Palo Alto Weekly December 12, 2014

Palo Alto

Vol. XXXVI, Number 10

Q

December 12, 2014

Inside:

Palo Alto Adult School courses w w w. P a l o A l t o O n l i n e.c o m

CONVERSATION

Who, or what, is Palo Alto Forward?

PAGE 20

Donate to the HOLIDAY FUND page 30

Transitions 17 Spectrum 18 Eating Out 31 Shop Talk 32 Movies 33 Home 40 Puzzles 55 Q News Roads, underpasses flood in Palo Alto

Page 5

Q Arts Suffering and suffrage at the Hoover Institution

Page 26

Q Sports It’s the Sweet 16 for Stanford volleyball

Page 58

Check-in with Your Skin Put your best self forward this winter and make your skin care a priority.

Stanford Dermatology offers the most advanced technologies for diagnosing and treating all skin conditions and diseases—from the most common to the more complex, including: • • •

Acne Eczema Sun damaged skin

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Psoriasis Hair loss

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Nail problems Skin cancer

Schedule a consultation today at one of our convenient locations in Redwood City, Palo Alto, Portola Valley, or Los Altos. Make an appointment directly online at: stanfordhealthcare.org/derm or call 650.723.6316

Page 2 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

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www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 3

*Four course dinner with Complementary glass of Proseco Champagne $59 per person

Celebrate Christmas Eve & New Year’s Eve With live Music a and a special Menu Appetizers

Dinner by the movies

Bruschetta – toasted slices of oven baked bread topped with Roma tomato cubes marinated with olive oil, garlic and fresh basil.

Crispy Zucchini Cakes – served with marinated cucumber & mint yogurt.

Soup/Salad Butternut Squash Soup – Garnished with pumpkin seeds and olive oil.

Venti Garden – Butter lettuce with organic mixed greens, shaved funnel, red onions, cherry tomatoes and toasted pecans with champagne vinaigrette dressing.

Greens & Apples - Organic mix greens, topped with gorgonzola cheese crumbles, walnuts, cranberries, granny Smith apples and poppy seed dressing.

Entrees

Happy Holidays from all of us!

Call today for a reservation

Filet Mignon – Filet mignon in a red wine reduction Served with broccolini and a risotto cake ďŹ lled with blue cheese.

Cioppino-Fresh salmon, snapper, clams, mussels, crab legs and prawns in spicy Venti tomato sauce.

Braised Short Ribs in a light red wine sauce – served with polenta and seasonal fresh cut vegetables.

Grilled Lamb Chops in a lemon vinaigrette sauce – Served with Swiss chard, and roasted potatoes.

Linguine Pescatore – fresh salmon, snapper, clams, mussels and prawns in a spicy tomato sauce.

Mushroom Ravioli – with Roma tomatoes and fresh spinach, in a light Marsala cream sauce.

Grilled Salmon – served with sautÊed spinach, wild rice and vegetables.

Dessert Tiramisu – Italian dessert, consisting of alternating layers of coffee-soaked lady ďŹ ngers and sweet mixture of mascarpone cheese, eggs and sugar.

Executive Chef -Antonio Zomora Limited Seating — Make reservations through opentable.com or cucinaventi.com Hours: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday - Thursday 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday - Saturday • 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday

1390 Pear Ave., Mountain View | (650) 254-1120 | www.cucinaventi.com

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Upfront

Local news, information and analysis

Storm soaks Palo Alto area, causing a mess and minor damage Drenched city workers clear flooded roads, remove fallen debris

by Elena Kadvany xpected to be the area’s biggest storm in six years, this week’s inclement weather caused roadway flooding, traffic snarls and a few downed power lines in Palo Alto but as of midThursday appeared to have held back its predicted punches.

Palo Altans prepared for the worst, however, stocking up on sandbags and clearing the leaves

E

and Jocelyn Dong from gutters and street drains.

Ronnie Farrell, a science teacher at Palo Alto High School, used his grace period Wednesday to pick up sandbags, mostly to protect his Palo Alto garage from flooding. He lived in the same Community Center neighborhood house in 1998, when San Francisquito Creek overflowed.

“The last time there was a lot

of rain (in 1998) it really caused a lot of damage,” he said. “I’m just making sure that ... the garage is protected. I’m just trying to stay dry.”

Farrell said Thursday morning that the school was “not quite flooding, but plenty of areas of the school are inaccessible.”

Resident Charlie Junkerman, who lives on Chaucer Street between Hamilton and University avenues, said he filled 75 sandbags on Wednesday in preparation. He, too, experienced signifi-

cant property damage in 1998, losing a car, furnace and washer and dryer machines.

“That was pretty traumatic,” he said Thursday midday, at which point there was no flooding in his neighborhood.

Junkerman said he’d been watching the city’s online creek monitors throughout the day. But, with the rain easing slightly, he was preparing to leave the house for the first time that day.

Fast-flowing water rushed down Palo Alto’s creeks — San Francis-

quito, Matadero and Adobe — after overnight and morning rains dropped more than an inch of water in the Palo Alto Foothills, according to the city. As of Thursday afternoon, none had reached half-full. But with rain continuing to fall, Palo Alto police Agent Marianna Villaescusa said the city was keeping an eye on them.

The water level at the San Francisquito Creek was inching above the 8-foot mark by 2 p.m. near the (continued on page 13)

DEVELOPMENT

Miki Werness proposed as new College Terrace grocer Operator of former Alma Village market may get fresh start at former JJ&F site

by Gennady Sheyner

M Veronica Weber

A prius drives through the standing water on Embarcadero Road near Waverley Street during a big storm on Dec. 11, 2014.

HOLIDAY FUND

Finding self-confidence through service Youth Community Service engages students in voluntarism

by Jennah Feeley

F

or high school students Rebecca Goldgof and Sandie Luo, community service is a way of life.

The two are co-presidents of the service club at Gunn High School, which is organized by Youth Community Service (YCS), an organization that offers students ways to get involved in the community.

Whether students are interested in helping underprivileged children, providing service at animal shelters or lending a hand to the homeless, the club has a project for everyone, Goldgof said.

“I think one of the best things about the club is its versatility,” she said. “The club has so many

different events and different opportunities. There’s a way for everyone to get involved, which is really great to see.”

Service clubs at eight Palo Alto middle and high schools are one of several YCS programs that benefited from a $20,000 grant from the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund this year. The grant also supported YCS’ Summer of Service camp scholarships, community-wide service days and life-skills classes for atrisk youth.

The organization was created

nearly 25 years ago by Palo Alto and East Palo Alto cities and their school districts — Palo Alto Unified and Ravenswood City — to bring members of both communities closer together by means of volunteering. Since then, the organization has committed to providing services and opportunities for youth on both sides of U.S. Highway 101 — and doing so in a meaningful way.

“Service is for everyone,” said Youth Community Service Executive Director Leif Erickson, who believes volunteering is the best way to help youth realize their worth. (continued on page 14)

iki Werness, whose Alma Village market shuttered in April 2013 after less than six months of operation, may soon get another chance in Palo Alto’s College Terrace.

The developers behind College Terrace Centre on Monday proposed having Werness, former operator of Miki’s Farm Fresh Market, take charge of the grocery store intended for JJ&F Market. As part of the City Council’s approval for the block-long development at 2180 El Camino Real, the grocer must be signed before the rest of the building can be constructed. The development also includes eight below-market-rate units and nearly 40,000 square feet of office space, which are to be occupied by review company Yelp.

Though the council approved the development in early 2010, the project has been in flux since then because of financial challenges and disagreements between the developer and the council about the new grocer.

In August, the development team headed by Patrick Smailey proposed having his son James Smailey take charge of the new market despite the fact that he has no experience in the grocery business. The council unanimously rejected that plan, arguing that the younger Smailey is unlikely to match the level of service provided by the Garcia family, who operated JJ&F for more than half a century before departing in 2010.

The next proposal fared little better. On Dec. 1, the council

shot down a proposal in which James Smailey would lease the store but defer the day-to-day operations to Uriel Chavez, whose family runs small markets throughout northern California, including La Hacienda, Arteagas and Mi Pueblo. After a long discussion at that meeting, council members agreed that the market lease should be between the property owner and the grocer, without a middle man.

The proposal unveiled Monday night would place Werness in charge of the new market. Brian Spiers, who is part of the development team, said the team has decided to assign James Smailey’s lease to Werness. On Dec. 1, the council had learned that the College Terrace Centre team had been negotiating with Werness in prior months and had considered a joint venture.

Councilman Greg Scharff said on Dec. 1 that he had spoken to Werness earlier that day and was told that the sticking point in the negotiations was that the developers “were not allowing him to be the operator.” But after the Smailey-Chavez proposal fizzled last week under accusations of nepotism, that now appears to be changing.

Spiers on Monday night called Werness a “great choice” with a “great track record” and noted that Werness had already evaluated the site when he considered the joint venture with James Smailey.

“He knows the project so well,” Spiers said, adding that he will be (continued on page 14)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 5

Upfront

GraphicDesigner Embarcadero Media, producers of the Palo Alto Weekly, The Almanac, Mountain View Voice, Pleasanton Weekly, PaloAltoOnline. com and several other community websites, is looking for a graphic designer to join its award-winning design team.

