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Monte Sereno History

Monte Sereno: The town that dared

Written on the occasion of Monte Sereno's 25th Anniversary, May 1982

By Ludmilla Alexander

AT THE BASE OF MAJESTIC EL SERENO LIES a small city that has become Shangri-La for its 3390 residents. Since its incorporation in 1957, Monte Sereno, or Peaceful Mountain, has lived up to its name, avoiding many of the hustle-bustle entrapments of modern-day life. Within Monte Sereno's 1000-acre city limits are single-family homes exclusively. There are no shopping centers, no restaurants, no gas stations. There are no sidewalks and few streetlights. There are no grandiose public buildings. The Monte Sereno City Hall and Post Office are situated together in a small wooden building with a black-and-white checkerboard linoleum floor. Public meetings are held in the Red Cross Building next door.

Thousands of quail call Monte Sereno home, as do prominent doctors, lawyers and engineers. Occasionally a deer will wander into a garden. Pine and live oak trees cover the mountainside, presenting a beautiful evergreen backdrop. Horses await their owner-riders in stables on two-acre estates.

There is one school -- Daves Avenue School -- which belongs to the Los Gatos Elementary School District. Monte Sereno teenagers attend Los Gatos High School.

Monte Sereno residents enjoy the rural atmosphere so much that they would have it no other way. Twenty-five years ago, they formed the city for three reasons -- to keep it strictly residential, to preserve its natural beauty and to maintain a low tax rate.

A successful uprising saved the slopes of E1 Sereno from the rapid development which transformed surrounding areas during the past quarter-century. Things have remained pretty quiet in Monte Sereno,

So when Monte Sereno celebrates its anniversary on May 16, 1982, it will be in a manner befitting its low profile, with a garden party for 200 people at Mayor Barbara Winkler's house.

The driving force to incorporate was Admiral Thomas B. Inglis, USN (Ret.) who will be the guest of honor at the birthday celebration. In 1951 he settled with his family in what was then county land and was looking forward to a quiet retirement. (He had been chief of naval intelligence from 1945 to 1949). However, Lexington Reservoir was being built, and Inglis was asked to join a fact-finding committee to judge the safety of the reservoir to the town.

Then disaster struck -- not from floodwaters, but by land grabs.

"About 1954, a type of civil war broke out in Santa Clara County with cities fighting verbally with one another regarding the annexation of land," Admiral Inglis, 85, recalls, "A group of citizens formed the West County Improvement Association to preserve our area. We didn't want to be annexed by anybody. At that time, we simply wanted to stay in the county."

Los Gatos, under Mayor A.E. Merrill (an Army colonel), had other ideas. It was anxious to annex this land since Monte Sereno residents had always been associated with the town of Los Gatos. Although their land belonged to the county, their post office box numbers were designated "Los Gatos." Many residents shopped in Los Gatos and participated in social and cultural events there. Los Gatos and the association became embroiled in several lawsuits regarding the annexation of lands.

According to Inglis, Los Gatos would promise large landowners that the city would rezone their properties to commercial, thus making their holdings worth a great deal of money. Residents would shift back and forth in their allegiances -- first to the WCIA, then to Los Gatos.

Then, strip annexation began. Cities would typically run a roadway 60 feet wide and one and a half miles long down an area, and if there were no more than 11 residents living in that area, the city would annex the property.

After losing parcels of land to both Los Gatos and Saratoga, Inglis and the WCIA decided to incorporate. In 1959, Inglis argued, "By control of zoning, Monte Sereno can preserve natural scenic beauty and residential character of our city which would become widely known as a good place to live. This can be done through incorporation, which is the only way to protect ourselves against exploitation of empire-building cities and absentee land owners."

Los Gatos Mayor A.E. Merrill answered, "The dream city of Monte Sereno has pledged itself to eternal chastity."

Inglis submitted incorporation papers, and to his dismay, a mistake was found in the official boundary line. Los Gatos jumped at the chance to persuade the Board of Supervisors to dismiss the application.

"I was beside myself," Inglis recalls. "I couldn't sleep, got up at two in the morning, came into the study and wondered if we would lose the case simply because a small error was found in the boundary on the Houghton property.

"I remembered talking to Mrs. Liza Houghton before and knew that she supported incorporation. Right then and there, I decided to visit Mrs. Houghton the next day to see if she could help our case in any way.

"We drove up the Peninsula where she was living with her daughter and talked to her about our problem. Mrs Houghton agreed to sign a notarized affidavit legally correcting the map. She was very feeble at the time, and we had to help her into the car and drive her to the bank in order to get her signature notarized."

Inglis returned with the affidavit and presented it before the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. The supervisors debated for a long time whether to accept the document or not.

"Finally, the chairman of the board, Sam Della Magiore said that this whole question should be put to a vote by the people who live there," recalls Inglis. "His motion passed. He was the best friend Monte Sereno ever had."

In early April 1957, 60 percent of the residents in the proposed city of Monte Sereno voted in favor of incorporation. But there was no time for rejoicing. The vote had to be approved by the county and then the state. Two members of the WCIA drove to Sacramento to hear the results of the vote count while Inglis sat and waited in the office of the County Counsel.

"I heard the good news on the phone, but we really didn't celebrate. There was too much to do," he continues. "On May 14, we had our first meeting and all the new council members were sworn in. We had a birthday cake at that first meeting."

How has Monte Sereno survived 25 years? Spectacularly. Don Wimberly, city engineer and administrator, explains that the town is still upholding the original objectives of being exclusively a single family community; preserving the environment; and minimizing the cost (and interference) of government.

The smallest lot sizes are 8000 square feet, and currently 39 percent of all the lots fall into this category. Eight percent are one-half acre, and 53 percent are one acre. Houses range in price from $100,000 to over $1 million.

The crime rate for 1980-81 was 1864 incidents, which includes everything from false burglar alarms to traffic accidents and burglaries. Of that number, 130 crimes were considered serious, and Monte Sereno was rated as having one of two lowest crime rates in the county. It contracts its police services from the Santa Clara County Sheriffs Department.

The tax rate has steadily gone down from the time of incorporation to the time of Proposition 13. It had started at $.25/$100 assessed evaluation and went as low as $.05/$100 evaluation. However, because of the low tax rate, Wimberly explained that Proposition 13 severely penalized the city for its frugality and allotted it a small percentage of state revenue.

The fiscal budget is, in Wimberly's opinion, the most serious problem that faces Monte Sereno today. The city's operating budget is $244,000, and the state has indicated that it will not be forwarding revenue from the motor vehicle funds. Consequently, the city will lose $70.000, or 30 percent of its revenue. The budget process is just getting started in City Council meetings.

Another problem that Monte Serene faces is traffic. Because of the congestion on major arteries, especially Saratoga-Los Gatos Road, many drivers take local streets in order to avoid traffic. This causes circulation problems and safety hazards on residential streets. The 1982 General Plan, which is coming up for public review, deals with redesigning streets to prevent cars from taking shortcuts. The city also favors the construction of the [Highway 85] West Valley Corridor.

On the plus side, residents who have long complained about having to pay for use of the Los Gatos Library are now rejoicing. On July 1, 1982, the Town of Los Gatos Library is joining the County Library System, and this will eliminate the fee previously charged to users who were not Los Gatos residents.

"Through the years, there have not been many major hurdles to get across," says Mayor Barbara Winkler, a councilwoman since 1973. "I can recall some problems with developers, circulation patterns, vandalism and robberies. But otherwise, government tries to stay out of the lives of residents as much as possible, and times have been quiet."