Almond Grove is a wonderful place at Halloween, and we are deep in the midst of competing with the neighbors for the best decorations. We and our neighbors also give generously—500 to 1,000 pieces of candy given away per house in this area is the norm, not the exception. It is a great time to be here, and the closer it gets to Halloween, the better the displays get, and the more excited the children, including our 8-year-old son, become.

However, sometime on Oct. 19, 10 pumpkins were stolen from our front porch on Massol Avenue. The thief or thieves opened the gate to our yard, walked up on the front porch and walked away with 10 pumpkins. This theft would be bad enough if it were just our display that had been vandalized. However, these pumpkins were not intended to stay at our house—they were intended for our son's third-grade class.

Theft of any kind is deplorable. In this case I cannot help but feel very angry. Whoever stole these pumpkins had to realize that they were stealing from a child. In all likelihood, the pumpkins were stolen as a prank by a group of young adults who could doubtlessly care less about the tears of my 8-year-old who personally picked out each of those pumpkins with specific classmates in mind. What sort of people could consider this vandalism acceptable or even funny?

I hope that whoever did this will have an ounce of self-respect remaining and return the pumpkins. And if anyone has heard anything about this act, we would appreciate a phone call [408.395.2981] or one to the police.

—Charles White and Julia Miller, Los Gatos


More lighting should be part of Manor plan

My husband and I often walk after dinner on Farley Road and nearby streets in Blossom Manor. By then the volume of cars is very low. Yet it's very dark overall. More lighting, in some form, should be part of the neighborhood traffic plan.

—Joanne Hall, Los Gatos


One Manor solution—just slow down

The recent traffic-calming meeting held for Blossom Manor residents was crowded with residents who had heated remarks regarding the plans for bulbouts on Farley Road. Farley residents fought a long, hard battle to get these measures approved, but residents on adjoining streets were concerned that these measures would increase traffic down their streets.

With a very limited budget, residents wanted to be sure that their street received their share of the fund. The basic problem is that there is a lot of speeding traffic on the streets of the Manor, and many residents have reached a breaking point. They are angry, and there is not enough money for traffic calming on all of our streets.

Blossom Manor is a diverse neighborhood, full of young families with children and pets. There are many walkers and bikers on our streets. Many children play in their driveways and front yards with other neighborhood kids, and ride their bikes in front of their homes. These things make the Manor a great neighborhood. But it is also becoming a dangerous neighborhood due to speeders.

The solution is simple and free. We must all slow down on our residential streets. It is not only safer, but also quieter. Whether you are a resident, a visitor or taking a shortcut through the neighborhood, please observe the speed limit. Watch your speedometer. Think of slowing down even more when you see children, pets, walkers and bikers. Any cars behind you will also be forced to slow down.

Ask your spouse and driving teens and their friends to slow down. The small amount of time saved by speeding is not worth the risk of hitting a pedestrian or bike rider and will greatly improve the quality of life in our neighborhood.

Perhaps this is an overly simplistic solution to the problem, but it is free. It doesn't involve county planning and spending. If we work together as a neighborhood to raise awareness of the problem, and we all do our best to drive at a safe and legal speed, then we are a step closer to making traffic calming a reality.

—Cynthia Butler, Los Gatos


Larger Union schools should remain open

Since [the Union School District] has never reopened a school [it has closed], it is important that future physical room for expansion be taken into account in the closure criteria. The total parcel size is important for both the community and the kids. The school district should publish the total acreage and number of classrooms per school on the district website. Some sites seem already built out by cursory visual examination.

I have driven to every Union school in the past week, including some of the closed sites. The Mirassou school site, which is closed, and Alta Vista seem to be among the largest in parcel size. Some of the other sites such as Oster, Lone Hill, etc., have parcel sizes that are quite small and have very limited room for expansion in the future. That is, if we want to have playing fields and other amenities for our kids and the community.

If we are to be forced by low state funding to cram our children into elementary schools of 600 to 800 by gradually whittling down our number of elementary schools, we should keep the largest physical sites open and accessible. They should be somewhere we could eventually build real classrooms for them, not just the easiest place to park a few portables for next fall. We are going to be living with this closure decision for a long time and need to think beyond the present.

Schools that may have physically fewer classrooms now can be made larger if there is the space to build. You can build classrooms, but USD will probably never be able to buy more land within its boundaries due to the cost of real estate and lack of available property. USD's school parcel sizes and locations are fixed for many decades to come.

USD has a huge renovation and construction effort in progress, which is intended to upgrade all sites. They started with the worst sites, so the schools which were better maintained and younger have had less work completed. Many of the physical criteria such as bathroom size, etc., are already planned for improvement. Bond issue money is available to improve the sites. To buy more portables is misuse of the construction bond money many worked so hard to pass in USD. Those "relocatables" could be there a long, long time, especially, since the school district leases out its property on 10-year leases.

To potentially move kids to an older, smaller school that might happen to have a bigger teacher lounge already completed is really absurd. Renovation money is available to improve a site and some of these renovations were already planned. I am totally against spending money to buy new portables instead of new classrooms.

USD has portables all over the place at schools currently under construction. This construction will be complete soon—why do they need to purchase new portables? So they can justify keeping kids in "relocatables" longer because we just bought them? And we can't reopen a school because it is leased?

The school attendance area boundaries in USD remain where they were in the early 1980s, which is the last time USD closed schools. If we measure size by SARC data of 2002 on the USD website, Oster and Lone Hill are the smallest in enrollment, followed by Guadalupe, Alta Vista, and Carlton.

Many parents have chosen to transfer to within the district to schools they prefer for geographic and/or academic reasons. Some schools would have even more transfers in if there were available seats. The closure criteria adopted places these families into their pre-transfer attendance areas, negating the school choice they have already exercised. The transfers should be counted in the schools they have chosen. Some of the closure criteria seems very shortsighted to me as a district resident.

—Connie Beck,

Los Gatos


Patriot Act should be rejected

Our president has proposed an expansion of the USA Patriot Act's law-enforcement powers. This expansion of power would significantly undermine the fundamental liberties guaranteed to all citizens by the Constitution. The League of Women Voters, in a statement by Kay Maxwell, president of the National League, calls on Congress to reject the administration's attempt to limit Americans' freedoms.

The local League is very concerned with the administration's plan, which would allow subpoenas to be issued without obtaining approval from judges or grand juries, and make it legal to hold suspects without bail. We believe that it is up to Congress to keep close watch over the Patriot Act's implementation and that they must address instances where citizens' freedoms have been abused.

In memory of those who lost their lives on Sept. 11, we must stand together to protect and strengthen the American way of life. We must defend our democratic system of good government that our adversaries would so like to destroy.

The administration and Congress must protect our homeland through means that protect our civil liberties, rather than chipping away at the basic values for which America stands.

—Patricia M. Weber, President of Southwest Santa Clara Valley, League of Women Voters