Design opportunities include online and print ad design and editorial page layout. Applicant must be fluent in InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. Flash knowledge is a plus. Newspaper or previous publication experience is preferred, but we will consider qualified — including entry level — candidates. Most importantly, designer must be a team player and demonstrate speed, accuracy and thrive under deadline pressure. The position will be approximately 32 - 40 hours per week.

To apply, please send a resume along with samples of your work as a PDF (or URL) to Lili Cao, Design & Production Manager, at lcao@paweekly.com

4 5 0 C A M B R I D G E AV E N U E | PA L O A LT O

Midtown Connector Feasibility Study Your Input Needed!

Apply for a position on the Citizen’s Advisory Committee The City of Palo Alto is looking for 8-12 Palo Alto residents to serve on the Midtown Connector Citizen’s Advisory Committee (CAC).

The CAC will meet up to 4 times and advise the City on The Midtown Connector Project which seeks to identify routes on and parallel to the Matadero Creek between Highway 101 and Alma Street that serve to connect community facilities for use by bicyclists and pedestrians of all ages.

CAC meetings are intended to help the project team further define overall project objectives, identify several alignment alternatives that could partially or fully achieve project objectives, and consider the criteria to be used in evaluating the alternatives.

450 Cambridge Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94306 (650) 326-8210 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 & Digital Editor My Nguyen (223-6524) 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, Daryl Savage, Jeanie K. Smith, Susan Tavernetti Interns Jennah Feeley 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) 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 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

Applications due

Jan 13

For more information and the application: www.cityofpaloalto. org/MataderoCAC Or call (650) 329-2442

Website: www.cityofpaloalto.org/MataderoCAC Page 6 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

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There is a whole community out there to experience.

— Sandie Luo, co-president of Gunn High School’s Youth Community Service club, on how volunteering helps students expand their horizons.

See story on page 5.

Around Town

SNUFFED OUT ... Palo Alto’s ban on cigarette smoke will soon be spreading to new sections of the city, including Stanford Shopping Center and Alma Village.

That’s the proposal that the City Council’s Policy and Services Committee endorsed in June and that the full council is scheduled to approve Monday night. The new restrictions follow the city’s recent ban on smoking at local parks and public plazas. This time, the restrictions target outdoor commercial areas, outdoor dining areas, public events, work sites and service locations (though weirdly enough, there is an exemption for bingo games). It also includes increased penalties for repeat offenders and expands the existing ban to include e-cigarettes.

Another proposal, which would ban smoking at multi-family residences, is being evaluated but is not part of this ban. If the Dec. 15 meeting is like the council’s prior considerations of smoking restrictions, adopting the new bans should be a breeze.

MAY’S MEMORY ... More than eight years after East Palo Alto police officer Rich May was fatally shot while on duty, a new athletic field built in May’s memory is nearing the finish line, according to the Rich May Foundation. The foundation announced Dec. 3 that it had reached its goal of raising $1.5 million to construct a full-size rugby and soccer field behind St. Francis of Assisi Church on Bay Road in East Palo Alto. The foundation still needs to raise $200,000 for lights. “It feels like we have been working for a long time, and we will be thrilled to see the field open and know youth are playing on the field,” said Frank Merrill, May’s stepfather and president of the foundation, in a press release.

After breaking ground earlier this year, the field surface, bathrooms and manager’s office are now under construction. A dedication will be held early next spring. May was fatally shot on Jan. 7, 2006.

His killer, Alberto Alvarez, was convicted of first-degree murder and in 2010 sentenced to death.

For information, visit richmayfoundation.org or contact Mike Child at m.child@ta.com or Clarice Merrill at 650-325-2694.

Name: _________________________________ Address: ________________________________ City/Zip: ________________________________ Mail to: Palo Alto Weekly, 450 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto CA 94306

HOTSPOT ... The City of Palo Alto will celebrate the launch of its new free public Wi-Fi service at King Plaza with a “virtual” ribbon-

cutting on Monday, Dec. 15, at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave. “The City of Palo Alto is committed to providing high-quality, outdoor Wi-Fi as more workers and residents turn to laptops, tablets and smartphones to get their work done. In addition to the City’s focus on migrating its own employees to laptops, an increasing percentage of the workforce uses tablets and smartphones for their work, and to ensure a seamless, connected experience, most City-owned sites were recently upgraded to enterprise-class Wi-Fi,” according to a City of Palo Alto press release. Guests who visit the city’s facilities on a daily basis can search for the Palo Alto OverAir Wi-Fi name and connect to it. The city launched free Wi-Fi in downtown’s Cogswell Plaza last year. Palo Alto is also exploring the possibility of extending high-speed Wi-Fi across the city.

WHERE’S THE PARTY? ... Three Stanford freshmen in the past six months have independently created apps and websites that track parties on the Farm, according to a Stanford Daily news report. Party Brah, Turnapp and Turnt were introduced to the student body through the Stanford Class of 2018 Facebook page, and since then the Party Brah website has been visited more than 30,000 times, and Turnt has 2,000 downloads from the Apple app store.

Tyler Weitzman created Where’s the Party Brah, which displays locations of parties happening on the evening users visit the website (which are determined by tips sent to an email address listed on the site) because he saw a need for a platform that allows students to share information about campus nightlife. Axel Ericsson saw the same need and created his own party-tracking website Turnapp, which uses a user-generated display of parties.

After the two websites became hits, Weitzman and Ericsson decided to form a partnership and collaborated on a single partytracking website, Party Brah. The two are now working on creating an application, as well as extending their website to colleges beyond Stanford. Party-tracking app Turnt was created by Stanford’s Pierce Freeman and Santa Clara University’s Matt Jacobs. Turnt allows students to visually see which parties friends and peers are going to on a map. Q

Upfront ENVIRONMENT

Palo Alto halts plan for local compost plant City to continue exporting yard trimmings while weighing possible uses for Byxbee Park site

T

he long-running debate over the future of composting in Palo Alto reached a temporary truce Monday night, when the City Council agreed that now is not the time to build a local composting facility.

The decision by the council not to move along with a local composting operation came more than three years after voters approved Measure E, which made a 10-acre portion of Byxbee Park available for a potential plant. The issue polarized the environmental community, with some arguing that Palo Alto should take care of its own waste and others maintaining that parkland is not an appropriate place for an industrial operation.

On Monday, it wasn’t these familiar arguments that swayed the council but a more practical consideration: cost. The city in September received bids from four different companies that offered to build a composting facility on the Measure E site in the Baylands. After eliminating one company from consideration and further evaluating the proposals from the other three, Public Works staff deter-

mined that even under the cheapest proposal, a local plant would cost more than twice as much as exporting yard trimmings. Palo Alto has been shipping its yard trimmings to the Z-Best facility near Gilroy since 2011, when the city closed its landfill in Byxbee Park. The landfill included the city’s composting operation.

The three proposals came from GreenWaste, Harvest Power and Synergy and had “net present values” (figures that include 15 years of operating costs and 30 years of amortized capital expenditures) of $59.7 million, $41.6 million and $39.4 million, respectively. The net present value of exporting yard trimmings was estimated at $18.9 million.

The cost estimates came as a disappointment to members of the Palo Alto Green Energy and Compost Initiatives, a group of environmentalists that has been lobbying hard for keeping composting local. In a letter to the council, the group noted that exporting waste is “irresponsible and ignores the traffic, climate and environmental justice consequences.” Even

by Gennady Sheyner so, group members recognized that the cost of having an enclosed composting facility “probably renders the local option too expensive at this time.”

Former Mayor Peter Drekmeier, who is one of the group’s co-founders, urged the council to table the decision on how the Measure E site would be used to a later date. The council voted 8-1, with Karen Holman dissenting, to do exactly that.

Drekmeier noted that even if the city doesn’t proceed with a compost facility at this time, the Measure E site can be used for other purposes relating to waste management. Along with exploring a new composting facility, Palo Alto is also upgrading its sewage-treatment plant and preparing to retire its sludge-burning incinerators. The city is also planning to build an anaerobic digester next to the plant, a facility that would convert local sludge and food waste into energy.

Drekmeier pointed out that if the city were to choose to build an enclosed composting facility on the site at a later date, it would

be able to process the residue (known as digestate) from the anaerobic digester.

“We feel it’s very important to hold on to that option,” Drekmeier told the council.

Former Councilwoman Emily Renzel, a conservationist who opposes a composting facility in the Baylands, argued that a local facility “offers no significant advantages” over the exporting option.

“In fact it has the significant disadvantages of high cost, use of parkland and loss of habitat,” Renzel said.

For the council, the decision was strikingly simple. While prior discussions were lengthy and filled with multiple motions and split votes, there was little disagreement on the council Monday night. Everyone agreed that given the price estimates, a local option is not feasible at this time.

All except Holman (who has consistently opposed building a waste facility in the park) also agreed that the land should be preserved for a possible waste operation.

Councilman Larry Klein’s motion largely went along with Drek-

meier’s recommendation. Klein specified that the council should table the decision on how the Measure E site is used until the city has a better understanding of whether the land would be needed to support the anaerobic digester or until an “advanced technology for processing yard waste is available.”

The council would revisit the decision if it turns out that noise and odor can be sufficiently mitigated without a fully enclosed building (thus making a local facility cheaper) or if exporting yard trimmings is no longer as cost-effective.

