I would like to follow up on Darlene Scher's letter (Los Gatos Weekly-Times, Feb. 12, "Lack of sidewalk on Blossom Hill is dangerous"). She identified the lack of response from the Los Gatos Department of Parks and Public Works and suggests this is partly caused by too great an emphasis on downtown businesses and not enough on the voting public.

I, too, wrote, several months ago, to our public services—to the Los Gatos­Monte Sereno Police Department and also to the Los Gatos Parking Commission—and, like Ms. Scher, have failed to get any response, not even an acknowledgement. I wrote, as a disabled person, about the apparent lack of enforcement of misuse of disabled parking spaces and how this seemed to be a regular event at certain busy times.

Maybe, in my case, they are doing all that they can within their resources or it is someone else's responsibility, but an acknowledgement, at least, would have been nice. It would have reaffirmed my old-fashioned belief that public services are there to provide services to the public, in line with the priorities set by their elected representatives. I have to assume that one of these priorities is to treat the public they serve with respect. The public is not the Chamber of Commerce, and Mayor Sandy Decker's decision to make the State of the Town message to the public rather than to the Chamber augurs well for an increase in this much-needed respect.

—Ray Clark, Chestnut Avenue


KCAT is airing town council meeting live

Thank you for the Feb. 12 article announcing the cablecast of Los Gatos Town Council meetings on KCAT TV-15, the community cable access station. We are very happy to be able to achieve this longstanding goal and invite members of the community to take advantage of this new service.

KCAT will air each town council meeting live, with a repeat cablecast at noon on the Saturday following each meeting. KCAT can be viewed on Channel 15 on AT&T/Comcast cable in Los Gatos and Monte Sereno. Our complete cablecast schedule can be viewed on our website at www.kcat.org.

We are very grateful for the coverage and editorial support the Los Gatos Weekly-Times has offered for this effort. We do, however, want to correct a statement in the Feb. 12 article regarding plans to provide coverage of planning commission meetings. At this time KCAT has only been contracted to air meetings of the town council. While we hope to eventually provide coverage of planning commission meetings, that is not part of the current agreement.

Our thanks to members of the town council, city staff and members of the community for their support of this project. We believe this is a valuable new community service and look forward to providing it.

—George Sampson, Station Manager, KCAT TV-15


Writer unfairly called hunter a 'redneck'

A couple of weeks ago, M. Sheehan responded to two feature stories you published by asking readers to pick which person they would rather live next to: a person who catches insects to study, or, to use her words, a "redneck hunter."

She made a point of observing how different we all are and then proceeded to vilify someone who likes to hunt, someone who enjoys a legal sport.

If she had made this same negative comparison about someone along ethnic lines, her letter would never have been printed. Is this open season on "rednecks" (i.e., people who like hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities)?

Since I usually don't make sweeping judgements about people based on one feature story in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, I can't answer her question about who I'd most like to have as a neighbor, but from the writer's accusatory tone, I know who I would not want to have for a neighbor.

—D. Courtright, Los Gatos

CORRECTIONS

There was an error in the Feb. 12 story, "Cameras rolling—Los Gatos council meetings going live." The station hopes to eventually provide coverage of planning commission meetings, but no formal agreement has been reached between the town and the TV station.

The Feb. 19 article "Planning approves architecture, site for Canyon Oaks project" contained an error. The individual units of the project are for rental, not for purchase.