GET INVOLVED - Volunteers can play an important role in setting policy in this Town. Especially if they volunteer to sit on the Town’s Planning Commission, which has two seats currently open. If you live in district 2 or 6, you have a real opportunity to make a significant difference. For those who are unfamiliar:

District 2 - North boundary Patrol Road to just Southwest of Montelena and East boundary along parts of Albion and West to Skyline area. District 6 - East Canada road to 280 and from around Bardet down to parts of Portola road and Moore road, Woodside heights, Greenways area. Please see the map of these districts available at Town Hall for more details.

Applications completed and turned in by January 12th. There are also openings on the ASRB. To apply go to this link.

Happy Holidays! We know the one thing want Santa to bring us is webcasting at Town Hall. We’re not asking for anything as hard to get as a Playstation 3 - in fact, it seems a lot of our neighbors already have webcasting so citizens can watch Council, Planning Commission and ASRB meetings on streaming video from the comfort of their own homes (or wherever else they can get internet access).

Cities like Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Cupertino, Alameda and Belmont have live webcasting. So do San Carlos, Milpitas, Hayward and Fremont. Many allow you to watch archived meetings online! Some of these even link clips of the meetings to their minutes and agendas, so you can watch each section separately instead of having to fast-forward! Wow! It seems like we’re the only kids on our block that don’t have some kind of video.

All it costs, according to service provider Granicus, is a $20,000 initial investment, and around $1,000 in monthly maintenance and support fees. If all our other neighbors can afford this, why can’t we? We think it’s worth the price. A lot of town folk distrust Town Hall; web casting will help everyone see what is going on and ultimately will lead to more community involvement. So please Santa, Town Council, and Susan George - all we want for Christmas is webcasting!

Since some of us no longer believe in Santa, the Town Council or Susan George, we are asking COWs to make a restricted gift to the Town for this purpose. You can either send your gift to the Town directly and it will be tax deductible or send it to us and we will pool the money we collect - it will be anonymous but not tax deductible. COWs let’s make this happen. Mark your gift to be used for webcasting only. Our address is:

Citizens Of Woodside
P.O. Box 620166
Woodside, CA 94062