Klein called the wait-and-see approach a “reasonable way to decide what to do with this site as we go forward.”

Vice Mayor Liz Kniss agreed, even though she said she is troubled by the fact that the city currently trucks its waste.

“This is the middle-of-the-road decision, one that works well for where we are at this point in time,” Kniss said. Q Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be emailed at gsheyner@ paweekly.com.

EDUCATION

Sensory room facilitates learning for students with severe disabilities

T

hree special-education specialists have converted a Terman Middle School office into a “sensory room,” draped with jungle-themed decorations, string lights and interactive contraptions designed to stimulate and facilitate the learning of students with severe disabilities. Some are blind or deaf; others have motor or auditory impairments or seizure disorders.

The carpeted room is small without feeling cramped, and lit by soft, whimsical string lights instead of a harsh fluorescent overhead light. Green mesh masquerading as jungle canopy is strung horizontally below the high ceiling, giving a further sense of intimacy.

The room is inspired by the teaching philosophy of a recognized Danish psychologist who worked with children with severe disabilities and promoted the concept “active learning” in special education — using basic toys and tools to create a stimulating environment in which the students become active participants in and owners of their learning.

The three Terman specialists are not alone. They said that

by Elena Kadvany other early-intervention therapists and special-education teachers trained in active learning are likely to have some version of a sensory room in their classrooms.

The rooms have been cropping up across the country since the early 1990s. But at Terman, they put their own spin on the concept.

Every element of the sensory room was developed by the teachers as a team, and thus it incorporates each one’s discipline. Laila Adle is a vision specialist, Angeline Sheridan an adapted physicaleducation specialist and Peggy Syvertson a speech therapist.

From one wall — called a “sensory board” — hangs a range of items students can play with: a rope that has bells attached to it, a feather duster and measuring spoons. Two very small raised steps lead them up to the items on the wall.

“A couple of the kids, their goals are to work on steps up and down,” Sheridan said. “That’s a very functional skill. So this is highly motivating for them to get up the steps.”

Across the room is a mosquitonetting canopy strung with lights; inside the canopy sits a bean bag

(students in wheelchairs can sit on bean bags, but not regular chairs) and another string of colored lights that can be turned on or off. (It will soon have a hand bike that when operated, controls the lights, and eventually software that logs each student’s activity on the bike.)

The room serves both scheduled and more free-form uses.

Last week, a physical therapist used it for a yoga class with students, some of whom have difficulty sitting on the floor but who can do so in the softly carpeted space. A few potted plants sitting on a table have been tied into a classroom lesson on the sun, energy and plants. Students might come in to work one-on-one with an instructional assistant (showing the assistants the value of active learning and how to incorporate it into their work) or can go in on their own to simply take a break during the day.

For students working on sitting down, one corner of the room has been dedicated to a small hutch full of multisensory elements — a mirror, bead necklaces, bells on a string, a cup, another feather duster, lights and walls of differ-

Veronica Weber

Three teachers collaborate to build calming, adaptable space

In the sensory room, one of the main draws for kids is a sensory enclosure box that is covered in objects and textures for students to feel and touch while music plays in the background. ent textures. In order to play with all of the items, they must find their way onto the floor and sit or lie down inside.

The hutch is based on Lilli Nielsen’s “Little Room,” a small partially enclosed space (like a box turned upside down, with one

open side) from which various stimuli made from different materials hang; a child is supposed to be able to lie beneath and play with them, facilitating the development of skills like spatial awareness, (continued on page 12)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 7

Upfront EDUCATION

School district communication strategy criticized Superintendent defends weekly tabulation of media coverage

by Elena Kadvany

A

new element of the Palo Alto school district’s communication strategy — to each week gather and categorize all media coverage related to the district as positive, negative or neutral — came under fire from one board member Tuesday night, who called for the superintendent to cease the activity.

District Communications Coordinator Tabitha Kappeler-Hurley has been collecting all news stories about the district and then marking them as “win,” “lose” or “tie.” The practice is a metric for one of the board’s five overarching goals for the year “to anticipate, respond, and promptly resolve distracting and disruptive issues in order to maintain focus on the District’s vision.”

It was reported in Tuesday’s board meeting agenda that as of Nov. 22, there have been 50 positive (“win”), 10 negative (“lose”) and 42 neutral (“tie”) stories about the district.

Among those marked “wins” was a Palo Alto Online article previewing the first board meeting of the year; “ties” included sto-

ries about Palo Alto High School’s new academic integrity policy and a recent student suicide.

Kappeler-Hurley told the Weekly Tuesday that a story categorized as a win successfully shared the “good work that the district is doing” and particularly might have been the result of a press release she shared. What’s designated a tie is more subjective.

“Even if it’s something that you could say is a negative story or a story that highlights a problem or an issue, it’s still very much possible for it to be a ‘tie,’” she explained. “Is it fair reporting? Is it balanced and gives good information? It may still highlight a problem, and that’s fine. That’s the role of media, to share information.”

She added that a story that might have left out information the district provided to the reporter “might slide it over to the negative.”

Newly elected board member Ken Dauber, who along with Terry Godfrey was sworn in Tuesday night, expressed concern that such an approach is moving away from what the district’s standard

on media coverage should be: ensuring accuracy.

“I don’t think that it really reflects our communications strategy well to try to categorize media reports (as) positive, negative and neutral, because I think it leads us into decisions that media coverage is negative not because it’s inaccurate necessarily — which I think should be our standard — but because it’s critical,” Dauber said. “I think that we reTabitha ally should be fo- Kappelercused on how do Hurley we ensure that we are working to communicate effectively facts about the district and that we are responsive to the media and so forth. I don’t think we should be necessarily monitoring the tone of those articles or whether we agree with their perspectives.”

Board member Camille Townsend and Melissa Baten Caswell, who was elected board pres-

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all we need to do is keep track of how many positive articles there are just so that people know that there are (positive articles).”

Dauber agreed that letting district staff “know that their work is appreciated in the community” is important, but that it can be done in other ways. He suggested making it a practice to circulate positive news stories internally and said he’ll bring further ideas to the board’s next meeting in January.

“I think the ultimate principle here is our performance is going to drive our perception,” Dauber said. “If we focus on performance, then perception will follow. That’s kind of the basic crank that we’re trying to turn.

“I think this moves us into territory that we don’t really want to be,” he said. “I suggest that we discontinue this particular instrument.”

Baten Caswell said she’ll make sure the topic is brought back for future discussion as part of the superintendent’s mid-year evaluation on Jan. 20, when board goals will also be discussed. Q Staff Writer Elena Kadvany can be emailed at ekadvany@ paweekly.com.

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ident Tuesday night, agreed that accuracy is important but didn’t express support for discontinuing the media analysis.

“You bring up a very valid point — if we’re categorizing accurate as positive, we get into a situation where not very good news is counted as a positive because it’s accurate,” Baten Caswell said.

“We probably need to separate the two of those.”

Superintendent Max McGee, who said he successfully used this as a communications metric during his tenure as Illinois state superintendent, defended the approach as a means to dispel a “bunker mentality” within the district.

“When I first got here, what I heard from members of the community and especially from the leadership team is, ‘We are under fire from the media. We have a bunker mentality. We are paralyzed by all the negative press.’ That’s a term that was used,” he said.

“There’s a psychological benefit for people to see that the loudest voice isn’t the only voice,” Baten Caswell echoed.

“We could all argue with Tabitha on whether things are positive, negative or neutral, when maybe

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Page 8 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

by Gennady Sheyner ou don’t need too many consider new rules once developtools beyond a set of eyes ment crosses the 235,000-squareto know that downtown foot mark, a milestone that the Palo Alto is going through an city reached in 2012.

The study, performed jointly office boom, a trend that has achieved a particular poignancy by the firms Dyett & Bhatia and EPS, evaluated growth trends, exover the last year.

A new analysis commissioned amined downtown’s zoning desigby the city suggests that this nations and evaluated how much growth will not abate any time growth downtown can accommosoon. Barring new zoning re- date under the existing zoning. It strictions, the city will likely get also considered the current marroughly 10,000 square feet of ket for office space, which connew office development annually tinues to sizzle.

According to the study, downfor the next decade and possibly more, according to a study that town has seen about 10,500 square the Planning and Transportation feet of new commercial developCommission discussed Wednes- ment annually between 1997 and 2014, though figures vary widely day night.

The analysis was performed from year to year. A chart showas part of the first phase of the ing downtown office construction “Downtown Cap Study,” an ef- indicates that there was almost no fort that the city is required to un- increase from 2002 to 2005, a reladertake under a 1986 law that set tively modest increase of roughly a limit of 350,000 square feet for 10,000 square feet in 2006, and new non-residential development. another in 2007 and in 2009. In That policy also specified that the (continued on page 11) city should review the cap and

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News Digest Palo Alto looks to regulate Airbnb rentals With hotel-tax revenues on a happy upswing, Palo Alto officials are preparing to take aim at one source of competition for local hotels: Airbnb and other services that allow visitors to rent rooms directly from homeowners.

A new memo from Vice Mayor Liz Kniss and council members Karen Holman, Larry Klein and Gail Price is calling for the city to hold a meeting to discuss regulation of short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods. The memo calls for the council to consider whether the city’s zoning regulations should allow such rentals and whether the city should be collecting transient-occupancy taxes (also known as hotel taxes) from them.

