Palo Alto Weekly August 29, 2014 by Palo Alto Weekly

Palo Alto

Vol. XXXV, Number 47 Q August 29, 2014

Embarcadero Road fixes coming Page 5

w w w. P a l o A l t o O n l i n e.c o m

Los Altos Hills artist, design team bring Palo Alto's first mosque to life PAGE 8

Moonlight Run & Walk Guide

page 19

Pulse 16

Transitions 17

Eating Out 29

Movies 31

Q Arts Interacting on the atomic scale

Page 25

Q Home Keeping water off the street

Page 35

Q Sports Paly grad heads to the majors

Page 52

Advancing the Standard of Care for Prostate Cancer SPEAKERS: Eila Skinner, MD Jim Brooks, MD Ben Chung, MD Mark Buyyounouski, MD Sandy Srinivas, MD

The Stanford Cancer Center invites you to a community talk about the latest screening and treatment advancements for prostate cancer. Please join us and learn about: • •

Prostate cancer screening and watchful waiting Advances in diagnosis and treatment options focused on improved quality of life

Stanford’s prostate cancer experts will share the latest information and answer your questions. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 • 9:30AM – 11:00AM Sheraton Palo Alto (Reception Room) 625 El Camino Real • Palo Alto, CA Parking validated

RSVP at: stanfordhealthcare.org/events or call 650.736.6555. This event is free and open to the public. Please register, seating is limited. Page 2 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

10591 Wunderlich, Cupertino Offered at $2,298,000 Mediterranean Beauty in Rancho Rinconada This spacious home of 3,818 sq. ft. (per county) offers 5 bedrooms, 5 full baths, and 2 half baths, on a 6,032 sq. ft. lot (per county). On the main level is the formal living room, a large dining area, beautiful chef ’s kitchen, separate powder room, and a bedroom suite. The stunning chef ’s kitchen features 2-inch thick natural stone countertops, detailed stone backsplashes, intricately carved cabinetry, a Sub-Zero refrigerator and freezer, professional DCS 4-burner stove, Miele dishwasher, and Wolf double wall oven. Upstairs are three additional bedrooms, including one that is a suite. On the lower level you will find a kitchenette, dining room, living room, and a bedroom suite, plus a laundry room. Conveniently located near I-280, Stevens Creek Boulevard, and Lawrence Expressway. Sedgwick Elementary (API 933), Hyde Middle (API 908), and Cupertino High (API 906) (buyer to verify eligibility). For video tour & more photos, please visit:

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www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 3

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Upfront

Check out the M Moonlight Run & Walk special section

Local news, information and analysis

page 19

Embarcadero Road fixes coming Commission considers how to bring order to intersection ‘where many things converge’ by Gennady Sheyner

ew road segments in Palo Alto flummox commuters and traffic engineers like the short but bustling stretch of Embarcadero Road between the train tracks and El Camino Real. Sandwiched between Palo Alto High School and Town & Country Village, the road at-

tracts more than 12,000 cars per day, with drivers heading to the shopping center, the high school and Stanford University all adding to the usual rush of regional commuters. The traffic signals only compound the frustration, with three adjacent lights slowing cars to a crawl and routinely

causing traffic backups. On Wednesday, Palo Alto officials presented a suite of options for tackling what they characterized as one of the city’s most challenging traffic puzzles. Chief Transportation Official Jaime Rodriguez called the segment of Embarcadero a rare place in the city “where many things converge.” “This is probably one of the biggest areas where a lot of things happen at one time,” Ro-

driguez told the Planning and Transportation Commission, which considered a list of nearand long-term improvements to Embarcadero. Among the most imminent changes will be consolidation of two non-synchronized traffic signals, which currently march to their own rhythms. The change means there will now be one signal coordinating cars as they pass the Town & Country driveway and the pedestrian crossing

into Paly just to the west. The new signal will be placed on the high school side of the street, near the intersection with the Town & Country driveway. The change will improve movement along Embarcadero and entering and exiting Town & Country, Rodriguez wrote in a report. Staff also plans to modify the intersection to make it easier for cars leaving Paly to make a right (continued on page 15)

ETHICS

Holman cleared after ‘conflict of interest’ claim State commission: Palo Alto councilwoman didn’t violate Political Reform Act by Gennady Sheyner

P Ciera Pasturel

The start of a new season In preparation for the upcoming football season, Gunn High School players take advice from their coach during practice on Aug. 27. Their first game is against San Mateo on Sept. 5 at Gunn.

CITY SERVICES

Local library subscribes to novel music idea Cardholders may download five free songs per week through Freegal Music by Benjamin Custer

or card-carrying members of the Palo Alto City Library, book and movie checkouts last for weeks but music downloads last forever. The library is one of around 3,000 in the United States and 5,000 worldwide that subscribe to Freegal Music, a downloadable music service from Virginia-based Library Ideas, LLC. Though use of the service in Palo Alto has increased over the past year, only a small percentage of cardholders currently use the service. The library staff hopes to see more participation. Freegal, a blend of “free” and

“legal,” boasts millions of songs, thousands of music videos and dozens of genres from about 28,000 record labels, including Sony Music Entertainment. Including artists like Miles Davis, Elvis, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Dixie Chicks, Outkast, Justin Timberlake and Miley Cyrus, as well as classical music, Freegal’s collection is designed to appeal to the young, old and everyone in between. “It’s a very good service that fits people’s needs,” said Diane Lai, head of the library’s Information Technology & Collections division. “It would be impossible

for us to have a CD collection that matches Freegal’s repertoire.” Cardholders may download up to five songs per week to their computers or mobile devices. The process is simple: Library members navigate to Freegal’s home page through the library’s website, log in with their 14-digit library card number and search for music by album, artist, genre or song. The download credit counter resets every Monday. Over the past six months, the library has averaged about 340 users and 3,100 music down(continued on page 14)

alo Alto City Councilwoman Karen Holman did not violate state law when she urged city staff to explore rezoning sites on Arastradero Road despite her financial relationship with the owner of one of the sites, the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) has concluded. The FPPC’s investigation was prompted by an anonymous complaint, which was filed with the agency on July 16. When asked about the allegations earlier this month, FPPC spokesman Jay Wierenga said the agency was planning to review the complaint to determine whether it was worth further investigation. Last week, the commission determined that Holman did not violate the “conflict of interest” provision of the Political Reform Act and that the commission will not spend any more time investigating Holman, who is now running for her second term on the council. The commission informed her of its decision in an Aug. 22 letter from Gary Winuk, chief of the commission’s enforcement division. “After review of the documents received in our initial assessment, we determined there was no violation of the Act, and therefore, no further enforcement action will be taken at this time,” the letter reads. The anonymous complaint alleged that Holman — who is well-known for her resistance to dense new developments and for her support for increased government transparency — advocated to rezone housing sites from R-1 (single-family residential) to R-30

(which would allow more density at 30 housing units per acre) and that her action “seems to be motivated by an expectation of future business, and monetary payments from Steve Pierce.” Pierce is a Realtor with Zane MacGregor who owns one of the Arastradero parcels. In April and May, Holman suggested during meetings of the council’s Regional Housing Mandate Committee that the city explore the idea of adding workforce housing on the 600 block of Arastradero. Pierce had urged the committee to consider rezoning the parcels, characterizing them at the April 10 committee meeting as “good sites for denser housing.” The idea of rezoning the sites quickly fizzled, with only Holman proposing further exploration. Her advocacy, however, prompted allegations from her colleagues about her potential conflict of interest. While she listed Zane MacGregor on her Form 700 as a source of income, she did not mention her financial relationship with Pierce at either of the committee meetings where the sites were discussed. The issue didn’t emerge until June 4, when the full council was taking up the subject of the Housing Element, a state-mandated document in which the city lists sites that could be rezoned to accommodate more housing. The complaint claimed that Holman is using the Housing Element process to rezone the sites, a move that would financially benefit Zane MacGregor. “Holman is using her consid(continued on page 13)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 5

Upfront 450 Cambridge Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94306 (650) 326-8210

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

PUBLISHER William S. Johnson (223-6505) EDITORIAL Editor Jocelyn Dong (223-6514) Associate Editor Carol Blitzer (223-6511) Sports Editor Keith Peters (223-6516 Arts & Entertainment Editor Elizabeth Schwyzer (223-6517) Express & Online Editor Elena Kadvany (223-6519) Assistant Sports Editor Rick Eymer (223-6521) Spectrum Editor Renee Batti (223-6528) Staff Writers Sue Dremann (223-6518), Elena Kadvany (223-6519), Gennady Sheyner (223-6513) Editorial Assistant/Intern Coordinator Sam Sciolla (223-6515) Staff Photographer Veronica Weber (223-6520) Contributors Andrew Preimesberger, Dale F. Bentson, Peter Canavese, Kit Davey, Tyler Hanley, Iris Harrell, Sheila Himmel, Chad Jones, Karla Kane, Ari Kaye, Chris Kenrick, Kevin Kirby, Terri Lobdell, Jack McKinnon, Jeanie K. Smith, Susan Tavernetti Interns Benjamin Custer, Ciera Pasturel ADVERTISING Vice President Sales & Marketing Tom Zahiralis (223-6570) Multimedia Advertising Sales Adam Carter (223-6573), Elaine Clark (223-6572), Connie Jo Cotton (223-6571), Janice Hoogner (223-6576), Meredith Mitchell (223-6569) Digital Media Sales Heather Choi (223-6587) Real Estate Advertising Sales Neal Fine (223-6583), Carolyn Oliver (223-6581), Rosemary Lewkowitz (223-6585) Inside Advertising Sales Irene Schwartz (223-6580) Real Estate Advertising Assistant Diane Martin (223-6584) Legal Advertising Alicia Santillan (223-6578)

Allergic to Peanuts? Imagine a life not worrying about reading food labels or eating at a restaurant. Stanford is seeking volunteers interested in participating in a clinical trial with the goal of training your body naturally to accept peanuts as a safe food. If you are interested in getting more information or being screened for the below study, please email the Stanford Allergy Center at safar.inquiry@stanford.edu. • Peanut Oral Immunotherapy (OIT): Safety, Efﬁcacy, and Discovery (“POISED”) Study Enrolling 120 peanut-allergic patients; Age: 8-55 years Participation in a clinical trial at the Stanford Allergy Center offers you: • Access to investigational therapies before they become widely available • Ability to play a more active role in your own healthcare • Access to free physical exams and diagnostic tests related to the study • An important role in the potential discovery of a cure for food allergies, beneﬁting millions of people with food allergies worldwide.

Stanford Allergy Center www.foodallergies@stanford.edu

ADVERTISING SERVICES Advertising Services Manager Jennifer Lindberg (223-6595) Sales & Production Coordinators Dorothy Hassett (223-6597), Blanca Yoc (223-6596) DESIGN Design & Production Manager Lili Cao (223-6560) Senior Designers Linda Atilano, Paul Llewellyn Designers Colleen Hench, Rosanna Leung, Peter Sorin EXPRESS, ONLINE AND VIDEO SERVICES Online Operations Coordinator Ashley Finden (223-6508) BUSINESS Payroll & Benefits Susie Ochoa (223-6544) Business Associates Elena Dineva (223-6542), Mary McDonald (223-6543), Cathy Stringari (223-6541) ADMINISTRATION Receptionist Doris Taylor Courier Ruben Espinoza EMBARCADERO MEDIA President William S. Johnson (223-6505) Vice President & CFO Michael I. Naar (223-6540) Vice President Sales & Marketing Tom Zahiralis (223-6570) Director, Information Technology & Webmaster Frank A. Bravo (223-6551) Marketing & Creative Director Shannon Corey (223-6560) Major Accounts Sales Manager Connie Jo Cotton (223-6571) Director, Circulation & Mailing Services Zach Allen (223-6557) Circulation Assistant Alicia Santillan Computer System Associates Chris Planessi, Chip Poedjosoedarmo The Palo Alto Weekly (ISSN 0199-1159) is published every Friday by Embarcadero Media, 450 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306, (650) 326-8210. Periodicals postage paid at Palo Alto, CA and additional mailing offices. Adjudicated a newspaper of general circulation for Santa Clara County. The Palo Alto Weekly is delivered free to homes in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley, East Palo Alto, to faculty and staff households on the Stanford campus and to portions of Los Altos Hills. If you are not currently receiving the paper, you may request free delivery by calling 3268210. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Palo Alto Weekly, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302. ©2014 by Embarcadero Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited. The Palo Alto Weekly is available on the Internet via Palo Alto Online at: www.PaloAltoOnline.com Our email addresses are: editor@paweekly.com, letters@paweekly.com, digitalads@paweekly.com, ads@paweekly.com Missed delivery or start/stop your paper? Call 650 223-6557, or email circulation@paweekly.com. You may also subscribe online at www.PaloAltoOnline.com. Subscriptions are $60/yr.

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PaloAltoOnline.com/moonlight_run Page 6 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Put it in, make it safe and just get it done. —Pat Markevitch, Parks & Recreation Commissioner, on a new bike bridge spanning U.S. Highway 101. See story on page 7.

Around Town

ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE, ACCEPTED ... Only those who live under a social media rock might have missed the Internet’s most recent viral — and philanthropic — wave: the ALS ice bucket challenge, which aims to raise awareness and funds for ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. People all across the country — from former president George W. Bush, actor Will Smith and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to, most likely, a large number of your Facebook friends — have been posting videos of themselves getting a bucket of ice water poured on them. After getting dunked, the person is supposed to nominate others to complete the challenge, or else donate $100 to the ALS charity of their choice. A Palo Alto teacher, nominated by a group of students, has accepted the challenge. Activities Coordinator and Special Education Aide Sarrie Paguirigan will be very publicly doused Friday, Aug. 29, at 12:15 p.m. at Duveneck Elementary School. She has already raised $100 to donate to the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association and is planning on challenging a few other Duveneck staff members, including Principal Chris Grierson. As of Wednesday, the ice bucket campaign had raised a record $94.3 million in donations compared to $2.6 million during the same time period last year for the ALS Association, which provides services and resources for those with ALS. WAXSANITY ... You know you’ve made it when ... you get a wax figure of yourself dunking a basketball at a Madame Tussauds wax museum. Palo Alto High School graduate and NBA point guard Jeremy Lin got just that last week, with a brand new, life-size wax facsimile of himself inducted into the sports-themed room of the famed wax museum near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. At an unveiling last Thursday, Lin, joined by his mother and other relatives in town for a family reunion, admired the 6 foot, 3 inch tall statue of Lin frozen in mid-air, dunking an invisible basketball into a net. “I think it’s awesome; it’s a little too real,” Lin joked. “There’s a ton of detail.” To the inevitable dismay of Lin’s Bay Area fans, the figure is not sporting the gold and blue of his former NBA team, the Golden State Warriors, but instead a purple and yellow Los Angeles Lakers jersey. Lin was traded to

the Lakers by the Houston Rockets in July. Adrea Gibbs, general manager of Madame Tussauds, said the museum specifically sought out the Asian-American basketball star for his close ties to the Bay Area. Lin led the Palo Alto High School Vikings to the 2006 CIF Division II state championship before heading to Harvard University in 2006. The statue was crafted by about 20 artists and took about three to four months to complete, using more than 200 measurements taken of his body and face. Modelers also took his fingerprints, molds of his teeth and individually placed real human hairs one by one on the figure, which is made of beeswax and a “top secret” mix, Gibbs said. When asked how his local fans might react to the statue’s purple and gold uniform, Lin joked, “I’m not sure how the Lakers jersey will go in the Bay Area. Hopefully, it will be alright.” See photos of Lin with his wax doppelganger on PaloAltoOnline.com. RE-NAME NET NEUTRALITY ... Rep. Anna Eshoo, ranking member of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee and self-described open Internet advocate, last Thursday announced on Reddit the launch of a contest to rebrand the term “net neutrality” in order to keep the World Wide Web free and open for all. She describes net neutrality as “the principle of all Internet traffic being created equal and that it should be treated as such,” but slams new Internet traffic rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in May that do not treat it as such. The proposed rules could split the flow of online traffic into tiers that would, Eshoo said, create an unfair environment in which large online corporations would be the ones who could afford to pay higher fees to broadband providers. “Internet users know what they want and expect from the Internet, but these days all the jargon about net-neutrality rules is making it difficult to know what box to check that advances their best interest,” Eshoo said. The contest is free to enter. The most popular entry on the Reddit post will be declared the winner on Sept. 8. One early poster gave Eshoo a taste of her own medicine, writing: “We don’t need a fancy name, let’s just call it exactly what we want, no more ‘muddy’ misconceptions and jargon. Free and Open Internet. FOI.” Q

Upfront TRANSPORTATION

Design contest set for new Palo Alto bike bridge City finalizing rules for five-month competition for ‘landmark’ entry to the Baylands

alo Alto officials agree that the city’s new bike bridge over U.S. Highway 101 should be a “landmark” structure that showcases the region’s spirit of innovation while at the same time providing a gentle transition into the marshy nature preserves of the Baylands. If things go as planned, the $10 million project would be constructed by 2018, at which point south Palo Alto residents will have a new gateway into the Baylands. The bridge would be built at Adobe Creek and would replace an existing underpass, which is frequently shut down because of flooding. The city has already received about $8 million in grant funding for the bike bridge, which is one of the most expensive and ambitious components of the city’s recently completed bicycle master plan. Yet while council members are buzzing with excitement about the new structure, coming

up with a suitable design for the marquee project promises to be a complex and potentially lengthy affair. After much discussion, the city is now preparing to launch a design competition featuring international, national and local firms; a five-member jury selected by the American Institute of Architects, California Council; a public hearing with the Architectural Review Board; public comments, and ultimately, approval from the City Council. The design process has already been delayed by several months because of concerns from federal regulators, including U.S. Fish and Wildlife, about construction near the Baylands, said Elizabeth Ames, project manager from the Public Works Department. Now, the city believes it has addressed the federal concerns and the competition is set to begin. According to the tentative project timeline, invitations will be sent out to design firms next month, officially

