Jun 25, 2008

Letters

Children's Theatre

Dear Editor: When I read of the original recommendations from the city of Palo Alto to fire Richard Curtis and Pat Briggs, I thought that it was over the top and that city administrators were overreacting or covering their own culpability in not monitoring the Children's Theatre expenditures properly. I thought cooler heads would prevail after the hearings and a more appropriate punishment to fit a minor infraction would be the final result.

I agree with the Friends of the Palo Alto Children's Theatre comments that firing Curtis on Monday was overly harsh and seemingly unfair to a 25-year employee. I guess the decision on Briggs may not have been made yet since she has a pretty aggressive attorney on her side. Hopefully both of these individuals will have full legal representation and take action against what appears to be blatant scapegoating by the city administration.

Stephan J. Dabrowski,

Palo Alto



Dumbarton rail

Dear Editor: Palo Alto City Council Member Yoriko Kishimoto defends the Dumbarton rail project and seeks to maintain the current funds for it (guest opinion, Sunday). The Santa Clara County grand jury disagrees with her. So do I. On behalf of Ms. Kishimoto, I want to say that she is by no means alone.

To run a train across the Bay, they would have to build a new bridge. The existing remains of the rail trestle have not been proven to be seismically adequate.

The High Speed Rail Authority, to which Ms. Kishimoto refers, understands that they would need a new bridge had they chosen the Altamont route, and had priced it at around $2 billion.

That's quite a bit more than the current total Dumbarton cost projection of $600 million. Perhaps that's why we haven't heard anything about a new bridge from Caltrain or the Dumbarton rail promoters. "Bait-and-switch" comes to mind. See also: http://netjournal.homestead.com/files/transit/dum/ dum-wci-i.html.

Martin Engel,

Menlo Park



Eminent domain

Dear Editor: Less than a week after Proposition 99 passed and Proposition 98 failed, Belmont proclaimed the possible need to use eminent domain to purchase commercial property such as a lumberyard and other property and turn this land over to The Bohannan Corp. to develop a more upscale hotel complex than that which is now at Ralston Avenue and Highway 101. Once again, a local government thinks it can do better than allow the free market to work. Certainly The Bohannan Corp., significant developers and landowners on the Peninsula, is qualified to negotiate a fair price with the landowners. The city hopes to gain additional tax revenue, but Belmont has established so-called "redevelopment districts" before with little if any benefit to the local citizens. The area south of Ralston Avenue at El Camino is in a redevelopment area and the only real beneficiary has been Safeway, which got extra land to expand a store when the city forced the closure - by seizure - of the numerous smaller businesses. They now are squandering $1 million to move and remodel the old Emmett House and make a duplex out of it. It is old but not historically significant; several times it had been rejected for historically significant designations.

The only other use of "redevelopment funds" from this district has been the remodeling of City Hall. City leaders now have decided it is too large to function only for city purposes and have a "for lease" sign on it. What other city hall is leasing out space? Meanwhile, sidewalks, streets, curbs and streetlights downtown are in disrepair. Redevelopment has a hollow meaning when the downtown is not being revitalized at all.

Let developers do their own work and their own negotiations. This is one more abuse of the eminent domain laws. Property is for sale when the price is right.

Stuart Hoffman,

Belmont



City in woeful state

Dear Editor: The arrogance of the Menlo Park City Council amazes me. There is vacant real estate on El Camino Real and many empty spaces in the downtown area and yet at least three of the sitting council members will not talk to developers, even Stanford University. The current El Camino Real visioning fiasco is nothing but wasted energy by the council and the no-growth lobby. I believe that the majority of residents are embarrassed by the state of the city.

Couple this with the outlandish raises given to city employees (with huge, unfunded pension benefits) and the state of the city has never been worse. I can only hope that a couple of street-smart residents who have very thick skins (since the unions will unfairly rip them apart) will oppose Mayor Andrew Cohen and Council Member Kelly Fergusson in November.

Patrick White,

Menlo Park

College Terrace work

Dear Editor: A story Monday stated that "In response to construction-weary College Terrace residents, city officials in Palo Alto plan to re-examine an experimental approach to coordinating utility and street resurfacing projects." I was taken aback by "experimental." Should this be an experiment? The highly paid utility and public works management apparently only need to "experiment" on coordination. After all, we are only talking about wasting taxpayers' money.

It seems like the utility department's management cannot even effectively manage its own projects. Your article went on to say that, according to [Christopher] Harris of College Terrace, crews dug up the same street twice, once to replace sewer lines under one contract and once to replace gas lines under a different contract. I would like to know when those contracts were signed and the period of performance on each. If infrastructure needs are this poorly handled, no wonder we have insufficient funds.

Bob Schulte,

Palo Alto



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