The memo notes that other cities are finding problems with the Airbnb model, including “impact on the availability and cost for housing (San Francisco) and potential traffic and parking impacts in the neighborhood.”

Safety is another concern, the council members say.

“Without some form of registration, as a hotel would have, or some means of notification, residents have no way of knowing who is taking up residence, albeit on a short term basis, next door to them,” the memo states.

The council will consider the memo at its Dec. 15 meeting and is expected to schedule a meeting early next year to discuss potential regulations. The memo specifies that a study session on the topic should be held no later than March 31.

The memo notes that Palo Alto now has about 300 to 400 Airbnb listings per night, a number roughly equivalent to that of San Jose. Q — Gennady Sheyner

Robert Frank, Detroit, 1955. Gelatin silver print. Gift of Raymond B. Gary. © Robert Frank. Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery

Upfront

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Sunset campus sold to investment firm A little more than a month after employees were first told that the landmark Sunset campus was up for sale, the property has been sold to Embarcadero Capital Partners, a real estate investment and management firm based in Belmont, multiple sources told the Almanac, the Weekly’s sister newspaper.

The 7-acre campus, located at 80 Willow Road, reportedly sold for $78 million, less than the rumored asking price of $84 million, according to those sources.

During informal discussions with staff about the sale on Wednesday, Dec. 10, management was said to confirm that there was pressure from shareholders of Time Inc., which owns the Sunset brand, to meet fourth-quarter earning expectations. A plan to build highdensity condominium-type housing on the site “was alluded to.”

Representatives from Embarcadero Capital Partners were not immediately available for comment. The firm’s website lists primarily office space in its portfolio, although it does include one residential project, located in Sacramento.

Jill Davison of Time Inc. said she could not confirm the sale’s price or future plans for the site.

Building housing on the site would require a zoning change, as the code currently permits administrative and professional offices.

The sale to Embarcadero Capital Partners puts an end to Menlo College’s exploration of buying the property to both expand its school and preserve the unique features of the Sunset campus.

The magazine will remain at the Willow Road property through 2015, and the annual “Sunset Celebration Weekend” event is still planned for next summer, sources said.

The publication is said to be looking for alternate sites for its test garden and kitchen. Q — Sandy Brundage

Ashton Carter nominated as next Pentagon chief President Barack Obama on Dec. 5 nominated Asthon Carter, a visiting scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford, as the next secretary of defense, according to a Stanford news report.

Carter, who stepped down from his position at the Pentagon late last year after serving two years as the deputy secretary of defense, will succeed Chuck Hagel, who announced his resignation on Nov. 24.

“Ash is rightly regarded as one of our nation’s foremost national security leaders,” Obama said at a ceremony at the White House.

As deputy secretary of defense (the Pentagon’s No. 2 job), Carter oversaw a $600 billion budget and 2.4 million uniformed and civilian personnel. From 2009 to 2011, he was the undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics.

Carter, who has a doctorate in theoretical physics, joined Stanford earlier this year as the Payne Distinguished Visitor to the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI). He is responsible for delivering lectures, including the annual Drell Lecture sponsored by FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Carter is also a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. Q — Palo Alto Weekly staff www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 9

Upfront EDUCATION

Bridging the gap Students create group to socialize, support those who take time off from school

Maddy Lisaius, a member of Bridging the Gap, started her first year at Stanford University, after taking a gap year where she spent time reflecting as well as adventuring.

T

here’s a term that’s been coined to describe the experience of Stanford University students: duck syndrome.

“We compare everyone here to ducks because if you look at a duck from above the water, (it) looks super calm, cool, collected,” explained junior Alka Nath. “If you go underwater, you see feet paddling furiously to stay afloat.

There’s a little bit of a stigma to not being able to handle things.”

Nath and many other students have decided, for a range of reasons, to buck that stigma and take a year off to explore, to travel, to work, to recharge, to be well.

Others take that year before en-

tering Stanford by deferring their admission after graduating from high school.

But when these students inevitably return to campus, what awaits them? For two Stanford students — one who took a year off and another who deferred admission out of high school — what wasn’t present was an easily accessible community of other students who had chosen to take the road less traveled during their academic career. So this quarter, they founded a student group called Bridging the Gap, hoping to create for the first time at Stanford a broader, established, more supportive social circle for students who have

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Page 10 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Courtesy Maddy Lisaius

by Elena Kadvany

taken time off from school.

Bridging the Gap founders Jack Lane, a junior, and freshman Maddy Lisaius connected after separately seeking out such a circle when they started school this quarter.

Lane had just returned after taking four months of travel in Europe, Thailand and India, book-ended by jobs in Colorado and Menlo Park. He decided late in his sophomore year that he wanted to take a gap year.

“I took a year off because I needed a break,” Lane said. “I’d been on the swim team my first two years here and quit the swim team at the end of my sophomore season. That had been my identity at school. For the past eight years of my life, I was a swimmer; I spent all my time doing that. I felt like I needed more than one summer to reorient and think about how I was going to come back to school and live a different life as a full-time student rather than a full-time athlete.”

Upon returning to campus, he said he felt competent figuring out his classes and reorienting to school — the kind of support university advisers typically provide students who take time off. What he needed, however, was a community of peers who understood what it was like to have this different educational and personal experience — even if it was taken for very different reasons.

Lisaius started her first quarter of college after her bridge year, which was prompted by a months-long hospitalization at the end of her senior year of high school after draining family and personal issues.

“I had been intending to go to college but while there, it became clear that if I went straight to school, I might not be present or even remotely well,” she said.

(She actually deferred from another university and applied to Stanford during her bridge year.)

Lisaius is often asked how she spent her year off, after her hospitalization. (She worked with exotic animals that had been trafficked in an animal rescue center in Ecuador and then painted stripes on roads by hand in her Seattle area hometown.)

“Often the questions that peo-

ple who haven’t taken time off or away (ask) are, ‘What did you do?’ and not, ‘Why did you make the decision in the first place?’ which is sometimes more important.

People are so interested in — ‘You worked with monkeys? Oh my gosh, you worked with an ocelot? That’s so cool.’ When really, it was about sitting with myself and reflecting rather than doing some cool adventure.”

She said students like Lane understand that.

“Somehow, I don’t know what it is, it seems like the superficial level of conversation is broken through really fast when you have people who have lived away from home, (who) chose to take a year and have done something that a lot of people said was not OK,” she said. “Having

‘It’s a community for people who are likeminded, and they’re OK with having a more unorthodox education.’

—Alka Nath, member, Bridging the Gap those conversations, somehow it breaks through to this much deeper level very fast.”

Bridging the Gap currently has an email list serve of about 40 students — only about half of the approximately 80 students Lisaius estimates took a year off last year. (Associate Vice President of University Communications Lisa Lapin said that the total number of leaves of absence, granted by several offices, are not tracked; meanwhile, gap years are negotiated between admitted students and the admissions office, which does not share those numbers.)

A subset of that 40 have gone on hikes together and gotten together for a board game night.

Lisaius wants to plan a weekend retreat for next quarter. They also envision compiling and distributing resources on the leaveof-absence or deferral process, creating a blog or some sort of compilation of students’ stories of

time away from Stanford. They’d like to be a part of Admit Weekend to let all incoming freshman know that taking a gap year is a viable option.

B

ridging the Gap is the first student group of its kind at Stanford, though in 2002, longtime academic adviser Sally Mentzer created a support group for a similar subset of Stanford students.

The Returning Students Association supports students who want to return from a leave of absence that was longer than they initially indicated (which might be as much as 25 years or more), did not file the necessary paperwork to take a leave of absence, are returning from a completed academic suspension or are nontraditional transfer students (defined as 25 years or older).

Mentzer said there are about 100 to 150 “returning” students each year.

This group serves many functions that Lisaius and Lane want Bridging the Gap to — welcomeback dinners each quarter, monthly lunches, weekly study sessions, scheduled guest speakers from around campus, a social email list — but it’s not student-run and doesn’t include students who have taken time off in the way Lisaius or Lane have.

Alka Nath, the junior personally familiar with the draining impact of Stanford’s duck syndrome, appreciates the gap the new student group fills.

“It’s a community for people who are like-minded, and they’re OK with having a more unorthodox education,” she said.

Other students Lisaius and Lane know have taken or are taking time off to serve in the Israeli military, spend time with a sick family member, take religious mission trips, study Arabic and read the Quran, and dance professionally.

Lisaius and Lane don’t want Bridging the Gap to be an advocacy group, but they feel strongly about the need to communicate to a larger community about the value of taking time off — and that it’s perfectly fine to do so. (continued on page 15)

Upfront EDUCATION

Discussion of federal-information request questioned Outside of public meeting, Palo Alto superintendent and school board members may have created ‘serial meeting’

P

alo Alto schools Superintendent Max McGee admitted Tuesday night to a possible “inadvertent” violation of the Brown Act, a state law that governs local agencies’ public meetings.

The act prohibits a majority of the board from discussing or taking action on district business outside of an official meeting.

McGee divulged that in doing some “background checking” on a question from school board member Ken Dauber about outstanding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeals that the district filed regarding two closed Office for Civil Rights cases, McGee then talked with other board members — Melissa Baten Caswell, Heidi Emberling and Camille Townsend — then reported back to Dauber.

