September 7, 2007

LETTERS2theEDITOR

Reader questions Coyote Valley Specific Plan actions

Editor,
I recently read Lorraine Gabbert's article regarding the "Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force" actions.

I have to say that it amazes me to hear that people are considering building here, on the outskirts of the Silicon Valley, when the housing market is showing such a significant slowdown. And even if that were not the case, the recent shifts on re-zoning commercial land to residential has opened up a vast amount of land directly in the heart of the valley. Why is it necessary to build south of Bernal Road (with a 45-minute commute to anywhere meaningful) when you could build right next to a Light Rail line on First Street?

Michael Powers
Resident, Basking Ridge community

Villages resident’s reaction to deer dilemma

Editor,
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Yearling," in which the young, 12-year-old boy protagonist, Jody Baxter, is infatuated with an orphaned deer that he rescued and named Flag. The setting is the Florida backwoods scrub country in the late 1800's. Rawling’s novel is the vehicle-of-choice for many freshman English teachers in California who use it to develop and hone their students’ composition, grammar, and punctuation skills. It is a coming-of age novel. In this classic novel, Rawlings’ central character, Jody, undergoes a change from a young, adolescent boy who is narrowly focused and infatuated on his pet deer, Flag, to a young man, who after having experienced the harsh reality of near starvation, matures into a young man who fully understands that his responsibility is to the survival of his family, his father, Penny Baxter, his mother, Ora Baxter and himself rather than to his pet deer, Flag, who destroyed their corn crop and had to be destroyed, because the family depended on its farming in order to survive.

In the updated version of this classic man-versus-nature conflict, the setting is The Villages, a lush, upscale community in the Evergreen Valley in San Jose. The time is the present.

The characters are the administrators, board members, and residents who are now faced with this conflict that Rawlings so aptly drew in her novel. The deer at The Villages pose a safety and health threat. They seek the cool shelter in the courtyards and landscaping adjacent to villas, detached homes, and common property dwellings. They can bolt into and injure residents and landscape workers who enter or approach those areas.

In addition, the deer can spread Lyme Disease, which is spread by the tiny deer tick, which if undetected and untreated can cause inflammation of the brain, inflammation of the heart, etc.

Now is truly the hour! Now is the time for The Villages to mature and to show that it is up to the task. Now is the time for the characters in this updated version of this classic conflict: the administrators, the board members, and the residents to mature beyond the adolescent, deer-infatuation stage to fully responsible individuals who can see that their responsibility is to act responsibly and reasonably for the safety and health of all its residents and workers and embark on a serious, dedicated program of whatever it takes: improved fencing, relocation, humane euthanasia, etc. to remove these animals from the confines of The Villages.

Name withheld

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