and its unique system of pathways. Time and time again, the council heard from residents who supported the system and wanted its integrity preserved. Surprisingly, most of the citizens who came to the microphone were homeowners with existing or proposed pathways on their land and not the expected core group of hikers, riders and open space advocates. By my count, the sentiment was somewhere between 5 and 10 to 1 in favor of leaving well enough alone.

Despite a clear public groundswell of support for a go slow approach, our current city government seems determined to move forward with substantial and irreversible revisions to the pathways future. In fact, the public meetings, like Thursday night’s “study session” seem designed more to tell the electorate what is going to be done, rather than to ask what should be done.

Rregardless of what this council does, the current pathway system will probably survive this blow. What’s more disturbing is the thought that the current town system of government is breaking down. That’s what can happen in a system of representative government when elected officials decide they know what’s best for the electorate and abandon attempts to build consensus. I can only hope that this process will not be repeated as other major issues are considered. Our community and its citizens deserve better.

Breene Kerr Los Altos Hills

The ‘bad guys’ in pathways issue?

Mayor Toni Casey is now calling our town’s off-road pathways lovers the “Bad Guys” (San Jose Mercury News, June 4), epitomizing her relish in dividing a town of good people. The mayor’s new pathways committee (ironically, not proponents of these decades-old mandated easements) has proposed that hundreds of Los Altos Hills residents have their assigned pathways removed.

In our own neighborhood “plot’ C-2 on the town’s pathways map, 44 homeowners are now slated to have their identified pathways removed. Eight of us would be left with easements on not one, but TWO sides of our properties.

The only way we wish to participate in the system is if the neighborhoods and the town embrace not only what is in existence, but what was long ago committed for the future. All easements that have existed on title, that function to complete and benefit the system, should remain in place.

It simply is not fair to expect a minority of us to carry the burden of providing off-road recreation for a town that may not value this element, and there is no equity in expecting land donations from some and not others.

Off-road open space is a fundamental 40-plus year-old town plan, passed down to us by forward thinking citizens, and shouldn’t be able to be eliminated by a railroaded three-vote council majority. This issue is much bigger than any of our council member’s positions on the council, and is deserving of a town-wide vote every bit as much as was each of their elections.

Who gives up open space? The “GOOD” guys?

Twinkie and Brad LymanLos Altos Hills

Pride in public works

Earlier this week I had the experience of calling Los Altos Hills Town Hall to report a blocked sewer line on my street. I rang at 4:40 p.m., and by 5:30 p.m. a smiling man named Lewis Santa Elena from the Los Altos Public Works Department arrived to inspect the problem. He then called for a second man named Carl Oliver, who drove the Vacon truck. By 6:30 p.m, these two diligent town employees had partially cleared the line of roots and grease.

However, before they could finish, they had to return to town hall to set up chairs for a meeting that night. They returned to the sewer line and finished clearing it and flushing it through with water about 8:15 p.m. I was very impressed with the level of responsiveness and efficiency and wanted residents to be aware and proud of the standard of service provided in our town.

Arabella NapierLos Altos Hills

Blight law sounds dictatorial

Regarding our “blight problem,” the whole thing sounds too dictatorial for me.

If the council is so fired up about making the city look better, it needs look no farther than the city streets.

We used to get our streets swept each month. This year we have had one sweeping, done only after I kept bugging the street department. Where has all the money gone that was formerly spent on sweeping?

Do we ever receive an account of how the funds are spent? Council members, how about becoming responsible instead of reprehensible?

Helen TunisLos Altos

Residents ‘outraged’ by conduct of LAH mayor Casey

Many residents of Los Altos Hills are outraged by the conduct of Mayor Toni Casey, her followers and appointees. She is working hard to undermine the character of the town in ways that will do irreparable damage to the town - to the benefit of a small number of homeowners and developers.

The off-road pathways are an important part of the Los Altos Hills. The pathways system is designed to complement the town’s roadway system and to enhance nonmotorized circulation by providing connections between neighborhoods and local or nearby destinations.

Implementation of a town-wide path system and the individual paths within it is a long term process that will take many years to accomplish.

Mayor Toni Casey refuses to reappoint pro-pathways members of the pathways committee. Instead, she replaced them with people who, either in their written applications or in the interviews have said “I do not support the off-road pathways.” Two of these appointees have never walked on any of the pathways. They want to “vacate the easement” of the remaining undeveloped off-road pathways, and there are many uncompleted pathways. This means the current council will try to remove, en masse, any portion of a pathway that is still an easement but has not yet been developed.

The council has sent everyone a map of the town, showing the pathways and which easements they want to vacate. The map is inaccurate. It shows many uncompleted pathways as being complete. The slightly off-street path on Esperanza is an example. It omits parts of some pathways, so that the remaining stub of a pathway easement doesn’t make sense. Examples are the path going south from Esperanza, and paths going to the Fremont Country Club. The continuation of that path has been omitted from the map and the homeowners of the omitted portion want the path.

The mayor calls this (referring to the facts and the elements of the town charter) nitpicking.

Casey claims to represent a majority, but she is referring to the 57-vote margin by which Emily Cheng (anti-off-road pathways) beat Sandy Humphries. At best, she represents a third of the residents. However, the results of the town survey (that Casey had reworded from the original, unbiased, form she commissioned) show that:

Over 50 percent of the residents prefer the Land Use Element to be semirural. The yard setbacks, floor area, height and development area restrictions are about right;

Over 50 percent say that “the Planning Commission and/or town staff should continue to conduct site development review to determine compliance with town development policies and standards and provide for public input.”

Over 55 percent feel that “conservation easements should be required on private property to preserve natural features.”

Check out the facts yourself. The survey results didn’t turn out as Mayor Casey wanted them to, so she discounts them, saying you can’t trust a survey!

Steve Kelem

Los Altos Hills