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News From Silicon Valley's Neighborhoods Hatchet Job Saratoga--No one likes looking at a bad haircut, but the real trouble starts when the barber slips and cuts off the customer's head. The citizens of Saratoga are up in arms over the recent pruning of the eucalyptus trees along Highway 9. Instead of modest trims, the Caltrans crew in charge administered amputations to the trees along the median between Saratoga and Los Gatos last week, wreaking loss of both leaf and limb. Calls began flooding into City Hall as soon as the atrocities began, but the best Saratoga could do was extract a promise from Caltrans that the brutality would end and the crews would cut a bit more conservatively next time. Animal Tales Sacramento--Now that Elaine Alquist has bought them another year, cities in the South Bay are trying to figure out how they're going to comply with the "no kill" animal shelter bill when it sets in next July. The bill, requiring animal shelters to keep dogs and cats for five days before destroying them, is humane but places a burden on cities, which have until now contracted with the Santa Clara Valley Humane Society. Now the Humane Society is getting out of the biz and San Jose is preparing to build a large shelter other cities can use as well. What a Meth Willow Glen--A methamphetamine bust in lovely Willow Glen? James Chavan and Dwane Overall were arrested in a Willow Glen mobile home park when residents tipped off police to suspicious behavior. Turns out Chavan is a convicted felon (possession of methamphetamine) and was storing three handguns, three rifles and a sawed-off shotgun in his buddy Overall's mobile home at 1850 Evans Lane, No. 46. A search of Chavan's own residence several doors down revealed more than a half pound of the drug. [ San Jose | Metroactive Central | Archives ]