City of Palo Alto

by Gennady Sheyner

Palo Alto is preparing to launch a design contest for a new bike bridge across U.S. Highway 101. kicking off the five-month contest. Several details, however, have been hotly debated. Earlier this month, the city’s Architectural Review Board considered the design criteria that would be used in the competition and offered some criticism about the contest rules. Vice Chair Randy Popp and board member Clare Malone Prichard vehemently opposed staff’s suggestion that the contest be limited to firms that have designed at least two bridges in the past decade. Limiting the field so significantly, Popp said, would be a “terrific missed opportunity.” Malone Prichard acknowledged

the need to have qualified firms participate in the contest but argued that there are better ways to achieve this goal than including the “two bridges in 10 years” provision. “I know this is not how Public Works normally does things, but this is not a normal Public Works project,” Malone Prichard said. Indeed, the design process for the bike bridge will be radically different from the one used for other major infrastructure projects of recent years. The Mitchell Park Library and Community Center construction and the California Avenue renovation projects

each solicited bids from qualified architects, one of whom was then selected to submit a design. The new bridge will undergo a more rigorous, iterative and participatory process. The five-member jury will come up with a “short list” of three or four finalists, each of whom will receive a $20,000 stipend to further develop the proposed concept. The four designs will be presented at a public meeting featuring the jury and the Architectural Review Board. After the meeting, the jury will deliber(continued on page 13)

EDUCATION

School board eyes data, evaluation as key to this year’s goals New superintendent adds ‘measurables and deliverables’ to proposed goals by Elena Kadvany

alo Alto’s top school officials kicked off the school year Tuesday with an enthusiastic discussion of five draft goals for the year that encourage a more data-driven, evaluation-based approach to instruction and governance. The goals, which Superintendent Max McGee initially presented at the Board of Education’s annual retreat two weeks ago, have been revised and cut down from six to five. The goals both get at what the board wants to achieve this year across the district — greater use of data, professional development, innovative programs and both internal and external evaluations to create a highquality “collective community” rather than a “collection of communities” — and how the board itself can become more accountable and transparent. Each goal also links to one or more of the district’s Strategic Plan’s five sections: academic excellence and learning; personal development and support; staff development and recruitment; budget and infrastructure; and governance and

communications. In the report to the board, McGee and district staff specified numerous “measures and deliverables” for each goal, to identify concrete action that can be taken to implement the ambitious goals. Board member Dana Tom lauded the revised goals. “I do believe these will move our district forward in significant ways,” he said. “Each goal is unique, yet they link together in a network that really does support each other.” Board members mostly echoed Tom’s sentiments, though he and others pointed out additions or changes they would like made before approving the goals at their next meeting, on Sept. 9. Tom asked that the district’s existing efforts around the Strategic Plan’s area of personal development and support, which aims to “support the socialemotional need of students and celebrate personal growth across multiple dimensions,” be incorporated in the five goals. “It remains something that we’re putting significant efforts toward, yet I don’t believe that

work and effort is reflected here. It makes sense to add a measure or deliverable that encompasses some of that,” Tom said. Tom cited efforts such as the Safe and Welcoming Schools Initiative, the district’s new bullying policy and homework policy as examples that should be recognized within the goals. Other board members and members of the public said the board’s second goal — balancing consistent quality and fairness across the district with individual schools’ autonomy — resonated with them, for various reasons. “I think it’s fair to say the district has not done as well in the past in ensuring consistency, particularly in what Dr. McGee called horizontal consistency,” said Ken Dauber, who is running for a seat on the school board this fall. “I think that we can have both. We can preserve innovation while ensuring consistency with the kind of data-based approach that Dr. McGee is suggesting.” The school board’s two new student representatives for this academic year, Rose Weinmann from Gunn High School and Carolyn Walworth from Palo

Alto High School, voiced concern about a high level of variation among teachers at their own schools and between Palo Alto’s two high schools. “You want teachers to have autonomy ... but at the same time, I’m sending off a transcript in October and if a kid in a different class only had to turn in worksheets and I worked so hard for that B and he got an A by doing nothing, it says nothing next to it,” Weinmann said. “That’s really important to students. We want innovation and we want change, but we really need those grades and we want it to be consistent.” Board President Barb Mitchell cautioned that McGee and staff should spend more time talking to the district community about what exactly consistency means to them before moving forward with the goal. “I wonder if our larger community of parents, staff, board members, students have a lot of different ideas of what consistency is and whether we know enough yet about what that is,” Mitchell said. “I heard two stories tonight that illustrated a strong perspective (the student

representatives), and I’ve heard something very different from other community members. ... I don’t have a specific recommendation other than an interest in ensuring we have asked enough questions of students in particular on what this means and what we’re trying to get to.” Other board members emphasized the need to further look at the district’s assessment tools as it transitions into the Smarter Balanced Assessment, which is aligned with the new Common Core State Standard. Board members expressed concern that the district could be moving forward too quickly with the new tests while leaving old assessment tools behind unnecessarily. “I don’t want to lose those (tools) that we’ve used to date, so I want some assurances around this,” board member Camille Townsend told McGee. “What are we going to do? I don’t need the answer tonight, but I do need some heavy thinking.” Members of the public who spoke to the board Tuesday night also mostly lauded the proposed (continued on page 11)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 7

Upfront

RELIGION

A new home for ancient ways Los Altos Hills artist, design team bring to life Palo Alto’s first freestanding mosque by Elena Kadvany | photos by Veronica Weber

The walls of the mihrab are embossed in an elegant pattern, which will be outlined in gold leaf. Above: Asgharali Mandviwala, left, and Jun Salangsang apply gold leaf to the mihrab in the main prayer hall of the Palo Alto mosque in late August.

tanding inside the almostcomplete prayer hall of Palo Alto’s first freestanding mosque on San Antonio Road, Durriya Tyabji sees a space reminiscent of a mosque built in Cairo, Egypt, in 1125 A.D. The Al-Aqmar Mosque, also referred to as “Gray Mosque,” dates back to the Fatimid regime and is famous for its intricate stone façade with carved-out arches, a sun-like arch motif, impressive columns and symmetrical embellishments. Tyabji, an artist originally from India who lives in Los Altos Hills, has melded the traditional elements of the seminal Al-Aqmar mosque with her own contemporary design to create the south Palo Alto building, a seven-year labor of love that is about two weeks away from being fully complete. There are elements of ancient Islamic architecture throughout, starting with a perfectly recreated exterior façade of the Al-Aqmar Mosque, which Palo Alto contractor John Lerch handmolded. A large, marbled medallion shipped from India, inscribed

Page 8 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

with “Allah” in Arabic, sits above the entrance — the central point from which all of the concrete sun beams originate. Creating a feature similar to the Cairo mosque’s medallion, Lerch cut holes in the medallion to allow light to shine through at night. A unifying design, identical to that of another ancient Egyptian mosque — circles and squares interwoven with each other — appears throughout the mosque, on ornate latticed window grills and on frosted mirrors above two sinks where people wash their hands and face before entering the prayer hall. Inside the prayer hall, passages from the Quran, the 100 names for God and a verse that means “God is merciful,” Tyabji said, wrap around the top perimeter of the walls. The delicate Arabic script — raised and coated in sheets of 24-karat gold — is laid on top of white marble, brought to Palo Alto from the same quarry from which the marble the Taj Mahal was built. But everywhere else is Tyabji’s more contemporary touch, perhaps best represented in delicate,

simple light fixtures that she designed herself. Like a modern chandelier, the lights resemble constellations, a collection of metal rods with small glowing orbs of light at each end. “It’s the old design that we interpreted in a contemporary way,” Tyabji said. “We juxtaposed both old and new together to make it a very unique design by itself.” Tyabji, along with the support of her husband, a team of local architects and contractor, built the 12,000-square-foot mosque to serve as a more convenient, centralized place of worship and community gathering for about 100 Bay Area families as far north as San Francisco and as far south as San Jose. Tyabji and the families are part of the Dawoodi Bohra community, a sub-sect of Shia Islam based out of India. Tyabji said the closest mosques they go to are in Santa Clara and Fremont. “We wanted something central so that everybody could come and congregate,” she said. The south Palo Alto mosque is not actually the city’s first mosque, though it is the first

Upfront freestanding one. Jamil Islamic Center at 427 California Ave. was opened more than 15 years ago by the late Mohammad Mazhar Jamil, who owned Jamil Oriental Carpets next door. It occupies part of an existing building. Seven years ago, Tyabji enlisted the help of Lerch, whom the couple had known since he built their Los Altos Hills home in 1987, to build the mosque. Palo Alto architects John Barton (a former City Council member) of Barton Architect and Tony Carrasco (a former member of the Architectural Review Board) and Abha Nehru of Carrasco & Associates — none of whom had designed a mosque before — became her design team, executing her unique, intricately detailed vision. The entire design, from the proportions of a minaret tower to the more creative, original elements, also had to be reviewed and approved by sect leaders in India, Nehru said. Unlike minarets from which calls for prayer are traditionally made, Palo Alto mosque’s roughly 60-foot minaret is serving only a

ful of a prayer area as the men,” she said. “It’s unique in a sense because this is so airy.” Both upstairs and downstairs, as well as in a children’s room and a community room, are large flat-screen TVs on which they plan to live-stream important ceremonies or religious events that might be happening elsewhere in the world for the India-based sect. Tyabji said they will stream their own event when the sect’s high priest comes to bless the Palo Alto mosque in the next few months. The proposed rebuilding of what used to be a church at 998 San Antonio Road, which sits just west of U.S. Highway 101 on an offshoot of San Antonio Road, across from the Oshman Family JCC, was announced in October 2007, but it had been years in the making. The local Dawoodi Bohra community had searched for a site to purchase for years before settling on the former church and acquiring it for $1.6 million, with a major contribution from Tyabji and her husband, Hatim. The couple also backed the entire

decorative purpose. Tradition notwithstanding, Tyabji has left a contemporary mark on the mosque in ways that are more than ornamental. On the mosque’s second floor is the separate women’s prayer hall, which centers around a balcony that looks down into the first level, where the men pray. Depending on space, women traditionally pray either behind men or in a separate room to maintain modesty and ritual purity — an increasingly controversial separation within Muslim culture that often leaves women with a subpar area for prayer. Tyabji, though, made the upstairs an expansive, airy space. Large windows face the Palo Alto Foothills, the ceiling is just as high as the one below and there are five smaller versions of her chandeliers. “Sometimes, what happens is that in most of the women’s section, the ceilings are low and they are not given as much air and space, so we wanted to make sure that the women had just as beauti-

design and construction process. The city’s Architectural Review Board approved the project in 2008. Construction started in December 2011 and is now almost complete, though the two-level prayer hall will not be used until it has been officially blessed by Syedna Aali Qadr Mufaddal Saifuddin, the 53rd leader of the Dawoodi Bohra sect. He is based in India and is expected to visit the United States in the coming months to bless a series of new mosques. The mosque pays unique homage to the sect leader, with exactly 53 light bulbs on the largest of Tyabji’s constellation chandeliers. That chandelier drops from the second-floor ceiling into the first floor in front of the mihrab, a hollowed out archway that Tyabji de- Durriya Tyabji, funder of the mosque, stands in the women’s prayer area. Intricate window fines as “the heart of the mosque.” grills contribute to the architectural style of the mosque. Islamic art created by Durriya Tyabi The mihrab indicates the mosque’s from verses in the Quran hang on the walls of the mosque. qibla, or the direction to Mecca, which Muslims must face while praying. In order to have the qibla perfectly aligned, the building sits at a slight angle from San Antonio. (continued on page 10)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 9

Upfront

Mosque (continued from page 9)

Though the prayer hall is not yet open, the congregation has started holding events for special holy nights and holidays in a large, carpeted adjoining community room, which is plainer than the prayer hall. The carpeted space, with a completely open floor plan, is undecorated, save for three black-and-white framed portraits of Syedna Aali Qadr Mufaddal Saifuddin and his two predecessors. The windows and a few skylights also allow in expansive natural light, one of Tyabji’s priorities throughout the building. The community hall connects to a full commercial kitchen, in which two women dressed in full Muslim garb were making rice on a recent afternoon. Despite the fact that the mosque centers around the Dawoodi Bohra Islamic sect, Tyabji said that it is an all-welcoming space. She and other team members also spoke to the cooperative relationship they have had with the neighboring Oshman Jewish Community Center throughout the building process. About the cover: The newly constructed mosque in Palo Alto pays tribute to the AlAqmar Mosque in Egypt. Photo by Veronica Weber.

“It’s like a dream come true,” Tyabji said of seeing the yearslong project come to fruition. “For myself and my husband, I think the biggest motivation was the fact that we have been blessed and we wanted to do something for our community.

Page 10 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

This is our way of giving back to our community.” Q See a timeline of construction photos on the 998 San Antonio Road blog at tinyurl.com/mxabzve. Online Editor Elena Kadvany can be emailed at ekadvany@ paweekly.com.

Above: The 100 names of God written in Arabic are lined with gold leaf and surround the first level of the prayer hall. Below: Asgharali Mandviwala, left, and Jun Salangsang apply gold leaf to the arched mihrab of the Palo Alto mosque in late August.

Upfront LAND USE

‘Planned community’ zoning receives commission support Controversial development process should be improved, not abolished, commissioners agree by Gennady Sheyner alo Alto’s planning commissioners made a case Wednesday for preserving the city’s “planned community” zoning, a controversial process by which developers circumvent zoning regulations in exchange for negotiated “public benefits.” The zoning was requested for recent developments such as Alma Village (formally Alma Plaza), Lytton Gateway and the College Terrace Centre but was suspended in February so that the City Council could consider reforming it. The moratorium came after last November’s vote on Measure D, by which voters overturned the council’s approval of a housing development on Maybell Avenue that included 60 apartments for low-income seniors. Members of the city’s Planning and Transportation Commission argued on Wednesday that the zoning remains a beneficial tool for promoting valuable development that is not compatible with the normal zoning code. They noted that in the vast majority of cases, the designation has enabled the city to add important amenities, such as affordable housing, public parking and child care facilities. Aside from the recent controversial developments, the list of projects that relied on PC zoning also includes the senior residential Channing House; the 44-unit Tree House Apartments complex for low-income residents on West Charleston Road; and the Opportunity Center, which provides services for homeless people. “Of the 20 projects or so we’ve had since 2000, we’re probably talking about a very small handful that are problem children,” Commissioner Eric Rosenblum said. “What do we do about them?” The commission answered this question through a long series of “straw poll” votes. Though they didn’t issue any formal recommendation, members endorsed by an overwhelming majority changes such as defining what exactly constitutes a “public benefit” and giving the public earlier oppor-

tunities to comment on proposed PC applications. Because the term “public benefit” is not defined in the Municipal Code, developers have offered everything from sculptures and public plazas to affordable-housing units and cash contributions to secure the city’s approval. This has sparked anxiety among local land-use watchdogs, who often refer to the PCzone process as “wildcard zoning” or, more concisely, a scam. It hasn’t helped that some public benefits don’t pan out as planned. The developers of College Terrace Centre, who used the “Save JJ&F” campaign to win approval for the 57,900-square-foot development on El Camino Real, succeeded in winning the council’s approval shortly before the beloved JJ&F Market decided to leave. And several public plazas became less public after restaurants effectively appropriated them for outdoor seating. The commission agreed unanimously that the city should add an “enforcement and monitoring” mechanism to ensure that developers provide promised benefits. They rejected a suggestion from Commissioner Michael Alcheck that the process should permit developers to make a cash payment, allowing the council to direct the funds toward what it considers to be the city’s most pressing need. About the PC projects that the city has approved since 2000, Alcheck pointed to a table listing them and observed that the vast majority were not controversial at all. “We’re a lot more cynical about this process than this table suggests we should be,” he said. At the same time, everyone agreed that the process could work better. Vice Chair Arthur Keller made a case for relying less on the zoning and more on specific-area plans — intense studies in which the city specifies the types of land uses and development standards that it wants to encourage in a particular section of the city. The city used this process a decade ago when it adopted the South of Forest

Avenue (SOFA) area plan. Most of Keller’s colleagues agreed. Most commissioners also agreed that they should retain their present role in initiating the PC zone process for projects, which precedes the proposal’s formal review and approval by the commission and, ultimately, the council. Keller also suggested having a preliminary commission review at which the public and members can offer their opinions before a developer has made a significant investment in the application. “We should be willing to say ‘no’ early on to projects we don’t like, instead of wasting the developer’s time or the public’s time on projects that we think are ridiculous,” Keller said. Alcheck took a different stance and argued that it should be the council that initiates the PC process. “If they weighed in, it would give the developers of these projects a more comfortable process because they’d know what the expectations of the City Council were,” Alcheck said. Commissioner Carl King said different types of PC proposals should be evaluated by different criteria. Senior housing or belowmarket-rate housing developments are the “types of projects that seem a perfect fit for the PCtype process,” King said, whereas for-profit proposals should be considered differently. Everyone agreed Wednesday that despite the recent controversy over PC zoning and the current PC hiatus, the process should be retained and improved, rather than abolished. Patricia Saffir, a resident who addressed the commission, made this point before the commission began its series of informal votes. “I believe the process has generally served us very well for many years,” Saffir said. “Now, because the voters who chose to vote rejected a project approved by the council, we seem to be sort of panicking, and I don’t think we should do that.” Q

School board

teaching, curriculum,” said parent Mary Vincent. “Overall, I’m very encouraged that you want clear accountability and people to be forthright.” McGee also emphasized the measures and deliverables of the board’s fifth goal, which is to be proactive and transparent rather than reactive. These deliverables include doing more outreach; meeting community members for what McGee calls a “second cup of coffee”; collecting all media

coverage of the district, whether positive or negative; analyzing the board’s response time to complaints and comments; and implementing a new communications plan that incorporates “multiple media and messengers.” “We think we’re pretty transparent and open, but if nobody else thinks you are, then you have some work to do,” McGee said. Q Online Editor Elena Kadvany can be emailed at ekadvany@ paweekly.com.

