These gates are largely used by Atherton kids as a safe shortcut to schools and other facilities in Menlo Park. Now the city of Atherton wants to escape any liability for the gates, instead pushing it onto individual homeowners in Menlo Park? If so, I hope Felton Gables reject the gates altogether now.

There's one public gate in Holbrook-Palmer's southwest corner. That's the one Atherton and Menlo Park kids are supposed to use. That gate will remain no matter what Atherton decides to do with PRIVATE gates.

Since the other gates lead to private property, the general public should not be using those gates.

The individual homeowners will not be getting any additional liability. The law doesn't work that way. Atherton's biggest liability concerns are gates that were accidentally built just within Atherton town limits. Fence contractors generally don't consult a survey map when putting up a fence. The owner tells them where to build and they build it. If a tree is in the way, they build a few feet away from the tree, rather than cut down the tree. Unfortunately, that has led some of these private fences to have been built on Atherton property.