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| Mt Umunhum's skyline will feature the "cube" |
This is late news by now, but I will go ahead and follow up
on it. Midpeninsula’s public meeting on the evening of October 17 to vote on a resolution concerning Mt Umunhum’s radar tower was well attended
and productive. Sue and I both attended, but didn’t stay until the end. I had
an early morning ahead, and couldn’t help wondering what was happening with the
Giants in the playoffs. I would estimate that 25 to 30 people in all got up and
gave their comments which were limited to 2 minutes. Sue decided to get up and
speak, and I declined. Of course the majority of the speakers were indeed a
vocal minority in favor of preserving the cube, and for “going all in” on the
idea of saving the cube; which was the phrase they seems to rally around, which
basically translated into; You people at MidPen should quit messing around and
just do whatever we ask, and by the way, you should also pay for it regardless
of cost. According to a survey conducted by the board of the district
constituents, about 1/3 of respondents were in favor of keeping the tower. The
rest were split between the other 2 options, so the meeting attendance was
obviously not truly representative of prevailing public opinion. Even still the
meeting was polite and respectful, and eventually had a very productive
outcome. The option decided on was to adopt what was called interim action A.
The district will do temporary repairs on the tower in order to arrest decay
and mostly preserve the tower for a period of 5 years. During that time the
proponents of the save-the-cube petition will have time to raise the funding
for doing a better job of permanently preserving the tower. There are already
some pledges of support, and the County Historic Heritage Commission sent the
board a letter stating it is willing to work with the board to designate it on
the county inventory for landmarks, which would make it eligible for grant
funding. But the best part is that in the interim, the district can go forward
with plans to open the site for public access.
I am quite happy with this outcome. My biggest dread was
that all this wrangling would further delay the opening, but now it appears it
won’t. I am also actually happy that there is a way forward that provides for
preserving the radar tower without burdening the district with the additional
costs. In my opinion this seems like a win-win scenario, and is fair for the
very reasons I stated in my last post. I am expecting that the deal will
eventually come together to preserve the tower, and that the cube is now here
to stay.
Click here to read the article posted in the San Jose
Mercury News dated 10/18.
Click here to see MidPen’s updated project page.
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