Preserving our business/environment

I was gratified to see The Mercury News run our Letter to the Editor, following up on this well-done Op-Ed by Silicon Valley Leadership Group's CEO, Carl Guardino.

Our letter is here at the newspaper website, and I'm reprinting it below.

-Brian

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Environment is our responsibility

Silicon Valley Leadership Group's president, Carl Guardino, emphasized in his Oct. 21 op-ed article that weather and "our beautiful physical environment are a key attraction to recruiting and retaining top talent'' here.

Keeping that beautiful environment means maintaining the undeveloped hills and farms that provide the necessary stopping edge to urban sprawl. Growing our cities up, and not out, is the key to our future.

Misguided proposals to convert Coyote and Almaden valleys into sprawl, to sacrifice still other farmlands, and to plop monster mansions on hillsides, all imperil our beautiful environment. And in just the last week, a new proposal would allow logging 1,000 acres in the hills above Los Gatos.

The weather we can count on, but the environment is our responsibility.

Brian Schmidt, Committee for Green Foothills
Palo Alto