Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor (August 27, 2004)

Consider Yick for superintendent

Editor:

I'm writing in response to your editorial, "MV-Whisman looking for a leader."

I raised three children in the Mountain View School District over 15 years, including my youngest, who graduated from Graham Middle School in 2001.

I met Eleanor Yick when she was superintendent of the Whisman District and I was a member of the year-long school district merger task force. Her professionalism and her passionate attitude toward district issues were remarkable. When the current district started looking for a new superintendent, I asked one of the current board members about Eleanor Yick. The board member pointed out to me that Yick was not a candidate because "she was too close to retirement."

As Eleanor Yick is still having an impact on our district today, I urge the board to reconsider and start talking to a very devoted, hard-working and passionate member of our current district.

She knows the difficult issues we face: a multicultural and economically widespread community clashing with the demands of state and parent expectations, the budget problems and the fluctuating enrollment due to the economic changes. She was also personally involved in the successful merger of the two school districts.

I believe Eleanor Yick deserves a second chance -- I am certain she would honestly decline if she indeed is thinking about retirement. Our district needs stability above everything else.

Chris Hildebrand
Villa Nueva Court

City needs more affordable housing

Editor:

I am writing to voice my support for the development of housing at the Mayfield site. I think Mountain View would benefit most from the development of affordable housing. I am disappointed to find that the leading prospective developer, Toll Brothers, is known as "America's Luxury Home Builder." Mountain View has not built a single unit of housing affordable to people of average or below average income since 1999 -- we do not need any more high-cost housing.

The San Jose Mercury News reported on July 10 that the cost of homes in the 94043 zip code alone, which includes the Monta Loma neighborhood where the site is located, went up by a huge 40 percent from 2002 to 2003. The median price for a home in Mountain View is $770,000.

This alarming upward trend in price is not going to end anytime soon. These skyrocketing prices mean friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, church members and others will keep moving out of Mountain View because they cannot afford to purchase a home here.

I would like to see the city of Mountain View work with Hewlett-Packard, the site's owner, to sell or donate a large amount of the property to one of the excellent local nonprofit organizations that build and manage affordable housing so that people who work in retail, teach elementary school, drive delivery trucks, take care of children, provide gardening services, work for community service organizations or live on a fixed income due to age or disability, can live in Mountain View.

The Mayfield site offers a great opportunity to provide more rental or ownership units affordable to a wide cross-section of the people that make Mountain View a great place to live and who contribute vitally to our city but do not make the $143,000 annual salary necessary to purchase a median-priced home in Mountain View or the salary needed to rent a typical two-bedroom apartment at $1,678 a month.

Let's keep Mountain View diverse and livable; let's make affordable housing a priority.

Lori Abrahamsohn
N. Rengstorff Avenue

Too many have died in Iraq war

Editor:

As a Vietnam-era Veteran, I am against America going to war needlessly and wrongfully. We all can remember what such a war can do to our nation, leaving scars both physical and spiritual for generations.

Now we are in another wrong war, this time in Iraq. Soon we will pass a tragic milestone of that war -- we will have suffered our 1,000th American life lost.

Please take a moment to pause and reflect on that loss, and to think of how many more will die before this nightmare is over. If you want to know what the loss rate is, at any time, you can see it at www.iCasualties.org on the Internet. Look in on that Web site and say a prayer for all those who have died and will die in Iraq.

John Cormode
Franklin Avenue

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