(continued from page 7)

goals, particularly McGee’s datadriven approach, interest in creating more consistency across Palo Alto Unified’s 17 school sites and commitment to evaluating innovative programs and practices in order to lift up what works and throw out what doesn’t. “I love the theme of consistency in instruction, course load,

News Digest City OKs contract for transportation association Palo Alto officials have quietly launched a bold new initiative that aims to attack the parking problems from the demand side. The City Council approved earlier this month a three-year, $499,880 contract with the firm Moore Lacofano Goltsman (MIG) to form the city’s Transportation Management Association, a downtown nonprofit organization that will coordinate incentives for downtown employees to switch from cars to other modes of transportation. Its mission is to reduce the number of trips by solo drivers by 30 percent within three years. The new association is one leg of the city’s “three-legged stool” approach for addressing what many call downtown’s parking “crisis.” Another component is increasing supply by building new garages and lots. The third is to better manage existing parking through new parking-permit programs and garage technology. The new association, according to a staff report, would “help identify specific needs for various transit programs, provide a centralized location for transportation information, identify and create funding mechanisms for various transit programs, and advocate for the use of those programs.” The first order of business for MIG will be reaching out to downtown’s businesses, who will feel more parking pressure early next year when the city begins limiting the time that commuters can park on residential streets. The business outreach and work-plan development phase is expected to take 19 months. At the same time, the team will create a TMA website and launch social-media initiatives. The contract also calls for creating of a steering committee that will lead the creation of the TMA; conducting “transportation and social marketing related research” and launching various marketing and public-outreach initiatives. Q — Gennady Sheyner

Man arrested for hate crime, cane attack Palo Alto police arrested a man who they say committed a hate crime Saturday night when he yelled racial epithets and attacked two older men in a downtown parking lot, in one case smashing a cane across a victim’s forehead. A police officer was driving past parking Lot A on Emerson Street just before midnight when he reportedly heard a commotion. When he approached the area where the noise was coming from, he saw a man in his 60s lying on the ground in a fetal position. A man with blood on his hands and head was standing over him, holding onto a stairwell and kicking the man in his upper chest and head. The officer ordered the alleged assailant to stop, at which time the suspect allegedly ran into an alleyway next to the parking lot. The officer quickly caught him and took him into custody. The suspect, 26-year-old Shane Patrick Collins, had allegedly approached two men in the parking lot and begun shouting racial epithets at them. After they asked him to go away, the man walked up to them and allegedly assaulted one of them, a black man in his 50s. Collins was charged with two counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon, one count of felony robbery for taking the cane, a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest, and a hate crime. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the department’s 24-hour dispatch center at 650-329-2413. Q — Gennady Sheyner

County expands homeless programs Faced with a shortage of beds to accommodate the county’s homeless population this coming winter, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved $1.2 million for various programs targeting its neediest residents, including agreements with the nonprofit, InnVision Shelter Network. The aid package was prompted by the recent closure of the old Sunnyvale Armory, which has served for decades as a cold-weather shelter for the homeless. Now slated for redevelopment, the armory site had offered about 125 beds. Its closure left county officials scrambling to find possible locations for a cold-weather shelter. The new site, Supervisor Joe Simitian told the Palo Alto council, is “very much on the top of our to-do list.” He noted that four people died last year during an unexpected cold spell and said in a statement Tuesday that this “can’t be allowed to happen again.” With its unanimous vote, the county allocated up to $770,000 to HomeFirst and other providers of housing programs to lease and operate a homeless shelter at a site to be determined. The funds will be used to establish an emergency shelter capable of accommodating at least 50 individuals. In addition, the county approved a $163,200 agreement with InnVision Shelter Network to implement a new motel-voucher program for homeless families with children. Q — Gennady Sheyner www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 11

Upfront HOUSING

Ruling paves the way for Buena Vistaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s closure Administrative judge sides with owner of Palo Altoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only mobile-home park by Gennady Sheyner

T Sue Dremann

Speeding driver hits four parked cars A man driving at 40 to 50 miles per hour out of the Fryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Electronics parking lot in Palo Alto Thursday morning collided with a nearby parked car, causing a domino-effect crash that left four unoccupied cars damaged. The driver has been taken to Stanford Hospital to be treated for minor injuries.

he closure of Palo Altoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sole mobile-home park became more likely Wednesday, when an administrative judge upheld the property ownerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plan for compensating the roughly 400 residents who would be evicted when Buena Vista Mobile Home Park shutters. Acknowledging that his decision will have a significant impact on the largely Hispanic and working-class community in Barron Park, Administrative Judge Craig Labadie concluded that the Jisser family has fulfilled all the legal requirements to proceed with the

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Page 12 â&#x20AC;˘ August 29, 2014 â&#x20AC;˘ Palo Alto Weekly â&#x20AC;˘ www.PaloAltoOnline.com

closure. Among the most significant of these is the completion of an adequate Relocation Impact Report (RIR), a document that estimates the value of each mobile home and lays out the financial assistance that the Jissers will provide to the roughly 100 families who would need to find a new place to live. Labadieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 22-page decision, which focuses on this document, came about three months after a three-day public hearing in which dozens of Buena Vista residents and community supporters made a plea to keep the mobile-home park open, citing the high costs of housing in the area and the disruptive effects of having to pull children out of Palo Alto schools. The residentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; attorney called the offer in the Relocation Impact Report â&#x20AC;&#x153;grossly inadequateâ&#x20AC;? at that time. Labadie acknowledged in his ruling the â&#x20AC;&#x153;heartfelt testimonyâ&#x20AC;? he heard from residents and experts. â&#x20AC;&#x153;These impacts include not only disruption to the lives of the residents and their families, but also loss of economic and cultural diversity for the City of Palo Alto,â&#x20AC;? he wrote. Yet he also concluded that the Jissers have met their burden in offering Buena Vistaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s residents â&#x20AC;&#x153;reasonable costs of relocation,â&#x20AC;? as required by state and local law. This being the case, he ruled that the Relocation Impact Report merits approval. For the Jissers, the ruling is a significant milestone in a process that was launched nearly two years ago, when they submitted their application to close the El Camino Real park. In February, Palo Alto officials deemed the report complete after numerous revisions to the compensation package. Labadieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decision largely confirmed the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conclusion, paving the way for the closure to proceed. The package of relocation benefits was last revised on May 14, when the Jissersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; attorney offered at the conclusion of the public hearing to increase the subsidies. The relocation benefits provided to the residents in the current report are: the full appraised value of each mobile home; a rent subsidy equal to the difference between the average space rent at the park and the average market rent for replacement housing; start-up costs equal to three monthsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; rent; moving expenses; and special assistance for handicapped and disabled residents. Labadie also stipulated that the compensation should be based on updated ap-

praisals for the mobile homes, reflecting market conditions within six months of relocation. The Jisserâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attorney, Margaret Nanda, offered the updated appraisals on May 14 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; five minutes prior to the end of the threeday hearing â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in response to the concerns from residents. At the public hearing, Nanda argued that the park, which the Jissers bought in 1986, is private property and the family members are within their rights to close it. Melissa Morris, representing the residents, made a case in her closing comments on May 14 for preserving the mobile-home park. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s one of the communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only sources of affordable housing, so its preservation is important,â&#x20AC;? Morris said. But Labadie concluded that the benefits listed in the amended Relocation Impact Report are sufficient. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Taken as a whole, the above mitigation measures will substantially lessen the adverse impacts of park closure on residents who are required to relocate,â&#x20AC;? Labadie wrote. â&#x20AC;&#x153;With the assistance of the housing relocation specialist, the relocation benefits to be provided by the park owner will go a long way toward helping individual residents pay the cost of relocating into alternative housing.â&#x20AC;? Labadieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decision is tentative, and attorneys from both sides will have 14 days to respond to the ruling. Residents will have a chance to appeal the decision to the City Council, a move that Palo Alto officials fully anticipate. Labadie also offered to hold his decision in abeyance, effectively suspending it, if the two parties request time to come up with an agreement that would either avoid an appeal altogether or narrow the issues on which the council would rule. While the ruling makes it increasingly likely that the park will close, the question of what will replace it remains open. In July, real-estate giant Prometheus, which was planning to build a 187-unit, luxury-apartment complex on the site, pulled out of its deal with the Jissers. The roughly 4.5-acre site at 3980 El Camino is zoned R-15, which means it can accommodate low-density, multifamily housing. After attorneys from both sides respond to Labadieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ruling, he will issue a final decision within a month. Residents will then have 10 days to appeal the decision to the council. Q Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be emailed at gsheyner@ paweekly.com.

Upfront

Bike bridge (continued from page 7)

Weekly file photo

VIDEO: A new place to play — in just one day At the crest of the U.S. Highway 101 overpass in East Palo Alto, a new 4,000-square-foot playground came to life last week where just one day earlier there had been only an empty lot. Volunteers from Coupons.com joined East Palo Alto residents, city employees and police officers to build the playground in Bell Street Park in six hours. It is expected that more than 3,200 children will use the park. To watch a video of the build, and hear what the new playground means to residents, go to PaloAltoOnline.com and search for “Volunteers build East Palo Alto playground.”

Holman (continued from page 5)

erable powers as a City Council member to attempt to effectuate an ‘up zoning’ from R-1 to RM30 through the back door of the Housing Element,” states the complaint, which was provided to the Weekly by the commission. “Placing a site in the Housing Element requires the city to rezone that site to make it consistent with the Housing Element within one year; therefore placing a site in the Housing Element effectively rezones it without public scrutiny.” While Holman publicly disclosed her financial arrangement with Pierce and recused herself from the council’s discussion of the Arastradero sites on June 4, her prior advocacy of the “workforce housing” concept prompted concerns from her colleagues. Councilman Greg Scharff, who also sits on the housing committee and is seeking re-election this year, said her failure to recuse herself from discussing the sites during April and May meetings constituted a conflict of interest. Scharff said he had mentioned his concern to Holman during the May meeting. On June 9, Councilman Larry Klein made a similar point, emphasizing that the decision to recuse is one that each council member has to make and is not one made by the city attorney. Vice Mayor Liz Kniss also asked City Attorney Molly Stump to clarify the rules for recusing. Kniss subsequently told the Weekly that her call for a clarification was prompted by media reports about Holman’s prior failure to recuse herself

from the discussions involving the Arastradero sites. Holman has maintained that the criticism she has been receiving for her financial relationship with Pierce has been purely political. “The FPPC typically sees a spike in these kinds of politically motivated claims during election times, and I chalk it up to what’s begun as a rather nasty political Karen Holman campaign season,” Holman said in a statement. “There was never any factual basis for these false accusations,” she said, adding that she was “delighted the FPPC has definitively confirmed this fact.” It is “unfortunate that my detractors stooped to false innuendos and anonymous accusations to contrive the appearance of a conflict of interest,” she said. Holman told the Weekly that her consulting arrangement with Pierce goes back more than a decade and is related to her training and expertise in the preservation of historic properties. She’s received numerous payments ranging from a few thousands dollars to one just short of $50,000. On her Form 700 for 2013, the payments from the firm are listed in the $10,000-

$100,000 range, though she told the Weekly that she had not received any payments from Pierce since May 2012. This disparity was highlighted in the anonymous complaint, which alleges that it would be perjury for Holman to list the firm as a source of income in 2013 if she in fact had not received any money from the firm. Holman said she wanted to list the firm as an income source in order to “identify for the public any potential conflicts of interest.” “Because I may or may not be getting any future income from that source, it seemed to me that the transparent thing was to list them as a source of income,” she told the Weekly. Holman said she had changed her form to clarify that she did not receive any income from Zane MacGregor in 2013. She also said she hopes that her exoneration by the FPPC will put an end to the accusations and allow her to focus on local issues such as “overdevelopment, parking, retail retention, and preservation of our neighborhoods.” She is one of 12 candidates running for five council seats in November, a field that also includes Scharff and Mayor Nancy Shepherd. “I’m hoping this will be put to rest and put aside so we can talk about real issues that are facing Palo Alto,” Holman told the Weekly. Q

Corrections The Aug. 22 story “Downtown Streets Team to run Food Closet” stated an incorrect budget figure for the nonprofit Streets Team. The budget is $3 million. In “Flying in the face of consensus,” it was incorrectly stated that scientists have not decoded the entire genome. Rather, scientists have not deciphered the many functions of genomic “dark matter.” To request a correction, contact Editor Jocelyn Dong at 650-223-6514, jdong@paweekly.com or P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302.

ate and declare a winner by ranking the finalists. The council will then have the option of accepting the jury’s verdict or considering other options, according to a report issued earlier this month by the Public Works Department. “Although the preferred outcome would be for the council to agree with the jury’s determination of the design competition winner, council will have the option of selecting any of the three designers, or of deciding that the city should move forward with a solicitation for design services independent of the design competition results,” the report states. On Tuesday night, it was the Parks and Recreation Commission’s turn to weigh in on the proposed design competition. Like the architecture board, the parks commission offered feedback on the three criteria that staff proposed to use for the competition: innovation, versatility and sustainability. Several members focused on the bridge’s environmentally sensitive location and said that this factor should be in the design guidelines. “We are going to be putting this project in a delicate ecosystem and we need to be mindful of that,” Commissioner Abbie Knopper said. Commissioner Deirdre Crommie advocated for the concept of “preservation” rather than of “sustainability,” as proposed by staff. “I think of sustainability as being one kind of movement that is sometimes at odds with conserva-

tion and preservation,” Crommie said, pointing to the city’s recent decision to make a parcel of parkland in Byxbee Park available for a waste-to-energy facility. Commissioner Keith Reckdahl said the bridge should not only be beautiful but, more importantly, functional — or else it will be a waste of money. This means having adequate space for bicyclists to use it safely, without having to dismount near the entrance and exit. “A beautiful project that doesn’t work is not beautiful,” Reckdahl said. Pat Markevitch took a different stance from her colleagues and lobbied for “the most simple design.” “Put it in, make it safe and just get it done,” Markevitch said. She pointed to overpasses in San Carlos and Sunnyvale as examples. Each was able to adequately function within the constraints of Caltrain’s right-of-way over 101, she said. The bridge should also not cost the city too much money, she said. “Even if we have grant money, it still makes a statement about how we’re watching our costs,” Markevitch said. The design guidelines will be finalized in the coming weeks, but city officials have already agreed to make one change to the process based on commission feedback. Ames said the city no longer plans to limit the competition to firms that have designed two bridges in the past 10 years. Now, each competing team will be required to include an engineer or an architect who has designed one bridge in the past decade, Ames said. Q

Online This Week

These and other news stories were posted on Palo Alto Online throughout the week. For longer versions, go to www.PaloAlto Online.com/news.

Fair housing veteran to helm rent control A longtime advocate for fair housing in East Palo Alto has been picked as the city’s new rent-control administrator, staff has confirmed. (Posted Aug. 27, 9:49 a.m.)

Off-duty detective spots robbery suspect A man suspected of robbing a person he’d just befriended in downtown Palo Alto earlier this month was arrested for the crime Tuesday afternoon, police have announced. (Posted Aug. 26, 6:09 p.m.)

Man arrested for attempted murder An East Palo Alto man has been arrested in connection with an attempted murder in San Mateo, according to San Mateo police. (Posted Aug. 26, 9:55 a.m.)

Four aftershocks hit Napa area Tuesday The U.S. Geological Survey this morning reported a 3.0-magnitude aftershock about four miles southwest of Napa, the fourth this morning in the same area where a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck on Sunday. (Posted Aug. 26, 8:12 a.m.)

East Palo Alto woman gets 15 years to life An East Palo Alto woman has received 15 years to life in prison after a 2011 high-speed chase that led to the death of her friend, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office. (Posted Aug. 22, 3:58 p.m.)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 13

Rates and offers are in effect as of August 25, 2014, for new applications only, for a limited time, and subject to change without notice. Offers available for nationwide purchases DQG UHĂ&#x17E;QDQFHV <HDU )L[HG 0RUWJDJH 3D\PHQW ([DPSOH The information provided assumes the purpose of the loan is to purchase a property, with a loan amount of $100,000 and an estimated property value of $135,000. The property LV ORFDWHG LQ $OH[DQGULD 9$ DQG LV ZLWKLQ )DLUID[ &RXQW\ 7KH SURSHUW\ LV DQ H[LVWLQJ VLQJOH IDPLO\ KRPH DQG ZLOO EH used as a primary residence. An escrow (impound) account may be required. The rate lock period is 60 days and the assumed credit score is 740. At a 3.000% interest rate, the $35 IRU WKLV ORDQ W\SH LV RWKHU UDWHV DQG WHUPV available. The monthly payment schedule would be 179 payments of $690.58 and 1 payment of $690.88 at an LQWHUHVW UDWH RI 3D\PHQWV VKRZQ GR QRW LQFOXGH WD[HV RU LQVXUDQFH HVFURZV DFWXDO SD\PHQWV PD\ EH JUHDWHU 127( $ RULJLQDWLRQ IHH DSSOLHV WR WKLV ORDQ The origination fee may be waived by adding 0.25% to the selected rate. *)RU SXUFKDVH WUDQVDFWLRQV WKH UDWH FDQQRW EH ORFNHG XQWLO D SXUFKDVH DJUHHPHQW KDV EHHQ UDWLĂ&#x17E;HG 7KH DSSOLFDWLRQ RI SRLQWV ZLOO EH GHWHUPLQHG E\ WKH ORDQ WR YDOXH /79 UDWLR FRPELQHG ZLWK FHUWDLQ UHSUHVHQWDWLYH FUHGLW VFRUHV 3RLQWV DOVR DSSO\ WR FHUWDLQ FDVK RXW UHĂ&#x17E;QDQFH transactions, certain condominium transactions, and some WUDQVDFWLRQV ZLWK VXERUGLQDWH Ă&#x17E;QDQFLQJ WKDW ZLOO UHĂ&#x;HFW RQ WKH *RRG )DLWK (VWLPDWH DQG RU 6HWWOHPHQW 6WDWHPHQW Investment properties not eligible for offers. The applicant is responsible for the following fees and costs at the time RI FORVLQJ RULJLQDWLRQ IHH DSSUDLVDO IHH WD[ VHUYLFH IHH &/2 DFFHVV IHH WLWOH IHHV WUDQVIHU WD[ IHHV FUHGLW UHSRUW IHH Ă&#x;RRG FHUW IHH UHFRUGLQJ IHH VXUYH\ LI UHTXLUHG DQG ZRUN YHULĂ&#x17E;FDWLRQ IHH HVFURZ UHVHUYHV DQG LQWHUHVW GXH XQWLO Ă&#x17E;UVW SD\PHQW RWKHU FRVW PD\ EH LQFOXGHG GXH WR SURJUDP VSHFLĂ&#x17E;F FLUFXPVWDQFHV 7KLV LV QRW LQWHQGHG WR EH DQ DOO LQFOXVLYH OLVW (VFURZV FDQ EH ZDLYHG LI /79 LV RU OHVV LQ DOO VWDWHV %RUURZHUV DUH UHTXLUHG WR KDYH VXIĂ&#x17E;FLHQW reserve assets available to cover 6 months full payments including principal, interest, homeownerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s insurance, SURSHUW\ WD[HV DQG KRPHRZQHU DVVRFLDWHG GXHV DQG RU PRUWJDJH LQVXUDQFH LI DSSOLFDEOH )RU QRQ SULPDU\ UHVLGHQFHV ZH UHTXLUH months of reserve assets. Other restrictions PD\ DSSO\ )HGHUDOO\ LQVXUHG E\ WKH 1&8$

