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News From Silicon Valley's Neighborhoods Road to Ruin A Cupertino woman is leading the fight to stop dynamiting along a road in Yosemite. Ratticus Willow Glen--Several months ago Burbscape reported that 1998 was a record rat- sighting year--a fact that struck us as odd given the elegance of our environs here in the Valley. Now we hear the trend is persisting; rattus impertinans, commonly known as the roof rat, is infesting Willow Glen with the same enthusiasm it's brought to ventures elsewhere in the Valley. One Willow Glen resident tells of a neighbor whose Christmas presents were chewed up; another has become such a veteran that he no longer calls pest control--he just poisons and buries the rats himself. Street Harmony Los Gatos--Seven months after Toll House Hotel owner Wayne Levenfeld introduced expansion plans to a howling pack of irate neighbors, a deal was struck in practically deserted council chambers last Tuesday. In exchange for moving a proposed annex building away from neighbors, adjusting landscape plans, promising a Victorian facelift and making $100,000 worth of streetfront improvements, Levenfeld's plan gets to live. The project, which will include planter boxes and trees along S. Santa Cruz Avenue, should begin late this year. Two Timer Monte Sereno--Exemplary fat-trimmers, those Monte Sereno councilmembers. Last week they voted to make interim city planner/ city manager Brian Loventhal a permanent employee while officially combining the two roles into one--a tidy trick that will save the town up to $90,000 per year. Loventhal, 29 and a hopeless overachiever who's in his final semester of law school at Santa Clara University, has been serving as Monte Sereno's city planner since 1993. He slid into city manager Gay Strand's seat when she resigned in June. Loventhal's promotion brings the number of paid municipal employees in Monte Sereno to a grand total of five. [ Metro | Metroactive Central | Archives ]