By Editorial

Ronald Reagan’s immortal words, “There you go again,” have serious application to both sides of the argument as Los Altos Hills residents again argued seemingly forever about the future of the town’s off-road pathway system last Thursday.

We’ve heard the shopworn arguments for years now:

Off-road pathways are a unique, meaningful way to connect with nature and fellow residents among the meandering hills. The easements residents must give up to accommodate future paths are akin to flatlanders paying for sidewalks (Don’t give Los Altos any ideas!). Making easements voluntary would ruin the system.

Off-road paths invade on people’s privacy and security, few people actually use them and the town can’t even fully maintain those that are completed. Easements should be made voluntary, not mandatory.

With Mayor Toni Casey ready to pave the way for voluntary pathways so she can mark another notch in her checklist of “accomplishments,” those opposed to her wishes were ready to fight to the end.

This issue should not be about winners and losers, mandatory vs. voluntary, my way vs. the highway. With a little common sense, this could be win-win.

First off, take away the blanket rules for all off-road pathways: each should be examined on its frequency of use or potential use.Is the path a good route to a public park or school? Keep it. Is the path connecting neighbors who don’t use it and don’t know each other anyway? Lose it. Does the path make for a pleasant, scenic walk that has good connections to dissernible destinations? Keep it. Does the path require hikers to trip and fall negotiating steep grades? Lose it.

Yes, there is a huge area of subjectivity. But that’s why you have town government: for process, input and consensus. It’s also, presumably, why the town had lengendary trailwalker Brian Robinson walking all the established trails in town. Surely, his imput will be used, not only to count miles of paths, but to ascertain their degree of function.

This is no small job, separating the good from the ill-advised paths on the town map. It’s far from the best route for someone who wants a cut and dry ruling so she can get the issue over with. But it’s the best way to really keep the vast majority of residents happy.

Our sense is that the town simply does not need any more paths and probably has too many already. And town officials, on the whole, seem to be carefully and systematically revising the 1981 pathways map to determine which to keep and which to discontinue. Only by examining each path effectively will the town resolve their controversy fully.