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CANDIDATES DEBATE

Who should lead our schools? Thursday, Sept. 11 7:30 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 9:30 p.m. Cultural Arts Hall

Oshman Family JCC 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto

A debate featuring candidates for PAUSD school board:

Upfront

Freegal Music (continued from page 5)

loads per month, according to Senior Librarian Jessica Goodman. Downloads have increased by nearly 30 percent over the past year. The library adopted Freegal in 2012, just a couple of years after the serviceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inception. The decision was part of a push to develop a virtual branch that would help the library keep up with digital trends. The service also allows the library to save time on maintenance such as resurfacing and replacing damaged disks and save money on preparing new disks for lending. Other benefits include avoiding space issues inherent in a growing disk collection and reducing the length of waiting lists. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Adeleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;21,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; for example, when that came out there were enormous lines at libraries,â&#x20AC;? said Brian Downing, CEO of Library Ideas, LLC, in an interview with the Weekly. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Freegal services a larger population.â&#x20AC;? The cost of Freegal subscriptions varies from library to library. The population of the city a library serves, not the number of cardholders, determines annual fees. Palo Alto, home to about 65,000 residents, pays $18,250 per year for the service. The subscription breaks down to around 50 cents per download, according to Goodman. Of the libraryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approximately 47,000 cardholders, only a small percentage use Freegal, which Lai said is due to a lack of awareness more than a lack of interest. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When I worked at the desk at Mitchell Park Library,â&#x20AC;? she said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;whenever customers would ask for a CD, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d say, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;On a related topic, have you heard about our Freegal Music service?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Customers were often interested and said

things like, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s awesome!â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? Freegal, which accounts for 3 percent of the libraryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s total collection budget, allows members access to about 7.9 million songs. To put that into perspective, the library spent nearly $6,000 on 477 CDs in fiscal year 2014, according to Lai. Because the cost of a Freegal subscription is based on the size of the population a library serves, the downloadable music service is feasible for most libraries. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I personally grew up in a small town, and small-town libraries are just as important as larger libraries,â&#x20AC;? Downing said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are just as happy to serve 300 people as 3 million people.â&#x20AC;? Other libraries in the area that subscribe to Freegal include the Santa Clara County Library District and the San Mateo County Library. When Downing started pitching Freegal to libraries in 2010, he emphasized equally the â&#x20AC;&#x153;freeâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;legalâ&#x20AC;? aspects. Freegal funnels a large portion of its revenue to participating record labels. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When people walk into a library and check out a CD, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s legal,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But when people put that CD into a computer and start ripping songs, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not legal.â&#x20AC;? In one fell swoop, Freegal supplies millions of songs to thousands of libraries, stymies illegal download activity and supports a struggling music industry. And, in this digital age, it gives many a reason to use their library card each week. Q

LETâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DISCUSS: Read the latest local news headlines and talk about the issues at Town Square at PaloAltoOnline.com

CityView A round-up

of Palo Alto government action this week

City Council

The council did not meet this week.

Jay Cabrera

Gina Dalma

Ken Dauber

Catherine Crystal Foster

Terry Godfrey

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Follow signs to the Cultural Arts Hall, located one ďŹ&#x201A;oor up from the garage.

Oshman Family JCC

Parking: Enter driveway to JCC from Fabian Way and park in the garage.

Fabian

Moderated by Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian

Parks and Recreation Commission (Aug. 26)

Bridge: The commission discussed the criteria that will be used in the design competition for the new bike bridge over U.S. Highway 101. Action: None Master plan: The commission heard an update on the Parks, Trails, Open Space and Recreation Facilities Master Plan. Action: None

Planning and Transportation Commission (Aug. 27)

Embarcadero: The commission discussed the proposed traffic-signal improvements on Embarcadero, near Town and Country Shopping Center and Palo Alto High School. Action: None Planned community: The commission discussed possible reforms to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;planned communityâ&#x20AC;? zoning process and informally supported retaining the process and adding an enforcement mechanism. Action: None

Board of Education (Aug. 26)

2014-15 goals: The school board discussed five draft goals proposed by Superintendent Max McGee for the 2014-15 year. Action: None

LETâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DISCUSS: Read the latest local news headlines and talk about the issues at Town Square at PaloAltoOnline.com

Page 14 â&#x20AC;˘ August 29, 2014 â&#x20AC;˘ Palo Alto Weekly â&#x20AC;˘ www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Upfront (continued from page 5)

onto Embarcadero. Currently, given the sharp angle at the corner, “vehicles must clearly exit the driveway before beginning a right turn” to go east on Embarcadero, the report states. This, in turn, means that motorists wait for long-enough gaps in eastbound traffic before turning. Another change would include adding one or two lanes to the Town & Country driveway, which is currently a single lane. More substantial improvements will be explored later, after the city conducts a full study. The city plans to release a request

for proposals this fall for a study on increasing the capacity of the roadway and improving the streetscape. This could include widening Embarcadero, a design that would allow the city to install two left-turn lanes from Embarcadero onto El Camino Real. The commission didn’t take a formal vote on the proposed improvements but generally endorsed them before offering their own suggestions for more substantive changes. Commissioner Eric Rosenblum suggested adding a new bike and pedestrian overpass, thus separating the students and the bike commuters from Embarcadero traffic. This, however, would be a significant infrastructure project with a price tag of $6 million to $7

Public Agenda A preview of Palo Alto government meetings next week CITY COUNCIL ... The council has no meetings scheduled this week. UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION ... The commission plans to see a presentation on the Regional Water Quality Control Plant Biosolids Facilities plan; discuss the plan’s impact on utilities; and hear an update on the impact of the statewide drought on water and hydroelectric supplies. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 3, in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave. ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD ... The board plans to discuss modifications to the city’s “build-to-line” ordinance. The meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 4, in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave.

Traffic was backed up on Embarcadero Road near Town & Country Village around 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

Gennady Sheyner

Traffic

million, Rodriguez said. Commissioner Michael Alcheck recommended removing the pedestrian crossing between Paly and the shopping center, which would require students who want to visit Town & Country to use the Caltrain overpass east of the crossing. Though this would take pedestrians more time, Alcheck said the school district can accommodate this problem by increasing lunch time for Paly students by 10 minutes. “That seems like a smaller sacrifice than getting an F rating on this intersection at peak hour,” Alcheck said. Though residents have been clamoring for years about the traffic mess near Town & Country,

few attended Wednesday’s meeting to discuss solutions. Several members of the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Commission (PABAC) submitted letters urging the city to consider how its proposed changes would affect bicyclists. Paul Goldstein, a member of PABAC, noted in an email to the commission that Embarcadero Road is a “major bicycle commute route from Palo Alto onto the Stanford campus.” “I commuted by bicycle every day through this area,” Goldstein wrote. “It is currently challenging for a bicyclist, but it is definitely practicable and is heavily used by both Stanford students and employees. I am concerned that the proposed changes may make mat-

ters worse for bicyclists.” Bob Wenzlau, who works at Town & Country, made a similar observation in his comments to the commission Wednesday. “I think we’re focusing pretty strongly on the automobile situation, the vehicle situation,” Wenzlau said. “In this broader discussion, there’s not very much standing for the bike and pedestrian traffic that passes through there.” The broader study, which the city plans to launch later this year, will also look at a “complete reconfiguration” of the El Camino and Embarcadero intersection; wider sidewalks east of the Paly pedestrian crossing; and a host of new bike lanes and pedestrian enhancements. Q

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Call today to schedule your FREE home safety check for seniors! 650-462-6900 • HomeCareAssistance.com 148 Hawthorne Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301 www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 15

Rev. Clement A. Davenport

Peter Louis Pavlina

August 19, 1924 – August 19, 2014

October 17, 1925 – August, 2014 Community leader Peter Louis Pavlina passed away August 22 at his home after a short illness. He was born October 17, 1925 in Mountain View, CA. His father Luka immigrated in 1913 and his mother Kate Grcich in 1920. Both entered the U.S. through Ellis Island. They met in Mountain View and married in 1921. They were orchardist raising apricots, cherries and prunes in the Santa Clara Valley and peaches, pears and prunes in Yuba County. Following graduation from Mountain View High School in 1943 Peter enlisted in the Air Force serving as a communications expert in North Africa. Following his discharge he returned to Mountain View attended San Jose State and married his high school sweetheart, Carole Taylor in 1946. Peter and Carole built their first home in Los Altos in 1950 where they raised their four children. Peter continued to work with the family orchards and was also employed by the Paul A. Mariani Co. as an accountant. After he received his Real Estate license, Peter opened his own company developing the family orchards and other properties throughout the Valley. He also continued working for the Mariani Co. overseeing their Real Estate ventures. Peter was proud of his activities in the community and business affairs in the county. His proudest accomplishment was the 12 years he served as a public member of Santa Clara County (LAFCO) Local Agency formation Commission during which time he helped form many of the city and county boundaries that exist today. He was the chairman of that Agency in 1978 when approximately 10,000 residents were shifted from San Jose to Cupertino. In addition, Peter was a board member of the El Camino Hospital Foundation, Director of the Santa Clara County Boy Scouts, president of the Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce, member of the Tri-County Apartment Association and the City of Sunnyvale Downtown Committee, Charter member of both the Cupertino Kiwanis Club and Am-Slav Club. He was a member of the Palo Alto Elks Club and Los Altos Golf and Country Club. Peter was an adventurous, hardworking family man. He had a traveling spirit and sought adventures all over the world. He generously shared this love with family as he often took them on trips, especially enjoying family vacations at their home in Maui. He enjoyed his wide circle of friends, and thrived on hard work and honest ethics expecting nothing less from his family and friends. He loved all sports from youth to high school, college and pros. He especially liked the 49ers following them from Kezar Stadium to Candlestick. He was an avid golfer enjoying many rounds with his wife and friends at the L.A. Hills Club and other courses around the area, Palm Springs and Maui. During his lifetime he watched the Santa Clara County burst from a sleepy farming community to become the technology mecca it is today. He remained active and interested in all aspects of the community and in the activities of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Peter is survived by his wife of 67 years Carole, his brother Milt (Carolyn) of Phoenix and four children Linda Wilder (Art) of Sebastopol, Louise Hering (Mike) of Oroville, Lou Pavlina(Carol) of Brookdale and Laurie Lincoln (Todd) of Princeton, New Jersey and 12 grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren. A Mass will be celebrated Thursday, August 28, 2014 at St. Nicholas Catholic Church at 11:30 A.M. Burial will follow at Gates of Heaven Cemetery. Arrangements under the direction of Spangler Mortuaries. Please call 650-492-4120 for additional information. In lieu of flowers the family request that a donation be made to one of Peter’s favorite charities, Melanoma Cancer Research at www.melanoma.org. or your favorite charity. PAID

OBITUARY

Page 16 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Ordained to the priesthood on December. 18, 1948

Pulse A weekly compendium of vital statistics

Services As Follows: Vigil (Rosary) Sunday 8/24 at 6:30 pm – Nativity Church Funeral Mass Monday 8/25 at 11 am – Nativity Church Burial Tuesday 8/26 at 10 am – Holy Cross Cemetery, Colma

POLICE CALLS Palo Alto Aug. 20-26

As many of you are aware, Fr. Clement Arthur Davenport died on August 19, 2014, on his 90th birthday. He was born in Oakland to Clement Joseph and Mina Poston Davenport. He and his brothers William and Walter attended Saint Joseph Grammar School in Berkeley. Art went on to Saint Joseph’s College in Mountain View before entering Saint Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park. Fr. Art was ordained by Archbishop John J. Mitty on December 18, 1948 at Saint Mary’s Cathedral, and celebrated his First Solemn Mass at Saint Joseph’s Church in Berkeley. Initially assigned to Holy Name of Jesus Church, he was commissioned a Chaplain with the U.S. Army on June 6, 1950, and was called to active duty in Korea with the 820th Aviation Engineer Battalion in 1952. Fr. Davenport completed a year in Korea, serving the men of the Forty-Fifth Division, 279th Infantry Regiment and returned to the Archdiocese and an assignment at Saint Bernard Church in Oakland. Fr. Davenport was appointed to Saint Philip Church in San Francisco in 1958, and later that year began two years of service as Chaplain at Saint Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco. On June 17, 1960, Fr. Art was appointed as Associate Pastor of Church of the Nativity in Menlo Park where he served for five years until being assigned to Saint Thomas the Apostle Church, where he also served as Chaplain at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital at Fort Miley. In September, 1966 Fr. Davenport was recalled to active duty in the Army with the rank of Major, and was stationed in Vietnam as Brigade Chaplain for the First Infantry Division. He and his nine assistant chaplains ministered to approximately 30,000 men. Fr. Davenport was awarded the bronze star with three oak leaf clusters for acts of bravery, two air medals, two Army commendations, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. He retired from the military in February 1971 as an Army Chaplain with the rank of full Colonel, remaining in the Active Reserve. In April, 1971, Fr. Davenport was given his first pastorate, at Saint Peter Parish in Pacifica. Fr. Davenport was named Pastor of Church of the Nativity in Menlo Park in 1976. During his years there, he also ministered as Adjunct Chaplain to the San Francisco 49ers. In 1999, after serving at Church of the Nativity for 23 years, Fr. Davenport retired. He resided at Saint Matthew Parish for six years and then returned to live in retirement at Church of the Nativity. In 2013, Father moved to Nazareth House in San Rafael. Your letters of condolence may be sent to the Davenport family in care of Father Art’s niece, as follows: Mina Davenport c/o Church of the Nativity 2100 Oak Grove Avenue Menlo Park, CA 94025 If you wish to make a donation in Fr. Davenport’s memory, contributions can be made to the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s Priests’ Retirement Fund or to Nativity Church. Arrangements entrusted to John O’Connor Menlo Park Funerals. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ sfgate/obituary.aspx?n=clement-davenport&pid=172216023#s thash.2LlrlcVg.dpuf PAID

OBITUARY

Violence related Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Domestic violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Sex crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Theft related Commercial burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Counterfeiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Grand theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Identity theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Petty theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Residential burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Vehicle related Auto theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Driving with suspended license . . . . . . 8 Driving without license . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Hit and run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Speed contest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Theft from auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Vehicle accident/minor injury . . . . . . . . 5 Vehicle accident/property damage. . . . 7 Vehicle impound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Vehicle tow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Alcohol or drug related Driving under influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Drunk in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Possession of drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Possession of paraphernalia . . . . . . . . 1 Under influence of drugs . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Miscellaneous Casualty/fall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Found property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Lost property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Misc. penal code violation . . . . . . . . . . 2 Missing person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Muni. code/misc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Other/misc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Outside investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Psychiatric hold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Suicide attempt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Suspicious circumstances . . . . . . . . . . 3 Unattended death. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Warrant/other agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Menlo Park Aug. 20-26

Violence related Assault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Theft related Burglary undefined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Fraud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Petty theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Residential burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Vehicle related Driving with suspended license . . . . . . 9 Hit and run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Lost/stolen plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Vehicle accident/injury . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Vehicle accident/minor injury . . . . . . . . 1 Vehicle accident/no injury. . . . . . . . . . . 1 Vehicle tow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Alcohol or drug related Driving under influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Drug activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Drug registrant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Drunk in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Miscellaneous Coroner case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 CPS referral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Disturbing/annoying phone calls . . . . . 1 Found property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Info case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Juvenile problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Located missing person . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Lost property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Missing person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Outside assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Psychiatric hold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Registrant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Threats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Transient complaint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Vandalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Warrant arrest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

VIOLENT CRIMES Palo Alto

3128 El Camino Real, 8/22, 7:01 a.m.; battery/simple. 1090 Tanland Drive, 8/24, 9:38 a.m.; domestic violence/battery. Waverley Street, 8/25, 8:52 p.m.; sex crime/misc.

Menlo Park

1100 block Hollyburne Ave., 8/23, 12:43 a.m.; battery. 1200 block Arbor Road, 8/24, 11:27 a.m.; assault. 1500 block San Antonio St., 8/24, 1:30 p.m.; assault. Willow Road and U.S. Highway 101, 8/26, 5:22 p.m.; assault with unknown details.

Transitions Births, marriages and deaths

Bernard Leitner Bernard Donald Leitner, a resident of Palo Alto for around 50 years, died June 14 at his home in Windsor, California. He was 86. He was born on Sept. 30, 1927, in Minneapolis and grew up in Wayzata, M i n nesot a. He went on to study at the University of M i n nesot a, where he studied physics, bonded with other science-fiction fans and met Jane Tynan. They married in 1951. He worked as an aerospace engineer with Lockheed Martin, which brought him and his family to Palo Alto in 1958; Hawaii; England; and then back to Palo Alto around 1965. While in the area, he earned a master’s degree in applied mathematics from Santa Clara University and later worked on the Hubble Space Telescope team. He lived in Palo Alto with his wife until 2012, when they moved to Windsor to be close to her family. He loved spending time outdoors and exploring. He biked along the California coast and in the Sierras and in the Nevada desert, as well as hiked Hawaiian volcanoes and up to the Continental Divide. He also traveled extensively with Jane to places including Greenland and New Zealand. He is survived by his wife, Jane Leitner of Windsor, California; his son, Kam Leitner of Philadelphia; daughter-in-law, Valerie Leitner of San Jose; his daughter, Patricia (Daniel Bach) Leitner of Oakland; and grandson, Kyle Leitner of San Jose. A memorial service was held on Aug. 16 in Windsor. Memorial donations may be made to the Planetary Society (link: bit.ly/ W52SOX).

Bernard Roth Bernard “Bernie” Roth, a longtime resident of Palo Alto, died on Aug. 23 with his family by his side. He was 91. He was born on Jan. 21, 1923, in Brooklyn, New York, to Kalman and Miriam Roth. In 1943, he married his high school sweet hea r t, Toby Gartman. Shortly a f ter, he joined the U.S. Army during WWII and served in a B-17 plane as a bombardier, flying a total of 80 missions. When he returned, he worked on his wife’s family’s chicken farm in New Jersey. With Toby he had two children, Rick

and Cheri. In the 1950s he worked his way through school, starting at Monmouth College and ending at Rutgers University. He studied mathematics and graduated with a bachelor of science degree. During his career, he worked for the General Electric Company and IBM, working there as a project manager for 30 years developing software architecture. His work brought the family out to California, first to Sunnyvale and eventually to Palo Alto. Though he continued to move for

his work, he and his wife retired about 22 years ago in Palo Alto. He loved traveling the world with his wife, and they were both avid golfers. He was predeceased by his wife of 70 years, Toby, in 2012. He is survived by his brother, Harvey Roth of Rancho Mirage, California; son Rick (Carey) Roth of San Rafael; daughter, Cheri (Steve) Housel of Wilsonville, Oregon; and his granddaughter, Lindsey Housel of Denver. A private family service was held in Palo Alto.