“I don’t know if this is a violation of the Brown Act or not, but I just want to be very clear that it was inadvertent,” McGee said.

Dauber sent McGee an email on Dec. 4 expressing his concerns about the possible violation, asking that the situation be brought to the board for a public discussion as soon as possible.

“I am not saying that the Brown Act was violated; however, an issue may have inadvertently been created through the communication to me of the views of other board members,” Dauber told the Weekly Wednesday. “As I said at the meeting last night, I appreciated Dr. McGee’s transparent and

Office surge (continued from page 8)

the last five years, the numbers spike considerably, with more than 60,000 square feet of office space constructed this year alone.

In analyzing market forces and downtown’s ability to absorb more growth, the study concludes that there is an “extremely favorable environment for commercial office development in Downtown Palo Alto.”

“Values are robust and new development projects have surged in recent years,” the report states.

“Downtown Palo Alto, while not immune to market cycles, is sure to remain a sought-after location for workspace, given the competitive factors that have driven the market to the value highs and vacancy lows that are currently exhibited. The Downtown market is likely to experience significant and continued pressure for redevelopment of underutilized sites (e.g., properties currently developed well below the allowable floor-area-ratio) over the long term.”

forthright approach to this issue and his willingness to immediately and fully address any issues or problems, including by having a public discussion of the issues raised in his email to me.”

The school district filed in 2013 requests for files and records relating to a disability-discrimination case opened at Terman Middle School in September 2011 and a racial-discrimination case opened at Jordan Middle School in April 2013. In the Terman case, the Office for Civil Rights eventually issued a letter of finding to the district, concluding that Palo Alto Unified had violated anti-discrimination laws by failing to respond appropriately and effectively to disability-based harassment of a disabled student.

The Office for Civil Rights found there was insufficient evidence of discrimination in the Jordan case.

These original FOIA requests were made to the Office for Civil Rights’ regional office in San Francisco, and the denials of those requests also came from that office, which said that “any records in open cases when released could reasonably be expected to interfere with the ongoing activities of the case.”

The Terman case remains open.

In the closed Jordan case, the Office for Civil Rights provided some documents in response to the district’s request and denied others on privacy grounds.

The district then appealed the

In many cases this growth will be achieved without requiring zone changes. Using existing zoning, downtown can theoretically accommodate 491,000 square feet of new non-residential development, not counting the various additional density developers can request for providing affordable housing.

But as the city’s consultants pointed out Wednesday, the actual level of growth won’t be nearly that high because of various constraining factors. These include the fact that some of the buildings are historical, while others are too new to be replaced with bigger structures any time soon. Existing laws such as parking requirements may also make it difficult for developers to build bigger structures downtown.

Given the constraints, the consultants estimate that downtown will see an actual level of development between 53,400 and 146,000 square feet over the next 10 years, said Sophie Martin of Dyett & Bhatia.

As part of its report, her firm surveyed downtown companies in hopes of learning more about

by Elena Kadvany denials, and those appeals remain pending after more than 15 months. (Appeals of denials go to a different place; the regulations require appeals to be made directly to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Management Appeals Office in Washington.)

A resolution criticizing the Office for Civil Rights’ investigative practices approved in June authorizes the board to revisit the Terman case and to advocate for the federal agency to improve its processes and procedures with school districts.

Dauber urged the superintendent and board Tuesday night to end any spending of district time and money on the pursuit of information on the cases.

“I think that one thing I’ve heard from Dr. McGee and I heard from many members of community over the last several months is that there is a real benefit in drawing a line underneath these closed cases and moving on,” Dauber said.

“And really the last piece of that is these outstanding FOIA requests.

I think that the right thing to do, and I hope that you’ll support this, is to withdraw those two pending FOIA requests ... and to thereby not expend further money and also not incur the future engagement with all those facts and those cases that we’re going to when those documents come back.”

Dauber directly asked McGee at Tuesday’s board meeting if he expects to spend any more staff

the area’s business trends. The results showed that 80 percent of the surveyed firms occupied offices with less than 5,000 square feet of space and nearly two-thirds had 10 or fewer employees. Furthermore, more than half don’t provide their employees with parking, and most don’t offer commuting incentives.

The one thing that the consultants weren’t able to determine was whether today’s companies cram more workers into their space than those in the past.

While anecdotes abound about tech startups having far more employees per square feet than the city’s assumed level of one per 250 square feet, the study could not verify this trend. That’s because only 9 percent of the tech firms that were contacted responded to the survey. Martin said the consulting team “did not feel there were enough data points to draw any firm conclusions.”

“While there was some evidence that tech companies do have smaller amounts of space per workers compared to other workers, the sample size is really too small to be reliable,” Martin said.

time or legal fees on either revisiting the Terman case or the advocacy efforts promised in the resolution.

“I wouldn’t recommend reopening a closed case, let me put it that way,” McGee responded.

However, in a Dec. 3 email to Dauber, McGee wrote that he “cannot support withdrawing the FOIA.” “Obtaining this information is of importance because apparently it will either confirm or refute that some specific district employees (former and current) were falsely maligned,” McGee wrote. “Again, I do not know all of the details, and my preference is to move forward. That said, this request apparently matters a great deal to the three remaining board members, and I think in respect to them we should neither withdraw the request nor aggressively pursue continuing to try to obtain the information.”

At just before midnight on Tuesday, Dauber attempted to offer a motion on withdrawing the pending Freedom of Information Act appeals but was unable to because the original agenda item was categorized as “information,” meaning the board could discuss but take no action on it.

The other board members opposed dropping the appeals — partly in the hopes that they will at some point yield further information and partly because of the late hour.

The new study represented the first phase of a broader planning effort aimed at setting a new policy for downtown development.

It focuses on gathering data and surveying recent trends. The second phase will consider different policy options that the city can undertake to further its vision for downtown’s future.

The study comes at a time when Palo Alto is updating its Comprehensive Plan, the city’s official land-use bible. One of the questions that will be considered is whether the city should adopt a new development cap or if it should pursue other strategies for easing the negative consequences of growth, chiefly parking shortages and traffic jams.

Commission Chair Mark Michael suggested that it might be time to “declare a victory” and move on to “a more efficacious planning methodology” for downtown. This could include creating a new specific plan for the area, encourage mixed-use developments and consider abolishing the 50-foot height limit for new developments.

“Let’s say it (the height limit)

“If we’re going to have a deeper conversation about it, I would not like to do it at 11:45 p.m.,” said member Heidi Emberling, who was elected vice president earlier in the evening. “I do have to say, just based on all my years in journalism, that Freedom of Information Act requests are to promote transparency. There have been so many closed doors to us in terms of getting information about processes and procedures and moving forward with these cases that to me, we’ve already done all the work.

“The only thing we would get by doing nothing is more information,” she added, saying they might as well wait to hear a final decision from the federal agency.

New board member Terry Godfrey agreed.

“If it’s not a lot of effort on our part to just let it ride and see if we get information back, more information is better,” she said.

But she added that she’d like to better understand what the board had initially intended to do with the documents requested through the Freedom for Information Act. Board President Melissa Baten Caswell noted the reason for the federal agency’s denial of the original requests was that the information could not be provided until these cases were closed.

“I believe we made this request for transparency’s sake, and I don’t see that changing,” she said, adding that the topic can be brought back for a future meeting. Q

got moved to greater than 50 feet so that it might allow five stories rather than four stories,” Michael said. “It might give head room for beneficial changes, both architecturally and in land use, and you might have some pattern where you have expanded ground-floor retail with a couple of floors of office and a couple of floors of residential.”

Acting Vice Chair Greg Tanaka characterized the development cap as a “blunt tool” and argued that residents care less about the square footage of new developments and more about practical things like parking and traffic.

Commissioner Michael Alcheck, the commission’s chief proponent of growth, noted that while the real estate market is now “white hot,” that could change. He pointed to the cyclical nature of booms and busts and said that this trend is also something that the commission should keep in mind as it plans for downtown’s long-term future.

“We are rapidly approaching what could potentially be the next cliff in terms of development,” Alcheck said. Q

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 11

Upfront

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

City to hold summit on new growth vision Palo Alto’s frustrating eight-year climb toward adopting a new land-use vision is now heading for a summit — a community meeting in May where residents and council members will go over reams of recently collected data about growth and try to hash out where the city should go from here. (Posted Dec. 10, 11:29 a.m.)

Fourteen plead not guilty to gang indictments Fourteen defendants, indicted in March for crimes related to their alleged involvement with East Palo Alto gangs, pleaded not guilty Monday to charges including murder, assault, narcotics trafficking and robbery, prosecutors said. (Posted Dec. 10, 7:41 a.m.)

Palo Alto managers get raises More than 200 managers and professionals in Palo Alto received raises on Monday night under a plan that also sets a cap on the city’s contribution for employee medical benefits. (Posted Dec. 9, 1:34 p.m.)

County set to approve trails around Stanford A proposal by Stanford University and the City of Palo Alto to install new recreational trails along the major thoroughfares near the university’s campus and to shift the parking alignment near the Dish will be reviewed Thursday morning by Santa Clara County’s Architecture and Site Approval Committee. (Posted Dec. 9, 1:30 p.m.)

