Letters Letters (February 16, 2005)

No dog-gone conclusion

Editor,

In the Feb. 11 article on lion sightings, Bill D'Agostino noted that for our safety the city might ban us from walking dogs in the Arastradero hills -- mother knows best. He also dragged up the old Stanford management propaganda chestnut that "the Stanford Dish was closed to dogs in 2000, out of concern for its wildlife and trail conditions."

Banning of on-leash dogs from the hiking trails at the Dish was indeed touted by Stanford as an environmentally driven initiative. However, it was clearly just a power play with a twist -- some influential dog-hating people trying to be clever as well and exploiting their prejudice to gain kudos. The lie to Stanford's claim is given by:

1) Lack of any credible evidence for the harm done by walking with dogs on the trails;

2) Continuous patrol of the area by motorized vehicles, plus the usual service machinery and research traffic (in a half-hour walk a friend of mine was passed by no less than six vehicles);

3) Tearing up the hillside to lay down drains (for the public good, but nonetheless environmentally very destructive);

4) Continued access to the hills by livestock, both cattle and horses;

5) Freedom for the dogs of the Los Altos Hounds Hunt Club to roam the Stanford foothills.

Interestingly, while one of Stanford's apparent aims was to reduce the popularity of the dish trails, casual observation suggests that due to all the publicity the number of hikers and joggers appears to have doubled or even tripled.
Walter Sedriks
Waverley Street
Palo Alto

Heartbreaking proposal

Editor,

I am heartbroken over the proposal to build an industrial garbage/recycling plant at the edge of the Baylands Preserve.

As an artist who has painted and photographed the baylands countless times (one of my photographs won an award in the Palo Alto Weekly photo contest and appeared on the cover), I think we need to think carefully before we adopt this irreversible plan.

The Baylands Preserve is a unique asset to the City of Palo Alto. How many cities can boast a natural preserve within their borders? But a great treasure like this brings with it an obligation to protect it so it will be available not only today, but for future generations as well.

A scaled-down processing plant is not the answer. Even the smallest, the 6.2 acre compromise, will encroach on this fragile environment and alter our preserve forever.

What we need is strong leadership that will insist on solutions that honor the vision of our Baylands Master Plan and the commitments to parkland and open space.

This is completely doable.

1) Our Public Works Director, Glenn Roberts, says that the new single-stream curbside-recycling program can succeed without even building a processing plant.

2) The Baylands Master Plans allows two additional acres for recycling.

3) Our existing refuse processing contract with Sunnyvale doesn't expire until 2021. This gives us time to tackle the supply side of the garbage problem and research innovations being tried by other communities.

A commitment to the Baylands Master Plan will require vision, dedication and political will. I do not think this is too much to ask.
Patricia Jones
Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto

An ex-councilman's views

Editor,

At the time of my election to the Palo Alto City Council in 1967, the Park Dedication Ordinance had very recently been adopted, giving protection to all of Palo Alto's parks, including Byxbee Baylands Park.

Without a change by ordinance, their use was limited to recreational activities. During my six years as a council member, considerable attention was given to the development of Byxbee Park and restriction of development in immediately adjacent areas, such as along Embarcadero Road and the airport.

The city's extensive dump-and-fill refuse area was known to have only enough capacity to last until early this century. As areas were filled and sealed, they were to become part of the park and improved for hiking, biking, bird watching and other recreational uses, with the ultimate goal that the entire property would eventually be incorporated into the park.

Along with other past council members, I am very concerned about the recent staff proposal for the development of a garbage-and-recycling processing plant at the baylands. If my memory serves me, it is contrary to the intent of the Baylands Master Plan. I walked to the top of one of the contoured fills recently, observed the wonderful sweeping view of the baylands in one direction and tried to visualize the impact of the proposed facility in the opposite direction.

After these decades of developing an absolutely wonderful recreational area available to all, I hope current decisions won't degrade its special and unique character. I respectfully encourage a rejection to the proposal without an environmental impact study, thus ensuring completion of Byxbee Baylands Park before many more years.

I should disclose that I am now a resident at The Sequoias in Portola Valley, but lived in Palo Alto for 60 years. What happens there matters greatly to me.
William H. Clark, M.D.
Palo Alto City Councilman, 1967-1973
Portola Road
Portola Valley

Conflicting goals

Editor,

It is difficult when two admirable goals are in conflict as at Byxbee Park. Of course we want to be responsible for our recycling just as we want to protect the baylands. That is not at issue.

What to do? I think the resolution is in weighing the alternatives.

First -- recycling: Is there an alternative to a 19-acre facility? Yes -- both as to size and location. Some have discussed a six-plus-acre facility. Many others have pointed out that we have can collaborate with Sunnyvale and other cities to save money and avoid using land to replicate services in every city. This seems like a sensible and responsible plan from an environmental point of view.

Second -- baylands protection: As we fill up every inch of land in town with commercial and residential construction, and pave over the in-between, the pressure on open space increases. The temptation to build on what has been set aside as parkland is precisely why land is designated parkland or open space -- to assuage the temptation to build on it in the future when the pressure increases.

If the recycling center is constructed in Byxbee Park, the acreage is lost forever to parkland. Our city baylands are like a protected species -- once gone, it's gone forever.

We can allow this land to enhance our baylands or we can continue to exploit our share of landfill that reduced the size of the bay by one-third. The recycling center can and should be elsewhere. I think we have an ethical duty to use all the land as planned.
Winter Dellenbach
Kingsley Avenue
Palo Alto

Over 'The Edge'

Editor,

The Palo Alto Daily News will not print this. I hope that the Palo Alto Weekly will.

I would like to clear up a point that originated in Jason Green's Daily News article (Jan. 20) regarding the Edge and noise issues. The article was misleadingly, headlined "Watchdogs alarmed at club's plans."

I do absolutely agree with John Abraham and Greg Kerber that the City of Palo Alto has not been dealing adequately with noise issues. What I resent is the reporter speaking of us as a "trio" and also assuming, in this day and age, that a woman's views must be the same as her spouse's or partner's, without checking with the woman.

We do believe that the city and police would respond promptly to troubles at the Edge, as they have indeed done in the past. What Greg and John were trying to tell the Daily reporter is that they have little faith that the city would be proactive to avoid the troubles in the first place.
Natalie Fisher
Ellsworth Place
Palo Alto

Editor,

Recent press reports indicate San Francisco intends to increase water rates to its customers in Alameda, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties to cover $700 million cost overruns for repairs to the Hetch Hetchy system.

These cost overruns and delays in the rebuilding process have resulted from San Francisco's own poor planning.

Our organization and others have made detailed engineering proposals to replace the water storage facility in Yosemite National Park's Hetch Hetchy Valley with a more reliable plumbing system. We propose the costs be paid by all the people in California and across the nation because the entire country would be getting a new valley comparable to Yosemite Valley.

These proposals are not inconsistent with completing the necessary repairs to the water system, repairs that should move ahead as quickly as possible.

We invite people in all communities of the Hetch Hetchy water service area to look carefully at our "win-win" proposal for restoring Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley and providing a clean and reliable supply of water. For more information, please see www.hetchhetchy.org.

Imagine the opportunity we Americans have to allow nature to re-create another Yosemite Valley. There is no other opportunity like this anywhere else on earth.
Ron Good
Executive Director, Restore Hetch Hetchy
Sonora

E-mail a friend a link to this story.