Submitting Transitions announcements The Palo Alto Weekly’s Transitions page is devoted to births, weddings, anniversaries and deaths of local residents. Obituaries for local residents are a free editorial service. Send information to Obituaries, Palo Alto Weekly, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302; fax to 650-326-3928; or email to editor@paweekly.com. Please include the name and telephone number of a person who might provide additional information about the deceased. Photos

are accepted and printed on a space-available basis. The Weekly reserves the right to edit obituaries for space and format considerations. Announcements of a local resident’s recent wedding, anniversary or birth are also a free editorial service. Photographs are accepted for weddings and anniversaries. These notices are published as space is available. Send announcements to the mailing, fax or email addresses listed above.

James Charles Vaughan March 30, 1935 - August 14, 2014

James Charles Vaughan, 79, died unexpectedly but peacefully during his sleep August 14, 2014 in Santa Rosa, CA, after many years coping with multiple sclerosis and confined to an electric wheelchair. Jim Vaughan was born March 30, 1935 in Utica, New York to James Baker Vaughan and Marianna Le Richeux, and received his engineering degree from Cornell University in 1959. Jim lived with his family for 30 years in Palo Alto, CA, working as an electrical engineer and serving as a Boy Scout leader, guiding and motivating many young Scouts, teaching leadership skills, and organizing backpacking and other outdoor excursions. After retiring to Bainbridge Island, WA in 1995, Jim started a robot club to teach computer programming and electronics to children and teenagers, inspiring some to become engineers and in turn pass along their love of electronics and programming to other kids. He also helped design a planetarium for the astronomical association, to convey the joy and fascination of astronomy to the community. He moved to the Santa Rosa, CA area in 2010 to be closer to his grandchildren. He also volunteered as a math tutor. After losing his ability to hike, ski, or bicycle, swimming had become a favorite daily activity. He will be missed greatly by his family and friends. Jim is survived by his sons Bob and Matt of Palo Alto, CA, two grandchildren, his sister Sally Vaughan of New York and Florida, and his former wife, Barbara Vaughan, of Santa Rosa, CA. Contact information: www.facebook.com/matt.vaughan.5876 No services are planned. PAID

OBITUARY

Brittany Stankovic and Richard Landucci Jr. Brittany Alexis Stankovic and Richard David Landucci Jr. were married on Aug. 17 at the Stone & Flowers Retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The couple met two years ago on a date they set up through Match.com. The bride is a certified personal trainer and athletic youth coach on the Peninsula. She graduated from Palo Alto High School in 2006 and Menlo College in 2010. She is the daughter of Bill Stankovic of Menlo

Park and Amy Renalds of Palo Alto. The groom, who goes by Rick, is a senior brake technician at Jiffy Lube in Sunnyvale. He graduated from Capucchino High School in San Bruno in 2001 and then later Wyotech, Automotive Technology, in 2013. He is the son of Richard Landucci Sr. of San Francisco and Barbara Backes of San Bruno. The couple currently resides in Mountain View.

Murle Ranney Rack

February 26, 1918 - August 16, 2014 Murle Ranney Rack wife, mother of four and retired teacher and musician, passed away in La Jolla CA surrounded by loving family on August 16, 2014 at the age of 96. Murle was born in Dodge North Dakota on February 26, 1918. She was the first of four daughters born to Cecil and Ruth Ranney. A graduate of Minot Teachers College, she had a fulfilling career as a English, math and band teacher. Music was always a big part of Murle’s life from a very young age when she played piano for a local radio station and dance studio and later founded a 32member Drum and Bugle Corp in her parents basement in Minot that won awards and toured the Midwest and Canada raising money for Girl Scouts. She also earned the coveted “Golden Eaglet” award in Girl Scouts. She always said that music took her to places she never would have seen and was able to go to summer camps in such exotic locations as Wisconsin because of her bugle-playing ability. She taught band and could play every band instrument. During WWll she had a job with the Red Cross scheduling big name swing bands for American Red Cross and Army hospitals. In 1945 Murle married the love of her life, Frank Rack from Cincinnati Ohio and they had 4 children. After the war they settled in San Francisco and then Palo Alto where Murle was active in various civic activities such as Girl Scouts, Stanford International Center, and with her husband Frank, was an original founder of what is now Abilities United. Murle was preceded in death by her beloved husband Frank and two of her daughters, Lynn Rack Franz, and Betty Jane Rack and her sister Katheryn Stenehjem. She is survived by sisters Elizabeth Littig and Mary Johnson of Arizona, daughter Maureen Rack Lochtefeld of La Jolla and son Thomas Rack of Alameda, as well as 9 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. Murle was known for her quick laughter, warm hugs, love of family and friends, and her wonderful piano playing at family gatherings. She was warmly loved and will be greatly missed. PAID

OBITUARY

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 17

It’Z LHZ` [V ÄUK +r. Right We believe you deserve the right doctor. That’s why doctors at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, part of Sutter Health, make you their No. 1 priority, whether it’s in person or online. It’s one more way we plus you.

Palo Alto Medical Foundation 1 (888) 398-5677 pamf.org Page 18 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

30th Annual

Michelle Le

Runners get set to compete in last year’s Moonlight Run & Walk; about 3,000 athletes participated in the annual event, with proceeds going to the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund.

Annual Baylands race returns A benefit event for local nonprofits supporting kids and families sponsored by the Palo Alto Weekly and City of Palo Alto When: Friday, Sept. 5, 7-10 p.m. under the near-full Harvest Moon. Racenight registration tables open at 6 p.m. 5k walk starts at 7 p.m.; 10k run starts at 8:15 p.m.; and 5k run starts at 8:45 p.m. Where: Baylands Athletic Center, 1900 Geng Road (at Embarcadero Road), Palo Alto Early registration: Register at PaloAltoOnline.com/moonlight_run. Preregistration closes at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 3.

Race-night registration: Tables open at 6 p.m. Cash, check and credit cards will be accepted. Race night registration fee is $45 for adult: $35 for youth. Participants under 18 years of age who have not preregistered must be accompanied to registration table by a parent or guardian who can sign the waiver. Refunds are not available before or after the event.

T-shirts: T-shirts available with registration only while supplies last. T-shirts for early-registered participants will not be held for no-shows. Start times: 5k walk at 7 p.m.; 10k run at 8:15 p.m.; 5k run at 8:45 p.m. Course maps: 5K route: mapmyrun.com/routes/ view/290826835 10K route: mapmyrun.com/routes/ view/283559443

Walk this way Intense exercise may get results, but walking brings benefits all its own, doctor says by Jocelyn Dong

Michelle Le

ith the popularity these days of marathon running, those of us who walk as our main exercise might be tempted to feel bad about ourselves. Don’t, says Dr. Ronesh Sinha, a physician in internal medicine at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and author of the book, “The South Asian Health Solution.” Walking, it turns out, carries health benefits that even hardcore bootcamps can’t provide. Sinha, who runs corporate wellness programs, calls walking an essential way to prevent disease, particularly given our increasingly sedentary lifestyles. People used to be more active — walking, squatting and carrying things as a natural part of their day. Now workers sit hour after hour in front of computers, leading to musculoskeletal and metabolic health problems, according to Sinha.

Mostly moonlight guided the walkers and runners at last year’s Moonlight Run & Walk, but headlamps are recommended for the runners. Prolonged sitting results in greater storage of fat and inflammation at the cellular level, which “is at the root of all chronic diseases (heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc.) and premature aging,” Sinha wrote in a blog post on the Palo Alto Medical Foundation website. In fact, Sinha says, he’s seeing heart attacks and disease appearing in employees at younger ages. Even workers who are getting the commonly prescribed 30 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise five times a week still test at higher risk for certain diseases, he says.

What people need is not so much intensive exercise as the essential movement that people got a half-century ago, according to Sinha. “My average engineer walks 2,000 to 3,000 steps a day,” he told the Weekly. But to maintain good health, “you need 5,000 steps” — or about 2.5 miles — and ideally as many as 10,000 steps. And those steps shouldn’t happen all at once, either, or you’re missing the point. “You want to interrupt prolonged (continued on page 21)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 19

PROUD SPONSOR CITY OF PALO ALTO WEEKLY MOONLIGHT RUN & WALK The Foundation was created by the members of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as a commitment to the community we serve. 650 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto | 650-493-9300 | www.wsgr.com Page 20 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

30th Annual Moonlight Run & Walk

Race night guide WHAT’S HAPPENING — AND WHEN

6:45 p.m. Pre-walk warm-ups 7 p.m. 5k walk begins 8 p.m. Pre-race warm-ups 8:15 p.m.10k run begins 8:30 p.m. Pre-race warm-ups 8:45 p.m.5k run begins 9 p.m. Food tables open for 5k and 10k runners. Post-race snacks provided by Country Sun Natural Foods, House of Bagels, Hobee’s 9:30-10 p.m. After the race, there will be prize giveaways, refreshments and an awards ceremony for the top three finishers in each category. Race results will be posted as available.

Walk this way (continued from page 19)

OTHER THINGS TO KNOW Parking: Police and volunteers will direct you to parking in nearby business lots off Embarcadero Road and East Bayshore Road. Plan on arriving early and carpooling if possible, as lots will fill up. We recommend arriving at least an hour before your event. Check in: Race check-in, sponsor and race headquarter booths, first aid and food/water is on the infield of the Baylands Athletic Center, located at the end of Geng Road. Starting line: The start and finish of all three events is in the (closed) parking lot at the Baylands Athletic Center. The 5k walk and run start out of the parking lot north and then east on levees. The 10k run heads out south on Geng, turns east on Embarcadero and then heads out onto trails and levees south toward Mountain View. (See course maps on page 22 for more details.) Storage: Limited checking of small personal bags and backpacks is available at the race headquarters tent.

She’s even completed two halfmarathons. And every year since 2008, she and her family have completed the Palo Alto Weekly’s Moonlight Run & Walk. “Walking has a lot of effects. It is easy. It improves health and endurance,” said Joshi, who added that when she wants to exercise, she just puts on her shoes and off she goes — no hassle. Walking is also relatively inexpensive because it doesn’t require purchasing exercise equipment. “That’s a big benefit,” she said. For those people just getting into an exercise routine, walking is a natural starting point with low risk of injury. “There’s no really wrong way to walk naturally, unless you have a unique disability,” Sinha said. “I tell people, it’s an opportunity to open the body up a bit. Sitting hunched forward causes nerve problems in your upper neck and upper back.” He advises that people roll their shoulders back as they walk. To develop greater strength in their legs, people can walk up and down hills and slopes. Just how briskly should one walk to gain the benefits? Sinha recommends the “talk test” — the person should be able to talk on a cell phone while walking and neither be out of breath nor completely relaxed. In spite of the recent trend in wearable technology, such as pedometers, Sinha finds them helpful for initial measurements but not essential in the long run. “They’re useful, but most people can use common sense. You know where you’re at” in terms

While many people pre-register (to guarantee T-shirts will be available), others wait until race night to get their numbered bibs.

Race results will be available on computer monitors at the Baylands Athletic Center beginning at around 9:30 p.m. Results will also be posted online at PaloAltoOnline.com/ moonlight_run. QR codes with the results web page will be on display at the event. Medals for first-, secondand third-place finishers in each division will be handed out once final results are in, between 9:30 and 10 p.m., or may be picked up during regular business hours after the race at the Palo Alto Weekly, 450 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto.

2013 Top Finishers 5k — Men

Healthy snacks, including fruit, will be available after the race. Pets: Dogs are permitted on the 5k walk but not on either run, where the terrain and darkness makes it too dangerous to have them. No retractable leashes. Bring your own clean-up bag.

Strollers: Jogging strollers welcome in the 5k walk or at the back of either run. Visibility: Headlamps are highly recommended for both runs. Q

1. Chris Gregory, Portola Valley, 16:59 2. Kent Slaney, Palo Alto, 17:25 3. Ross Corey, Hillsborough, 17:44 4. Kyle Brocklehurst, Mountain View, 17:47 5. Richard Morrissey, 18:04 (continued on next page)

Michelle Le

sitting,” Sinha said. Among the health benefits of walking: Q Lowers blood sugar and triglycerides (fats) after meals Q Lowers inflammation in cells Q Modestly lowers body fat Q Lowers stress and improves immunity Q Prevents falls in the elderly Q Increases longevity Tech worker and Palo Alto resident Dipti Joshi adopted her walking habit around 2007. With two little kids at home and working full-time, she no longer had time to go to her gym, even though she enjoyed the pool and group-exercise classes, she says. “My endurance was going down,” Joshi recalls. She wasn’t able to get much exercise during the day at her company. “It’s pretty much eight hours of sitting and working. I take breaks, but it’s intense.” So she started walking, figuring that something’s better than nothing. “Little by little I started walking in the neighborhood and around town,” she says. “I can walk on my own time and manage my own schedule.” Then she joined San Jose Fit, a marathon-training program that included a walking component. “I remember the first time. ... We did 4 or 5 miles. It seemed like a tremendous distance, like I was walking and walking,” she recalls. “Now, 10 miles is a piece of cake.”

Michelle Le

Field activities and booths Q Sponsors’ booths: AXIS, Bloomingdale’s, Connoisseur Coffee, Continental Caterers, Fleet Feet Sports, Keen, Larry’s AutoWorks, LYFE Kitchen, Microsoft, Nike Stanford, Omega Printing, On Your Mark, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Trader Joe’s, Stanford Blood Center, Stanford Federal Credit Union, Whole Foods Market Q AXIS climbing wall

DJ Alan Waltz Kids’ course by On Your Mark Q Information booths Q Chiropractic services provided by University Chiropractic Q

Michelle Le

6-8 p.m. Registration opens for those pre-registered and racenight. Activities, sponsors’ booths and more on the field (see below).

Results

Walking on a regular basis has been found to be beneficial to health, lowering blood sugar, body fat and stress while improving immunity. of the distance you’ve walked, he says. One thing people should not be is dependent on them. “I had a patient who lost her Fitbit (pedometer), and she literally stopped walking,” Sinha recalls. Joshi, for her part, started walking with a pedometer but found herself constantly looking at it, she says, to the detriment of her enjoyment. “I walk because I want to,” she explains. “I don’t want to get stressed with ‘I didn’t walk 10,000 steps’ — that’s not my motivation. I’m doing it for myself.” Even children, with their video games and hand-held technology, are susceptible to the hazards of a sedentary lifestyle, with pediatricians seeing an uptick in prediabetes and obesity, according to Sinha.

“Kids are playing on iPads instead of in neighborhood parks,” he says. They no longer have the baseline of physical activity that they used to. Parents, Sinha advises, have to be role models. For people who do aspire to greater athletic exercise, which can burn fat and strengthen muscles, walking can provide the foundation. “Walking is a beautiful bridge to activities that are intense,” Sinha says. Launching full-bore into intense exercise may not be the wisest move anyway for people who have been sedentary, he advises. “I’m seeing people with leg atrophy, who don’t have good balance or core strength. That’s really bad,” Sinha says. “We see more weekend warrior injuries” because of the loss of coordina-

tion due to too much sitting. And walking, especially outdoors, in nature, also brings mental health pluses, easing the stress of working long hours in Silicon Valley. “That’s the beauty of it,” Sinha says. When it comes to relaxation, walking delivers “the perfect therapeutic dose.” Q Editor Jocelyn Dong can be emailed at jdong@paweekly. com.

TALK ABOUT IT

www.PaloAltoOnline.com Where do you walk? Dipti Joshi, interviewed for this story, suggests more Palo Altans would walk if people shared their walking routes and schedules with one another. Talk about your route and routine on the “Where do you walk?” thread on Town Square, the discussion forum at PaloAltoOnline.com/square.

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 21

30th Annual Moonlight Run & Walk 2013 Top Finishers (continued from previous page)

6. Ahmet Gokcek, Palo Alto, 18:06 7. John Trudelle, Portola Valley, 18:19 8. Ernesto Aristeo, Menlo Park, 18:20 9. John Hale, Menlo Park, 18:24 10. Jonathan Rivera, San Carlos, 18:25

5k — Women 1. Diane Heiser, Portola Valley, 19:09 2. Kat Gregory, Portola Valley, 19:33 3. April Montgomery, Redwood City, 19:34 4. Bryn Carlson, Palo Alto, 19:56 5. Illi Gardner, Palo Alto, 20:53 6. Hana Marsheck, Palo Alto, 22:23 7. Linsey Hansen, 22:37 8. Anne Haro, 22:55 9. Julia Pederson, 23:09 10. Portia Barrientos, Palo Alto, 23:11

3. Nicolas Pradel, Davis, 36:50 4. Adam Bechtel, Woodside, 37:28 5. Karl Schnaitter, Mountain View, 37:59 6. Aaron Chandler, Palo Alto, 38:17 7. Shahed Alam, 38:20 8. Gennady Sheyner, San Francisco, 38:30 9. Jake Gurle, Palo Alto, 38:37 10. Andy Belk, Portola Valley, 38:39

Thank you to our volunteers

Thank you to our sponsors

• Palo Alto Fire Department Explorer Program • Stanford Blood Center • Stanford Federal Credit Union

• Kiwanis Club of Palo Alto • Youth Community Service • Gunn & Paly Key Clubs • Gunn & Paly Interact • Palo Alto Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)

Corporate sponsors Palo Alto Medical Foundation Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Foundation

Event sponsors Spot Pizza Country Sun Hobee’s House of Bagels Omega Printing On Your Mark Lakin Spears Stanford Blood Center

10k — Women

1. Adam Daoud, 33:26 2. Jeremy Judge, Menlo Park, 36:06

Community sponsors Stanford Federal Credit Union University Chiropractic Continental Caterers Nike Stanford Keen Whole Foods AXIS LYFE Kitchen Connoisseur Coffee Trader Joe’s Larry’s AutoWorks Fleet Feet Microsoft Bloomingdale’s

An AXIS climbing wall will be set up on the field, along with vendors and sponsors’ booths.

