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Paec 1 of 2 Maria Hoey Subject: FW Opposition to Home Depot at Valley & Stanley From: Sandra Ramella, Sent: Monday, February ~;-~~' :~~ l"am""''.~'.~~'~'~", ~-,-, To: Mary Lu Campbell Subject: Against Home Depot at Valley & Stanley Dear members of the city council: l am writing to express my opposition to the development of a IIome Depot store at the intersection of Valley Ave. and Stanley [31vd. I believe that the presence of this "big box" store together with other smaller stores as part of a mall at this location will adversely and irreversibly affect the quality of our sale and quite family residential neighborhood. When my family and I moved here into our Birdsland home nearly 12 years ago, we encountered a light amount of haftic along Santa Kita Ave. Dropping off and picking up our older daughter at Alisal Elementary School was relatively quick and stress-free. 1~oday our older daughter attends Aulador Valley I [igh and our younger daughter attends Alisal In the past two years, I have been driving both of our daughters together to their schools in the morning, and have been ~aitncssing a tremendous increase in traffic all along Santa Rita Ave, especially near the intersection of Valley Ave. I3e aware that there are four schools located in this vicinity -Alisal Elementary, Walnut Grove Elementary, I [arvest Park Middle, and Amador Valley High. O^ a school day, especially at around K A.M and 3 P.M., this area is just terribly congested with people driving to and from these schools. In addition to the large number of cars, there is also a large volume of pedestrians -students and parents walking to and from these schools. [ have already seen several automobile accidents during the pass two year; moreover, it is common her a gridlock to occur whenever a car crossing an intersection or making a left turn gcis stuck at the middle of the intersection when the light changes. In short, you have to be there to believe this. L'ven though some of lhcse intersections ha~~°c school crossing safety guards, there are many thaC don't ([ do not think there is one at Santa Rita and Valley). I have witnessed several instances where young children crossing these intersections either on foot or riding their bike have had close encounters with vehicles. My concern is that adding a retail mall at the corner of Valley and Stanley will add more traffic onto Valley Ave which will consequently tlow out onto both directions of Santa Rita Road, as well as on Valley next to I Iarvest Park Middle School. ~Chis will mal:c our streets even more unsafe i<n- our students. On the weekend traffic is light on Santa Rita Road. In addition to cars, there arc people riding bicycles, jogging, and walking their dogs. Home Depot should stay at its current location and away from residential neighborhoods. Allowing Home Depot, or any other big box store to be built near our residential neighborhoods will add more traffic that will ruin our tranquil family friendly- town. Our current trattic planning (keeping retail malls located at the edge of our town) should not be changed. After all, this is what makes Pleasanton a pleasant place to live. Sincerely, Martin Ramella and Family I ~4 "tanager Court /10/?Ot)7