By Send letters to editor Bruce Barton at the Town Crier, 138 Main St., Los Altos 94022, or e-mail:
In danger of becoming
‘Anywhere USA’
It is so disheartening to see that old farm house on University Avenue demolished. How could the the town of Los Altos not know of its history?
The original owner and co-founder of Los Altos, D.W. Johnston, was mentioned in one of the fliers at the History House Museum.
The people who bought the home obviously could care less about the charming old home that is part of Los Altos history.
When one thinks of the 1906 cobblestones being torn down it’s mind-boggling. Obviously they will put up a big, new obnoxious, “now here I am house” on the site.
So many people moving into this town could care less about its past. and the charming few old homes that are left.
If they did care they would have enlarged or remodeled and still left the original farm house look of that era.
Pretty soon all that will be left of downtown will be condos and new homes. Then it might as well be Anywhere, U.S.A.
Joe Richards
Los Altos
Town’s power lines
pose a fire hazard
Oct. 20 marked the 12th anniversary of the Oakland Hills fire. Los Altans might well ponder for a moment whether that frightening inferno has any lessons for us today. Los Altos is relatively flat; a fire couldn’t possibly get out of control here, right?
It is rarely, if ever, mentioned that parts of Los Altos and the Oakland Hills have at least one fire factor in common: overhead power lines.
Published reports document that two of the 25 deaths in Oakland were directly attributable to downed power lines. Downed power lines also interfered with the desperate attempts of some homeowners to flee the hills in their cars. Moreover, downed power lines helped spread the fire.
In the northern corner of Los Altos, where I have lived for 30 years, overhead 12,000-volt power lines and large transformers (filled with toxic, cancer-causing chemicals) are mounted on wooden poles on some residential streets.
Years ago, the transformer on a pole in front of my house exploded, sending sparks onto my roof and frying most of the electronic equipment and appliances in my home.
Overhead power lines run the length of San Antonio Road through Los Altos. Just imagine a power line coming down on your car.
The northern corner of the city is not unique. In 30 years, I have never noticed any attempt in my neighborhood to bury even one of these power lines. I am told by neighbors who have lived here longer than I have that these power lines and wooden poles go back to the 1950s. As an eyesore, the presence of these overhead power lines is compounded by the presence of overhead telephone wires and cable TV.
There is also the related issue of power outages in large sections of the city after many heavy storms; almost always, they are attributed in the news to downed overhead power lines.
Undoubtedly, it would cost a great deal of money to bury these power lines. Who would pay for it, I have no idea. I do know that only public awareness and public complaints can possibly change the current situation.
It should be obvious to everyone that if a planned effort to bury these power lines had been begun 30 or even 50 years ago, and the cost had been spread over time, the total cost would have been manageable and the problem would no longer exist.
Isn’t it time for us to address first this decades-old, overhead power line problem — which is not merely an eyesore, it poses a serious fire threat to residents of Los Altos?
Mark Starr
Los Altos
Neighbors object to
church reconstruction
As neighbors of the Antiochian Orthodox Church of the Redeemer, we take issue with your recently published article (Oct. 1) on the rebuilding of the church.
Despite our original support of the affected parishioners of the church following last year’s tragic fire, we have been continually blindsided with expedited county permit approvals in the face of an ever-increasing project that far exceeds the original structure that once stood in our quiet neighborhood.
Our objections, which have been brought before the county in organized rational proposals, include concerns with parking, traffic and noise.
No one in our neighborhood is resisting the idea of rebuilding the church. The plans for the church are fine and approved. It’s approved at 7,000 square feet. Build it.
Attached to the plan to rebuild the church was a plan for an 11,000-square-foot administration and child-care facility. The day-care use of that facility didn’t make it into your story. Why not? It’s bigger than the church!
Approval for this phase of construction was rushed through the county approval process with little attention being paid to the objections raised by the neighborhood. I’d say they were ignored. This is going to increase traffic on Magdalena Avenue beyond already uncomfortable levels during commute hours. But we can live with that as well. Go ahead and build it.
The third phase of this project has not been approved as you reported, and it is this portion of the project we want stopped. The church is requesting approval of yet a third facility, a 6,800-square-foot banquet hall. The usage of this building allows operation till midnight three days a week and till 10 p.m. four days a week. By either county or city standards, the property doesn’t have sufficient parking for this facility. The late-night noise and parked cars are going to end up on our street. That is not fair to our community.
I don’t understand how you could have garbled the approvals granted and not granted thus far. If someone at the paper had spoken with some of the neighbors, you would have known that the third phase of the project is very much at issue.
You would have known that a day-care center, larger than the church itself, has already been rushed through the approval process. You might also have learned that the church failed to gain required use permits for its last food festival. That permit process is a long-standing county requirement that the neighborhood had nothing to do with. That use permit process, along with the county planning process, is intended to let neighbors have input, but it can’t happen if the process isn’t being followed by the church and county officials.
We look forward to more balanced coverage in the future.
Dan and Mary Lenehan
Los Altos
