Saratoga City council engages students in community issues

The thin strum of a ukulele sounded from the research center Oct. 24 as 30 pairs of eyes turned  to look at the source — Saratoga city council candidate John Chen, who was playing the instrument as a way of calling the discussion to order.

Besides Chen, Mary-Lynne Bernald, Rishi Kumar and Yan Zhou and current mayor Emily Lo came to the school to talk about some of the city’s main issues, such as the highway 85 expansion and revitalization of downtown. The discussion was sponsored by Junior State of America where senior Farbod Moghadam and junior Oksana Trifonova acted as moderators.

The goal of the club is to allow students to provide a fresh perspective on issues.

Throughout the discussion, the candidates revealed their love for the work they do in the community and their desire to help improve Saratoga.

“There are a lot of things the city can do and will do to make it a place you can be proud of to be your home,” Bernald said.

Downtown revitalization was an issue that sparked the interest of several students, while candidates had several comments to contribute on the topic.

“It’s good to go to a restaurant on the weekends, but downtown is still there on the weekdays. It doesn’t just disappear,” Kumar said.

Bernald heralded the upcoming opening of a burger place downtown as an option for a more teenager and family-friendly eatery, since many of the restaurants in downtown are expensive and more formal, and Zhou proposed introducing a pearl milk tea cafe.

The candidates also brought up the idea of a directory of downtown to help advertise the less known stores.

Another topic was the expansion of highway 85, which runs through Cupertino and is often riddled with traffic jams. 

Though there was an initial proposal of adding more lanes to reduce traffic, resident complaints about the possibility of an increased noise level forced the VTA to back down. 

Instead, the current carpool lane will become a toll lane: cars will have to pay to drive there. The candidates expressed concern that this change could cause more roundabout traffic through Saratoga due to the presence of people on their way to Santa Cruz.

Bernald presented  the idea of re-surfacing the highway from concrete to asphalt to reduce the noise level, and Kumar felt that building a light rail system instead of creating more lanes would fit more of people’s needs.

“People think about the major obstacles when facing such a huge problem, so they ignore the little steps we can do to improve it,” Kumar said.

Bernald also introduced the possibility of shuttle buses and mass transportation or something similar to BART in Saratoga.

Since Saratoga’s council does not have jurisdiction, the expansion would be discussed with the other cities as well. In any case, the candidates affirmed that no major changes would take place for a few years.

In their closing statements, the candidates all encouraged students to become more engaged in the community.

“The more you get interested, the more you participate, the better our town will be,” Chen said.

At the end of the discussion, students were given the chance  to  talk to the candidates and the mayor about issues they thought were prevalent in the city and school. The students left feeling more confident about the city and its future after their questions were answered.

“It was very informative — I feel like I understand and am more engaged in what’s going to happen in our community now,” sophomore Angela Liu said.

Even the teachers in attendance were satisfied with the upshot of the discussion.

“I definitely got more information on what each candidate stood for, and I now have a better idea of whom I will vote for,” social studies teacher Kirk Abe said.