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Publication Date: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 LETTERS
LETTERS
(December 14, 2005)
Good riddance to 99 eucalyptus trees
Editor:
I wanted to respond to last week's article about the 99 eucalyptus trees cut down on the Siebel property.
We live directly across from these trees, on Phillip Road in Woodside. I have to say that they have been an obvious menace to the street (and our house) and have clearly crowded out the indigenous trees along Portola Road.
The best thing the town of Woodside and the Siebels have offered the street and community is to bring down those trees and replant with oaks. We did the same thing to our property eight years ago. Our property along Portola was littered with old, dead, burned, and some overgrown eucalyptus trees, which clearly caused a fire hazard. Woodside was very supportive of us removing them. Today, you will see that an entire tree-line of beautiful live oaks stand in their place, that we planted as replacements.
Eucalyptus are dangerous trees, particularly at the height they were on Portola Road. More than once, they dropped large branches onto the road in the middle of the night, blocking the road and causing potential danger to motorists.
We applaud the town's foresight in thinking ahead about compatible trees in Woodside, and ridding us of the predatory, menacing eucalyptus.
Paul and Robin Smith
Phillip Road, Woodside
Tree removal in Woodside
Editor:
I would like to clarify a few items regarding the role of the Woodside ASRB (Architectural and Site Review Board) in your story of December 7 about the removal of eucalyptus at the Portola Road property in Woodside.
The ASRB reviewed the perimeter landscaping plan on July 18, 2005, some time after the removal had occurred. We recommended changes to the proposed plan, recommending that the total number of redwoods be lessened, and the total number of oaks be correspondingly increased.
The plan was presented to us as a part of a forest management plan already in progress at the property. We did not participate in the decision to remove the eucalyptus along Portola Road, nor would we have, as they are planted along the town's right-of-way and, accordingly, not part of our purview.
We do, as a matter of regular practice, monitor the removal of trees when required by proposed building plans and ask for trees to be planted as replacement when removal is necessary.
My own preference, as is that of many other members of the board, is that buildings be sited in such a way as to preserve as many trees as possible and we sometimes make changes in plans to do so.
I share with many other Woodside residents a real concern about eucalyptus being placed on the list of those trees the town encourages to be removed because they may present a fire hazard. It is my belief that with proper maintenance that danger can be mitigated.
It is also my heartfelt belief that eucalyptus are an extremely important part of our visual landscape and heritage in Woodside.
Anne Kasten
Chair, Woodside ASRB
Stanford's permit is misunderstood
Editor:
Opponents of the Stanford-Santa Clara County agreement for two public trails called for in Stanford's 2000 General Use Permit consistently choose to ignore what the permit requires of Stanford.
The permit said Stanford would implement portions of trails from the 1995 Santa Clara Countywide Trails Master Plan. The master plan maps show the locations of two routes at the edges of Stanford land. The C1 trail is described as a connector trail that follows San Francisquito/Los Trancos creeks and Alpine Road along the border between Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. The trails master plan also designated the C1 section between Stanford Golf Course and West Arastradero Road as "completed." This can only refer to the existing trail along Alpine Road in unincorporated San Mateo County and Portola Valley. No other trail existed in that vicinity in 1995.
A new peripheral trail constructed on the Santa Clara County side of the creek would either cause environmental damage or would severely disrupt the golf course. Thus, the only feasible location for a C1 trail is along Alpine Road. Deeply interior routes advocated by others have always been unacceptable to Stanford and are contrary to the general use permitGUP and the trails master plan policies. Stanford will pay for valuable improvements to the Alpine trail, subject to San Mateo County and Portola Valley agreement. This will ultimately be an outstanding recreational asset and highly used trail.
Stanford is acting in good faith to fulfill what it agreed to do when it accepted the general use permit.
Jean McCown
Director of Community Relations
Stanford University
Another take on mayoral selection policy
Editor:
I disagree with a recent document circulated during last week's Menlo Park City Council meeting saying the failure to select Bernie Valencia (then Nevin) as mayor in 1997 was a violation of the city's mayoral selection policy. (The document contained other errors as well.)
The anonymous-looking document was prepared by the city clerk at the request of a council member, apparently based on the clerk's interpretation of the policy with no historical context. The current city clerk was not present when Ms. Valencia was passed over, or in 1993 when the policy was passed.
Menlo Park's mayor selection policy has five sentences. The first four are clear; the fifth is ambiguous. Though the fifth line doesn't say so directly, it could imply that "seniority" should be used to prioritize among those members eligible to be Mayor. That interpretation was used by the clerk to create the erroneous document.
In 1997, as council members, Chuck Kinney and I both spoke separately with city attorney Bill McClure specifically to clarify this. Mr. McClure was present when the policy was enacted. We both remember being told that the policy did not prioritize seniority, the opposite of what the clerk assumed last week. Hence we were both eligible to be mayor along with Bernie Valencia. Selecting Chuck Kinney was consistent with the policy.
