Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor (October 08, 2004)

Beware of special interest candidates

Editor:

While there appear to be grave differences between the major party candidates for President/Vice President and U.S. Senate, the races for local offices on the Nov. 2 ballot may or may not offer residents a reason to get involved. In many cases, no one ran to create any choice of candidates, and there are only six candidates for four seats on the Mountain View City Council.

Maybe some candidates for city council are better or worse than others. I did see in the Voice's Sept. 10 issue that the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce had endorsed four candidates. Not endorsed were Tom Means and Stephanie Schaaf.

It should be remembered that the chamber receives "free" ($1/year) office rent from the city and has sought a new and bigger office building at city expense. Moreover, the chamber supported Home Depot's measure to establish a giant "big-box" at the former Emporium site (rejected by voters 2-1). What's good for the chamber may not be what's good for our residents. The opposite is more likely.

Any candidate who sought and received the chamber's endorsement is suspect in my book. Certainly, the chamber would be unlikely to endorse a candidate who would actually question the career power-mongers who really run City Hall (i.e., City Manager Kevin Duggan and City Attorney Michael Martello).

Also unlikely to question the city manager and city attorney is a candidate who is seeking (or plans to seek) discretionary approval of a project from City Hall. As the Voice knows, I have requested a copy of any such recent application by a candidate or legal entity in which the candidate has an interest. Newspapers should routinely inquire into such private interests of candidates for public office.

Gary B. Wesley
Continental Circle

Los Altos stance on bike path hurts cyclists

Editor:

Last week's issue contains two stories that asked the question, "What's wrong with this picture?" On page 1 was "Drivers in court for killing cyclists" and on page 5 is "Los Altos kills (bicycle) path plan."

I use the existing bike path between Los Altos Avenue and Arastradero Road several times a week. The bike path extension would have been wonderful. Street-side bike lanes are no protection against inattentive drivers. Tod Gamlen of Via del Pozo and his selfish neighbors can be ashamed of themselves for exerting their time and money on denying this gift to the cycling and pedestrian public.

Randy Rhody
Linden Avenue

E-mail a friend a link to this story.