Couple pleads no contest to theft at funeral An East Palo Alto couple pleaded no contest Friday to identity theft charges tied to stealing a wallet while working as caterers at a Belmont funeral reception, prosecutors said. (Posted Dec. 9, 8:44 a.m.)

Page 12 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

(continued from page 7)

ability to grasp or explore objects, awareness of sounds and materials, and natural curiosity.

But the driving force behind each piece of the sensory room returns to the philosophy of active learning.

“The idea is you let the child do it,” Adle said. “You don’t do it. Because if you’re doing it for the child, the only person who’s really experiencing it is you. You want the child to have that happy accident, the ‘aha’ moment that we take for granted.

“Sometimes it’s hard giving that to these kinds of kids because we want to do so much for them that we don’t step back and let them make mistakes and find those happy mistakes.”

At the official grand opening for the room last Wednesday, students did just that. One boy immediately gravitated toward the soft carpet and sat himself down to enjoy it. A deaf student played with the lights inside the mosquito-netting canopy, which the teachers call the “bioluminescent dome.” Another student took to a Smartboard, on which two apps allow students to either play musical instruments or draw using their fingers.

This is actually Palo Alto Unified’s sensory room 2.0. Adle created one at Juana Briones Ele-

Veronica Weber

Online This Week

Sensory room

The sensory room at Terman Middle School features a SMART board that students can use to play music or colors, as well as a sensory enclosure box, color-changing LED lights, twinkle lights, rugs and objects of multiple textures placed around the room for students to touch. mentary School for a student who is now a sixth grader at Terman.

Once the student and Adle arrived at Terman, the three specialists decided to make a more comprehensive room together, rather than a therapy room for only one student or teacher.

The room also serves as a calm respite where students can go to decompress or take a quick break.

“If they’re overstimulated in the other room and they just need quiet, they can come here,” Adle said.

The sensory room is also a quieter place where students can

come to learn something first, before applying it in the busier environment of the regular classroom.

Dipika Khanna, the mother of the student for whom Adle created the original sensory room at Juana Briones, called the “bigger and better” room at Terman a “blessing.”

“He’s a pretty involved kid, so for him to have a room like this ... just being incorporated into the school day is such a blessing. It really hits on a lot of his different needs,” Khanna said. “It hits on all the senses, and it helps him perform his best.” Q

Upfront

Storm coverage

Stormy weather leaves Palo Alto soggy, including the intersection of El Camino Real and Oregon Expressway.

The water level is rising at Matadero Creek looking east from Greer Road on Thursday morning.

Residents of a home on Palo Alto Avenue set up rows of sandbags to protect against flooding from the nearby San Francisquito Creek during the big storm. A worker takes a spin in a canoe on the flooded Commercial Street in Palo Alto Thursday.

Veronica Weber

Chaucer Street bridge, a notorious bottleneck for storm water.

The culvert under the bridge can accommodate about 16 feet of water, according to the city’s creek monitor. The height at which the creek is half full is 13 feet.

“Like everyone else, we’re monitoring the creek sites,” Villaescusa said. “At this point, we don’t know where things are going to go.”

Select city buildings and roads didn’t fare well as a result of the downpours, which included pockets of heavy rain midmorning and early afternoon.

Villaescusa said that her department, in the basement of City Hall, was flooded.

“We no longer have a briefing room right now,” she said.

City operations had to be consolidated in the Emergency Operations Center, with multiple police officers also out in the city working with other crews on road closures.

City Hall’s underground garage also pooled with water, as did Palo Alto’s roadways.

City workers were kept plenty busy clearing storm drains of leaves and other debris and managing traffic. The Oregon Expressway underpass flooded, prompting its closure from El Camino Real to Bryant Street for more than an hour midmorning and requiring traffic to be diverted.

Portions of West Bayshore Road and Middlefield Road were also closed temporarily. Water up to a foot deep was reported on Gailen Avenue in south Palo Alto. Flooding was reported in the parking lots of Town & Country Village, Safeway in Midtown and JLS Middle School.

Pooling roadways also included Middlefield at Charleston Shopping Center and Cubberley Community Center; Lincoln and Bryant streets; Churchill Avenue by Palo Alto High School; and Em-

Veronica Weber

(continued from page 5)

Veronica Weber

Courtesy Wyanne T.

barcadero between Middlefield and Alma, according to the police dispatch and eyewitness reports.

Anticipating a nightmarish evening commute as rain continued, the Police Department issued a traffic advisory midday, asking

residents and workers to avoid driving between 2 and 8 p.m.

If there was a silver lining in the storm that was billed on social media as #hellastorm and #stormaggeddon, it was the reaction of workers and residents,

accustomed to conserving water rather than splashing in it.

One Palo Alto worker brought out a canoe and paddled down Commercial Street. Others declared the wet weather “awesome” on social media.

“I love this storm so much,” tweeted one young resident.

No residential power outages had been reported as of midday, though a few traffic lights went out temporarily. Around the Bay Area, however, more than 100,000 PG&E customers were without power at some point overnight and during the day, a spokesperson noted.

On Van Auken Circle in Palo Alto, one power line broke loose and sparked, killing a squirrel. Q Storm updates after the Weekly press deadline Thursday will be posted on PaloAltoOnline.com.

Gennady Sheyner contributed to this report.

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 13

(continued from page 5)

returning to the council on Dec. 15 with supporting documents and a business plan.

“We’ll be definitely meeting the standard for existing market at this site, if not exceeding it considerably, with the vision Miki will provide,” he said.

Though Werness’ boutique grocery store in Alma Village ended in bankruptcy, many in the community blamed the failure at least in part to the development’s design, specifically the fact that the grocery store’s entrance faced the interior parking lot rather than Alma. Many have criticized the development for effectively “turning its back” to the public, a factor that some said contributed to Miki’s struggles.

The Alma supermarket has

Miki Werness since been taken over by the discount chain, Grocery Outlet.

Before opening Miki’s, Werness spent about two decades at the popular Berkeley grocery store, Berkeley Bowl. His experience in the grocery business also includes management of

CityView A round-up

of Palo Alto government action this week

City Council (Dec. 8)

Comprehensive Plan: The council approved a staff proposal for next steps in the Comprehensive Plan update, including a spring summit and various nearterm zone changes aimed at preserving downtown retail. Yes: Unanimous Compost: The council voted not to proceed with a local composting facility at this time. Yes: Berman, Burt, Klein, Kniss, Price, Scharff, Schmid, Shepherd No: Holman Managers: The council approved a new contract with the city’s managers and professionals, which includes a 4.5 percent salary raise over two years. Yes: Unanimous

Board of Education (Dec. 9)

Election: The board elected Melissa Baten Caswell as board president, Heidi Emberling as vice president and Superintendent Max McGee for secretary for 2015. Yes: Unanimous Gunn High: The board discussed an updated schematic design for Gunn’s Central Building Project, which will come back to the board in January for approval. Action: None Survey: The board discussed the key findings from the 2013-14 California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) and 2014-15 Palo Alto Reality Check (PARC) survey. Action: None 2014-15 First Interim Financial Report: The board approved a positive certification to the County Superintendent that the district can meet its financial obligations through the end of the fiscal year and for the subsequent two years.

Yes: Unanimous

Council Policy and Services Committee (Dec. 9)

Prescreening: The committee approved a proposal to have major developments that require zone changes come in for “prescreening” hearings before a formal application is submitted. Yes: Price, Scharff No: Schmid Absent: Klein

Parks and Recreation Commission (Dec. 9)

Master plan: The commission heard an update on the Parks, Trails, Open Space and Recreation Facilities master plan. Action: None

Utility Advisory Commission (Dec. 10)

Palo Alto CLEAN: The commission recommended extending the Palo Alto CLEAN program with a price of 16.5 cents per kilowatt hour and a 3-megawatt cap and added a 25-year term for local solar projects. The commission did not approve a portion of the staff recommendation that would have added non-solar renewable projects to the program. Yes: Eglash, Hall, Waldfogel No: Foster, Melton Absent: Chang Abstained: Cook Solar: The commission voted not to proceed with a proposed community solar program at this time and requested that staff return with more information. Yes: Eglash, Hall, Melton, Waldfogel No: Foster Absent: Chang Abstained: Cook

Planning and Transportation Commission (Dec. 10)

Downtown: The commission discussed a completed report on the first phase of the Downtown Cap Study. Action: None Bikes: The commission recommended approving bike improvements near Maybell Avenue and an enhanced bikeway at Churchill Avenue. Yes: Unanimous

LET’S DISCUSS: Read the latest local news headlines and talk about the issues at Town Square at PaloAltoOnline.com

Page 14 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

the former Brentwood Market at Charleston Shopping Center, which is now occupied by Piazza. He is expected to present his vision for the project at the council’s Dec. 15 meeting.

The proposal by Spiers to put Werness in charge of the former JJ&F market is the latest twist in a saga that has frustrated council members and residents alike.

On Monday night, several College Terrace residents complained about the developer’s “pre-emptive strike,” referring to a tendency of applicants to release information immediately before council meetings without giving residents and city staff a chance to fully vet the proposals.

Doria Summa asked the council not to rush to judgment, saying, “We need more time to get it right.”

“They have not proposed anything viable so far, and what we need to have is a truly accomplished grocer with the right experience, resources and commitment to provide the required public benefit,” Summa said.

