Publication Date: Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Letters
Letters
(March 16, 2005)
Happy for Hopkins
Editor,
Oh, silly me. I thought it was officers Kan and Lee who were on trial for use of excessive force against a citizen.
I didn't realize it was an issue of whether we should allow the school district to hire a well-known citizen who has had small problems in the past. So nice of the media to carry the attempts at character assassination to the public.
I have a 15-year-old daughter at Gunn and I'm happy to have Al Hopkins there as a resource for her.
Raymond R. White
Mayview Avenue
Palo Alto
No easy parking
Editor,
We "fine dine" at least once a week for sure, and sometimes twice.
There are several restaurants in the downtowns of Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Los Altos that we'd like to visit. But we take a pass because of the odds against finding a decent parking space without having to drive around a couple of blocks a couple of times.
So we go out to Portola Valley's Parkside Grille or over to Woodside's John Bentleys, Village Pub. Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Los Altos -- and in that order, in my mind -- just plain went and followed the rainbow of growth: Build it and they will come.
Of course, some might argue that we're just a population possessed of too, too many cars. And I'd agree with that, too.
Ted Bache
Happy Hollow Lane
Menlo Park
Tot shops absent
Editor,
My granddaughter is going to have a baby in September, and I'll be a great-grandfather.
My wife and I went shopping for maternity clothes for the new mother and were shocked -- shocked I tell you -- at our inability to find anything in Palo Alto.
There is one specialty shop in the Stanford Shopping Center, but it is incredibly expensive, far beyond our -- and most customers' -- means. Bloomingdale's had just a tiny selection and nothing worthwhile. Macy's and the Gap don't carry maternity clothes.
Look around you: There are babies and pregnant mothers everywhere. What's going on here?
Harry Press
Escobita Avenue
Palo Alto
Majority rule works
Editor,
In an effort to convert our blue-red polarized intransigence into a symphony of purple compromise, Nancy McGaraghan (Weekly, Feb. 23) suggests that just staying "light on our feet" sparked by a "healthy spontaneity" can break the log jam while liberating us from America's obdurate resistance to compromise and progress -- as if in fact such a melody of thought ever worked in the past.
Might I submit we're polarized because many of the public issues past and present have only two sides, both irreconcilable and almost always hot to the touch. For example, how does "healthy spontaneity" resolve the abortion issue? Perhaps a desired middle ground is "okay, but only if within 24 hours." Or, how about slavery? "Okay, but not on weekends." Or, how about polygamy? Maybe "don't' ask, don't tell" will do the trick.
What lambent bit of wisdom do we employ when resolving the issue of euthanasia? Somehow the middle ground here has the patient still breathing but forever unconscious.
Oh, yes Nancy, how would your Moderate Middle citizenry have solved the issue of prohibition? Perhaps a little water-downed gin might have done the trick. Well before suffocating you with myriad examples, isn't it quite enough to say majority rule -- often dogmatic and partisan -- is the answer?
While it is often tough to maintain the bright and eupeptic outlook, majority rule and its often harsh finality is simply the price that free people must pay. Call for a vote, Nancy, and forget that "healthful spontaneity."
Leonard Ware
University Avenue
East Palo Alto
Free or fee papers?
Editor,
Jay Thorwaldson reported on the recent sale of the Daily News to Knight Ridder (Weekly, Feb. 18). I'm a loyal reader of the Daily and feel grateful it prints my letters. However, I have also subscribed to the "big Newspaper from the North."
On national and state news, the Chronicle is excellent.
However, since I do freelance work in Portola Valley, Woodside and Menlo Park, I'm also interested in what is happening locally, so the Almanac and Palo Alto Weekly are a nice addition for local news. Quite often, interesting people are being discussed; the kind who wouldn't make it to the front page of a daily.
There is another paper that comes free to my house, "The Independent," and I just discovered it had to reduce its size dramatically. I'm afraid the Internet will eventually hurt all newspapers and more papers will falter.
One thing I don't understand is why the Daily News is free. I'd rather pay a small amount for a daily than read interesting articles buried under a ton of advertisements in a free paper.
I'm sure running a newspaper costs a lot. I don't know why anything should be free in this world -- assuming we appreciate the quality of the product. Charging for a newspaper would only be fair to the competition that has been around a long time.
I wish both the Almanac and the Weekly all the best. You are doing a great job reporting what is happening in my neighborhood.
Dieter Hurni
8th Avenue
Redwood City
Garage-space grudge
Editor,
The 1989 Zoning Ordinance update created a floor-area formula to limit the size of homes based on the size of the parcel. This floor-area formula did not address privacy or neighborhood patterns.
In the fall of 2001, Individual Design Review requires 180 square feet of covered parking to be counted as floor area. This applies to all lots, large or small. Many of the homes in Palo Alto, especially south of Oregon Expressway, are on 5,000- to 7,000-square-foot lots.
Counting the garage as part of their limited floor area has a major impact on smaller lots. The impact is diminished as the lot size increases. This, in my opinion, is an unfair "tax" on smaller properties. The required covered-parking-space area should not count as floor area. By not counting the required covered space, the inequity of the required floor-area formula will be eliminated.
All homeowners who have felt the crunch of counting the garage space in their house floor area should contact city staff or a councilmember and ask them to remove this requirement from the zoning ordinance.
Roger Kohler
Wilkie Way
Palo Alto
Mitchell Park mess
Editor,
What is going on at Mitchell Park? Almost every year they are digging up the jogging paths and the playing fields, and now they took out the large sandbox, the trellis and the beautiful wisteria near the large central bathroom.
It has been months now of this mess and little work done except to take up the driveway from East Meadow Drive with a chain fence enclosing construction equipment and nursery things. This makes it so difficult to drive through.
How much money is being wasted on this continual digging and then repairing? I can't find out what is going on.
The flowers planted by the children's section where boulders were laid down are taking up room for more play equipment, and this was stupid. The flowers died and the children don't care for that area.
For so much of the year the jogging paths have been closed. Why isn't information posted so we can learn what is going on and how long it will take? Not some formal meaningless informative sign posted.
Marilyn Tomsky
East Meadow Drive
Palo Alto
Eichler observations
Editor,
Eichler issued some deed restrictions when it developed its neighborhoods in Palo Alto. One of them endorsed with neighborhood support by the City of Palo Alto is the single-story overlay.
This is now an R1-S restriction in at least eight neighborhoods of Palo Alto. It states that no house should be over one story.
It also should be noted that the number-one restriction, condition, covenant, charge and agreement affecting the real property of our Eichler neighborhood is: "No lot shall be used except for residential purposes. No building shall be erected, altered, placed or permitted to remain on any lot other than one detached single-family dwelling, not to exceed one story in height and a private garage for no more than two cars."
With the proposed new zoning option of two-dwelling-units allowance, will the large number of Eichler neighborhoods have to seek the city's support in enforcing another of their unique and important covenants?
Mary Carey Schaefer
De Soto Drive
Palo Alto
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