I don't mean to criticize the clerk, or to say I like the policy, or to imply that the city attorney has the power to resolve ambiguous policies. He doesn't. Policy is discretionary and council members can disregard it. I'm simply saying that Mr. Kinney and I acted responsibly to clarify the policy, and followed the policy in good faith as we understood it, even when it was difficult to do so, as it was in 2000. Frankly, if I were willing to disregard the policy, I would have done so that year.
The year 1997 aside, mayoral selections in 2002 and 2005 did not follow the policy. It's a simple fact. The flawed document shows the influence of a council that cannot acknowledge inconvenient facts on a staff that seems reluctant to document them.
Paul Collacchi
Council member, 1996-2004
Lake Court, Redwood City
Business sites not suitable for playing fields
Editor:
Steve Schmidt's viewpoint last week about where to look for soccer fields in Menlo Park is illustrative of the reason I believe Menlo Park, under his council reign, lost major sales revenues and shunned business.
How a former mayor and council member could suggest prime retail space (former car dealerships along El Camino Real) for soccer fields is simply outrageous. To suggest the vacant field by Interstate 280 that is hopefully destined for a hotel (which could generate hundreds of thousands of hotel tax dollars for Menlo Park) for soccer fields is similarly outrageous.
The simple fact remains. There is no free land available to build soccer fields -- except at Bayfront Park.
Try as you might, whatever land you pick in Menlo Park for fields, it will either cost millions to buy or cost us millions in lost revenue. The city staff has already researched this to death. Unless some benefactor comes forth to donate land for soccer fields, it's hardly likely we'll get them unless we go with the Highlands Golf/Fields proposal.
I'm guessing the fields and parking space at Bayfront might take around six acres. Is it too much to ask for six acres of wetlands out of the 2,000 acres of surrounding wetlands to meet the recreation needs of the people? Let's get reasonable. The arguments to stop the Highlands Golf proposal are getting more desperate and extreme.
Mary Gilles
Hermosa Way, Menlo Park
Council majority wields the power
Editor:
It is politics as usual in Menlo Park.
This scenario occurs over and over: An issue comes up for City Council consideration (e.g., housing ordinance, save-the-Baylands, the mayoral position).
Many citizens appear and convincingly argue for position A. Two or three folks speak in favor of B. The council majority, Nicholas Jellins, Lee Duboc and Mickie Winkler, vote for B, for their minds are made up well ahead of time.
Though their votes are futile against the intransigence of the majority bloc, residentialists Andy Cohen and Kelly Fergusson support A, thus representing the greater portion of the Menlo Park citizenry.
Nancy Barnby
Spruce Avenue, Menlo ParkP
How about a 7-member council?
Editor:
The Menlo Park City Council Chambers provides seven chairs for council and seven spots on the electronic voting board. Yet we have only five elected people on the council.
Right now three of those people form a majority block who govern in total disregard to the others. Why do we allow three people to run the city?
Perhaps it is time to have seven people on our council?
John Beverley Butcher
Hedge Road, Menlo Park
Shocked, dismayed at council action on mayor
Editor:
A host of adjectives describe my visceral reaction to the results of last week's Menlo Park City Council meeting. Unfortunately, none of them are good: I was shocked, dismayed, horrified, sickened.
I sat stunned (as, I suspect, did others) as now-mayor-elect Nicholas Jellins rambled on about fairness, balance, even-handedness, and open-mindedness.
And when the hugs and back-slapping were over, it was painfully obvious that Menlo Park's evil triumvirate (or is that "triumphant?") would never, ever, think or act responsibly; of all things take counsel from their constituency; or, generally speaking, take the political high-road.
That Mr. Jellins, along with fellow council members Lee Duboc and Mickie Winkler, would make such public display of triumph out of such controversy, I believe, is testament to their poor taste, form, and judgment. By established tradition, precedent, and written city policy, council members Kelly Fergusson and Andy Cohen should have been named mayor and mayor-pro tem, for calendar year 2006.
But that our own little Evil Empire saw fit, once again, to ignore the public's stated wishes, and to instead re-elect Mr. Jellins for yet a third term as this city's mayor, I find to be a cold, hard, slap in the face to the good citizens of our community.
It's days like this that makes this voter dream wistfully about another day, in the not-so-distant future, when the seemingly unshakable Jellins-Duboc-Winkler triad can be voted out of office, ushering in a clean city slate, and heralding a bright new day.
Rich Mintz
Bay Road, Menlo Park
A better way to spend $90 million stadium cost
Editor:
A few weeks ago my brother and I took his kids to see the last football game at old Stanford Stadium, which is being torn down to make way for a spiffy new $90 million replacement.
With $90 million Stanford could have offered free tuition and books, for many years to come, to students in the all-important math, engineering, information technology and life sciences.
Think of what a breathtaking gesture that would have been... and in classic Stanford fashion they could have one-upped Yale, which recently received a $100 million bequest to fund free tuition forever for mere music students.
Wouldn't it be smarter for Stanford to continue its competitive spirit on the academic side, rather than dribble it away on sports for a relatively apathetic local fan base? Dumb move, very dumb.
Bill Murphy
Mountain View
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