In approving a “planned-community” zone for the project in 2010, the council permitted the developer to exceed the density limits allowed by the area’s zoning designation. In exchange, the developer agreed to provide numerous “public benefits,”

Palo Alto’s College Terrace Centre project, a mixed-use development at 2180 El Camino Real, will include a neighborhood market that might be operated by Miki Werness. the most critical of which was the preservation of JJ&F. The council’s approval specified that if the grocery tenant in the development is a party other than the Garcia family, the proposal “shall be subject to the prior approval of the City of Palo Alto.”

The approval also specifies that such approval “shall not be

withheld unless the city reasonably finds that such proposed grocery tenant is not likely to be comparable in quality of products and service as JJ&F as it existed and operated on December 7, 2009.” Q Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be emailed at gsheyner@ paweekly.com.

Youth service (continued from page 5)

Drawing from the organization’s original purpose of bringing communities together, YCS hosts a number of service days throughout the year for youth from Palo Alto and East Palo Alto as well as Menlo Park to join forces and improve their community.

The Summer of Service camp, which runs two-week sessions throughout the summer, allows middle school children to choose an area of interest, such as the environment or feeding the hungry, and volunteer in that field each day. They work in small teams to better encourage crosscommunity bonding. Scholarships are available to ensure that students from low-income households can participate in the camp.

“The students get pretty knowledgeable about these issues, and they also get very confident about what an 11-year-old can do to make an impact,” Erickson said, adding that the organization’s purpose is to show program participants that they can make a difference.

At-risk youth are referred to YCS, which provides an afterschool program for middle school students and a for-credit class at high schools in the East Palo Alto and Menlo Park school districts. Students are encouraged to first identify their personal values. Through the life-skills curriculum, they are grounded in a positive view of

Courtesy Ted Mock Photography

Miki

Rendering courtesy of Blach Construction Company

Upfront

Natalia Schoorl of Canopy teaches Brody Helms of JLS Middle School and his friend how to plant a new tree, as Sandra Wang of the Palo Alto University Rotary Club watches with her kids Anastasia, Anthony and Anders. themselves and then taught to give back to their community.

“Principals love the program because we are very successful in turning these kids around,” Erickson said.

The organization currently provides programs to at-risk and lowachieving students, but Erickson said he wants to create a similar program for high achievers as a means of counterbalancing stresses students face in school.

Students like Luo have found solace in performing community service.

“I joined as a freshman just wanting to try something new,” Luo said. “I realized that Gunn is such a stressful place, and community service really gives me the opportunity to take a step back and realize that everything

is not just about me. There is a whole community out there to experience.”

Youth Community Service has involved more than 19,000 young people in volunteering opportunities and helped provide more than 115,000 hours of service to more than 40 community groups.

The organization continues to grow and extend its programs, but it continues to operate under the philosophy that every young person with a place for service in his or her heart has a purposeful future to look forward to, Erickson said. Q Editorial Intern Jennah Feeley can be emailed at jfeeley@ paweekly.com.

Read more about the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund on page 30.

Upfront

Bridging (continued from page 10)

Public Agenda

“It’s not that everyone needs to take time off, but ideally, there should be a culture of reflection,” Lane said. “Am I doing this because everyone expects me to do it, because it’s what everyone else does? Or am I doing this because it’s right for me? And for a majority of people, maybe it will still be the right thing. But there should still be the same process of reflection for everyone. Right now, I haven’t really seen that. I think most people don’t experience that.”

Nath took her gap year between sophomore and junior year, feeling like she had fallen out of love with learning after many demanding years in school. She felt apathetic and uninterested in classes.

“For me, I just wanted to break away from that environment where you have to be really good and OK with being perfect and everyone is trying to start a startup. I think those things are really great; I love those things about Stanford, but at that moment in time it wasn’t really what I needed,” she said.

“I wanted to go out and explore.

I wanted to discover more about myself. I wanted to become more confident as a person and really push my limits of what I could do — but not academically,” she said.

So she went on Semester at Sea, a study-abroad program that takes place on a ship that sails around the world; she traveled to New York to see her favorite band play and to Chicago for a design conference; she dedicated one month to reading for pleasure and another to learning how to skateboard.

“I feel like I have so much more direction this year because of what I did last year,” she said.

Lisaius and Lane do stress, however, that bridge or gap years aren’t for everyone, and the issues students might have grappled with before leaving campus will still exist after they return.

“A lot of things that were hard for me my first years here, they’re still hard for me,” Lane said.

“They’re much more manageable now, but it’s not like they all went away ... which, if anything, makes me feel more strongly about this group because it is something that I need support (for) — continuing to work through my experience as a university student at this school, which can get kind of crazy.” Q Staff Writer Elena Kadvany can be emailed at ekadvany@ paweekly.com.

A preview of Palo Alto government meetings next week CITY COUNCIL ... The council plans to approve a new 50-year lease with Avenidas for the property at 450 Bryant St.; consider a request for funds from the Palo Alto Historical Museum; consider approving a new proposal for a grocery store at the College Terrace Centre development at 2180 El Camino Real; consider expanding the city’s smoking ban at outdoor commercial areas, eating areas and work sites; consider a memo from councilmen Pat Burt, Marc Berman and Larry Klein to facilitate a “fuel switch” from natural gas to electricity; and consider a memo from council members Liz Kniss, Karen Holman, Larry Klein and Gail Price regarding regulation of short-term rentals such as Airbnb in commercial neighborhoods. The meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 15, in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave. COUNCIL POLICY AND SERVICES COMMITTEE ... The committee plans to consider the city’s policy for taking meeting minutes; consider changes to the recruitment process for boards and commissions; consider changes to the city’s “percent for art” policy and discuss the annual prioritysetting process. The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 16, in the Council Conference Room at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave. COUNCIL FINANCE COMMITTEE ... The committee plans to consider the 2016-25 General Fund Long Range Financial Forecast; consider the

ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD ... The board is scheduled to vote on a recommendation to continue the discussion of a proposed development at 429 University Ave. to Jan. 15. The meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 18, in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave. CITY/SCHOOL LIAISON COMMITTEE ... The committee plans to review recent council and school board meetings and hear an update on the city’s library services. The meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 18, in the Matadero Room at the Mitchell Park Library, 3700 Middlefield Road.

PUBLIC ARTS COMMISSION ... The commission plans to review public art for the development at 385 Sherman Ave. and approve a public art “master planner.” The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 18, in the Council Conference Room at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave. LIBRARY ADVISORY COMMISSION ... The commission plans to discuss follow-up work from the Oct. 23 library board effectiveness training; hear an update on the Library’s Strategic Plan and hear updates on the openings of the new Mitchell Park and Rinconada libraries. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 18, in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave.

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www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 15

Inspirations a guide id tto th the spiritual i it l community

Pulse A weekly compendium of vital statistics

POLICE CALLS Palo Alto Dec. 3-9

Violence related Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Child abuse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Domestic violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Theft related Burglary attempt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Checks forgery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Commercial burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . .

Embezzlement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Identity theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Petty theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Residential burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Scam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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

1 1 5 2 3 1 3 1

Vehicle related Abandoned auto. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Auto burglary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Auto burglary attempt. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Auto recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Auto theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Bicycle theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Driving with suspended license . . . . . 5 Driving without license . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Hit and run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Lost/stolen plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Misc. traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Reckless driving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Theft from auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Vehicle accident/minor injury . . . . . . 10 Vehicle accident/property damage. . 12 Vehicle tow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Alcohol or drug related Drinking in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Driving under influence . . . . . . . . . . . .

Drunk in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Possession of drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3 1 6 2

Under influence of drugs . . . . . . . . . . 2 Miscellaneous Found property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lost property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Outside investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Psychiatric evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Psychiatric hold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sick and cared for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Stalking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Suspicious circumstances . . . . . . . . .

Vandalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Warrant notice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Warrant/other agency . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 2 3 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 5

Menlo Park Dec. 3-9

Violence related Assault with a deadly weapon . . . . . . 1 Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Domestic violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Theft related Commercial burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . .

Credit card fraud. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Fraud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Grand theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mail theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Residential burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 2 1 2 3 3

Vehicle related Bicycle found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bicycle theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Driving with suspended license . . . . .

Hit and run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Theft from auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Vehicle accident/injury . . . . . . . . . . . .

Vehicle accident/no injury. . . . . . . . . .

Vehicle tow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2 1 4 6 1 4 6 3

Alcohol or drug related Drug activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Drunk in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Possession of drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Possession of paraphernalia . . . . . . .

Under influence of drugs . . . . . . . . . .

1 2 6 1 3

Miscellaneous CPS referral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Disorderly conduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Found property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Gang info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Info case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Juvenile problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Located missing person . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Lost property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Property for destruction . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Psychiatric evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Psychiatric hold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Resisting arrest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Suspicious circumstances . . . . . . . . . 1 Suspicious person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Vandalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Warrant arrest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Welfare check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

VIOLENT CRIMES Palo Alto

100 block El Camino Real, 12/3, 3:56 p.m.; battery/simple.

2317 Park Blvd., 12/3, 9:36 p.m.; battery/simple.

Alma Street, 12/5, 10:52 a.m.; domestic violence/battery.

