There's been a lot of talk lately about the meaning of the word "neighborhood." Council member Diane McNutt declared at a recent council meeting that a neighborhood is as far as someone would go to borrow a rake.
Mayor Steve Glickman opined that a neighborhood is how far someone would go to complain about somebody's kids.
Los Gatos is the kind of community where it's not surprising that council members would address such a topic.
That's why it is so jarring to learn of the way the Los GatosMonte Sereno Police Department responded when a clerk at a local shop reported that a girl she believed had shoplifted a skirt 10 days earlier was once again in the shop.
Certainly, the police should not have ignored the call, but why send two plainclothes officers and two uniformed police on a call like this?
What's even worse than handcuffing the 14-year-old girl on a busy street in her hometown—especially since this was not a crime in progress—is the way she was treated at the police station.
Telling a "perp" that you have a video tape of the crime being committed when in fact there is no video tape, may work on NYPD, but it seems more than a little inappropriate in a neighborly place like Los Gatos.
We understand that parents often defend their children no matter what, and that has long been a frustration of those who must discipline teens. Still, not notifying her parents that she was at police headquarters until after she had been Mirandized and questioned and released seems inappropriate as well.
Since Scott Seaman arrived in Los Gatos, he has treated teens with respect and has, in turn, earned their respect. Now he must act quickly to maintain the department's reputation.
Police may have been following procedure when they responded to the call at the local shop, but if current procedure makes what happened in this situation OK, well, something's not OK with current police procedure.
Wedding bells ring
The editorial pages of the Los Gatos Weekly-Times aren't the usual place for wedding announcements, and if editor Dick Sparrer were in town, it's unlikely such a breach of etiquette would occur. But the esteemed editor is not in town, so we'd like to announce:
On Aug. 7, Dick Sparrer and Natalie Dodd were married in a Hawaiian-themed outdoor wedding in Morgan Hill. Adult children of both served as attendants, and two of the bride's grandchildren scattered flowers as the bride was carried in a ceremonial chair to meet her groom.
Those of us who work with the groom could not be more pleased to see him so happy and so obviously in love. We hope you will join us in congratulating Dick and Natalie.
