[Posted by Moderator]
From: Didi Fisher <didifisher@comcast.net>
To: 'Athertonians Moderator' <athertonians_moderator@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2012 3:50 PM
Subject: Urgent: Your Quick Reply Required
From: Didi Fisher <didifisher@comcast.net>
To: 'Athertonians Moderator' <athertonians_moderator@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2012 3:50 PM
Subject: Urgent: Your Quick Reply Required
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Before we all go off for the summer to our retreats and vacations, we
wanted to give you a quick update on the response to our earlier message. You
should know that hundreds of Atherton residents responded to our earlier message
to express their support for the right of residents to vote on whether or not
to move the library.
Unfortunately, at this time, three council members—Kathy McKeithen, Jim
Dobbie and Mayor Widmer—continue to appear determined to make that final
decision themselves, over the objections of fellow council members Carlson and
Lewis and hundreds of residents!
Distilled down, one single swing vote will enable the Library group to assert its
preference over that of the town. Alternatively, a fair-minded swing vote could
recognize the appropriateness of permitting residents (who have consistently
expressed concerns with the problematic process used to come to this decision)
to have a vote on the location issue. If this were to happen, we could resolve
all the controversy and engage in a formal, democratic process to make an
informed decision as a community that everyone can live with.
We believe only Mayor Widmer is likely to be open-minded at this time. Thus, we
are hoping to collect clear responses from nearly all Atherton residents
and present these to him personally. Therefore, everyone, please take 30
seconds to respond to this message by clicking "Reply" above and then writing in
your responses to the following two questions:
1. Do you agree with the council's decision to move the library to the
park? (Yes or No)
2. Do you think residents should be able to vote on whether or not to
move the library to the park? (Yes or No)
Optional: Add any comments that you would like to share with us or Mayor
Widmer.
Name(s):
Address:
Please Reply by Friday, June 1st. Also, if you know of other
residents who are not on email, include their name and address in your reply and
we will mail them this message as a letter.
Thank you very much!
Didi Fisher
From: charles marsala
ReplyDeleteDate: May 29, 2012 7:18:25 AM PDT
To: Athertonians Moderator, , Theresa DellaSanta
Cc: "bwidmer@ci.atherton.ca.us"
Subject: Re: [Athertonians] Urgent: Your Quick
Dear Mayor Widmer,
I believe it was at the December 2011 Council Meeting you abstained on the motion to follow the Recommendation of the Park and Recreation Commission to have a survey or vote of the residents of Atherton regarding moving and expanding the library to Holbrook-Palmer Park. Needing three votes to pass the motion failed 2-2-1. Councilmembers Lewis and Carlson were in favor with Dobbie and McKeithen opposed. Normally Atherton council meetings have few people attending, this meeting had scores of people advocating the town vote.
Previously you were part of a 3-2 vote to move the library to the park. You replaced me after I retired from the council in December 2010 after eight years. I would have voted to allow the residents of the town to vote on the matter. You should consider that former council members Fisher, Janz, Dudley, would have also allowed the town to vote on the issue. In fact there not one former council member or Mayor that would not have allowed the town to vote on the matter.
I encourage you at the June council meeting to announce you want to move your vote from "abstaining" to "in favor" of a town vote.
Granted Atherton has more than $5,000,000 in reserves that has to be used for a library purposes. My understanding is that moving the library to the park will require a traffic light on Middlefield and turn lane at El Camino. Can library funds be used for traffic signals, road expansion and upkeep?
The Park shuts down at sunset, which is 5pm in the Winter. The library is open past 5pm. Can library funds be used for the extra police services needed to support the larger library and those who will stay in the park after sunset?
At the April council meeting I proposed that Atherton simply use the funds to improve the current library. If it makes sense consider these other uses with the surplus:
1. Do a joint venture with Menlo College (San Jose did this with San Jose State). Expand the Menlo College Library and have Menlo College offer classes to Atherton residents at a reduced rate.
2. The library has done a great job with events. Use some of the money to connect current council chambers to the existing library to be used as an auditorium for those events.
3. Atherton has a great history, use some of the money to display Atherton heritage.
Maybe these ideas are not the view of a majority of the residents of Atherton. However they were not reviewed and it is clear that a large number of residents do not favor placing the library in the park.
For the council to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in EIRs and other studies to move the library to the park without spending the few thousand dollars to do an electronic survey of the residents or a mail in vote is not prudent and is not being a good steward of the town's assets.
Remember your web site and campaign slogan "Expect More...Budget Minded Independent Listening Leader." Listen to desires of the residents of Atherton and lead by not abstaining on a vote to provide for a town vote on the library in the park. Vote "Yes" on the survey and listen to the voice of the people.
Regards,
Charles Marsala
From: Bill Widmer
DeleteTo: 'charles marsala'
Cc: 'Didi Fisher' ; 'Valerie Gardner' ; 'Philip Lively'
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2012 9:18 AM
Subject: Meeting follow up
Hi Charles,
It was nice to see you again at Didi’s home yesterday. I appreciate the opportunity to meet and hear the input from the residents which help me formulate decisions. As mentioned in earlier emails, I appreciate the openness and the fairness you showed during your tenure on the Council. I will be taking some action as a follow up to our meeting, action which, as discussed I was already pushing for.
