Publication Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Letters
Letters
(July 27, 2005)
Behind the closure
Editor,
We have received several inquiries from the Palo Alto community regarding why we made the decision to end the lease for Cook Book Restaurant at Town & Country Village. We assure you that we made this difficult decision after much deliberation and want to make sure that the community has all of the facts.
The decision to terminate the month-to-month Cook Book lease was precipitated by our recent signing of a new lease with Day One, a center for new and expectant mothers and fathers. Day One has a contract with Stanford Hospital that requires they rapidly complete their new store opening.
We believe that Day One will be a wonderful resource for the community so we worked diligently to accommodate them and the Cook Book space was the logical long term location for them in the center. This is why we regretfully had to terminate Cook Book's month-to-month lease. We are in the process of coming to an agreement on an extended timeframe for the tenant to wind down its affairs, if they so desire.
We understand that change is sometimes difficult to deal with, especially for certain members of the community who may have come to the Cook Book on a regular basis. But as I'm sure you've noticed,
Town & Country Village is in a significant state of disrepair and deterioration. In fact, so little has changed at Town & Country during the years that it no longer serves as well as it should for the current Palo Alto community.
Our plan is to both preserve and enhance this property so that the buildings are safe and functioning, and the common areas are void of potholes and improved with landscaping and gathering areas for the community. We plan to make a significant investment in Town & Country for the long term.
Jim Ellis
Ellis Partners LLC\
Owner, Town & Country Village
Avoid T&C Village?
Editor,
After learning of the closing of Cookbook Restaurant , I sent the following letter to Ellis Properties:
Dear Mr. Ellis, I am writing about your decision to close Cookbook Restaurant in Palo Alto.
As a long time customer of the restaurant, I was both saddened and angered by the news. Cookbook has been a local institution for many years. It is not just another restaurant, but a meeting place for local people. I have been going there every week for years and consider it one of my favorite places.
It has been the reason for me to go to the Town & Country Village Shopping Center. After eating there I have often visited other establishments in the center.
I am appalled by the way you chose to close Cookbook and with your clear disregard for the local character of Palo Alto. I want you to know that I personally will not be returning to your shopping center and will be encouraging others to boycott it also.
David Eckert '
Channing Avenue
Palo Alto
Some airport answers
Editor,
Thank you for the editorial regarding Palo Alto Airport. You are so right when you stated " It is difficult to imagine Palo Alto ... without the small planes gliding in. ..."
The aviation community is under no illusions that the City Council's actions on the 11th were the end of our quest for a secure future for PAO. We do feel, however, that it was a rather good beginning of the next chapter.
The county has been crying poor, in my opinion, not only because it doesn't make as much as it would like from the airport, but fundamentally because, due to the terms of the lease with the city, there is no incentive for them to show a profit at Palo Alto.
On the contrary, because the lease states that all money made at the Palo Alto Airport has to be used at the airport, it is in the county's interest to show the airport losing money, thus be in the county's debt.
When you point out that there is undeveloped land at the airport, and mention that it is doubtful it can be used, you confuse the Baylands Master Plan's call for no more intensification at the airport with the preclusion of any type of use. The land is part of the airport, and with smart, careful planning, there is no reason that these goals are incompatible.
The study undertaken by the Joint Community Relations Committee in 2003 had some very insightful observations in this regard. Any future plans for the airport will no doubt look at the study as a cornerstone.
To answer the question posed by the editorial's headline, there are several viable options for running the airport post 2017, when the lease with the county expires. And yes, one of them is for the City to take back control of its' airport, and run it successfully, just as more than 100 other cities in California do today.
Bob Lenox
Webster Street
Palo Alto
Prop. 13's sad legacy
Editor,
Nancy McGaraghan's July 20 column asserts that "Proposition 13 results in a disproportionate benefit to longterm homeowners."
By staying in the same home for 25 years, her property tax bill is far lower than the bills sent to her neighbors, because Proposition 13 limits the property tax to 1 percent of assessed value, a new assessment determined only when the the property is sold or improved, and limited to a rise of 2 percent per year.
McGaraghan's lament that her children can't afford to buy homes here, let alone face the unfair property tax system, reminds one of former California Chief Justice Rose Bird's statement against Proposition 13 -- which garnered 65 percent of the vote 1978.
When the state Supreme Court confirmed the constitutionality of Proposition 13, Bird argued in a minority opinion that such inequity of neighbors in comparable homes being assessed wildly different property tax amounts violated the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
"As the years go by," Bird wrote,"the skewed nature of the tax world created by Proposition 13 will become even more pronounced." How prescient she was!
While people like McGaraghan, who own the same house for decades, benefit mightily from the growing disparity in property tax assessments, the greatest beneficiaries of Proposition 13 continue to be longterm owners of large business properties.
Large business properties are sold far less frequently than residential homes change ownership, yet their values too are reassessed only when sold. Consider that in the first year after its passage, the Wall Street Journal claimed Proposition 13 saved Southern Pacific $20 million in taxes and Standard Oil of California about $47 million.
Proposition 13's legacy is a sorrowful one. In the first five years after it was enacted, California fell from 17th to 35th among the states in per-pupil spending for public education. Now it is among the very lowest in the nation.
As individual school districts attempt and sometimes succeed in passing bond measures to pay for the improvements once expected to be covered by state coffers, the disparity between rich and poor grows ever larger. No longer is public education anywhere close to an equal opportunity.
McGaraghan calls for putting Propostion 13 "back on the table." May she meet with success with the next administration.
Carol Maibach
Lassen Drive
Menlo Park
Knowing Judge Roberts
Editor,
The only thing we know about Judge Roberts is that he is a brilliant, well qualified jurist. As a nominee for the Supreme Court justice, America has a right to know where he stands on bringing this country forward.
This is a lifetime appointment, so we believe Americans deserve to know who the real Judge Roberts is; whether above all he will interpret the law by being fair and protect all Americans.
He is not going to be a judge for conservatives only but for all Americans. If he is an embodiment of these virtues he should, therefore, answer every question posed on him by the people of America through our Senate Judicial Committee, who will be acting on our behalf, the people of the United States of America.
Joy and John Barnes
Crocus Court
Sunnyvale
Where is Ken Starr?
Editor,
Where is Ken Starr, special prosecutor against Bill Clinton for an adult affair, now that we have an official in the White House who has committed treason?
In times of war, as we are now, anyone "outting" a CIA agent is guilty of treason. And I do believe that the minimum punishment is JAIL TIME. So let's all ask the Bush Administration to appoint Ken Starr to prosecute Karl Rove -- this time it's a REAL crime against America.
Donnasue Jacobi
Haight Street
Menlo Park
Rove's hand grenade?
Editor,
The scandal over the outing of Valerie Plame has been a hand grenade rolling down the halls of the White House for the last two years.
Now, ever so slowly, the grenade is stopping outside of Karl Rove's door, and Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is slowly pulling the pin. Rove will not get away unscathed this time.
This is the scandal that could take down the Bush Administration. Watch for McClellan to go. And if Rove doesn't follow, Bush may go, too.
The real crime here remains the sending of American men and women to Iraq on fictitious grounds.
Bambi Kokko
Makaala Drive
Wailuku, HI
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