Guest opinion: Atherton's chance to define 'a sense of place'

I can think of many better ways to spend $40m than nicer administration facilities. How about

* more parks (we only have one)
* better roads
* improved drainage

For me having a cafe near the train station adds zero value. I have fast internet wherever I go. A community center would be nice but not for this price tag.

I think what's really going on here is a few people and the staff want nicer accommodations for themselves.

"I think what's really going on here is a few people and the staff want nicer accommodations for themselves."

It doesn't matter that the buildings are falling apart. After all, they're just "staff" and should put up with any conditions "we," the wealthy residents of Atherton, deem acceptable.

Gee, I wonder why the wealthy have a bad image among the rest of us lowly serfs?

I'm halfway between Menlo Voter and Betteridea.

The current facilities are unacceptable and need to be replaced.

What to replace them with? Well, when the idea that the new town center was going to be paid totally through private donations was sold to Atherton voters (Measure L), it really didn't matter how large, opulent, or over-the-top the new facilities were going to be, since taxpayers weren't footing the bill. May as well shoot for the moon.

The result was a $40M, 27,000 square foot plan to house a police station that has three or four cops on duty at any given time. A big gymnasium is part of it.

OK, fine by me, I suppose. But now that that private donations haven't materialized and talk is that Atherton voters will have to foot the bill through a bond measure, how about we scale the new facilities down (WAY DOWN) to something that's realistic and makes sense?

If I'm wrong, please point out where.

If you're interested in providing input or have questions about the civic center plans, be sure to attend one of the civic center outreach meetings:

Web Link

I'm sure they'll have people there to answer questions.

Build a new civic center so we can decide how to build our new library. Wow that makes total sense. Is that good planning.....40 million. I think Menlo voter may be on to something

As long as they don't use taxpayer money for construction, they can do whatever they want with private donations. However, the funds for the library are already there (from Atherton's property taxes to be used only on the library), so that will likely be built first. If we don't use the library funds, we will lose it (other san mateo county libraries will try to take it from us).