Opinion

Santa Clara County has been carrying around the nickname Silicon Valley for half a century. However, the nickname is as one-dimensional as a microchip. The phrase summons images of hoodie-clad coders, driverless cars, and tech CEOs who think kombucha is a food group. Silicon...

Dear Editor, I'm writing to share my personal opinion (and not speaking in my role as a Planning Commissioner). It looks like you got your facts wrong in the May 7 edition of the Los Gatan. Throwing Mary Badame and Matthew Hudes under the bus...

A heartfelt thank you to Los Gatan reporter Drew Penner, who attended our first KCAT Summer Media Film Festival on Aug. 14! Drew, we are grateful for the front page picture of two of our leaders, Noah Hirsch and Owen Fugit, plus your feature...

The Laurel and Hardy film “Perfect Day” is a masterclass in irony. In about twenty minutes, it captures the unraveling of a well-intentioned Sunday outing. The boys and their wives are dressed and ready for a relaxing picnic. But the car won’t start. Tempers...

There is a stretch of the Silicon Valley foothills where the manicured lawns are greener, the Teslas are plentiful and the property lines are arbitrary. If you drive down Highway 9, you pass through Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and Saratoga. You might not have...

Since the 1950s, our Los Gatos neighborhood has been a semi-rural enclave of single-family homes nestled among dark, quiet streets defined by the sound of cicadas. That changed in 2018, when the West Valley Muslim Association moved into the former Jehovah’s Witness church on...

No development at Ace Hardware site My family and I have been living in Los Gatos for over 35 years now.  The housing development is out of control! (And overdevelopment in general.) It’s bad enough with the construction of the North 40. And traffic is horrendous, especially...

The familiar hum of a well-oiled machine is a comforting sound. It suggests efficiency, precision, and a harmonious system. This is an analogy I provided to Town Council at a council meeting on Aug. 6, as I, along with Chair Eleanor Yick, presented the...

When we were touring our home in Saratoga, the realtor walked us through and pointed out the things that would need updating. The hand-painted ceramic backsplash in the kitchen, with its fruit baskets and trailing ivy, was dated, she said. The oak parquet floors in...

For decades, development in Los Gatos was a collaborative, if sometimes slow, process of checks and balances. But as we move into the spring of 2026, that has changed. We are navigating a landscape dominated by Senate Bill 330, the “Builder’s Remedy,” and a recent...