Your recent articles about the Woodside Town Council, Architectural and Site Review Board (ASRB) and Planning Commission have been interesting, and generally well written. However, in your most recent article “Where have all the women gone?” (Feb. 27), I found the focus/conclusion incorrect. The more interesting and relevant question is: Has there been a change in focus from Woodside voters towards planning and what residents want for their town? I believe that there has been a shift.
Personally, I do not mind whether the people who are representing me are male or female; what I care about is whether they will do a good job and most accurately reflect what I want to see happen or not happen. I welcome fresh blood on the ASRB, which has historically had a reputation of making seemingly arbitrary decisions. For example, a couple of years ago one friend went to the ASRB for approval of a plan for a new gate. The ASRB made them partly redesign it to make the posts a few inches smaller, not because it broke any specific building codes but for undefined aesthetic reasons. It cost my friends several thousand dollars and a lot of time. Another example is, why should the ASRB care what color someone’s front door is if no one can see it from the street and the neighbors can’t see it and it isn’t against specific building code?
In a recent election a former, longtime ASRB member, who happened to be female, was running unopposed for the council but lost the election by a significant margin to a write-in candidate, who happened to be male. Gender did not factor into my voting; it was simply ideology.
The majority of the council have children at the elementary school and I know them, some as friends, and find it very hard to believe that they would be “dazzled by the shiny new ‘Apple’ before them,” as your anonymous volunteer said. I strongly suspect that the voting, especially for ASRB, was based on who the council members thought were qualified and would best represent what the citizens of Woodside want for their town, as opposed to gender considerations.
It is important to have women in politics and local government. The other major elected board in Woodside is the school board. It is predominately female (three out of five members). However, in my opinion, gender, race, etc. are less relevant than whether voters feel the elected officials are qualified to represent them. I for one am currently happy.
Alyson Huey-Weaver
Patrol Road, Woodside
