June, 1999 editor: Larry Ames

The Los Gatos Creek Trail comes to Willow Glen! Come to the ribbon cutting, followed by snacks and a tour, as the City of San Jose dedicates the new Meridian Avenue to Leigh Avenue segment of the popular recreational trail. The ceremony will take place

1970 Willow Street (about a half mile west of Meridian).

(click here for map of trail in San Jose)

(click here for map showing trail to Los Gatos)

The opening of the trail also publicly opens the Santa Clara Valley Water District land that has been the site of the WGNA Urban Stream Restoration Project these past several years. To mark the occasion, WGNA is giving a drinking fountain to the friends and residents of San Jose. (The promised "pet fountain" was inadvertently omitted: we are now looking into retrofits...)

The Los Gatos Creek Trail is a major link in the developing county-wide recreational trail network. It presently starts at the Bay Area Ridge Trail at Lexington Reservoir, and runs along the creek through the Town of Los Gatos, Campbell, and into the Willow Glen district of San Jose. The trail is slated to continue on to downtown San Jose, where it will join the Guadalupe River Trail, which in turn will connect with the Bay Trail at Alviso. Along the way, the Los Gatos Creek trail goes from Lexington County Park, through Vasona County Park, Los Gatos Creek County Park, and Campbell city park, and soon will go to San Jose's Confluence Point park at the Arena.

The new segment of the trail is roughly 3/4ths of a mile long, behind the Willowbrook Townehomes complex on Stokes Avenue. From current terminus at Blackford Elementary School, the trail crosses the creek on a 150' single-span bridge to the left (northwest) bank, which it follows on down to Meridian.

The total Los Gatos Creek Trail will eventually be about 12 miles long. Like most of the trail, the new trail segment is paved and free of vehicular traffic, totally separated from any roads. However, due to existing residential development, the next segment downstream (the Meridian to Lincoln Avenue section) is routed along sidewalks and bike lanes.

The new segment of the Los Gatos Creek Trail crosses that portion of the SCVWD land that was recently restored by the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association (WGNA). WGNA used a grant from the California Department of Water Resources to undertake an erosion-control and habitat-restoration project in 1993 - 1996, for which volunteers planted roughly a thousand native trees and shrubs. The plantings are now established, and have transformed a formerly barren lot into a greenway. The City and the SCVWD worked out a Joint Use Agreement, by which the dedication of the trail opens this land up to the public, creating roughly eight acres of new public openspace.

• Mid 1970's: residents of Campbell work with city of Campbell to get a "Par Course" exercise trail built along section of creek
• Late 1970's: County Supervisor Rod Diridon sponsors creation of an interjurisdictional task force, the Los Gatos Creek Streamside Park Committee. Don Hebard serves as the chair for over 20 years.
• 1985: City of San Jose, at request of Councilmember Nancy Ianni, creates Los Gatos Creek Trail Master Plan for San Jose's portion of trail.
• 1993: Willow Glen Neighborhood Association wins a Department of Water Resources grant for a community-based erosion-control and habitat-restoration project between Leigh and Meridian. Project completed 1996.
• 1998: City of San Jose begins construction of bridge and trail through reach.
• June 26, 1999: Trail completed and dedicated.

Dear WGNA Membership:

On behalf of the new WGNA board members and myself, thanks to all of you who took the time to vote in the recent board elections.

Although the act of voting is deceptively simple, to those who are elected, it provides the authority needed to work as volunteers on your behalf. Please be assured that the recently elected Board is composed of talented and dedicated individuals will represent Willow Glen in the best manner possible. I am proud to be serving with them.

We also appreciate your strong support at the general membership meeting for the development of effective design review for Willow Glen. Your voice on this important issue is having an impact (see story by Kris Cunningham, Immediate Past President). This subject will likely take up a great deal of our time in the coming months.

In terms of immediate actions, we will be conducting a general review of WGNA's bylaws. The direction for this activity was your overwhelming affirmative vote to amend the by-laws to protect against potential efforts by special interests to disrupt WGNA. Our review will be guided by your vote.

Please note that the Honorable Supervisor Blanca Alvarado will attend an upcoming meeting to describe renovation efforts for the Fairgrounds including the indoor entertainment facility. Also in the coming months we hope to hold a "Meet the San Jose Police Chief" with Chief Bill Lansdowne.

