Dear City Council Members:
 
I don't know if any of you were able to stay at the Hillview School
Meeting last night (1/30/07) until 11pm when the discussion finally
finished. I want to make sure that you know that they are going forward
with Option D which puts a new school building on the current field.
 
The good news is that the official drop off and pick up area has been
moved from their original plan to enter and exit off Elder. The bad
news is that there is a parking lot for 115 cars that enters and exits
on Santa Cruz. In addition, the nearest spot to drop off a child that
is running late is on the Santa Cruz Avenue shoulder.
 
I am extremely concerned about the safety of pedestrians and bike riders
on Santa Cruz. I expressed those concerns in detail in an earlier email
to you and at the meeting last night. The response from the school
board was that the safety of the children riding to school was the City
Council's responsibility, not theirs.
 
I want to make sure that you realize that more residents of Menlo Park
will be injured because of moving this school building closer to the
dangerous Santa Cruz shoulder and the dangerous intersection of Santa
Cruz and Olive.
 
Given the budget crisis that the city faces, I am concerned that you
will not have the funds to adequately protect our children. Here is a
list of what you will need to pay for:
 
1) Sidewalk on at least one side of Santa Cruz Avenue from Saint
Raymond's Church to school.
2) Underground or bridge access so that the children do have have to
cross the entrance to the parking lot.
3) Crossing guards for both crosswalks at Olive.
4) Signal light for Olive
(This will be a tricky and dangerous one, sort of like the Menlo and
University (Draegers) intersection since Hillview and Olive sort of
match up but don't exactly.)
5) Barrier between bikes and traffic on Santa Cruz so that bikes are
more protected along the street.
6) No parking signs on Santa Cruz
7) No parking signs on Olive, Hillview, Hobart and Cotton at the corners
and a few feet down for visibility.
 
This list seems very expensive to me. If I were on the city council, I
would ask the school to help pay for some of this. However, the clear
message I got last night is that the district is going to build the
school on the field, and the city council is going to have to figure out
a safe way for kids to get to school.
 
They acknowledged that my concerns about safety were valid and asked me
to work with you and the staff on the issue, but it had no bearing on
their decision of where to place the school.
 
Please contact me for further details or for any questions you might
have.
Thank you for your time and concern!
Carolyn Bowsher
Csbowsher@aol.com <mailto:Csbowsher@aol.com>
 
Received on Wed Jan 31 20:56:52 2007