Letters Letters (May 04, 2005)

Red Cross is ready

Editor,

On April 19 our Red Cross Chapter partnered with the City of Palo Alto in its comprehensive earthquake-response exercise. I appreciated the invitation to participate from the very first planning session through the post-exercise debriefing.

More than 50 trained Red Cross volunteers responded to the cityús request for shelters to be set up to assist victims needing shelter following the 7.3 quake. They set up two shelters at Cubberley Community Center. The Red Cross workers registered more than 50 families -- to receive shelter, food and mental-health counseling after the first responders left the quake-affected areas.

Red Cross volunteers donned their familiar vests and stepped into roles for which they have trained. In addition, one Red Cross volunteer served in the cityús Emergency Operations Center as official liaison for the Red Cross relief operation.

We welcome all opportunities to collaborate with the fire and police departments, Office of Emergency Services, Community Services and PANDA volunteers to be prepared to provide immediate, emergency services to community members following an earthquake or other major disaster; or victims of a residential fire, 24/7.

Many of the responding volunteers served in similar roles following the 1998 Palo Alto floods as well as beyond the area after 9-11, Southern California wildfires and Florida hurricanes.

We encourage community members to seek volunteer opportunities at www.paarc.org.
Trish Bubenik
Executive Director, Palo Alto Area Chapter, American Red Cross
Mitchell Lane
Palo Alto

Supporting Moran

Editor,

A developer's pursuit of a restraining order against Barron Park Association President Doug Moran, based on hearsay regarding comments Moran made about the proposed development, is absurd.

Anyone who knows Moran even a little knows him to be a gentle and passionate person. He is an active advocate for Barron Park and all of Palo Alto, applying his engineering and managerial skills to raise the quality of debate on all local issues.

That Moran should be passionate about an excessive subdivision across the street from his home is predictable. That his passion would be interpreted as a threat can only be testimony to the developer's inability to negotiate in good faith. In this classic high-stakes game of profits vs. quality-of-life, the developer's move should be viewed as the bluff it is.

I support Moran without question and value his contributions to Palo Alto civic life.
Mike Alexander
La Para Avenue
Palo Alto

Stanford's myopia

Editor,

In negotiations with Stanford University, the City of Palo Alto is consistently bested by those charged with maximizing return on Stanford's real-estate assets. Stanford consistently prevails because, unlike the city, Stanford has a long-term strategy to achieve its goals.

Does the city have a long-term strategy to address the shortage of playfield space? A city with a real long-term vision for the future would work to build enduring recreational institutions instead of temporary playfields. Where will the community's children play soccer in 50 years when the "Mayfield Playfield" lease expires?

The same shortsightedness that is responsible for the "Mayfield Playfield" deal now threatens the College Terrace neighborhood. While the playfields are only temporary, development of the upper College Terrace site will be permanent.

Stanford promises the Mayfield project will be "compatible" with the College Terrace neighborhood, but Stanford's two most recent projects, "Stanford West" and the graduate student housing along Stanford Avenue, give citizens reason to doubt.

The banal "cookie cutter" style uniformity of the Stanford West project would certainly be more compatible with the most poorly planned sections of Daly City than the diverse architecture of Palo Alto. The huge barracks-like structures Stanford erected along Stanford Avenue dwarf the houses on the other side of Stanford Avenue and would fit more comfortably on the grounds of the Fort Ord military base than anywhere in the Palo Alto community.

If a requirement for compatibility is not written into the Mayfield contract it won't happen. Stanford does not know how to build compatible housing, or just doesn't care.
Stewart Carl
Amherst Street
Palo Alto

Garrett is wrong

Editor,

The core points made by Paul Garrett in his April 27 Guest Opinion on the proposed Upper California housing development are wrong.

1) He believes the planning process properly incorporated community input because the adjacent College Terrace community was effectively involved. But through a complete process failure, the Peter Coutts Hill community, also adjacent, was not consulted or informed at all until the negotiations were essentially complete.

2) He believes the outcome reasonably reflected community needs. But in fact, the College Terrace community, for which distant views are not important, successfully pushed for a strong height limit 400 feet to the east of California Avenue. The forced higher parts of the proposed development are toward Peter Coutts, for which distant views are a main asset.

Neither the process nor the outcome should be cited by anyone as a successful model.
John Meyer
Peter Coutts Hill
Stanford

A matter of 'traffic'?

Editor,

So now the Mayfield Agreement, the result of countless hours of work between representatives of Stanford and Palo Alto, including neighborhood groups, is under attack. And once again, the primary given reason is "traffic."

No one in this city ever seems to come out directly against more housing, especially affordable housing. And no one says, "We don't want more people shopping here" or "working here" or "playing here." It's generally couched in terms of traffic.

But in all this, what about a different kind of traffic? People driving to work in and out of the city because they can't find housing, parents driving their children to playing fields in other communities and many, many Palo Altans driving daily to Menlo Park and Mountain View -- to the stores that have decided it is not worth their time to take on the "Palo Alto process."
Janice Hough
Bryant Street
Palo Alto

Specious comparisons

Editor,

I'm a civil servant (elsewhere) and I'd like to comment on the discussion regarding publicizing city-employee pay. The comparisons to the right of shareholders in private enterprise to know what is paid to various employees is somewhat specious.

There might similarly be a question as to whether that shareholder right really should extend to employees who are not officers of the company, but I think the salient point is that the shareholders and the (lower-level) employees don't have any reason to think that such information will be subject to printing in the local newspapers. It is not, and should not be, truly "public."

Salary ranges for given public positions are a matter of record and that's certainly reasonable, as are number of employees in a given range. It is reasonable to discuss (within contract and civil-service rules parameters) whether workload justifies the number of employees with qualifications per the associated job descriptions.

But it is not appropriate to disseminate individual "non-corporate officer" names along with their specific salaries/benefits. Similarly in the private sector the pay ranges for certain qualifications are fairly readily available (or derivable).

I am not elected, or (nominally) an "at-will" employee and I would no sooner expect my name and salary to possibly be on the pages of the Weekly now than when I was working as a tech in the Valley over the last couple decades.
Alan Mela
Blue Oak Lane
Los Altos

Abuse and responsibility

Editor,

In yet another sad episode of official denial into the sadistic behavior of prison guards at Abu Ghraib and other prisons, a high-level investigation cleared four officers who were in charge of prison policies. It defies belief that top Army officials and Pentagon policymakers were unaware of the torture and brutality of these guards. If this is indeed true, these officials are guilty of dereliction of duty and outright incompetence and must be held accountable.

In a companion story, Army Gen. George W. Casey said he had no reason to believe that U.S. officials were warned that Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian reporter who was kidnapped and subsequently released, and her bodyguard and driver were on the airport road when their car came under attack from U.S. forces. According to Italian reports, the U.S. military had been alerted and an Italian jet transport was waiting and ready at Baghdad airport.

In an effort to escape the watchful eyes of human-rights groups, the Pentagon is now outsourcing torture (rendition) to autocratic and repressive regimes mimicking Saddam Hussein's. How can our government officials, religious leaders and indeed the American people choose to remain silent and thereby acquiesce in the mistreatment of prisoners, most of whom are innocent according to the International Committee of the Red Cross?

How can these same officials who claim to revere life and oppose abortion be so indifferent to the suffering of people of other faiths and nationalities? Is it any wonder that our hypocrisy and moral degeneracy should engender so much contempt in the world?
Jagjit Singh
Louisa Court
Palo Alto

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