By Send letters to editor Bruce Barton at the Town Crier, 138 Main St., Los Altos 94022, or e-mail: bruceb@latc.com.
Charter, new district pursuit regrettable
It is regrettable that the Los Altos Hills Town Council has chosen to fund legal counsel for exploring the divisive issue of establishing a charter school or a new school district within Los Altos Hills.
At least two generations of Los Altos Hills children benefited from the excellent educations they received from the Los Altos and Palo Alto school districts. As parents, we supported these districts wholeheartedly and our efforts were rewarded. In a recent newspaper publication, all Los Altos elementary schools, based on test scores, received the highest rank, a 10, when compared with similar schools in the state.
The Charter School Committee has chosen to ignore these excellent schools for one reason - they are angered because the Los Altos School District found it necessary to close the one school remaining within Los Alto Hills borders. Their motive has nothing to do with education and everything to do with location.
Sadly, the most important threat to our schools revolves around school funds. If a charter school or a new school district is established, thousands of dollars per child will travel out of our high-performing schools into the new charter school or school district.
The Charter School Committee has had little opposition to its requests thus far. In my opinion, the majority of the citizens of Los Altos Hills are not aware of the challenge to our schools and to the potential threat to our property values.
Now is the time to become informed and to let our councilpersons know how we feel. Time is of the essence. The charter school is already set to open in the fall and the council has voted to pay the legal fees of a committee which will explore the idea of tampering with or severing our longtime relationship with our neighboring school districts, which just happen to be outstanding.
Joan Schlenz
Los Altos Hills
Beware of antifreeze poisoning
My cat recently died as a result of drinking antifreeze from a neighbor’s yard. By the time my cat displayed any symptoms, it was too late to save him.
Antifreeze poisons tens of thousands of animals and children every year. They seem to be attracted to the liquid’s sweet smell and taste.
Spring and fall is when many people decide to change their antifreeze so the rate of accidental poisonings tends to increase. For those changing their car’s antifreeze, remember to collect all of the waste and properly dispose of it in a sealed container. Never leave a bucket unattended. Also remember that your car can leak coolant at any time. If you see a puddle of greenish-colored liquid, flush the area with water or spread cat litter on the spill and clean up with rags.
Symptoms of antifreeze poisoning include a drunken appearance including staggering, lack of coordination, and apparent disorientation and vomiting. The animal may appear listless.
There are environmentally safe propylene-glycol antifreezes on the market. Some brands include: Sierra, Sta-Clean and Prestone LowTox.
Ackerman of New York earlier this year introduced legislation at the federal level authored by Assemblyman Joe Simitian to require a bittering agent to be placed in antifreeze. The idea for the bill came to Simitian from constituent Lauren Ward, who now lives in Los Altos Hills.
Linda Taaffe
East Palo Alto
LAH crime rate was lower
Your April 21 editorial says “Los Altos was the county’s only city to report fewer than 1,000 crimes per 100,000 people (930) during 2002.” That is incorrect. Los Altos Hills and Monte Sereno have lower crime rates — 818 and 609 respectively.
When your claim first appeared in a Dec. 31, 2003, article I sent a note the next day pointing out that the data on the FBI web site, which was apparently your source, did not include smaller cities such as Los Altos Hills and Monte Sereno. Nevertheless you restated the claim in an article last week and again now.
If you consult with the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting section (304-625-2000 in West Virginia) you can verify that in 2002 Los Altos Hills had just 67 reported crimes and Monte Sereno had 22. Normalizing for population gives the crime rate figures above.
Thus, while it is true that Los Altos has a relatively low crime rate the hilly neighbor next door does slightly better. We can all take pleasure in the fact that Los Altos has 35 percent of the San Jose crime rate and 19 percent of the Los Angeles rate while Los Altos Hills is lower still.
Les Earnest
Los Altos Hills
Proposed district only 1 PEC option
The article “LAH looks into redistricting” in the April 21 Town Crier mistakenly states “the proposed Los Altos Hills school district.”
The PEC is still evaluating a number of ways to return in-town public education to Los Altos Hills. Forming a new LAH school district is one of the possibilities.
Another possibility under evaluation is to add more of LAH to the Palo Alto Unified School District with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) specifying the conditions under which PAUSD would maintain an open elementary school in LAH.
Another, minor, correction in the same article: The LAH Town Council agreed that Mayor Emily Cheng and Council member Breene Kerr would bethe subcommittee that helped with the negotiations between LASD and the Bullis Charter School over the final site of the charter school.
Kathy Evans is only one interested person in the upcoming redistricting effort in Los Altos Hills. There are others who are also interested in collecting signatures for a petition on education. No one has stepped forward to lead any signature effort whether it would be to create a new school district or to shift Town areas from one current district to another.
As to the number of signatures required, all of LAH has approximately 5,000 voters. Any education petition would require 25 percent of those affected by the redistricting, so, if the entire town were involved, the most signatures that would be needed would be in the neighborhood of 1,250. The PEC would attempt to gather as many signatures as possible as is usually done in petition signature drives, but the 1,500 number in the article is not correct and makes the task sound more daunting than we believe it to be.
Steve Hubbell
Los Altos Hills
