Publication Date: Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Letters
Letters
(December 15, 2004)
Lane situation
Editor,
The Palo Alto Traffic Department is proposing to reduce lanes in the Midtown area on Middlefield Road.
This is nuts.
This area is one the busiest in Palo Alto. Due to so much shortcutting and speeding traffic avoiding this area of Middlefield in its current state, almost every other side street has been forced to get speed bumps.
Ross Road/Cowper Street residents have mobilized. One year ago, 16 of 16 residents who answered their door to my knock signed a petition against lane reduction. Two weeks ago, I dropped off a flyer on every doorstep of Ross/Cowper from Oregon Expressway to Colorado Avenue -- approximately 75 homes.
Twenty-five residents have responded via a phone call, knock at my door or e-mail. That's a 33 percent response to a flyer. All are adamantly against lane reduction. That's incredibly singular to me.
As I type, Colorado Avenue, Marion Avenue and Waverley Street residents are getting organized. A test is going to be conducted in early 2005.
I urge all Midtown residents affected by this lane-reduction proposal to e-mail the City Council at city.council@cityofpaloalto.org. Let the council know of your concerns and fears regarding this terrible idea.
David Jones
Ross Road
Palo Alto
Lane learning
Editor,
I read the Weekly's article on Middlefield Road and the plans to test the impacts of re-striping it to three lanes in Midtown (Dec. 8). The direction for this evaluation came about during City Council discussion about installing the new traffic light and turn lane at Bryson Avenue on May 19, 2003.
The City Council did indeed direct staff on a 9-0 vote to approve the traffic signal with left-turn pockets and for staff to return in a year with a report on the impacts and an evaluation of the three-lane option.
Why? Our city goal is to improve safety for all users, including autos, pedestrians and bicyclists. Whenever we make changes to the road system, the goal is to improve conditions for pedestrians and bicyclists and not worsen. The turn lanes seem very well received, but with the additional turn lane, space for bicyclists in the outside lane is reduced.
We asked staff to evaluate the three-lane option as recommended by the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee. The goal of the evaluation is to evaluate the impact on travel time through Midtown. The new turn lanes should help the flow of traffic. What would a re-striping to three lanes do? The city is very mindful of avoiding unintended traffic diversion.
Was it Albert Einstein's quote that "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it"? We have to keep our minds open to new ways of doing things.
Let the four-hour trial happen. We will learn from it.
Yoriko Kishimoto
City Council member
Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto
Duveneck cutbacks
Editor,
I'm an ordinary mom working two part-time jobs to pay the bills. I don't pay much attention to politics except when it affects my two kids, who attend Duveneck Elementary School.
I voted yes on Measure I because I see first-hand how recent budget cuts have negatively affected our children. Here are a few services recently eliminated or greatly reduced at Duveneck:
1) Kindergarten science instructor eliminated.
2) Reduced art education from specialized art instructors.
3) Library/media teacher's time reduced to 3.75 days per week. Therefore, our kids have much less time with a specialized library/media instructor to learn how to use a computer and develop research skills in school. Another result is students don't have open access to the library on Mondays.
4) Assemblies given by outside presenters eliminated. These assemblies exposed our kids to a wide variety of music and dramatic performances.
Please focus on helping educate our children and vote yes for a future parcel tax to prevent further deterioration of Palo Alto public schools.
Laura Wolfe
Iris Way
Palo Alto
Martin a hero
Editor,
On Dec. 8, in his column about the defeat of Measure I, Don Kazak wrote, "(Wayne) Martin may now be the most reviled person in Palo Alto politics, having figuratively brought both the city government and school district to their respective knees."
Why would Martin be reviled? One-third of the voters agreed with his position on Measure I. He defeated PAUSD on a shoestring.
If the school district was over-confident, it's because many people, like Kazak, think that whenever the district asks for more money, voting for it is doing "the right thing." Paying PAUSD administrators outrageous salaries and then selling voters a sob story about children's needs not being met is not the right thing.
Far from being "a crank and scold," Martin is a hero. He gave us the facts, sadly missing in our political discourse. He's one of the few people in town who does research on the issues. Instead of arguing on emotion and hype, he provides factual data in every debate.
Maybe the City Council, the PAUSD and their consultants could learn a thing or two from Martin.
