Hope you had an energetic start into this New Year!

Probably the last thing you want to think about so early in 2006 is a December gift list, but some of you may be interested to know that the Vallejo Fire Department participates in the annual Toys for Tots program. Although Glen Cove's V.F.D. Station No. 26 wasn't festooned with any signs or banners, it was a drop-off site for the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve's national toy collecting effort. If you want to plan ahead for this year, please note that only new unwrapped toys will be accepted.

Another Glen Cove Christmastime event, organized by their Committee Chair Jay Diehl, was the Boy Scout Troop 64 tree recycle program. Perhaps you noticed the promotional banner on the corner of Glen Cove Parkway at Robles Drive. For each hauled-away tree, a $5 donation was requested. According to their Treasurer Sandra Diehl, "There were 320 trees collected this year in the Glen Cove neighborhood…consistent with a similar number for the prior year." This primary fundraiser enables the 25-member troop to attend summer camp.

The Glen Cove Elementary School also benefits from the generosity of Glen Cove Community Association members who have chosen to donate to the gift fund. Shana Jones, G.C.C.A. Treasurer, reports that the 2005 contribution totals $340. Principal Allison has been consulted for gift suggestions, and the G.C.C.A. Board has approved this year's gift presentation that will be identified in the March/April G.C.C.A. Newsletter.

Guest speaker invitations have been extended for the G.C.C.A. General Meeting scheduled from 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, March 16th. It will be this year's first opportunity for residents to meet new G.C.C.A. Representatives, named by G.C.C.A. Secretary Stacey Kennington on Page 5. Featured topics will be listed on the Glen Cove Parkway banner-look for it in early March.

Come Join Us!

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This letter, submitted by the Glen Cove Community Association Board of Directors, was printed in the Thursday, January 19, 2006, edition of the Times-Herald Newspaper. Headlined "Glen Cove misinformation," it appeared on the A9 Opinion Page.)

Several recent letters to the editor have suggested that there are plans to disrupt grave sites and unnecessarily disturb land located at the Glen Cove Waterfront Park. This is simply not true.

In fact, meetings held to discuss the future of the site have shown the public's overwhelming desire to make as little change as possible. With few exceptions, residents have stated that they do not want buildings, parking lots, rest rooms, lighting, or any other manmade structures placed on the site. The Glen Cove Community Association and local residents have even recommended the removal of the Stremmel building to return the land to its natural setting.

Protecting this land's natural beauty and its cultural and historical areas is the goal of everyone involved. Aside from safety measures that must be implemented, such as weed abatement, standing water issues, and buried oil drums that must be removed, the consensus has strongly been to leave this land as natural as possible.

The Glen Cove Community Association Board of Directors Vallejo

What is smart growth? It depends on who you ask, but most would agree that smart growth involves individual cities adhering to master plans for residential development that provide for maintaining "green belts" of undeveloped areas separating adjacent cities from growing into one another; specifically in our case, Vallejo and Benicia. Observance of this principle within Solano County has maintained green belts of separation between the cities of Vallejo, Fairfield, Vacaville, and others.

As available land for development becomes more scarce, more pressure is applied to outlying areas, often agricultural or farm property, as developers offer enticing prices to property owners. What's wrong with that? One of the major problems locally is that the City of Vallejo staff officials provide inadequate requirements to development plans to assure that all costs associated with such development are paid for by the developers and/or the new home purchasers. Otherwise, the rest of us citizens end up paying additionally for these services as well as suffer the inconveniences and crowding of our local roads and shopping facilities. Some of these additional costs include additional police and fire service, schools, expansion of roads to cover additional traffic impacts, water and sewer processing with system capacities at near limits now, environmental impacts and loss of wildlife habitat. Although the City does benefit from fees paid by the builders, they seldom completely cover these additional costs.

Where are we locally affected by this issue? One development that got approved and is currently under construction with little public awareness is the Garthe Ranch project involving over 100 homes in the area bounded on the west side by Columbus Parkway at the end of Springs Road. Most of us are used to seeing a barn, lots of eucalyptus trees and grazing cattle in this area which has now been leveled for home construction.

Of greater potential impact to us Glen Cove residents is the Bordoni Ranch development which contains all of the risks associated with inadequate planning relative to smart growth. This project involves the construction of 445 homes on Bordoni Ranch property which is bounded on the west by Columbus Parkway between Regents Park Drive on the north and Rose Drive on the south. An anticipated 80% of this 190-acre parcel will be graded to support construction.

Residents who read the Times-Herald are probably aware that a group of concerned residents have formed an opposition group protesting the City Council's approval of annexing this property into the City to support the project because of what they consider unmitigated impacts of the type mentioned above. They have gathered over 7,000 petition signatures that will require the City Council to either rescind their approval of this project or it will be placed on the June ballot as a referendum for the voters to decide if it should be disallowed. For more information, you can visit the www.smartgrowthopenspace4vallejo.org website.

What should we do? Keep informed on how this issue evolves by reading about it in the Times-Herald and on the above-mentioned website and by discussing it with other residents. Learn more about smart growth and decide which side of this issue you support so you can be prepared to cast a ballot in June which best represents your views.

There will doubtless be more of these issues which will affect our quality of life here in Glen Cove. This one is extremely close and could have a significant impact upon us. Stay informed and be prepared to vote. Unless the Vallejo City Council reverses its earlier approval of this residential project, the matter will be placed on the June ballot for the voters to overrule the Council's decision.

In the past, this community has exhibited continuing vigilance to protect us from undesirable development within our own Glen Cove boundaries. Hopefully, we will now expand this vigilance to surrounding areas that affect us, and ultimately to all the smart growth issues affecting the City.