Lastly, on June 26th, the section of the Los Gatos Creek Trail that connects to Willow Glen will open (see story by Board member Larry Ames). Congratulations to support of WGNA members and specifically to board member Larry Ames for his years hard work and dedication. For details of these upcoming events or if you have suggestion on any of these events, call our information line at 408/294-WGNA or visit our web site at www.wgna.net.

Through your support WGNA continues to make contributions to Willow Glen's quality of life. Willow Glen is a great neighborhood because of the great people who live here. I ask that we all take a moment at our next opportunity to intentionally say "Hello" or "Good Morning" to the next person we encounter. These small gestures are vitally important in maintaining the goodness of our neighborhoods.

Sincerely,

J. Michael Gonzales, President

"The Glen", which advertises itself as a "large sports bar", is requesting a 2:00 AM closing time and an entertainment permit. The City of San Jose Guidelines for Evaluation of Nightclubs and Bars (Policy Number 6-23, section 1a, 1b, and 1d) restricts this type of use in residential Neighborhood Business Districts (NBD). According to the City of San Jose's General Plan, nightclubs and such establishments are encouraged to be located in the Downtown Core area. The 2 AM closing request is in contradiction to the City of San Jose 24-Hour Use Policy, which was implemented in 1995 specifically to protect surrounding residents. The San Jose Downtown area is only a few minutes from Willow Glen, and serves as the late-night entertainment district for all of the City of San Jose.

Residents living close to Lincoln Avenue understand that they will be impacted by their proximity to a business district: they all knew that when the moved there. What others must remember is that it is a neighborhood business district, not the downtown core, and it is supposed to be (and has always has been) limited in its hours and scope: it is treated differently by the city codes. Therefore, the WGNA Board supports the nearby residents' entreaties that the City enforce their codes and policies to ensure protection from the late-night activities.

Neighbors in Willow Glen and visitors attending the Dancing on the Avenue event were offered $12 or $25 coupons by The Glen in exchange for their signature on a form letter supporting The Glen's intent to extend the hours of their nightclub/bar from midnight to 2 AM. We find this method of garnering support offensive - it is akin to buying votes.

The matter of The Glen's hours is on the June 23rd Planning Commission agenda. If the Glen is granted a 2 AM closing, this would set a precedent that we feel would negatively affect Willow Glen and other San Jose neighborhoods. This would open the door for other and future nightclubs, bars and live-entertainment facilities on Lincoln Avenue, and any other Neighborhood Business District. WGNA will continue to monitor the situation and represent our members.

WGNA's experiment in the world of electronic neighborhood community building is a success! Sixty-some members have signed up so far. Topics have ranged from furniture-for-sale and notices of block sales, to requests for recommendations for housekeepers, to a rambling discussion on the history of the Los Gatos Creek Trail, WGNA, and the once-proposed Cherry Avenue Bridge. Anyone is welcome to join (provided they follow some basic guidelines and common courtesies), after which they can post messages for all in the community to read.

In response to consumer demand, we have initiated a "digest mode" in addition to the normal "real-time" mode. In digest mode, you'll get a single email (at midnight) listing the various postings of the day. This is especially handy if you read email at work, and don't want to be interrupted by new postings. You can call up the digest at your convenience, skim the topics, and read just what is of interest. For home use, you can use the normal mode, and possibly even engage in online party-line conversations.

To sign up for elist, email to admin@wgna.net with the subject "add elist". To change to the digest mode, email to the same address with the subject "digest elist", and we'll try to accommodate within a couple days. It's a great way to keep abreast of the local going's on!

You may have heard that WGNA was recently confronted with a conundrum, the resolution of which is still unfolding.

The issue was how to process the 75 membership applications collected by an individual at a local business and then delivered en mass along with two $5 checks and an insufficient pile of cash.

While we knew that that individual had a few applications for us (she had called the WGNA President repeatedly), we had no inkling as to the scope of her efforts. We welcome her, or anyone, to distribute WGNA membership applications, but we did not authorized her, nor anyone else, to collect membership dues on our behalf.

WGNA always welcomes new members. As it says right on our application form, memberships are for anyone "interested in Willow Glen and in neighborhood enhancement, preservation, or land use issues such as planning, traffic, safety, open space, park, or recreation." As reported elsewhere in this newsletter, you, our members, did just amend our by-laws last month to confirm that anyone may join, but that only residents or residential landowners in Willow Glen would be eligible to vote in future WGNA elections.