Michelle Le

10k — Men

Michelle Le

1. Chantelle Wilder, Monte Sereno, 36:31 2. Katheryn Mattis, Mountain View, 39:30 3. Lauren Pischel, 39:59 4. Grace Laidlaw, 43:58 5. Emmanuelle Treil, Portola Valley, 44:31 6. Michelle Bohan, Mountain View, 44:45 7. Caroline Temmins, Menlo Park, 45:35 8. Zoe Brown, Palo Alto, 45:46 9. April Foster, Palo Alto, 45:57 10. Portia Monberg, Menlo Park, 46:11

Nike Stanford joins the vendor and sponsors’ booths in the field where runners and walkers gather before and after the event.

San Francisco Bay

Palo Alto Weekly Moonlight Run 5k & 10k Courses

Lucy Evans Baylands Natural Interpretive center

MILE

MILE MILE

Duck Pond

2 Byxbee Park

MILE

5k k

Walk: 7pm Run: 8:45pm

MILE

Race H.Q. Start/Finish Race Registration Sponsor Booths

Palo Alto Airport

10k k

Embarcader o Rd

Golf Course

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Run: 8:15pm

Faber Pl

PA L O A LT O B AY L A N D S Shoreline at Mountain View

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Municipal Animal Service Services Center Center

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Page 22 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

MILE

2 To San Jose

RACE IN 1 WEEK MOONLIGHT 30th Annual Moonlight Run & Walk

30TH ANNUAL

RUN & WALK

5K WALK, 5K & 10K RUN

RACE NIGHT IS NEXT FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 5

7PM AT PALO ALTO BAYLANDS FOR RACE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER, GO TO:

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A benefit event for local non-profits supporting kids and families

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www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 23

Page 24 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Arts & Entertainment

Paul Blakemore

A weekly guide to music, theater, art, culture, books and more, edited by Sue Dremann

Students Stud Stud St dents en s hold hands during the 2013 danceroom Spectroscopy festival in Bristol, England; their energy fields are projected on a dome.

magine having an insect’s view of the world, but on the nano scale. Down at the level of atoms and molecules, colorful particles dance, swirl, and vibrate. The chance to experience such thrilling visions begins on Sept. 4 when “danceroom Spectroscopy,” a new interactive exhibition combining art and science, opens at the Stanford Art Gallery. “Spectroscopy is the use of light to obtain information about matter,” explained creator David Glowacki, a Royal Society Research Fellow at the University of Bristol in England and a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s PULSE Institute. His creation harnesses this technology, allowing users to see, hear, and even interact with the invisible layers of matter that surround us. Thanks to Xbox Kinect cameras and a supercomputer programmed with complex mathematical algorithms, gallery visitors will experience the sight and sound of their effect on molecules and atoms. Data from 3D motion capture interprets the body as energy fields immersed in a variety of molecular mediums: water, oxygen, carbon dioxide and other bases for life. The result is a projected display as ethereal as the aurora borealis and as glittering as fireworks. Add to this dazzling light show a sound interpretation of these energy waves, and participants can marvel at their own visual and sonic creations.

Dancing universe with the

‘danceroom Spectroscopy’ lets people interact on the atomic scale by Sue Dremann

Danceroom Spectroscopy is especially compelling because of its game-like aspect, Glowacki added. Having grown up in the 1990s playing video games, art and interactive gaming seemed like natural teaching tools to him. And he wanted to teach nonscientists to see the world at a molecular level. Before computer imaging, the average person’s concept of a molecule was limited to their high school chemistry experience — a 3-D Tinker Toy model of spokes and spheres. But that isn’t the way real molecules and atoms act, according to Glowacki. “They are vibrating and wiggling all the time in nature,” he said. Diving into water is a good analogy for what happens on the nano scale when en-

ergy fields collide, he added. “When you jump into a swimming pool and the water moves away from you, your body is repellant. The molecules fly off of you.” Glowacki, 33, is a computational chemist and physicist who writes mathematical programs and works with computers — highly abstract stuff. Yet he’s always had a fascination with art and culture. In between earning his bachelor’s and doctorate science degrees, Glowacki received a Master of Arts degree in cultural theory. He launched danceroom Spectroscopy in 2011 to teach students about molecular dynamism and to help non-scientists understand the unseen world. Since then, he has used the technology in artistic projects such as a festival in

Bristol in October 2013, and for “Hidden Fields,” a dance performance he constructed. “Hidden Fields,” named after the energy fields not visible to the naked eye, has won six awards in Europe and is a collaboration between a group of scientists, artists and engineers. A full performance is scheduled at Z Space in San Francisco on March 13 and 14. Glowacki is also teaming up to use danceroom Spectroscopy with choreographer Mark Foehringer, Stanford University composer and sound engineer Michael St. Clair and visual, media and digital artists, dancers and computer scientists. The performance, called “Dances of the Sacred and Profane,” takes place Sept. 13 through 21 at Ft. Mason Center’s Cowell Theater in San Francisco. Lest it sounds like a gimmick, danceroom Spectroscopy can be applied to far more than arts and performance. It also enables scientists to enter the simulated molecular universe as energy fields and physically change those molecules by stretching or folding them. In doing so, they seek to discover how the strands are broken or why they don’t work. Such real-time manipulation is about 10,000 times faster than using a computer simulation alone, Glowacki said, adding that he uses the same technology to (continued on page 26)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 25

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Dancing (continued from page 25)

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study how to unravel — and perhaps reconfigure — errant protein strands that may be the bases of conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. Digital technologies such as danceroom Spectroscopy could provide the missing link between art and science. Mid-20th-century art theorist Gyorgy Kepes first envisioned reconciling art in a technology-dominated society through a common language and symbolism while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1940s. Like Glowacki, Kepes wanted to share the unseen world with nonscientists. His 1950s exhibition of microscopic cells, atom trails and electrical fields being studied by MIT physicists — worlds that were not available to anyone outWhat: danceroom Spectroscopy Where: Stanford Art Gallery, 419 Lasuen Mall, Stanford When: Tues.-Sun. Sept. 4-20, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Cost: Free Info: Go to art.stanford.edu or call 650-723-2842

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Veronica Weber

The Megatones Ruckatan Urgent (Foreigner Tribute) Orquesta Borinquen The Garage Band Paciﬁc Soul Band

Paul Blakemore

MARGARITAS • SANGRIA • MIMOSAS

David Glowacki, creator of danceroom Spectroscopy, stands in front of a screen where the wiggling movement of atoms and molecules is made visible. side of scientists with specialized equipment — introduced a commonality between art and science. (Stanford’s Cantor Art Center is currently exhibiting a recreation of the Kepes show through Nov. 17.) Glowacki said he isn’t familiar with Kepes’ work. But the show at the Stanford Art Gallery builds on his concept. Beyond mathematical configurations, there is art in science, even if scientists don’t always want to acknowledge it, he said. With danceroom Spectroscopy, he aims to forge a link

between the two disciplines. “Science and mathematics give you the coordinates of atoms and their velocity, but I have to decide how to interpret that information,” Glowacki said.” (Algorithms) tell me nothing about how to communicate that information in the real world, but art is concerned with different ways of seeing. Art has always been about seeing things that you don’t normally see.” Q Staff Writer Sue Dremann can be emailed at sdremann@ paweekly.com.

Enjoy the ride.

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Page 26 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Yazâ&#x20AC;? (Sabina Zuniga Varela) and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Elliotâ&#x20AC;? (Miles Gaston Villanueva) are faced with life-changing decisions in TheatreWorksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Water by the Spoonful.

Timely and tender â&#x20AC;&#x153;Water by the Spoonfulâ&#x20AC;? wins you over by Jeanie K. Smith

he current offering in TheatreWorksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; new season is the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Quiara Alegria Hudes, who previously won a Tony for the book of the musical, â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the Heights.â&#x20AC;? In this newest work, Hudes follows a cluster of recovering crack cocaine addicts who only meet virtually, as well as a pair of cousins dealing with family death and denial. Both sweeping and specific, the play sprawls across neighborhoods, continents and individual stories to deliver a panoramic photo of life in our time. Graced with a terrific ensemble cast, TheatreWorksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; excellent production will grab your heart and quietly stir your political thinking as well. Elliot (Miles Gaston Villanueva) and Yazmin (Sabina Zuniga Varela) are close cousins, meeting to discuss Yazâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s divorce and Elliotâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unwell mother, and to wait for a professor Yazmin knows who can translate an Arabic sentence for Elliot. We gather that Elliot was in Iraq with the Marines, still suffers from a war injury, and works at Subway, while Yazmin teaches college classes and nurses her dream of a composing career. When the professor (George Psarras) provides a surprising translation, we begin to unravel a mystery that will ultimately encompass several lives and take us inside the human heart and mind. Switch scenes, and we meet HaikuMom, aka Odessa, (Zilah Mendoza), moderator of an online chat room for crack addicts trying to support each other in recovery, counting minutes and hours of sobriety before they can add up days or weeks. Odessa is joined by chat room regulars Orangutan (Anna Ishida) and Chutes&Ladders (Anthony J. Haney), who occupy

THEATER REVIEW different â&#x20AC;&#x153;cellsâ&#x20AC;? of the multi-level set, speaking out to us as if theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re writing on their computers. This theatrical device takes a bit of getting used to, but is brought off with generous humor and clever staging. When Fountainhead (Patrick Kelly Jones) joins the chatroom, the ugly truths of addiction spill out, and all the members recount stories of falling to the depths of degradation. The scenes alternate between these two groups until we eventually discover the connection between them, and the reason why learning about the insidious evil of crack is important to both. As the interlocking stories escalate in Act Two, characters reach emotional catharsis in their search for human connection, truth, and forgiveness. They begin to feel like our own family: familiar and flawed, perhaps arrogant, maybe tragic, but always touching. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an ambitious landscape, and, as Hudes says, â&#x20AC;&#x153;It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have neat edges;â&#x20AC;? the play is at times convoluted, and scenes often take a long time to develop. Yet Act Two generates more excitement than Act One, and ultimately there is a big payoff in the wide emotional character arcs, and even some sweet resolution. Director Leslie Martinson has put together a superb ensemble; Villanueva and Varela shine as the two cousins lost in the present until they can resolve the past, both utterly believable and unashamedly young. Mendoza brilliantly gives us the recovered and the relapsed in a skillfully modulated Tony-worthy performance. Gifted comic Ishida and the marvelous Haney team up in the most

delightful duo of the play, giving us memorable, unassuming humor and sentiment without pathos. Relative newcomers Psarras and Jones hold their own as more shadowy figures, each bringing authenticity to their respective conflicts. Erik Flatmoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s scenic design lends an epic feel to the stage, soaring high above the floor and including abstract elements and projections (by Erik Scanlon) by which the characters span the ether, climb mountains and chat online. Anna R. Oliverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s costumes help reveal character traits, especially socio-economic status, and Steven B. Mannshardtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lighting serves up some perfectly rendered, beautiful moments. Open yourself to the whirl of ideas and stories that Hudes spins separately at first, like a circus plate-twirler. Eventually, she will deliver them all into your heart for safekeeping, and you will mull over the memories as if they were your own. Q What: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Water by the Spoonful,â&#x20AC;? by Quiara Alegria Hudes, presented by TheatreWorks Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro Street, Mt. View When: Through Sept. 14, with 7:30 p.m. shows Tuesday and Wednesday, 8 p.m. Thursday - Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday, and 2 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday. Cost: Tickets range from $19 to $73; special discounts for under-30, educators, seniors. Info: Go to theatreworks.org or call 650-463-1960

NOTICE OF PUBLIC REVIEW AND COMMENT PERIOD FOR PALO ALTOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CONSOLIDATED ANNUAL PERFORMANCE AND EVALUATION REPORT FOR THE PERIOD JULY 1, 2013 TO JUNE 30, 2014 Notice is hereby given that the City of Palo Alto has completed a draft performance report for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program for Fiscal Year 2014. The Draft Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) is available for public review and comment prior to its submittal to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The CAPER represents the fourth year of the Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Five-Year Consolidated plan covering the period 2010-2015, and covers the accomplishments under the CDBG program for the period July 1, [V 1\UL 0[ JVUZPZ[Z VM ZWLJPĂ&#x201E;J WYVNYHT UHYYH[P]LZ an assessment of annual performance, and an assessment of progress toward meeting goals and objectives contained in the Consolidated Plan. Public Review and Comment Period: The draft CAPER will be available for public review and comment for a 15-day period, beginning on Friday, August 29, 2014 and concluding at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, September 12, 2014. Written comments may be submitted during the review period and should be sent to the City of Palo Alto, Department of Planning and Community Environment, Attention: Consuelo Hernandez, Senior Planner 250 Hamilton Avenue, 5th Floor, Palo Alto, CA 94301. Comments can also be submitted via e-mail to Consuelo.hernandez@cityofpaloalto.org. Public Hearing: The Human Relations Commission will hold a public hearing to take public comment on the draft CAPER on Friday, September 12, 2014. The Public Hearing will be held at 9:00 a.m., or as soon as possible thereafter, in the Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Rd, Palo Alto. To Obtain a Copy of the CAPER: Copies are available at the Planning Department reception desk, City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue, 5th Floor, the Development Center located at 285 Hamilton Avenue during regular business hours, by calling (650) 329-2448, or visiting the Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s CDBG website: http://www. cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/pln/cdbg.asp. Persons with disabilities who require auxiliary aids or services in using City facilities, services or programs, or who would like information on the Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact: ADA Coordinator, City of Palo Alto, 650-329-2550 (Voice) ada@cityofpaloalto.org

Good for Business. Good for You. Good for the Community. www.PaloAltoOnline.com â&#x20AC;˘ Palo Alto Weekly â&#x20AC;˘ August 29, 2014 â&#x20AC;˘ Page 27

Arts & Entertainment CITY OF PALO ALTO NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Palo Alto City Council will hold a public hearing at the regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, September 15, 2014 at 7:00 p.m. or as near thereafter as possible, in the Council Chambers, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, to consider the 405 Curtner Condominium Map - Request for Approval of a Tentative Map to Subdivide One Parcel Totaling 12,375 Square Feet Into Six Lots in order to construct Six Multi-Family Condominium Units within the RM-30 zone district located at 405 Curtner Avenue. Environmental Assessment: Categorically exempt from the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) per CEQA Guidelines Sections 15303 and 15061(b)(3). The Planning and Transportation Commission unanimously recommend map approval.

Worth a Look Festival

Kings Mountain Art Fair

DONNA J. GRIDER, MMC City Clerk

Housing Element Update: The project consists of the update of the City of Palo Alto’s Housing Element, a mandated element of the General Plan. The Housing Element provides policy direction for accommodating Palo Alto's housing needs through 2023. The Association of Bay Area Government’s (ABAG) has assigned a Regional Housing Needs Allocation number of 1,988 housing units to the City of Palo Alto for the period from 2015-2023. During this period, the City has entitled 440 units however it still must plan to accommodate 1,548 housing units. The policies and programs in the updated Housing Element include recommendations for changes in the land use regulations pertaining to residential development and the creation of incentives to encourage the development of a variety of housing types. *** Hillary Gitelman, Director of Planning and Community Environment In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, listening assistive devices are available in the Council Chambers and Council Conference Room. Sign language interpreters will be provided upon request with 72 hours advance notice. Page 28 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Workshop Hand Papermaking Do you enjoy working with your hands? Got a penchant for camouflage? OK with getting a little messy? Check out the free, drop-in papermaking workshop at the Palo Alto Arts Center next Saturday, Sept. 6 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Instructor Drew Cameron of Combat Paper will guide students of all ages through the process of transforming recycled military uniforms into handmade paper, step-by-step. Come prepared to cut camos into rags and beat those rags Learn to make paper out of recycled military uniforms. to a pulp — you won’t want to wear your Sunday best. In addition to teaching the process, Cameron will teach the history of hand papermaking, which dates back nearly 2,000 years to China’s Han Dynasty. Aspiring paper makers are invited to drop in for any portion of the day, and avid students can stick around for a second session on Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. To reserve a space, email artcenter@cityofpaloalto.org or call 650-329-2366. To learn more about Combat Paper, visit combatpaper.org.

Music Pride and Joy Labor Day Weekend is upon us, and you know what that means: it’s time to pack up the beach towels for another year. It’s not easy saying goodbye to summer, but it’s a whole lot easier when Pride and Joy is playing. The beloved Bay Area pop/soul band closes out Redwood City’s Music on the Square series tonight, Aug. 29 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Courthouse Square. Strap on your dancing shoes, and come prepared to boogie down to your favorite covers at this all ages, feel good outdoor concert. The party is free, and it’s BYOB (no glass, please). Pack a picnic, or plan to pick up dinner at one of the Pride and Joy closes out Redwood City’s popular many nearby restaurants. Music on the square is a summer music series. kid friendly event, but pets aren’t recommended — your dog will probably be happier celebrating Labor Day at home. It may be fall, but for one more night you’ll be dancing like summer’s just begun. For more on the band, check out pridejoy.com. — Elizabeth Schwyzer Photo courtesy of Pride and Joy

This item will be considered at a public hearing by the Planning and Transportation Commission, Wednesday, September 10, 2014 at 6:00 PM. in the Palo Alto City *V\UJPS *OHTILYZ VU [OL ÄYZ[ ÅVVY VM [OL *P]PJ *LU[LY located at 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. Written comments on the Mitigated Negative Declaration will be accepted until 5:00 PM on September 30, 2014 in the Planning and Community Environment Department *P]PJ *LU[LY VɉJLZ VU [OL ÄM[O ÅVVY VM *P[` /HSS

The Kings Mountain Art Fair claims a redwood forest as its setting.

Photos courtesy of Palo Alto Arts Center

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a Draft Mitigated Negative Declaration has been prepared by the Palo Alto Department of Planning and Community Environment for the project listed below. In accordance with A.B. 886, this document will be available for review and comment during a minimum 30-day inspection period beginning August 29, 2014 through September 30, 2014 during the hours of 9:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. at the Planning and Community Environment Department, 5th Floor, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California.

Aeron Noe

City of Palo Alto ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

There’s no shortage of fine art fairs in California, but few of them can claim a redwood forest as their home. Now celebrating its 50th year, the popular Kings Mountain Art Fair takes place Labor Day weekend in the hills above Woodside, California. Running Aug. 30 through Sept. 1, the fair features the work of over 150 juried artists working in a wide range of media. In addition to paintings, jewelry, ceramics, fiber arts, you’ll find works made from leather, wood, and re-purposed books. Fans of handmade goods will enjoy the fair’s Mountain Folk Art section, featuring the work of local artists and craftspeople. All that fresh mountain air has a way of stoking the appetite. Luckily, each day begins with a hearty mountain breakfast served each morning from 8 to 10:30 a.m. Lunch runs from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; a full menu is available on the website. The Kings Mountain Art Fair also caters to the younger crowd: kids of all ages can hang out at supervised art-making booths while their parents shop. Vendor stalls are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; admission is free. For more information, go to kingsmountainartfair.org or call 650-851-2710.