Pat Marriott
Dennis Drive
Palo Alto
Fuzzy math?
Editor,
I've read the claim of how many hours a week our libraries are open and find it amazing: 225 hours per week. Astounding. How is this possible, when there are only 168 hours in any week?
At 225 hours per week, our libraries should be open more than 32 hours a day, seven days a week. This fuzzy math is obviously ridiculous. Some of the branches are closed several days a week. At most, the system is available 11 hours a day, three days a week, at Main.
Despite five libraries, the open hours are concurrent and one can't use more than one library at a time (except perhaps in parallel universes?). Currently at best, our libraries are available 64 hours per week, since Mitchell Park opens two hours before Main on Thursdays, comparable to Mountain View's library hours.
Our system is widely recognized for being overcrowded and one "solution" often proposed is to close two smaller, lesser-used branches. If they were open longer hours, more days a week, they just might be used more. It's hard to use a closed facility.
What happens to the collections from those branches if they are closed? Will they further stuff the shelves, portable carts, tables and floor space of the remaining branches? If there's not enough room to accommodate the needs of the library patrons now, it seems closing branches will only make matters worse.
As for the argument that we're no longer a small town so we no longer need multiple branch libraries, I suggest looking at San Jose. It's a much bigger city and it supports multiple branches all around town.
Certainly it would be wonderful to have a fancy new spacious super library. Perhaps someday we will be able to. That grand vision is unlikely to come to reality any time soon.
Meanwhile, we owe it to our community to do the best we can to invest resources in the system we have.
Kat Kohlsaat
Poe Street
Palo Alto
Volunteers key
Editor,
After 25 years, my husband and I recently moved from the community center neighborhood to one of several downtown condominium complexes on the former Palo Alto Media Center site. We enjoy the privilege of walking to all services and embrace the city's persistent campaign to reduce traffic.
Now the city is again confronting the overspending of the opulent dot-com boom times by threatening to close libraries. Consider the result of closing the downtown branch -- by doing so, all of us who are moving downtown (and that is a lot) will be back in our cars, driving to a distant facility.
Where is the creative leadership that can think beyond the simple solutions like cutting services or raising taxes? Is this the same leadership that is to receive a 10 percent salary increase (so one employee can now earn $222,718 tax dollars/year) for promoting the obvious?
One example of a creative solution is to reduce library staff workload and attendant costs by campaigning for volunteers. We have a large retired population that might enjoy contributing to their city in one small way.
Case in point: My father-in-law volunteered at the Wichita Public Library for 15 years. He enjoyed it. He was proud of it. Upon his death in September of this year, many donations were sent in his name to the Public Library. He not only saved the city money, he also generated unexpected income as an honorarium.
I am not an activist, but I seem to be getting more and more frustrated when I read about unimaginative "solutions" to our predictable financial over-commitments of the dot-com bonanza.
Perhaps I should just stop reading local newspapers.
Jan Steele
Homer Avenue
Palo Alto
Keep College Terrace open
Editor,
We are shocked by the rumor that the city is considering closing the College Terrace branch library, which has been serving the College Terrace and Stanford campus communities for years. Our kids are sad, too, that their local library is closing, where they can walk or bike to.
We support and want the College Terrace branch library to remain open. My kids love this local library. They walk to the library with their neighborhood friends to borrow books and read in the library, which increases their knowledge and helps them finish their homework.
This library has become a part of our lives.
The Escondido school children need this library. The College Terrace residents need this library. The local community needs this library. We realize that the community library improves our quality of life.
We want to keep the College Terrace branch library open. Please save the library for our kids.
Carol Li
Princeton Street
Palo Alto
Opinion appreciated
Editor,
I very much appreciated Ashia Chacko's Guest Opinion (Dec. 8), "Was our national election stolen by e-voting executives?" Since the major media outlets are not covering the stolen elections with any real enthusiasm, articles such as hers are critical to informing more people about election fraud.
I think many people believe that significant election fraud could never happen here in America and, without much information to the contrary, they can feel comfortable with this belief. However, our democracy depends on knowing the truth.
I urge everyone to do a little research of their own starting with some of the sources Ms. Chacko listed in her article. Again, our democracy depends on knowing the truth and then insisting on fair and free elections.
Linda Griffin
Walnut Avenue
Atherton
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