We were troubled by the stack of 75 applications for a number of reasons:

1. There was no correlation between application and dues - in many cases we couldn't determine who wanted individual memberships and who wanted household memberships.
2. There was insufficient cash. If it had been off by a couple bucks, we would have made up the difference, but the shortfall was well over a hundred dollars. Our dues basically just balance the cost of printing and mailing the newsletters and fliers, along with meeting hall rental and a few incidental expenses. For us to accept the pile of applications would have meant that our existing members would have had to subsidize the additional mailings.
3. We were concerned that a number of the applications themselves were unusual. For example, about 2/3rds of the applicants, who reportedly just "walked-in" to a local shop and decided to join WGNA, had addresses outside of Willow Glen, some from as far away as the Sacramento area, while several others gave a local print-shop or bar as the home address. WGNA has always presented itself as an association for Willow Glen residents: we appreciate that there are business owners and employees with concerns as well, but they have their own association - the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association (with which we maintain a good working relationship).
4. The applications came in an unusual manner. Our application form requests that the dues be paid by check or money order, and that the completed form be mailed to the WGNA post office box. We do take cash at some events (general meetings, Founder's Day, etc.), but we always match each transaction with the corresponding application, and we always give a receipt.

For these reasons, the WGNA Treasurer sent a letter to each applicant, asking for clarification. Only about 10% of the applicants have responded, and about half of those denied or declined WGNA membership. Those who have responded in the affirmative have been given memberships. Note: at about this same time, we received a number of applications directly to the WGNA PO box: they were all accepted, as were the two applicants above who paid by check, and all were sent newsletters and ballots.

A letter in the local newspaper demanded that WGNA issue "a full and unconditional apology...for the public grief their outlandish statements have caused" a local business. Yet, in all of our dealings, we have never identified any individual or business by name or description. Quoting from the offending newsletter article, we simply said, "...an unusual situation arose recently.... While we are still trying to resolve whether this was an act of kindness by an effective recruiter, or a fraudulent attempt by someone trying to pack the voting rolls, it has nonetheless caused us to re-examine our bylaws...." If the offending parties choose to publicly identify themselves and say that they are offended or insulted, then that is their prerogative. And if they choose to identify with the fraud rather than the kindness, well then, perhaps that shows their intentions.

Congratulations, incoming WGNA Board! We held our annual election for Officers, Elected Board Members, and next year's Nominating Committee, and the membership response was overwhelming! Roughly twice as many members voted as at any time before in our 26 year history. The Nominating Committee's recommended slate was given a strong mandate, and the by-laws changes were approved by a landslide.

Changes to the by-laws adopted, 231 to 10.

WGNA Officers:

Pres. -- J. Michael Gonzales

1st VP -- John Gibbs

2nd VP -- Patsy Neher

Sec. -- Cathy Marshall

Treas. -- Margaret Hardy

Elected Directors (four positions):

Larry Ames, Lupe O'Malley, Peggy Rossignol, and Helen Solinski.

Nominating Committee (five positions):

Margaret Hardy (Chair), Larry Ames, Joan Doss, Lupe O'Malley, and Lynn Repetsky.

As per the current by-laws, all WGNA members in good standing were eligible to vote, one vote per individual membership and two votes per household membership. Ballots were mailed out to all members of record. Ballots could be returned by mail to the WGNA post office box (WGNA, PO 7706, San Jose, 95150-7706) if postmarked by May 19th, or could cast in person at the May 19th WGNA Spring General Meeting. We allowed members with expired memberships to renew and vote concurrently. Also, as a courtesy, and after taking precautions against double voting, we provided replacement ballots at the meeting for about a dozen members who misplaced their ballots or did not receive ballots in the mail.

The ballots were processed by me, and by Betty Daniels and Loretta Hayes, non-WGNA members of the League of Women Voters who volunteered to count the ballots for the Association. I opened the ballot box and envelopes containing the ballots in Betty and Loretta's presence, registered any renewals, confirmed the authenticity of the ballots, and removed any identifying labels or attachments. The anonymous ballots were then handed to Betty and Loretta who read the ballots and tallied the results.

The by-laws changes basically say that WGNA is primarily for Willow Glen residents and residential land-owners: while all are welcome to join WGNA, one has to live here and be a WGNA member for at least six months before one can vote in a WGNA election. The text of the by-laws, as amended, along with the exact vote tallies, are posted on our website (see press release), or are available on request.

WGNA would like to thank all who participated: the candidates (win or lose) who stood for office, Betty and Loretta of the League of Women Voters for counting the ballots, and especially our members who voted. By voting in such record numbers, you have expressed your support for the Association and given us a mandate to continue working for the betterment of Willow Glen.