Eating Out Gone

garbanzo Palo Altan uses chickpea to create healthful snack foods

n California, healthy living is second nature, so it’s hardly surprising when a new crop of goodfor-you snacks crowds the shelves of local grocery stores. One Palo Alto woman, however, has put her own spin on the craze, creating natural, vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, potato-free and corn-free chips from chickpea flour. Now, she sells each 4-ounce bag for $5.99 under the name Tasty Karma at local stores like Piazza’s Fine Foods, Sigona’s Farmer’s Market, The Milk Pail Market and farmers markets in Sunnyvale and Santa Clara. Saumil Pandey, founder and CEO of Tasty Karma, began making chickpea chips for her family, bagging them for her kids’ lunchboxes, and sharing them

with friends and neighbors. At the encouragement of her loved ones, she started selling her snacks at the Sunnyvale Farmers’ Market, where she got “a lot of great feedback” that propelled her to a full-time launch in January at local grocery stores, she said. “When we looked around for snacks, there were not enough healthy alternatives,” said the mother of two who is a former Google employee. Pandey left her job in sales for the Mountain View-based tech giant once the demand for her snacks became too overwhelming. When considering healthy snacking alternatives, Pandey took into account the fact that many people are (continued on next page)

Veronica Weber

by Lena Pressesky

Pandey’s vegan, gluten-free snacks are made from chickpea flour and come in a variety of flavors.

Dinner by the movies

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www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 29

Eating Out A Great Place for Get-togethers Happy Hour • Catering • *LIW &HUWLÀFDWHV Private Dining • Meeting • Banquet Rooms

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2014

Ming’s Chinese Cuisine and Bar

1700 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto tel 650.856.7700 / fax 650.855.9479 / www.mings.com

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(continued from previous page)

wheat-conscious. She also worried about genetically modified organisms in corn-based snacks. Soy was a viable alternative, but Pandey wanted her customers to have another option as well. So, she turned to chickpeas. Beyond chickpea flour — which Pandey first found out about from her mother and now buys through natural food and whole grain retailer Bob’s Red Mill — her recipes rely on just a handful of ingredients, which she always aims to purchase locally. High in fiber and protein, chickpeas can satisfy hunger pangs longer in smaller servings. “My mom always fed us chickpeas,” Pandey said. “She used to make something similar to pretzel sticks made from chickpeas. I always loved it.” However, when Pandey decided to try her hand at baking a healthy yet appetizing snack, she found “no recipe available for these products online.” “Not many people are actually trying this out,” Pandey said. Fastforward to some 500 batches later, and Pandey transitioned from baking solely for friends and family to selling her best combinations in local grocery stores. Now, she has a few part-time employees and has traded in baking at home for producing her snacks in a commercial kitchen in Palo Alto. In addition to hand-baking, Pandey also handpacks her snacks. Throughout the production process, Pandey said she has faced challenges. “When I thought of selling (my products), I had to think about shelf life,” Pandey said. “I had to think about how to preserve the freshness and crunchiness.” But, she said, “I never wanted to add any preservatives.” The ingredient list on the back of Tasty Karma’s Garlic & Herb Chickpea Chips is short, with only two perhaps unrecognizable ingredients: guar and xanthan gums, two gluten-free baking essentials that keep baked goods from dissolving into a pile of crumbs. Other than that, this particular chip is composed solely of chickpea flour, rice flour, safflower oil, garlic, Italian herbs, spices, salt and sugar.

Veronica Weber

Serving Fine Chinese Cuisine in Palo Alto since 1956

Tasty Karma founder Saumil Pandey uses a large cookie cutter to achieve her healthy chips’ hexagonal shape. Pandey said her customers appreciate the unique health niche her snacks fill. Some have even brought bags of the chips into Whole Foods Markets and asked the natural supermarket chain to carry them (though at this time, Whole Foods does not carry the chips). Despite her success, Pandey said she is always open to suggestions for improvement. “I’m not a baking expert,” she tells her customers. “So if you have any suggestions, any feedback, give it to me!” Many people are avoiding wheat or gluten products, like Palo Alto resident Zoe Blatchley, who discovered Tasty Karma Chickpea Chips through her niece, who first picked them up at Pandey’s farmer’s market stall. “I can eat them without the inflammatory effects of many other foods,” said Blatchley, who suffers from Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy/Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (RSD/CRPS), a chronic pain condition that experts believe occurs as a result of dysfunction in the nervous system. According to Blatchley, many people with her condition have seen improvements after eliminating gluten from their diets. Pandey, too, said she has seen first-hand the health benefits of her products. A trim woman, Pandey said she’d always had trouble losing weight, especially after the birth of her second child.

Drop Them Off At The Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Station Hours

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• First Friday of the month 3pm – 5pm Limitations • 15 gallons or 125 pounds of HHW per visit. • Must be a Palo Alto Resident (driver’s license or vehicle registration)

Page 30 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

“When I was working on this production ... I lost a lot of weight,” Pandey said, crediting her frequent sampling of her snacks. “I lost almost 15 pounds, just by these crackers.” Blatchley, who said she enjoys the crackers about four times a week, likes to dip them in hummus, salsa verde, or tabbouleh, or pair them with olives as an antipasto dish. “My particular favorite is (the) Chia & Sesame Crunch (flavor),” Pandey said. “The sesame really enhances the flavor.” Other flavors include Quinoa with Cracked Pepper, Zesty Fenugreek and Cinnamon Sugar. As for future chickpea-based plans, Pandey said she’s currently working on developing a nutritional bar. “There are a lot of bars available, but ... they have a lot of whey protein,” she said, describing the ingredient as an “artificial protein” and something she wouldn’t give to her kids. “I personally feel ... it’s something very very processed.” In addition to adding a bar to her lineup, Pandey also plans to extend Tasty Karma’s reach beyond Silicon Valley, expanding throughout Northern California to other specialty food stores. Information on where to find Tasty Karma products is at www. tastykarma.com. Q Lena Pressesky is a former Palo Alto Weekly intern.

For more information, visit www.cityofpaloalto.org/hazwaste zerowaste@cityofpaloalto.org (650) 496-5910

Movies

Inspirations a guide id tto th the spiritual i it l community FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, UCC

OPENINGS

1985 Louis Road, Palo Alto • (650) 856-6662 • www.fccpa.org Sunday Worship and Church School at 10 a.m.

This Sunday:

Love Is Strange 0001/2

Bring your pets for a special blessing Outdoor Worship in our Courtyard An Open and Affirming Congregation of the United Church of Christ We celebrate Marriage Equality

Jeong Park/Sony Pictures Classics

(Palo Alto Square) Marital domesticity is tough enough. Add in the obstacle of Kafkaesque sociopolitical forces — still the lot of many gay couples — and any marriage would feel the strain. That’s the lot of a gay couple in Ira Sachs’ new film “Love Is Strange”: Two men have each other, they have friends and family and they have a heap of trouble. The trouble arrives when Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina), after 39 years together, “make it official” by seizing on their new legal right to marry. That’s all well and good, except that George works as a music teacher for a Catholic school, and when word of his marriage to a man reaches an unhappy bishop, George’s superior Father Raymond (John Cullum) fires him, invoking the “Christian witness statement” George signed when he took the job. In a scenario suggested by Leo McCarey’s “Make Way for Tomorrow” (and scripted by Sachs with Mauricio Zacharias), sudden financial insecurity forces Ben and George to give up their Manhattan apartment and throw themselves on the mercy of friends and family. Ben heads to Brooklyn to live with his nephew Elliot (Darren Burrows), Elliot’s novelist wife Kate (Marisa Tomei) and their touchy teenage son Joey (Charlie Tahan), while George moves in with former neighbors and good friends, the gay-cop couple Ted (Cheyenne Jackson)

Blessing of the Animals

Alfred Molina, left, appears as George and John Lithgow as Ben in “Love Is Strange.” and Roberto (Manny Perez). What follows depicts realistically strained marriages, both gay and straight, and the growing “strains” of a teenage boy learning that the title of the film is true, all to the elegant strains of Chopin. Though the confident, patient approach is vintage Sachs, the cozy mundaneness and selfpossession of the central characters signal a new tone that isn’t shy about playing comic notes to balance the dramatic ones. Gentle comedy drifts into serious drama, but for all the pain that transpires, the film ends on a high of unambiguous uplift. Along the way, Sachs proves again that he is an actor’s director, warmly showcasing his two leads and inviting great supporting turns (especially from Tomei and Tahan). Lithgow, playing a slightly older 71, imbues Ben with colors

of physical, mental and emotional frailty that make his various struggles all the more poignant. As the stiller half of the couple, Molina productively underplays, the better to move us with an inevitable break under pressure. The film may seem to be doing very little, but it evinces great sensitivity (even as it is partly a story about the harms of insensitivity, by institutions and amidst families) as it explores a universal theme of dealing with life’s unexpected derailments and trying to get back on track. It’s about the state of the gay union, as well, and of course, about that title. Through his love of dramatic form, Sachs lives up to the scripture he quotes: “Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.” Rated R for language. One hour, 34 minutes. — Peter Canavese

Inspirations is a resource for ongoing religious services and special events. To inquire about or to reserve space in Inspirations, please contact Blanca Yoc at 223-6596 or email byoc@paweekly.com

The Trip to Italy 000

Ciro Meggiolaro/Courtesy of Sundance Institute

(Aquarius) Comedy sequel “The Trip to Italy” is almost exactly like its predecessor “The Trip,” and for the most part, that’s a good thing. The plot of this foodie travelogue is entirely predictable, and the food is predictably gorgeous, but there’s little predictable about the real sustenance of the film: the banter between stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, two British comedians playing funhouse-mirror versions of themselves. “The Trip to Italy” is so similar to its predecessor in part because it’s not so much a film sequel as a second season of a television series. It all started when the stars and director collaborated on “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story,” which also riffed on the actors as themselves. The resulting brainstorm yielded “The Trip,” which debuted as a sixepisode BBC series — in which “Coogan” and “Brydon” tour Northern England restaurants —

Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan do a foodie road trip in “The Trip to Italy.” that was edited into a feature film for export. As before, Michael Winterbottom directed the next batch of six episodes — involving the friends dining in Liguria, Tuscany, Rome, Amalfi and Capri — whittled down here to a tight 108 minutes. Ostensibly, the eating tour will serve as the basis for Brydon’s

article, also a sequel, commissioned by the London Observer newspaper. But the article is really an excuse for another bromantic holiday of upscale dining and relaxed chat, which often curdles as the aging lads contemplate what their careers and mar(continued on next page)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 31

Movies

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Openings

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(continued from previous page)

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riages and children are amounting to. Friendly ribbing between the friends takes on the distinct edge of competitive insecurity, exacerbated by Brydon landing an audition for a Michael Mann movie. The tour also includes photo ops: not only breathtaking coastal views for Winterbottomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s camera, but also places where the Romantic poets slept. The clunkiest parts of â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Trip to Italyâ&#x20AC;? are when Brydon â&#x20AC;&#x201D; known as an impressionist â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and Coogan trade celebrity

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voices (Hugh Grant, Al Pacino, even Gore Vidal), and yet these passages also provide some of the most sheer fun these â&#x20AC;&#x153;Tripâ&#x20AC;?s offer. Last time, the boys riffed hilariously on Michael Caine, namedropping (among other films) â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Dark Knight.â&#x20AC;? With the new ammunition of â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Dark Knight Rises,â&#x20AC;? the guys go after Caine and also Tom Hardy (that filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s semi-incomprehensible Bane). Part of the fun, too, is in the witty pretexts for impressions, including Brydonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rental car selection of a Mini, which he has chosen expressly for an excuse to do Caine. A visit to Shelleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grave also

The following is a sampling of movies recently reviewed in the Weekly:

Citizens Watchdog Committee

When the Game Stands Tall 001/2 In a sense, â&#x20AC;&#x153;When the Game Stands Tallâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Hollywood-ization of De La Salle High Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s legendary Spartans football team, directed by Thomas Carter â&#x20AC;&#x201D; is about what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not about. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not about winning. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not even about the football. Rather, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a values-driven parable of character. Jim Caviezel plays storied coach Bob Ladouceur, who oversaw the Spartansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; unprecedented 151-game winning streak. Health issues sideline Ladouceur, just as son Danny (Matthew Daddario), a Spartan receiver, finally hoped to make something of his situation with a football-obsessed dad. A tragedy of gun violence fells a Spartan. And, yes, the streak ends, as the new batch of seniors takes its success for granted, and De La Salle steps up to face a well-matched rival in Long Beach Poly. Can Ladouceur put the pieces back together? And should he, given the toll on his family (including his wife, played by Laura Dern) and enticing job offers at the collegiate level? The film takes interest in how Ladouceur formed boys into well-rounded men. The players author â&#x20AC;&#x153;commitment cardsâ&#x20AC;? spelling out their achievable personal goals for improvement, practice and work out on a grueling schedule, get perspective by visiting wounded veterans, and formally gather to pour out their emotions to each other and thereby bond as a team. This wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be a sports movie without hyped-up drama, and it has its fair share of soap-operatic emotional displays, climactically capped by an arguably absurd â&#x20AC;&#x153;Rudyâ&#x20AC;?-style moment. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen much of this before on screen, and more winningly dramatized, but â&#x20AC;&#x153;When the Game Stands Tallâ&#x20AC;? does a good, and family-friendly, job of encapsulating Ladouceurâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;winningâ&#x20AC;? approach to life as well as the game. Rated PG for thematic material, a scene of violence and brief smoking. One hour, 55 minutes. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; P.C. (Reviewed Aug. 22, 2014)

Report to the Public

2000 Measure A Expenditures

BART Silicon Valley $299 M

Fiscal Year 2013 (7/1/12 - 6/30/13)

(in millions)

$9.7M Commuter Rail Program $16.5M Bus Program $13.1M Light Rail Program $18.6M Interest & Funding Transfer $.02M Mineta San Jose Airport People Mover TOTAL: $356.9 M

Measure A, approved by Santa Clara County voters in 2000, is a 30-year half cent sales tax generating revenue to enhance the countyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public transit system. Although revenue collection did not begin until 2006, numerous Measure A Program accomplishments that directly benefit county residents and commuters have been achieved during the first seven years.

Additional Measure A information is available on 97$ÂˇV ZHEVLWH vta.org, including: Â&#x2021; &:& 0HDVXUH $ )< %HQHILWV .H\ $FKLHYHPHQWV 5HSRUW DW vta.org/cwcimpacts/FY13.

A few key Fiscal Year 2013 accomplishments are: Â&#x2021; 97$ÂˇV ([WHQVLRQ RI %$57 WR 6LOLFRQ 9DOOH\ ZKLFK ZLOO provide more transportation options and reduce congestion, is currently ahead of schedule and under budget. Â&#x2021; %ORVVRP +LOO 3HGHVWULDQ 2YHUFURVVLQJ HQKDQFHV VDIHW\ DQG increases mobility.

Â&#x2021; &:& $QQXDO 5HSRUW RQ )< which provides a detailed description and status on all Measure A projects and the CWCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s responsibilities, at www.vta.org/cwcreport/FY13.

Â&#x2021; &DOWUDLQ (OHFWULILFDWLRQ ZKLFK ZLOO SURYLGH FOHDQHU IDVWHU more cost efficient means of transportation, continues to progress. Printed copies of select Measure A and CWC reports are available at libraries and other public buildings WKURXJKRXW WKH FRXQW\ DQG DW WKH 97$ RIILFHV DW 3331 North First Street, San Jose, CA, in the %XLOGLQJ % /REE\

It is the conclusion of the CWC that, for the period of Fiscal Year 2013 (7/1/12 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 6/30/13), 2000 Measure A tax dollars were spent in accordance with the intent of the measure.

s 449 s www.vta.org Page 32 â&#x20AC;˘ August 29, 2014 â&#x20AC;˘ Palo Alto Weekly â&#x20AC;˘ www.PaloAltoOnline.com

1408-9642

Santa Clara County voters entrusted the Citizens Watchdog Committee (CWC), comprised of fellow community members, with overseeing Measure A expenditures to ensure your sales tax dollars are spent as intended by the ballot. After thorough and careful consideration:

offers a good excuse, to crack self-defensively wise about death and legacy. These grounding moments, and a purposely distressing subplot about nice-guy Brydon fooling around with a young tour guide, give the otherwise airy â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Trip to Italyâ&#x20AC;? some genuine weight. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s one of those â&#x20AC;&#x153;whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not to like?â&#x20AC;? movies, though I suppose the answer there would be Coogan and Brydon. I find them endlessly charming (even when the impressions are weak, which they sometimes are). Your mileage may vary. Not rated. One hour, 48 minutes. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Peter Canavese

Calvary 000 Set in Ireland, the John Michael McDonaghâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Calvaryâ&#x20AC;? is a tale of fear and helplessness laced with blackest humor. The great Brendan Gleeson stars as Father James Lavelle, a basically kindly sort who meets a ghastly challenge in the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s opening moments. Behind the confessional screen, one of Father Jamesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; parishioners â&#x20AC;&#x153;confessesâ&#x20AC;? that he was raped, beginning at the age of 7, by a long-dead priest. To send a message, he promises to kill Father James in a weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time. So begin the stations (mercifully reduced to seven) of Father Jamesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; cross. As James slouches towards Calvary, he begins squinting at each parishioner he visits, wondering, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Could this be the man who intends to kill me?â&#x20AC;? And yet, Father James is there less to interrogate and more to serve as psychologist and helping hand, despite commonly meeting with resistance, ingratitude and hostility. The episodic structure can be wearying, but the sus-

Movies pects comprise a fine collection of character actors: M. Emmet Walsh (“Blood Simple”) as an American writer, Chris O’Dowd (coming off his Tony-nominated work in “Of Mice and Men”) as a wifebeating butcher, Dylan Moran (“Black Books”) as a misanthropic millionaire and Aidan Gillen (“Game of Thrones”) as a nastily cynical doctor, as well as an adulterous mechanic from the Ivory Coast (Isaach De Bankolé of “The Limits of Control”). Father James’ own issues include a depressive daughter played by “Flight”’s Kelly Reilly and his own latent anger at the Church’s letdowns and his current situation. The extremities of the language and the violence will immediately turn off many, and McDonagh’s self-reflexively writerly tone — lines like “He’s a character, huh?” — unneces-

sarily take us out of the narrative. Still, “Calvary”’s provocations are productive, adding up to an intriguing defense of the relevance of a good priest in a time when his profession is beleaguered. Rated R for sexual references, language, brief strong violence and some drug use. One hour, 40 minutes. — P.C. (Reviewed Aug. 15, 2014) The Giver 00 It’s odd to watch a film about the rediscovery of love, faith, passion and color, and for the film to be so by-the-numbers colorless. That’s the case with “The Giver,” adapted from Lois Lowry’s 1993 entry-level dystopian science-fiction novel. A la “Ender’s Game,” Hollywood has aged up the novel’s hero from 12 to 16, sexed up the story with more action

MOVIE TIMES All showtimes are for Friday – Sunday only unless otherwise noted. For other times, reviews and trailers, go to PaloAltoOnline.com/movies. Movie times are subject to change. Call theaters for the latest. A Most Wanted Man (R)

Century 20: 2 & 7:15 p.m.

