	Los Altos Hills Open Space
	"Value Beyond Price..."
	Dedicated to protecting our open space assets for the future

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Home-Run! Touch-Down! Goal!

At the council meeting on December 19th, with a packed house of supporters still in the council chambers despite the late hour (caused by an agenda covering many other items) our initiative came before the council for action. They could either adopt it in to law on the spot, or choose to send it to the voters in a special election.
One of our staunchest supporters on council was advised after consultation with the Town's attorney and the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) that he should recuse himself from dealing with this issue, due to a potential conflict of interest. So Dean Warshawsky reluctantly stepped aside so as not to endanger the validity of any vote.
After a few brief presentations from the floor, the issue finally was put to the vote. A motion was made to accept the initiative - thus removing the necessity for a special election, and causing the provisions of the initiative to be adopted directly.
Motion passed. Unanimous. 4-to-0.
This was the successful culmination of a long road for all of you who helped to bring it to this point - with hard work, with money, and with unflagging encouragement and support.
Thank you.

What we're all about

The Town of Los Altos Hills owns a number of pieces of property which are currently used for open space and recreation of various kinds. As these pieces of property have risen in value over the years, some members of our Town Council and its Finance Committee are looking in their direction as a potential source of revenue for the town. (The terminology is "being under-used for its value".)

This has happened before, and it will happen again, unless we put a stop to it once and for all. We must make sure that these lands are protected from development by more than just the whim of whoever happens to be sitting on our city council at any given time. The land belongs to us - the residents. As such, we need make sure the residents have the final say in this matter and that the land cannot be disposed of other than by a vote of the residents.

To that end, a ballot initiative has been created that will result in a formal constraint being placed on these lands which would require a majority vote of the citizens before the lands can be disposed of or any significant change made in their use. Signatures will start being collected on Wednesday Oct 30th to qualify the initiative for the ballot.

Our Endorsers

We really want to thank our many supporters who stood up to be counted from the beginning. We are delighted to recognize our early endorsers here. Complete List of Endorsers

We Are Certified!

On a statistical sample, The Registrar of Voters found us to have achieved over 95% valid signatures in our collection of over 1200, thus easily surpassing the 822 required.

Bingo!

Will Americans stand up for parks and open space?

Editorial by
Huey Johnson

An Op Ed piece appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, Jun. 19, 2002 written by Huey D. Johnson that says it all.

It was written by the man who was possibly the most instrumental in negotiating the donation to our town of the Byrne Preserve property by The Nature Conservancy, a national organization whom he represented at the time.

He is a winner of the prestigious United Nations Sasakawa Environment Prize, and his current main endeavour is as founder of Defense of Place, a watchdog organization monitoring the preservation of donated heritage. The full article may be seen by clicking here

The Actual Text of Our Documents

The full text of our initiative may be seen by clicking here
The text of our attorney's response to the Town's measure may be seen by clicking here
An overview of the substantive differences between the two initiatives my be seen by clicking here

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