Thanks to Planners Jean Hamilton (of San Jose), Randy Tsuda (Joint Venture - Silicon Valley) and Sharon Fierro (Campbell), and to all who came and participated in the discussion at WGNA's May General Meeting.

We conducted a survey at the meeting, with these results: Out of 83 responses, 67 supported a requirement that new construction and major remodels follow a "characteristics list" (specific design factors evident in the surrounding neighborhood, such as architectural style, roof slope, garage configuration, etc.), while 8 were against. By far, the biggest concern was "oversized houses" (58 people chose that as their concern), while "large square footage" came in last, with 17 votes. House bulkiness, boxy second floors, and unusual architecture were also near the top. Apparently what we are saying is that we don't object to large houses as such, if they fit on their lots. But we do object to big, bulking houses that are too big for their lots: they impact others on the street and the community. We have passed the findings on to the Planning Department, who have indicated that the findings will influence their thought processes.

The Planning Department has postponed their public hearings until City Council returns from Summer Vacation. We understand that they are moving away from their original proposal in which many remodels would trigger the Site Development procedures, and are working towards a simpler and better process. We'll keep you informed.

The concept of eating locally grown in season fruit is most divinely suited to one who grows their own. So, how much food can be produced in a "typical" 6,000 sq. ft. yard?

After taking into consideration a family's food preferences, these might be the primary factors to consider in choosing what to grow.

• Minimum effort for maximum production -- easy to grow: Kiwi, squash, cherries
• Nutritionally superior: Broccoli, kale, chard, soy beans
• Space efficient: Broccoli, tomatoes, peppers
• Well adapted to this area: Apples, cherries, fejoas, figs, pears, peaches, to name a few.
• High value: Avocados, Asian pears, white nectarines
• High yielding: Asian pears, apples, broccoli
• Hard-to-find items: Fejoas, fresh figs, passionfruit, strawberry guavas
• Hard-to-find varieties that are especially flavorful or hard to find vine-ripened: Peaches, broccoli, apricots, pluots.
• Items hard to find consistently fresh: Sprouts, lettuce, figs, fresh herbs.

If I was only going to grow a limited number of vegetables, based on the above criteria it'd be:

• Broccoli
• Chard
• Lettuce - you just can't get this kind of freshness
• Garden herbs like chives, basil, arugala, mint, lemon grass, lemon verbena and cilantro
• Tomatoes
• Green beans
• Edamame fresh shelled soybeans
• Kale

Six broccoli plants will yield 4-6 lbs./ week for 6 months. Two plantings will provide year round production and only require a 4 foot by 6 foot planting area.

Apples 10-20 bushels

Pears 3 bushels

Cherries 50-100 pounds

Apricots 50-100 pounds

Plums 40-60 pounds

Peaches and nectarines 2-2 1/2 bushels

Many fruit trees can be kept as small as 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide. You can get a multi-grafted tree, or plant up to four similar trees in one hole to have 3-5 varieties ripening over a 3-4 month period. In narrow strips, many trees can be espaliered to fit into a 2 foot wide 6-8 foot long area. (see side-article for details on the multi-grafted trees.)

Edible landscaping -- Certain ornamental landscape trees and shrubs can be substituted with fruiting trees. For example where a large shade tree up to 25-30 feet is desired. Plant a persimmon tree: a mature persimmon can produce up to 500 lbs. of fruit, which can be dried or soft ripe pulp can be frozen for year round use. Fruiting bushes like blueberries, fejoas and strawberry guavas are easy and productive and highly ornamental. I think some of the most attractive fruit trees include apples, cherries, avocados, persimmons, pears, and figs.

Extend year round eating by growing fruits with long storage life such as kiwi which will store well in the refrigerator for 6-9 months in good quality. Granny Smith apples store well for 4-6 months well in the refrigerator. Persimmons can be dried or the soft pulp frozen for extended use. Grow fruits that are well adapted to freezing or drying such as persimmons.

A block party is an excellent way of meeting your neighbors, and to give the "sense of community" for which Willow Glen is justly famous. Chat with your neighbors, select a date, get a city permit to close the street ($30), then get out and party!

Idea: invite the fire department: kids like the fire truck, and fire department loves to show it off. Your local Constable on Patrol would also welcome an invite, as an opportunity to meet the neighbors and to get to know the community better. For information on some of the technical aspects of throwing a party, click here.

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