Pool saga continues
Eight years and counting! While one can commend the stamina of those on both sides of the issue, we are witnessing a vivid demonstration of just how ineffective local government can be. Regardless of the outcome, how pathetic. No courage.
Peter Johnson
Los Altos
CSMA thanks supporters
Thank you so much for sharing in the May 3 paper the news that the Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA) at Finn Center has been able to secure property adjacent to the school. The real news is that this came to pass solely because of the generous support of a handful of anonymous donors.
These friends came forward because they felt it was imperative that CSMA have this land as part of its mission of accessibility. As your story noted, the land will provide a much-needed solution to parking, and it will also give CSMA the opportunity to expand programs and other community services in the future.
We are currently assessing how best to configure and use the space so that the community is best served. We anticipate that additional parking will be available for our fall semester.
On behalf of the many people who will benefit every time they come to the school for a class, lesson, free concert or exhibit, we are eternally grateful to these donors for their gift to CSMA.
We hope that you will share this important part of the story and our thanks with your readers.
Evy Schiffman
Marketing director,
Community School of Music and Arts at Finn Center
New LAH energy rules mean only a few conserve
As I walked to the Town Council meeting through a sea of gas-guzzling SUVs, high-performance sports cars and luxury European sedans, I had to chuckle.
I was there to oppose the council’s plan to require new homes in Los Altos Hills to exceed Title 24’s energy requirements by 15 percent. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of reducing our energy usage. However, the council’s dictated ordinance is inequitable, a poor investment and was passed more for media hype than results. Any one of the SUVs in the parking lot uses more energy in its weekly fill-up than the monthly energy savings in a home constructed incorporating this change.
Leadership is not forcing an unrepresented, tiny minority to spend thousands of dollars or modify their dream plans to meet an ordinance that results in marginal benefit. Leadership would be inspiring the vast majority of residents whose homes don’t meet the current Title 24 requirements to comply. This achievement would generate a thousand times greater energy savings.
It is unfair to single out those who are already required to meet Title 24 and force them to further reduce their consumption when all other residents aren’t required to make any energy-saving efforts whatsoever. This is what troubles me most about this new ordinance, for it once again demonstrates our politicians’ unwillingness to ask for shared sacrifice. It is easy to support conservation when someone else pays the price.
Despite many residents’ objections, the council passed the ordinance. The enactment of this ordinance sends the wrong message about our town.
Allan Epstein
Los Altos Hills
Good Samaritans are appreciated
We would like to thank the people (a lady whose name we did not get and a gentleman named Bill) who stopped to help at a bicycle accident at Orange Avenue on Friday, April 28, about 4 p.m. The minister of Foothills Congregational Church and a neighbor also gathered around. We felt very supported and safe.
We also thank the paramedics and Los Altos Police who arrived promptly, assessed the situation and encouraged us so that we could proceed on our own to (obtain) medical care for what turned out to be a minor injury.
Los Altos is indeed a great place to live.
Katrina Smathers
David Swartz
Los Altos
‘Mother’s Day for Peace’
After witnessing the horrors of the Civil War deaths and injuries, as well as the grief of the widows and orphans, Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” proposed a “Mother’s Day for Peace” in 1870. She issued a call for all women to come together to ensure peaceful resolutions of all future conflicts.
Julia Ward Howe worked fervently to establish a Mother’s Day for Peace, and it was celebrated for 10 years in Boston. With fresh memories of our Mother’s Day celebrations, may we honor her dream with acts of peace every day.
Donna Poulos
Los Altos
Offended by gay parade
As a Los Altos native who attended UC Berkeley, I rode BART and the bus home on weekends to find refuge from the in-your-face radical homosexual movement. Now that refuge is diminished.
The Los Altos Gay Pride Parade is an anathema to my cherished upbringing in which my parents sacrificed to afford to raise our family in the best place they could in Los Altos. It’s the gay parade’s supporters who are “bigoted and narrow-minded” for spending public money to fund their narcissistic agenda in one of the last family-friendly towns in the Bay Area.
Most view the strengthening of the traditional family as necessity to ensure the prosperity and the survival of our society. The majority does not embrace homosexual behavior nor does it accept the radical homosexual agenda that strikes at the heart of the traditional family structure that has incubated in Los Altos for over 100 years. This will hurt, not help, homosexual acceptance.
The proud are indeed fools, as I am not alone in taking personal offense to their attack on my hometown heritage.
Brook Garrettson
(No address given)
