By It seems to us like one last act of defiance against the residents. Two Los Altos Hills City Council candidates won a landslide election last week, partly on the basis of more carefully examining town pathways. A roomful of residents pleaded with the lame-duck council not to vote on so important an issue. Yet last Thursday, the council approved a map residents claim is grossly flawed.

Why? The town has not revised its map for 21 years. There apparently isn’t any rush to approve a new one. The sentiments of the current council will obviously change in two weeks when new councilmen Breene Kerr and Dean Warshawsky take the controls. Surely, the gracious congratulations by opponents and the talk of “the will of the voters” ring hollow at the core.

Kerr and Warshawsky share the belief, along with many residents, that the revised map still has many problems. Residents have detailed numerous omissions or misplaced paths. Some have hired a law firm stating that the negative declaration approved Thursday is a violation of state law and that an Environmental Impact Report is required. A negative declaration in effect, declares an EIR is not necessary.

The map approval essentially declares: this is the way the pathways system actually is.

Town officials said they wanted to get this map over with. Any changes or corrections could be made afterward, they said. The map, from their point of view, is more accurate than its predecessor. And, in fairness to the staff, some changes have been made as a result of resident input.

Those who wanted the map approved perhaps envisioned another several months of study and revisions if Kerr and Warshawsky were to be part of the decision-making. As new council members, they would have to be brought up to speed, informed of all the finer details of town government processes.

Some argue that the entanglements of paths and would-be off-road paths that dot or allegedly dot Hills’ property lines are impossible to pin down with 100 percent accuracy. In some cases, a path may be in the eye of the beholder.

But there remains significant input that the map contains numerous errors. One resident still points to mistakes in the hundreds.

Although much work has been done, knowledgeable residents point out the map is not good enough. The council instead chose to get it over with instead of bowing to the mandate of the voters and doing the right thing for the town.