The Los Altos School District and the Community Engagement Process Project Team invite the community to participate in the Community Engagement Process to formulate a long-term facility plan to house Bullis Charter School and ensure a top-quality education for all children.

Our community is currently engaged in a historic discussion about the future of our schools. Back in 2014, the voters of the Los Altos School District approved a $150 million bond measure to build a 10th school site and upgrade existing school facilities. This past school year, many of us were shocked and angered when the district seriously considered a plan to relocate our longtime neighborhood school, Egan Junior High School, to a new site on the other side of El Camino Real to give use of the entire campus (less 2 acres for much-needed affordable teacher housing) to Bullis Charter School.

Many of us were relieved when the district board of trustees, after listening to the concerns of many district residents, tabled the proposal for further study. However, the issues of where and how to house Bullis Charter School, what happens to our neighborhood public schools and how the $150 million bond measure will ultimately be spent still loom large.

There’s a lack of cars, not parking spaces

Thank you for writing about the crazy parking fixation (“Downtown needs to get over parking fixation,” Aug. 7). For the longest time, I have been wondering what on earth the issue about parking could be.

I have lived in Los Altos for 23 years, and in all my time as a resident I have never observed overcrowding in parking lots downtown. I can find parking easily, except of course when there is an event downtown.

Women’s Caucus backs LASD-BCS conversation

The Los Altos Women’s Caucus is dedicated to increasing community engagement in our governing processes and spreading factual information about issues that are of importance to the Los Altos community.

Recently, on June 4, we sponsored a meeting to foster citizen understanding of the basic issues facing the Los Altos School District and Bullis Charter School. We felt there was a lack of information available to Los Altans on how the two systems function and interact and did our best to provide information about how each operates, the laws governing their operations and the impact each has on the other. About 100 people attended the meeting and learned about finances, student populations, Proposition 39 and its processes and requirements, governance of the two entities and how the education code provides for charter schools.

Los Altos is a beautiful, peaceful town. However, the air quality, peace and beauty are disturbed by gas-powered leaf blowers. You may not know that gas-powered blowers are illegal in Los Altos. In fact, Los Altos was the first community in the Bay Area to ban gas leaf blowers back in 1991 (Los Altos Municipal Code 6.16.070 – Prohibited acts Section B.15).

They create lots of polluting emissions. Running a gas-powered blower for 30 minutes creates more ozone-forming emissions than driving an F-150 pickup truck 3,800 miles, according to the online automotive information resource Edmunds.com. The small engines in gas-powered blowers are very inefficient due to incomplete fuel burning, thus they produce high amounts of carbon monoxide, ozone and other polluting gases compared with motor vehicles. They are unhealthy for you, your gardeners and the entire community.

Nix parcel tax and phase out value cap

Should we be phasing out the assessed value cap of Proposition 13 to raise revenue instead of adding a parcel tax? (“CUSD parcel tax headed to November ballot,” Aug. 7).

I work in the Santa Clara County Office of the Assessor. I speak to people frequently about their property taxes. If the Proposition 13 value cap was intended to help everyone, I can say with confidence that it has failed.