As you know, being in the middle is always difficult but decisions need to be made. That said, I want to express my deep disappointment in your alleged participation in and/or propagation of the disgraceful website attack on Ms McKeithen which also contained inaccurate and inappropriate attacks on other Council members including myself. I am writing this to you as I understand that this anonymously authored attack’s URL [http://kathymckeithen.wordpress.com] (wordpress document) was posted on your Facebook page. As you can imagine, such attacks do not assist in moving people’s positions but rather embolden them, which it not a way to build a team. Had I become aware of these before our meeting I would have been pleased to bring them over to the meeting in order to see if the others who attended supported this attack. That would be an interesting survey.
I can anticipate that one may deny participation of any of the posting, but as in the case of any cyber bullying, passing it on, or posting it implies endorsement of the content and the sender or poster becomes as responsible as the developer. If, however this was done in error, I ask you and your associates to remove any such links to the URL.
I hope that you can agree with my position that this “blood sport” is getting out of hand. Open and factual discussion is a good thing and it is difficult to argue with. Unsubstantiated, distasteful and personal attacks, such as are contained in this URL are not appropriate. I appeal to your honor, as a southern gentlemen to at least do your part in curtailing this senseless and harmful process and to encourage others you suspect may also be associated with this (as you had to get the URL from someone) to do the same.
I hope you had a happy birthday, Charles.
Thx for hearing me out.
Best Regards,
Bill
I agree with all that Charles Marsala has said. It simply makes sense, and we can all look back years from now and be happy with the decision, instead of being uncomfortable because the right thing wasn't done.
ReplyDeleteMargaret Winters
Mr. Marsala astutely articulated the opinion of many residents, including mine.
ReplyDeleteLet the people have the final word.
Mark Balestra
50-year resident of the Town
Re Library
ReplyDeleteAs a resident of Atherton I am strongly opposed to a new library. Furthermore I resent the fact I the proponent s do not want to let me vote on the subject. I am strongly in favor of the vote.
1. NO, and 2. An emphatic YES.
ReplyDeleteLeft turns on to Middlefield and El Camino from Watkins are a problem now. Library traffic from HP Park will make that much worse, especially onto El Camino with the ill advised empty medical building making the turn hazardous.
Access to the present library is a breeze with multiple entry and exit streets.
The large MP and RC libraries are also convenient for Atherton residents.
Whatever happened to "Majority Rules" and "Government BY the people and for the people?"
Dave Heppberger
Frequent Library User
Mr. Marsala:
ReplyDeleteVery good letter. I do not understand why any Council member is opposed to a vote of the Town's citizens.
Jeff Cunningham
129 Karen Way
Atherton, CA
In response to your questions re: the library, our thoughts are as
ReplyDeletefollows:
1) No, we do NOT support the council's decision to move the library
to the park. Nor do we believe the council should have the power to make
this decision.
2) Absolutely the residents shout have a voice and right to
vote on this important matter.
Thank you for working to give the residents a vote.
Patty. Jim and Katie Greene
Lindenwood
Dear Athertonians:
ReplyDeleteI do NOT agree with the council's decision to move the Atherton library to the park. We need the open, beautiful space.
And Yes, residents should vote on this issue. This decision belongs to all of the residents in Atherton
Cristina Cantu-Diaz
I strongly disagree with the plan to relocate the library to the park and have written about this at length previously. I can forward you my original email.
ReplyDeleteWe are fortunate to have a beautiful open space. This is unique and cannot be replicated. There are many options for the library building, including its current location.
I cannot understand the rationale for disrupting the park, which provides great pleasure to many people not just a privileged few residents. I had always thought that town of Atherton placed great value on preserving the beauty and integrity of our land so am bewildered by this proposal.
In any event I cannot see any justification for not allowing Atherton residents to have a say in this matter.
Like many of my neighbors, I have deep misgivings about the proposal to build a new library in our beautiful park. The process by which this proposal has moved forward has stimulated much comment, and I won't repeat it, although I will point out that Mr. Widmer's craven abstention on the motion to survey the Town's residents speaks volumes about his capabilities as a leader.
ReplyDeleteI will make an observation or two about the likely outcome. Many residents have raised concerns about potential traffic and parking congestion that could develop around Holbrook-Palmer Park. These concerns are valid under the assumption that the new library would attract significant utilization. I believe this scenario is optimistic. Realistically, with attractive, accessible County facilities in both Menlo Park and Redwood City, a new Atherton library might receive far less traffic than its proponents envision. But whether a new library ended up becoming the Widmer Traffic Snarl or the McKeithen White Elephant, it would be a bad outcome.
In my view, it's also an embarrassment that we, in one of the leading communities in Silicon Valley, are even considering investing so much money and space in what is essentially a 19th-Century edifice. Imagine instead what our Town could do by applying the dedicated library funds toward the development of 21st-Century public information resources that could be the model for communities around the world.
Jonathan Tiemann
McCormick Lane