Letters to the Editor and Top Comments of the Week

Comments:

• : "Congratulations! I'm so glad I'm raising my daughter in Foster City. I'm sure she will add to the team when she gets to Bowditch!"

• : "This has been a very successful event since its first year. I believe it has sold out every year. It is a great opportunity for the community to come together for fun and socializing while supporting a good cause. This is Foster City at its best."

• : "Just skimming through and after reading this I want to lay down and sleep for a month, it was terrible."
• : "Hi Pam, Thank you for your article. As a long-time Foster City resident, I care for my city. I am glad to hear your sincere voice, and honest evaluation of today's state of FC. It's hard to see the cut-backs, but I hear your concerns."

• : "Your insistence that Serra is the No. 1 basketball team in this area is wearing thin. They’ve lost four of their last seven games! Obviously, Burlingame and SHP play in inferior leagues, but they haven’t lost since December. The Chronicle has both of them way in front of Serra. What will it take for Serra to drop out of your top spot?"

• : "My little girl was a teen when Madonna had that awful song "like a virgin" I hated hearing her and her friends singing that, it drove us crazy..."
• : "My daughter is not an easy child, but it is good to know there aren't many of those... I am trying to be a mom like you - by keeping my door open to any conversation, although it's very hard at times especially in a one-parent family. Your stories are told in a very supportive tone. I don't think there are many other columns like yours in any newspaper or magazine."

• : "My favorites are the 911 errors, FC should charge these residents 500 bucks each time they miss use emergency calls."

Gregg Kasten, Feb. 3:

Hi, Sarah:

I saw your article on Patch, seeking comments on Recology. I really don’t understand the complaints that people have issued about Recology.

For one, since the change-over, my waste has been picked up every single week. That’s more than I can say for Allied Waste/Republic in the last 6 months. Not only did my trash go uncollected during the recent Allied Waste/Republic strike (despite their claims that they rescheduled pickups on the weekend following the strike – my trash was at the curb the whole time), but I experienced two more non-pickups in the last half of 2010 under their service. They twice simply skipped my house, despite my trash being at the curb the night before. (On one of those instances, I requested and received a repeat-visit; in the other instance, no repeat-visit was performed, and despite my request for them to compensate me for service that went undelivered, they never responded to my request, and charged me for the non-pickup anyway. They know I’m not going to waste my time further pursuing one week’s worth of billing, and they knew their contract with the city was coming to an end.)

While I have had some minor problems (a billing error and a cart damaged during pickup) with Recology, they have all been resolved. There was a bit of a delay in their first response, but once I received the first response, the issues were resolved promptly and to my satisfaction, and I received follow-up emails and phone calls on both matters. I can forgive the delay in first response, because I’m sure it must be an enormous task to take over, all at once, routes that cover tens (hundreds?) of thousands of residents – especially taking it over from a vendor that didn’t place much priority on actually pickup up my trash in the first place. We should expect some minor growing pains – and the growing pains I’ve experienced were remedied with reliable and communicative resolution.

I saw comments in the press about residents not being prepared for the switch – all I can say on that is – do they even read their mail? I received at least 5, maybe even 10 communications about the collection service change!

Gregg Kasten

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Editor's note: The following letters are in response to Larry Rosen's

, Feb. 4:

Larry, I'm thankful for you calling attention to the issues Foster City is dealing with to maintain the character and the financial strength of this community. I just wanted to take a quick moment and clarify a couple of things in your article.

Firstly, the projected deficit for the year ended June 30, 2011 is $5 million. Our long-term structural deficit is projected to be $3.5 million per year if it were not otherwise corrected through expenditure reductions or revenue increases. That is the deficit that the City Council is attempting to solve in a financial plan by the 2013-2014 fiscal year.

Regarding the transient occupancy tax, the City Council will not make a final decision on that until July 2011. After they take the necessary action to place it on the ballot, that ballot measure would be on the November 2011 ballot. The June ballot to which you refer is a special ballot related to the Governor's proposal of certain items in the State Budget.

Regarding the "redevelopment" projects in your 2nd paragraph, I believe you are referring to the Mirabella project on the 15-acre site, which you go on to discuss afterwards. Foster City is actually seeing development projects that are moving forward ahead of schedule. The Pilgrim-Triton project is expected to receive their first building permit this Summer, about 6 months ahead of schedule. Gilead sciences is moving forward with their campus expansion and redevelopment project on or ahead of schedule. And we are receiving inquiries from the owner of the Chess-Hatch commercial properties north of 92 to move forward with redevelopment of their project well ahead of their expected timeline. So other than the 15-acre site, redevelopment projects are actually ahead of their original schedules - a very positive sign for Foster City's long-term financial health.

Thanks for letting me clarify those issues. Anyone interested in our quarterly financial reports can go to the Ctty's Financial Services Department website by going to http://bit.ly/FCFinance .

Steve Toler
Finance Director, City of Foster City
stoler@fostercity.org

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, Feb. 7:

My opposition to the increase in the Hotel Tax derived only in small part from the fact that the tax will be imposed upon those who have no vote. My principal objection to the tax was that I do not believe that we have fully identified all areas in which expenditure reductions can be made and I continue to be committed to reducing expenditures first and taxing only as a last resort.

As to the 4th of July fireworks, I do not believe them to be as essential to the City as Police, Firefighters, Public Works projects to maintain our infrastructure, or Park maintenance. If you would look at the projected budgets you would see that meeting our goals and not ending up in the dire straights in which other cities find themselves requires planning and the ability to make difficult decisions such as cutting popular but expensive programs. If we fail to do that not only will we have no fireworks, we will be looking at the types of issues that other cities are already looking at - a problem we should plan to avoid at all costs.

Fortunately, the Foster City Lions stepped up and have provided a vehicle to fund the event from outside sources thereby saving the program and preventing the economic loss that would otherwise be suffered by the City.

Foster City is a lot more than a 4th of July fireworks event and we need to work hard to keep it that way. That is what I have been doing in my time on the Council.

Charlie Bronitsky

Want your voice heard, on this or other local issues? Send Letters to the Editor to sarahy@patch.com and we'll publish them on Foster City Patch.