Publication Date: Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Letters
Letters
(June 08, 2005)
On the ban bandwagon
Editor,
On June 13 our City Council will vote on a ban on gas-powered blowers. Please attend the meeting to support the ban.
The Bay Area Gardeners Association (BAGA) has had five years to prepare but has not taken on a proactive role by switching to electric blowers/vacuums and hand tools. The latter are used by gardeners in 20 California cities that have bans with no loss of efficiency or increased cost to customers.
Gardeners in Los Altos use electric blowers with extension cords, brooms and rakes with no loss in speed and don't charge their customers more.
What about the cost to neighbors? One woman installed a $2,000 sound-reduction fence because of her neighbors' blowers. Another couple wants to apply for a permit to build a 10-foot sound wall around their home.
Blower manufacturers fear loss of profits. Gardeners suffer hearing loss of 10 percent a year. The air pollution the machines emit is the equivalent of 17 cars, all deposited into one location.
My son's asthma is exacerbated every time he rides his bike past a blower in use. The American Lung Association and Dr. Dailey, head of Pulmonary Care at Kaiser Hospital, both support the ban.
Many BAGA members are Latino and claim the ban is racist. That their employers allow such exposure to health risks is far more discriminatory.
Do we care so little for them that their hearing and respiratory health are worth impairing so our yards look perfect? Let's uphold the ban on gas-powered blowers.
Elizabeth Lee
Sierra Court
Palo Alto
A healthier neighborhood
Editor,
I write to request that the Palo Alto City Council vote to put an end to the use of blowers. I have had horrendous experiences with these machines while waiting for the bus on El Camino Real to go to work. I was regularly subjected to clouds of dust and debris, which probably included many hazardous substances.
My allergies worsened as a result. I felt powerless to stop this as I had no choice but to catch the bus to work at that time and place. No one, least of all those who operate the blowers, should have to put up with that kind of dangerous air and noise pollution.
There are safer and quieter alternatives, such as brooms, rakes and vacuums, which can be used to tidy and clean up an area without raising all the debris that just settles again on people, pets and properties.
Thanks in advance to the council for voting to ban blowers and thereby granting Palo Altans a safer, quieter and healthier neighborhood.
Marilyn Cornelius
Oxford Avenue
Palo Alto
Benest and temps
Editor,
I was interested to read the June 3 article titled, "City manager wants house post retirement." What caught my eye was the quote by Dena Mossar, "Frank has said this isn't fair," referring to the fact that Frank Benest thinks the city should pay part of the property tax of the house he lives in and owns jointly with the city.
If the quote is accurate and Benest feels that "fairness" is relevant to a discussion of how a city employee should be treated, I would like to suggest that he and the City Council start treating all city employees fairly.
The temporary employees of Palo Alto are currently negotiating to obtain basic job benefits that many of us take for granted like sick leave and vacation. Some of the temporary employees have been working for the city for five, 10 or more years.
Fair treatment shouldn't be reserved for only some of the city's workers.
Diana Beers
Rambow Drive
Palo Alto
Following city policy
Editor,
The Weekly reports (June 3) that City Manage Frank Benest said if he himself had promised that the airport would stay open, "I would have been making a policy call. I did not make the policy call because I was not empowered to do that."
Given the policies firmly articulated in Palo Alto's Baylands Master Plan, Palo Alto's Transportation Master Plan and Palo Alto Regional Sharing Agreement with Sunnyvale -- all of which call for maintaining the Palo Alto Airport -- the City Manager's failure to promise to keep the airport open is a clear violation of established Palo Alto policy.
Palo Alto prides itself on the careful consultation and deliberation that goes into these Master Plans -- which are then formally adopted by the City Council as City Policy. Why does the City Manager not consider these carefully crafted and formally adopted policies as binding on his actions or inactions?
Hopefully the City Council will make it clear to the City Manager that he is not only empowered but directed to follow established City Policy.
Peter Carpenter
Larch Drive
Atherton
Public-art disgust
Editor,
Bill D'Agostino in his article in the May 25 issue outlines Palo Alto city budget problems and laments the loss of programs that he feels will diminish the quality of life in the city.
In fact, program cuts can actually improve the quality of life here. Consider the Art in Public Places program. This program is indefensible on aesthetic, economic and even political grounds. It has no constituency; residents either ignore it or actively loathe it. It is the brainchild of a Menlo Park resident who has found a clever way to get the residents of Palo Alto to pay for his hobby.
In the coming fiscal year this program will cost us nearly $150,000 or $7.50 per household. I am happy to note that this is a reduction of $10,000 from last year but I am furious that the program has not been completely eliminated.
The only public art in Palo Alto that pleases a significant number of residents is Greg Brown's whimsical murals downtown. It is interesting to note that these murals pre-date the Art in Public Places program and cost the city absolutely nothing.
City-funded public art in Palo Alto is a disaster. Let's donate our Eggs, Cars with Legs, Wooden Phalluses, etc., to a needy and undiscriminating city as far away from here as possible and zero out this program.
David Lieberman
Kingsley Avenue
Palo Alto
Well-liked crossword
Editor,
Whew! You nearly scared me to death. When I retrieved my Palo Alto Weekly Weekend Edition on June 3, the first thing I looked for -- the usual directions on the front page to the peripatetic Matt Jones crossword puzzle -- turned out to be missing. In a panic, I thumbed through all three sections of the paper and finally found it. What a relief.
I write this note not to ask the Weekly to do anything but to ask it not to do what the SF Weekly did a year or so ago. That paper used to carry that puzzle but soon discontinued it. The editor explained that he discontinued it because nobody wrote him saying they liked it.
So I say unto you, "I like it."
Doug Dupen
Peter Coutts Circle
Stanford
E-mail a friend a link to this story. | 
