Mediation programs resolve neighborhood conflicts

By Eliza Ridgeway, Town Crier Staff Writer

A mediator discusses a case with two participants in a demonstration of the system employed by the City of Mountain View Mediation Services.

When frustration with a neighbor, tenant or landlord runs high, community mediation can help solve the conflict without litigation or escalation. This week the City of Mountain View Mediation Services celebrated its 30th anniversary. Also this past week, the Los Altos Mediation Program joined forces with local non-profit Project Sentinel to enhance its administration.

The Mountain View and Los Altos community mediation groups offer a forum for disputing parties to communicate and consider possible solutions.

Pairs of trained volunteer mediators facilitate this process. Unlike arbitrators or judges, mediators have no decision-making authority, and the participating parties determine their own agreement.

“We firmly believe that the agreements will last if the parties come up with the agreements themselves,” said Sharlene Gee, co-chairperson of the Mountain View mediation program, who said that compliance rates are more than 95 percent if parties devise solutions themselves.

The Mountain View program, which celebrated its anniversary at city hall Friday, has handled more than 7,000 cases since it was founded in 1975. It was one of the first community mediation programs in the nation - there are now more than 500.

“I think the city sponsors these programs because it likes having trained volunteers out in the city, not just using our mediation skills, but also (using) our communication skills, for instance at community meetings,” Gee said.

Gee said that the Mountain View group comprises lawyers, teachers, therapists, retirees and workers from technical fields. She has been a mediator for six years and works as a technical trainer and writer for a software company.

“It’s fascinating to me that we often have two or three times as many volunteers as the number of positions to fill,” said Martin Eichner, director of Project Sentinel. “There is a feeling in our society that mediation is the way to go, and people want to get involved in it, and see it as a way to help our society.”

Project Sentinel was founded in 1974 and initially focused on fair-housing issues. The organization began its dispute resolution program in the 1980s. The non-profit administers 16 different dispute resolution programs in Northern California, including the Mountain View and Los Altos programs. It screens calls for the local programs and manages paperwork and scheduling for their cases.

Most local mediation programs were created to settle landlord-tenant disputes and gradually expanded to include neighbor and small-business cases. They do not become involved in family court cases, but the Los Altos Mediation Program does handle parent-teen mediations.

“One of the reasons that parent-teen mediation works is that it shows some respect to the teen, and looks at it as a mutual discussion,” Eichner said. “It isn’t therapy- we won’t try to find out why you’re doing what you’re doing or look at your childhood; we’re going to negotiate some ground rules so that you can live together and get along better.”

Project Sentinel also handles cases for the Victim Offender Mediation Program, a branch of the Victim’s Services division of the Santa Clara County Probation Department. Juvenile offenders, their parents and the affected victim agree to meet with a mediator to resolve issues stemming from the crime.

On an overall basis, Project Sentinel’s mediation programs have a 75 percent success rate of clients coming to an agreement. Their services are free, and mediators can arrange a meeting schedule to accommodate work hours in a meeting space that is safe and neutral.

A relatively new wrinkle in the Los Altos Mediation Program, established in February 1995, is a program assisting residents in gathering input from neighbors before submitting remodeling plans.

The Los Altos program is an arm of the Los Altos Community Foundation.

For Mountain View Mediation Services, call 960-0495. For the Los Altos Mediation Program, call 949-5267.