As Above, So Below (R) Century 16: 11:45 a.m., 2:15, 4:50, 7:35 & 10:05 p.m. Century 20: 10:50 a.m., 1:10, 3:30, 5:50, 8:15 & 10:40 p.m. Boyhood (R) ++++ Calvary (R) +++

Aquarius Theatre: 1, 4, 7 & 9:55 p.m.

Century 20: 1:50 & 7:05 p.m.

Cantinflas (PG) Century 16: 10:35 a.m., 1:20, 4:10, 7:20 & 10:15 p.m. Century 20: noon, 2:40, 5:20, 8 & 10:40 p.m. Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935) (Not Rated) Chef (R)

Stanford Theatre: Fri 7:30 p.m.

Century 20: 11 a.m.,4:15 & 9:35 p.m.

The Expendables 3 (PG-13) +1/2

Century 20: 1:15, 4:20, 7:25 & 10:30 p.m.

Ghostbusters (1984) (PG) Century 16: 11 a.m., 1:35, 4:15, 7 & 9:35 p.m. Century 20: In X-D at 11:10 a.m., 1:45, 4:30, 7:15 & 9:50 p.m. The Giver (PG-13) ++ Century 16: 11:50 a.m., 2:25, 4:55, 7:40 & 10:10 p.m. Century 20: 11:30 a.m., 1:55, 4:35, 7:20 & 9:55 p.m. Guardians of the Galaxy (PG-13) Century 16: 1:25, 4:20 & 7:25 p.m. In 3-D at 10:30 a.m. & 10:20 p.m. Century 20: 10:55 a.m., 2, 4:55, 7:50 & 10:45 p.m. In 3-D at 12:25, 3:25, 6:20 & 9:15 p.m. The Hundred-Foot Journey (PG) ++1/2 Century 20: 10:55 a.m., 1:45, 4:35, 7:35 & 10:25 p.m. Palo Alto Square: 1, 4, 7 & 10 p.m.

(courtesy of director Phillip Noyce) and beefed up a supporting role for Meryl Streep. In the seemingly utopian Community, war, discord, hunger and even inclement weather are things of the past, though the place is a wash of antiseptic sameness with approved clothing, daily medication and calls for “precision of language.” At an annual ceremony, teen Jonas (25-year-old Brenton Thwaites) wins the role of Receiver because he has, according to the Chief Elder (Streep), “all four attributes: intelligence, integrity, courage and the capacity to see beyond.” Jonas will inherit the Community’s memories from the previous Receiver (Jeff Bridges) — who accepts his rechristening as “the Giver.” This oral tradition makes for the film’s most interesting sequences, due largely to Bridges’ quirky presence. All this unfolds in black and white, an admittedly bold move for a wide-release film. As he learns the cost of the Community’s peace, Jonas becomes entranced with colorful visions of sledding through snow, music and dance, and emotions including love. Soon, Jonas realizes that he shares with his mentor a skepticism that the tradeoff was worth it. Unfortunately, Noyce can’t make convincing drama of Lowry’s raw material. The hero trio of youngsters — also including Odeya Rush as Jonas’ love interest and Cameron Monaghan as their buddy — come off as beautiful but bland. It’s too bad that this junior version of “Fahrenheit 451” turned out drippy, but it’s not entirely witless. The casting of Scientology escapee Katie Holmes as one of the happily brainwashed is almost enough to convince us that “The Giver” has a sense of humor. Rated PG-13 for a mature thematic image and some sci-fi action/violence. One hour, 34 minutes. — P.C. (Reviewed Aug. 15, 2014)

MOVIE REVIEWERS P.C. – Peter Canavese, T.H. – Tyler Hanley, S.T. – Susan Tavernetti

If I Stay (PG-13) ++ Century 16: 10:45 a.m., 1:30, 4:25, 7:15 & 9:55 p.m. Century 20: 11 a.m., 1:35, 4:15, 7:10 & 9:50 p.m. Let’s Be Cops (R)

“THE SUMMER’S MOST BEGUILING ROMANTIC COMEDY.” -Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

Magic In The Moonlight Written and Directed by

Woody Allen

NOW PLAYING

WWW.SONYCLASSICS.COM

CENTURY 20 DOWNTOWN REDWOOD CITY 825 Middleﬁeld Rd, Redwood City (800) FANDANGO

LANDMARK GUILD 949 El Camino Real, Menlo Park (650) 566-8367

VIEW THE TRAILER AT WWW.MAGICINTHEMOONLIGHTMOVIE.COM

Century 20: 11:50 a.m., 2:30, 5:15, 8 & 10:35 p.m.

Love Is Strange (R) +++1/2 Lucy (R) +++

Eileen Colin Marcia Hamish Simon Emma Jacki Atkins Firth Gay Harden Linklater McBurney Stone Weaver

Palo Alto Square: 2, 4:40, 7:15 & 9:45 p.m.

Century 20: 12:45, 3:10, 5:35, 8:05 & 10:30 p.m.

Magic in the Moonlight (PG-13) Century 20: 11:15 a.m., 4:45 & 10:05 p.m. Guild Theatre: 2, 4:30, 7:10 & 9:30 p.m. The November Man (R) Century 16: 10:30 a.m., 1:10, 4, 7:05 & 9:50 p.m. Century 20: 11:35 a.m., 2:15, 4:50, 7:30 & 10:15 p.m. Only Yesterday (1933) (Not Rated) Stanford Theatre: Sat & Sun 5:35 & 9:50 p.m. Planes: Fire & Rescue (PG)

Century 20: 11:35 a.m., 2:25 & 4:45 p.m.

Random Harvest (1942) (Not Rated) Stanford Theatre: Sat & Sun 3:15 & 7:30 p.m. Saints and Soldiers: The Void (PG-13) Century 20: 11:15 a.m., 1:40, 4:10, 7 & 9:30 p.m. Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943) (Not Rated) Stanford Theatre: Fri 6:10 & 9:10 p.m. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (R) Century 16: 7:50 p.m. In 3-D at 11:40 a.m., 2:20, 5:05 & 10:25 p.m. Century 20: 12:15 & 8:10 p.m. In 3-D at 2:40, 5:30, 7, 9:40 & 10:45 p.m. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (PG-13) ++ Century 16: 11:55 a.m., 2:30, 5:10, 7:55 & 10:30 p.m. Century 20: 11:05 a.m., 4:05 & 6:45 p.m. In 3-D at 1:35 & 9:25 p.m. The Trip to Italy (Not Rated)

Aquarius Theatre: 1:30, 4:20 & 7:30 p.m.

When the Game Stands Tall (PG) ++1/2 Century 16: 10:40 a.m., 1:25, 4:15, 7:10 & 10 p.m. Century 20: 11:25 a.m., 12:55, 2:15, 3:40, 5, 6:30, 7:55, 9:20 & 10:40 p.m.

Century Theatres at Palo Alto Square Fri & Sun 8/29 – 8/31 Love is Strange – 2:00, 4:40, 7:15, 9:45 Hundred Foot – 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 10:00 Journey Mon – Thurs 9/1 – 9/4 Love is Strange – 2:00, 4:40, 7:15 Hundred Foot Journey – 1:00, 4:00, 7:00

Tickets and Showtimes available at cinemark.com

ANYONE FOR SECONDS? “THE ‘GODFATHER 2’ OF ROAD MOVIES.”

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL

LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL

“A WISE AND LOVELY FILM.” -A.O. Scott, THE NEW YORK TIMES “HITS YOU LIKE A SHOT IN THE HEART! A TRIUMPH FOR LITHGOW AND MOLINA. ACTING DOESN’T GET BETTER THAN THIS.” -Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

“GRADE A!

A WARM, HUMANE AND RESPLENDENT ROMANCE.” -Joe McGovern, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

-THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

BRILLIANTLY FUNNY.

“

HI RIOUS AND TOUCHING.” -ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

+ Skip it ++ Some redeeming qualities +++ A good bet ++++ Outstanding

Aquarius: 430 Emerson St., Palo Alto (266-9260)

JOHN LITHGOW ALFRED MOLINA

Century Cinema 16: 1500 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View (800-326-3264)

CinéArts at Palo Alto Square: 3000 El Camino Real, Palo Alto (493-0128)

WRITTEN BY ROB

STEVE

COOGAN

BRYDON

Stanford: 221 University Ave., Palo Alto (324-3700) Internet address: For show times, plot synopses, trailers and more information about films playing, go to PaloAltoOnline.com/movies

A FILM BY

MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM

IRA SACHS & MAURICIO ZACHARIAS DIRECTED BY IRA SACHS

STARTS FRIDAY, AUGUST 29

WWW.SONYCLASSICS.COM

CINÉARTS@PALO ALTO SQUARE 3000 El Camino Real, Palo Alto (800) FANDANGO

VIEW THE TRAILER AT WWW.LOVEISSTRANGETHEMOVIE.COM

SPECIAL ENGAGEMENTS START FRI 8/29 LANDMARK THEATRES

ON THE WEB: Up-to-date movie listings at PaloAltoOnline.com

MARISA TOMEI

LOVE IS STRANGE

Century 20 Downtown: 825 Middlefield Road, Redwood City (800-326-3264)

Guild: 949 El Camino Real, Menlo Park (266-9260)

AND

AQUARIUS THEATRE

LANDMARK THEATRES

EMBARCADERO

430 EMERSON ST 1 EMBARCADERO CTR, (650) 327-3241 • PALO ALTO (415) 352-0835 • SAN FRANCISCO

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startstrongbaby.com Page 34 • August 29, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Home&Real Estate

OPEN HOME GUIDE 49 Also online at PaloAltoOnline.com

Home Front LEADER TRAINING ... Canopy is offering a free two-part workshop for teens and adults who want to lead community treeplantings. Part I, a lecture and demonstration, takes place from 6 to 8 p.m., either on Thursday, Sept. 4, or Friday, Sept. 5, at the Peninsula Conservation Center, 3921 E. Bayshore Road, Palo Alto. Part II is a neighborhood tree-planting from 9 a.m. to noon, on Saturday, Sept. 6, meeting at Eleanor Pardee Park, 851 Center Drive, Palo Alto. No experience is necessary, but trainees are asked to volunteer at two Canopy planting events and one tree-care work day during planting season (October through April). Information: Canopy at 650-964-6110, maika@ canopy.org or canopy.org COMPOST BASICS ... The city of Palo Alto is offering a free Compost Basics Workshop from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Sept. 6, at the Master Gardener’s Demonstration Garden at Eleanor Pardee Park, 851 Center Drive, Palo Alto. Focus is on how to build healthy soil while minimizing fertilizer and water use. No registration is required. Information: www.cityofpaloalto. org/workshops CRAFTY CLASSES ... through Menlo Park’s Recreation Department include “Cake Decorating — Level 1” from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Mondays, Sept. 8 to 29, and “Beginning Sewing” from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Sept. 11 to Oct. 2. “Cake Decorating” will cover the basics, including making roses (and stars!), leveling a cake and making icing. “Beginning Sewing” starts with selecting and reading a pattern and ends with making two easy projects. Each class costs $85 for nonresidents, $64 for Menlo Park residents. Both are taught by Christine Hopkins and take place at the Arrillaga Family Recreation Center, 700 Alma St., Menlo Park. Information: 650-330-2200, menlopark. org or csd@menlopark.org

Irrigation upgrades deliver crucial water savings in time of drought by Christina Dong | photos by Veronica Weber

COOL SEASON GARDENING ... UC Master Gardeners will talk about “Cool Season Vegetable Gardening” from 1 to 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 12, at Avenidas, 450 Bryant St., Palo Alto. The free talk will deal with which vegetables grow best during the cool season, as well as tips to increase gardening success. Information: Master Gardeners at

(continued on page 37) Send notices of news and events related to real estate, interior design, home improvement and gardening to Home Front, Palo Alto Weekly, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302, or email cblitzer@ paweekly.com. Deadline is one week before publication.

The MP rotator system, top, involves sprinkler heads that spray smaller streams of water at a slower rate. Water, above, flows from a drip-irrigation line into a potted plant.

n the midst of California’s driest year on record — and $500 fines for sprinkler runoff as of Aug. 1 — residents with outof-date or problematic irrigation systems are due for an upgrade. Watering more efficiently doesn’t have to break the bank, thanks to basic adjustments to your current system, free water usage evaluations from the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) and even rebates for installation of certain water-saving technologies. Nothing points to faulty irrigation like a planter box dribbling onto the sidewalk or a lawn sprinkler dousing the driveway. The culprits are misaligned or malfunctioning sprinkler heads, as well as excessive water output, problems that constitute “overspray,” according to Matt Rowe of Matt Rowe Plumbing & Irrigation, Palo Alto. Many residents remain unaware of overspray on their properties because “people aren’t spending enough time checking their systems,” Rowe said. Rowe, who grew up in Palo Alto himself, installs and maintains irrigation at many homes in Crescent Park, including the home of Dave and Lynn Mitchell. The Mitchells called upon Rowe in 2010 to revise

their irrigation system, a project they started “for many reasons,” Dave Mitchell said. The updates qualified them for a rebate from the SCVWD that year as well. Aside from wanting to save water on principle, Mitchell recognized that parts of the yard received ample shade and did not require heavy spray from traditional sprinklers. Many of the plants and flowers were also better suited for drip irrigation, he said. For the Mitchells’ lawns, Rowe installed an MP rotator system, pinwheel-like sprinkler heads that slowly rotate individual streams of water, providing more thorough lawn coverage than traditional spray. “MP rotators run longer, but at a lower precipitation rate,” helping the lawn more thoroughly absorb the water, Rowe said. “Traditional (sprinkler) systems put a lot of water on at once.” “With the MP rotators, you’re going to need less water to do more,” Rowe said. All stations in the Mitchells’ irrigation setup are controlled by one overall watering percentage, with “100 percent” as each station’s nor(continued on page 37)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • August 29, 2014 • Page 35

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Home & Real Estate

Irrigation upgrades (continued from page 35)

mal output. The Mitchells can adjust the percentage based on daily weather conditions, which “enables us to establish a budget,” Mitchell said. Working with the weather is a key watersaving strategy, according to Rowe, who recommends watering lawns either before sunrise or after sunset. This schedule targets times when less water evaporation will occur, as well as off-peak hours of consumption. Most recently, Rowe installed an additional water meter for the Mitchells that solely tracks irrigation usage, a gallon count isolated from the overall household usage. A ticker inside the irrigation meter clearly shows when any water is flowing, helping identify leaks early. Otherwise, they often take longer to discover, if discovered at all. “Something breaks, people are never home to see it and it spills tons of water every day,” Rowe said of the damage created by a constant leak. “If there’s a problem, often people don’t notice.” Maintaining an irrigation system is well worth the time and attention, according to Rowe, because landscaping comprises much of a property’s value. Keeping a lawn just green enough, or “limping it along during the drought,” Rowe said, is one visual guideline to follow. “You don’t want your landscape to die. It’s a big investment,” Rowe said. “Just because your lawn doesn’t look perfect (now) doesn’t mean it’s not recoverable.” For those looking to modify their landscapes for drought conditions, Rowe suggests removing plants that require large amounts

A sprinkler control system allows homeowners to control the amount of water used to water the lawn and plants depending on the heat and drought conditions. This one is set to 50 percent, an ideal amount to keep the lawn in survival mode while reducing water consumption.

An irrigated flower bed has a manual shut-off valve to prevent over-watering flowers and plants. The rest of the watering system is connected to a timer. of water and replacing them with low water usage plants, such as native or drought-tolerant plants. And installing an efficient watering system, of course. “Many systems can easily be converted to an MP rotator, and it works for both lawns and shrubs,” Rowe said. A higher-tech option is a controller from OnPoint EcoSystems. The company’s WaterSage model automatically optimizes a schedule for each yard zone based on the weather, while the WaterPoint model pro-

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vides complete manual control of the system from a computer or smartphone. A system from Hydrawise also allows for automatic scheduling and remote control. To focus more on landscape modification than irrigation upgrades, xeriscaping, a landscape design that reduces or eliminates altogether the need for irrigation, is another option. Residents can quickly find areas for irrigation improvement through the SCVWD’s Water-Wise House Calls, the county’s free comprehensive water usage evaluation program. A Water-Wise call will identify leaks or other malfunctions and provide a personalized irrigation schedule and prioritized list of water conservation steps for the household. Visit save20gallons.org for more information. For a limited time, the City of Palo Alto is also offering an increased rebate for conversion of a lawn to a low-water-use landscape. The increased rebate amount is available un-

til Sept. 30, with certain restrictions on plant choice and irrigation design. As for the Mitchell residence, the rebate they received in 2010 was only a perk. “I’m happy with saving water and trying to be a good citizen,” Mitchell said of his updated system. Rowe believes that all residents, whether switching to new technologies or continuing use of older ones, can save water by keeping an eye on their own systems’ upkeep and efficiency. “People could benefit a lot from more frequent checks (and) regular timer adjustment,” he said. “It’s just putting a little more time into your system.” Q

Home Front (continued from page 35) 408-282-3105, between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, or mastergardeners.org TOMATOES! ... Ella Ancheta, Gamble Garden manager, will host the second annual Tomato Extravaganza from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 13, under the oak tree at 1431 Waverley St., Palo Alto. Participants are invited to share their tomato harvest, meet other tomato enthusiasts, taste new and heirloom varieties and sample dishes made with tomatoes (including sharing something they bring, and the recipe). The event is free, but registration is required. Information: 650-329-1356 or gamblegarden.org Q