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Published on 10/20/1999 All articles from this issue

Increase service or status quo?

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue

Special to the Town Crier

Council race in Los Altos divides according to yes or no for tax hike, more city services

Five residents are competing for three seats on the Los Altos City Council. Three incumbents are running for a second four-year term: Lou Becker, Kris Casto and Francis La Poll.

They face two challengers: Ron Knecht and Noah Mesel.

The most obvious difference between the two groups is that the incumbents all support the city raising the utility-user tax.

Their challengers oppose a tax increase.

For the past four years, Becker, Casto and La Poll have all heard residents repeatedly come to council meetings with requests for projects which the city cannot fund: more enforcement for traffic calming; more fields for children to play; dreams of an indoor sports facility for the 100s of local children unable to get into overcrowded winter leagues in other cities; a higher level of maintenance for streets, median strips. And on and on.

People want their potholes fixed. They want their children to have recreation facilities.

The city of Los Altos has worked with a status quo budget for most of the 1990s, which has not allowed a higher level of service in any of those areas.

Regular additions to the city's capital reserve funds during these years allowed the city to buy, in 1996, the 5.5-acre site that just opened as Rosita Park; and to buy the corner at First and Main streets, which will be developed in a way to benefit the city with increased tax and parking.

But many things remained beyond the reach of the city's budget.

During the past year, city staff prepared areas in which there could be the possibility of higher service; a 29-member citizen blue-ribbon committee prioritized the possibilities and affirmed the need for additional services.

The council then did a final fix on the list - but the money was not there.

The plan for a utility-tax increase came from the lengthy, grass-roots process.

Along the way, citizens affirmed their value of the residential quality of the city - which does not allow "big-box" stores or a large retail presence. Thus the utility-user tax for a source of revenue to address some of the city's unmet needs.

But the two challengers do not agree.

While Mesel sees a need for better traffic management and pothole repair, he opposes raising the utility-user tax. In an interview with the Town Crier, he suggested the city could negotiate a better deal with AT&T TCI for a source of added city revenue.

Negotiations are in fact currently underway. But Mesel admitted that it "won't get us all the way to the $1.1 million" that the utility-user tax increase would.

Mesel is the spokesman for his Miramonte School neighborhood that opposes the addition of the private school's plans for a 14,000-square-foot multi purpose gym.

He moved to town in November 1998 and immediately became involved in the turmoil in the neighborhood as neighbors organized and lobbied the city not to allow the school's addition.

Mesel said he is not a one-issue candidate, that he is concerned about the "planning department and its process. There's a character in this town people want to preserve," he said.

Knecht, like Mesel, also moved to town in 1998. And he opposes any tax increase. In an interview with the Town Crier he flat out said that "there are no crying unmet needs" in Los Altos. He said items in the city's budget are "going up faster than the economy" and calls city hall "pretty fat and sassy."

For Knecht, "government is too big."

The incumbents see many ways the city could use the increased revenue.

In looking back at his first four years on the council, Becker told the Town Crier that "what most surprised me is the character of the city is changing. A lot of young people with children are moving to town because it's a good place to raise their kids. They want better recreation, better safety."

Becker noted the "magnitude of this demand."

Casto would like the city to be able to "concentrate on youth programs, after school programs, in a partnership with the schools." In her interview with the Town Crier, if the utility-user tax passes, she said she'd like to see more 911 dispatchers."

She said the city's needs, like communications, "are not icing on the cake."

La Poll, a father of five small children, would like more "recreational activities. We need a recreational facility, a pool," he told the Town Crier. "There are a lot of people in town who want a higher level of service."