I have heard from many of you who are concerned about whether the Los Altos City Council will ever be returning to our official chambers at city hall, where for many decades the council has conducted its work.

These chambers were paid for with your tax dollars, and you would like to see the business of our government take place right there where you can see it and participate in it. That’s how it works in Washington, D.C., and in Sacramento. Right now, to many of you, it seems that in Los Altos, the elected city government has been evicted from its home.

Kudos from former council members

As former Los Altos City Council members who had a role in enhancing the civic center during our tenures dating from 1976, when the old Hillview School site was purchased, we are perhaps more delighted than most to witness the groundbreaking of the new community center.

We congratulate the city manager, his staff and the citizens who made it happen. We especially thank council members, past and present, who kept voting to make this plan come to fruition – Jeannie Bruins, Neysa Filgor, Jean Mordo, Jan Pepper, Mary Prochnow and Megan Satterlee.

A BCS perspective on engagement process 

In the last few weeks, the Los Altos School District hosted two community engagement charrettes about long-term facilities for Bullis Charter School. As Bullis Charter School parents, several of us wanted to share what we’ve learned and some thoughts we hope will contribute to the conversation.

It’s great that we’re talking. There is no easy or obvious solution. It’s OK if not everyone agrees so long as we hear each other and work toward our mutual goals.

Keep Egan Jr. High where it is

I appreciate the Town Crier’s analysis of the Los Altos School District’s latest public outreach charrette at Egan Junior High School to find long-term facilities for Bullis Charter School (“Second BCS facilities meeting again draws large, engaged crowd,” Oct. 9). In our table’s conversation, I found there was strongest support for retaining traditional Egan in its present geographic site and mode of operation as a seventh- and eighth-grade junior high.

However, as the assembly was tasked to consider 20 options for Bullis Charter School sharing facilities with the district based on data of present 2017 student enrollment and projected 2019 class size allocation throughout the district, there was a good deal to assimilate.

In an age of social media frenzy, one admirable quality that strikes me as lacking is empathy.

Fortunately, I attended two events Thursday that proved empathy is very much alive and well in 2019.

The Town Crier recently published an article, an editorial and a guest opinion column defending Los Altos City Manager Chris Jordan. Council members and residents are accused of “vitriol” and “unfounded accusations” against him.

Los Altos Partners in Progress asks, “What is a Los Altos resident to believe?”