LETTERS LETTERS (September 08, 2004)

Fabricating controversy on traffic planning

Editor:

You printed another letter last week by Ross Wilson criticizing Menlo Park's NTMP (Neighborhood Traffic Management Program). His comparison to the residential zoning ordinance issue seems to me to be a thinly veiled threat of another referendum for the city.

If that's his plan, I hope he will reconsider. First of all, we elect new City Council members every two years. This election is a far more effective way for residents to weigh in on important issues than a referendum. Also, "the extreme few," of Mr. Wilson's letter are certainly not the council majority, but rather the vocal cadre that has opposed virtually every significant council action over the last two years.

In my opinion, the residential zoning referendum effort, in which Mr. Wilson participated on behalf of council candidate Kelly Fergussen, was shameless in its printed and spoken misstatements. Can we expect the same again?

Frank Tucker
Politzer Drive, Menlo Park

'Facts' offered on Menlo traffic plan

Editor:

Let's check some facts behind Ross Wilson's smokescreen (Letters, September 1).

He says the public hearings that Menlo Park held regarding the Neighborhood Traffic Management Plan (NTMP) were poorly advertised and sparsely attended.

Fact: the public was notified via mail to every household, as well as by newspaper notices.

Fact: meeting attendance was dominated by Mr. Wilson's group of Willows traffic activists, who now claim, on this basis, to speak for the whole city.

He claims that none of their concerns were reflected in the NTMP. Fact: under intense pressure from Mr. Wilson's group, the transportation staff reduced the minimum threshold of community approval from a supermajority (60 percent) to a minority (27 percent). If this plan is approved by the council, traffic activists will be able to redesign neighborhood streets with as little as 27 percent neighborhood support.

What's happening to the NTMP mimics the flaw in most neighborhood traffic calming processes: the public's general lack of interest in traffic issues gives activists a disproportionate influence. The city works with them to design solutions to their "traffic problem." When their solutions hit the streets, the public wakes up. A conflict erupts. In the Willows (1993 - '95), it took the neighborhood two years to undo the damage done by these activists.

In launching the creation of a new NTMP, the City Council set forth guidelines (including supermajority approval) to balance this lopsided process. Now we see the traffic activists hijacking the NTMP itself. For the good of Menlo Park, the City Council must take control over the NTMP and restore the supermajority approval threshold.

Eric Doyle
Laurel Avenue, Menlo Park

Making policy in the 'back room'

Editor:

I know that many Menlo Park citizens have been frustrated with the lack of real leadership on the City Council.

My view of the council, however, has taken a darker turn when I realized that two council members, Mickie Winkler and Lee Duboc, are in fact making their own policy in a "back room" at the behest of their biggest financial supporters.

The most glaring example of this is last-minute 3-2 vote at the council's August 31 meeting to begin repeal of the "percent for art" ordinance. The fruits of this ordinance are most visible to me each time I drive down Middlefield Road and enjoy the mural on the wall of Mike's CafÈ. The art enhances our city and truly caused me to think of Mike's CafÈ as a dining option.

Then came John Conway, the owner of an El Camino Real Chevron station who was about to remodel and groused at fulfilling his "percent for art" obligation. He was a prime financial supporter of Ms. Winkler and Ms. Duboc, and loudly complained about the ordinance and his obligations under it.

Annoyingly, the City Council allowed him to reopen his service station without fulfilling the "percent for art" requirements, a clear exception to a city ordinance for a financial contributor. The August 31 vote was to be on the percentage fee charged under the ordinance in lieu of putting art on the premises of a new project. Instead of addressing this issue, Ms. Winkler moved to repeal the ordinance.

She was supported by Ms. Duboc and Paul Collacchi, who had never supported "percent for art."

My problem with this maneuver is that no notice was given to the community or even to the Art Commission and its chairperson Nancy Chillag, who had fought valiantly for years for the program.

I think it is high time that the public pay more attention to the sort of corporate citizens that line our streets and to spend our hard earned dollars at businesses that work at improving the community they serve rather than merely bolstering their own bottom lines.

I'm sure there will be a public hearing, but, I wonder what purpose it will have when clearly Ms. Winkler and Ms. Duboc have made their own decision without input from the arts commission or the community. It seems to me that Tuesday night's vote is highly irregular; but even if technically legal, it stinks and leaves little room for optimism about the future of our city.

Welcome to Menlo Park, a charmless town of gas stations and convenience stores brought to us by the City Council.

Susan R. Borg
Oakhurst Place, Menlo Park

Art commissioner's resignation applauded

Editor:

I learned of Nancy Chillag's resignation from the Arts Commisson this morning.

Hallelujah. It was certainly time. She used her appointment as license to harass some local business owners and obviously took her position way too seriously. Good bye.

Pat White
Santa Cruz Avenue, Menlo Park

A disconnect on traffic calming

Editor:

A letter last week favors traffic-calming measures in Menlo Park.

Ironically, in the same issue, the "Ask the Officer" feature describes the need for the police to reach emergency situations quickly; being "seconds late" can mean the difference between life and death. If traffic calming makes the Menlo Park emergency service personnel "seconds late" to life-threatening emergencies, how many lives will be lost?

In addition, I have lived and traveled all over the United States, and I have never seen traffic as calm as it already is in Menlo Park. There are ample bottlenecks in town, such as the necking-down of Willow Road to one lane in each direction and the lack of any direct east-west routes across town, as well as perplexingly low speed limits on major thoroughfares.

Further, most drivers tend to drive quite slowly. If traffic were any calmer, I can't imagine what that would be like. Perhaps the city would have to hand out No-Doz on street corners, or poke drivers in the shoulder with sticks at stop signs to make them move.

Brian Schar
Laurel Avenue, Menlo Park

A solid vote for 3 tennis courts

Editor:

In the ongoing debate about the number of tennis courts to be included in the new Portola Valley Town Center, Town Council member Steve Toben declared recently that many charrette participants who included three tennis courts in their designs "did so without thinking about it."

This statement reminds me of the public comments made by some Town Council members after last year's recall of the Nathhorst zoning ordinance, noting that the voters did not grasp "the complexity of the measure" or did not show "the intellectual bent" required. Basically, these Town Council members implied that the majority of Portola Valley residents were too dumb to vote correctly on Measure H.

Now, Steve Toben implies that the participants in the charrette exercise last June were so absent-minded that some of their Town Center design decisions should be ignored.

Being one of the dumb voters as well as a charrette participant, I know I have to smarten up. But for the record, I would like to state that my charrette design team chose three tennis courts because we thought about it and rejected the preschool facility because we thought about it too.

Pierre Fischer
Valley Oak, Portola Valley

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