Sand Hill Road, 12/6, 2:13 a.m.; domestic violence/battery.

200 block University Ave., 12/8, 3:15 p.m.; battery/peace officer.

Midtown Court, 12/8, 8:08 p.m.; child abuse/sexual.

Menlo Park 800 block Hamilton Ave., 12/3, 3:55 p.m.; battery.

1100 block Carlton Ave., 12/3, 10:06 p.m.; spousal abuse.

600 block Oak Grove Ave., 12/7, 5:18 p.m.; assault with a deadly weapon.

500 block Willow Road, 12/8, 8:37 a.m.; battery.

Lois Umholtz

January 11, 1918 – October 1, 2014 Lois Shell Umholtz, a 44 year resident of Portola Valley, passed away quietly in her home on October 1, 2014, with her family and hospice present. She lost her twelve-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease at the age of ninety-six. Born in Santa Barbara to Eli and Sarah Shell, she grew up in the southern California area with her brother and three sisters who have preceded her in death.

She was very proud of her work as a “Rosie the Riveter” during World War II and after the war she worked as a switchboard operator in the aerospace industry where she met her husband Phil. They were happily married for 62 years until his death in December 2010. Her family was everything to her. She was a stay-at-home mom who provided love, understanding, guidance and support to her two children, Kenneth and Elizabeth. She loved to read, bake, swim and walk. She was always working on a project — often making clothes, hand-sewing fantastically intricate quilts and making Teddy bears for charity organizations.

She often surprised family and friends with the gorgeous cakes she decorated for birthdays or special occasions and even decorated Liz’s wedding cake.

She is survived by her son, Ken Umholtz (and grandsons Ben, Dieter and Rainer), her daughter, Elizabeth Thomas (and granddaughter Shawna [Nelson] Rousseau). We all love and miss her.

A private cremation has already occurred.

Memorial donations may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association in her name.

PAID

Page 16 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

OBITUARY

Transitions

Richard Gust Jensen December 12, 1954 – December 7, 2014

Births, marriages and deaths

Lynn Torin

Woody Ersted

Lynn Torin, a longtime Palo Alto resident whose many leadership roles included chairing the city’s Human Relations Commission and its first Parks and Recreation Commission, died on Dec. 7 at Channing House. She was 79.

Torin, who was born in Sp a i n a nd spent her childhood in Chile, came to the United States in 1946 and later studied at the University of California, Berkeley.

She married Dave Torin in 1956, and the couple moved to Palo Alto in 1965 when Dave joined the Palo Alto Medical Clinic.

Torin, who taught English as a Second Language at the Palo Alto Adult School for 19 years, chaired PTAs at the elementary, middle school and high school levels, earning an Honorary Service Award and later a Continuing Service Award from the Palo Alto Council of PTAs. She chaired the Santa Clara County Advisory Commission on Consumer Affairs as well as the board of the Committee for Green Foothills, a nonprofit group that works to protect open spaces, farmlands and natural resources in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

Torin was president of the League of Women Voters of Palo Alto and co-chaired the Tinsley Advisory Committee, which advised the Palo Alto Unified School District on the court-mandated integration of minority students from Ravenswood City School District.

She was a founding board member of Leadership Palo Alto and the inaugural chairperson of the Palo Alto Parks and Recreation Commission when the commission was created in 2000.

As host of the cable television program “Front and Center,” Torin moderated many debates and discussions. She also moderated many League of Women Voters candidates’ forums.

She also managed the 1980 Congressional campaign of Tom Lantos, who served in Congress from 1981 until his death in 2008, and the 1988 State Assembly campaign of Byron Sher, who served in the Assembly and later in the State Senate.

She is survived by her loving family. Memorial contributions may be made to the Committee for Green Foothills, which is located at the Peninsula Conservation Center, 3921 E. Bayshore Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303.

— Chris Kenrick

Woodrow C. “Woody” Ersted, a longtime resident of Palo Alto, died on Oct. 21. He was 97.

He was born on June 22, 1917, in Huron, Sout h Dakota. His family moved to Minneapolis a few years later, following a banking crisis in South Dakota in the mid-1920s. He went on to study at the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1939 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. Afterwards, he worked for Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing, now 3M. He served during World War II as a communications officer with the U.S. Navy aboard a destroyer in the South Pacific.

After he returned, he later took a position as a managing director for Outdoor Advertising (now CBS Outdoor) on the West Coast.

As his career progressed, he became involved in real estate,

purchasing and selling, with various partners, properties including the San Carlos Airport, the Santa Rosa Naval Auxiliary Station, Ring Mountain in San Rafael, Tri-Valley Industrial Center in Livermore and many acres in Pleasanton Hills. He worked into his late 80s.

First living in Atherton, he moved to Palo Alto in 1972 with his wife Dorothy, where he lived the rest of his life. He was a founding member of the Sharon Heights Country Club in 1962, and he golfed avidly for many years. In 2003, he shot his age with a golf round of 85. He was also a dedicated reader, and in his 60s he took up the art form of calligraphy.

He was predeceased by his two sisters, Doris McNamara of Woodside and Ruth Ersted of Palo Alto, as well as his brothers, Robert and Gordon Ersted.

He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Dorothy Ersted; his son, Richard (Karen) Ersted of Palo Alto; his daughter, Charlotte (Sean) Ersted Melcher of Palo Alto; and his four grandchildren, Rachel, Matthew, Dakota and Samantha.

Margaret Eleanor Petersen April 25, 1937 – November 24, 2014 Margaret was born in McCloud, CA on April 25th, 1937 to Eleanor and Ernest Flathman. She graduated from Chico State University with a teaching degree and then moved to the Bay Area where she taught kindergarten for three years.

While playing piano at the celebrated L’Omelette restaurant in Palo Alto, Marge met Walt (Pete) Petersen. They soon married in Dunsmuir, CA in 1962. Marge and Walt initially lived in Mountain View, CA where their children Kevin and Susie were born in 1964 and 1966 respectively. In 1970 they moved to Palo Alto, CA where they lived until moving to Lafayette, CO in 2003.

While in Palo Alto, Marge was an active volunteer at her children’s elementary school and provided the support necessary to launch and grow The Petersen Group, a successful family business.

After retirement Marge and Walt purchased an RV and traveled extensively in the Western US. Favorite stops included National Parks, jazz clubs, the Oregon coast, Baja, ball parks, and visits with family and friends.

After moving to Lafayette to be closer to family, Margaret enjoyed spending time with her grandchildren and her beloved dog Winston.

Margaret is survived by her husband Walt, son Kevin of Denver, daughter Susie Wyman and her husband Tom of Boulder, her grandchildren Samantha and Macey, her sister Judy Kormanak and her husband Ken of Portola Valley, CA and their children Mary and David.

Wear your jeans to a casual open house from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 10th at the Senior Center in the East Boulder Community Center - 5660 Sioux Dr, Boulder, CO. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations to The Guide Dog Foundation - https://donate.guidedog.org/gdf/ PAID

Richard Jensen, was commended to the Lord, in Atherton, after a 14-month courageous battle with a Glioblastoma Multiforme brain tumor. Survived by his wife of 28 years Dianne, children Jeanne, Forrest and Katie Jensen; sister and brother-in-law Janice and Lynn Muzzy and aunt Winifred Jensen.

Rich grew up in San Leandro and graduated in 1973. Rich earned a BS degree from UC Davis in 1978, DMD in 1982 from Oral Roberts School of Dentistry, and completed his General Practice Residency in 1983 at U of Mississippi.

Dr. Jensen practiced dentistry in Palo Alto and Menlo Park for 30 years. Beyond his professional career, he had a passion for Young Life Ministry and traveling up to Montana with his family. When he wasn’t enjoying time with friends, you’d find Rich riding on his Gehl Skidsteer in his backyard.

Memorial service will be held on Friday Dec 19, 1pm at Central Peninsula Church, 1005 Shell Blvd, Foster City. In lieu of flowers, tax-deductible donations may be made to YOUNG LIFE with a memo note IN MEMORY OF RICH JENSEN. Please mail to Young Life, 1265 Beech St, East Palo Alto, CA 94303.

More details can be found at spanglermortuary.com PAID

OBITUARY

Lorraine Thora Stock Our most cherished and beautiful Mother, Lorraine Thora Stock, passed from this mortal existence on November 24, 2014 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was born on January 7, 1920 in the little town of Deweyville, Utah to Thora Lauritzen Pearce and Clifford H. Pearce.

Lorraine was a perfect lady who exemplified grace and dignity throughout her life until her final moments on earth. She was devoted to her family and was blessed with creativity and good humor which sustained her throughout her life of 94 and three-fourths years! Paris and Fish Haven, Idaho held a special place in her heart as this was where she spent her early years and where she met her eternal companion, Clifford David Stock. While Clifford was attending Utah State, Lorraine attended the LDS Business College and also was employed by Utah Coal.

Clifford would thumb his way down to Salt Lake to see his sweetheart and finally they were able to marry in May of 1942. After numerous moves, they purchased a home in Palo Alto, California where they were blessed to spend 55 years in “Camelot”.

Lorraine loved music and dancing and she and Clifford were active members of the Star-lighters Dance Group.

She looked forward to having her family over for fabulous dinners that she cooked. She loved decorating for the holidays. She had artistic talents which were self-taught: Floral arranging, painting, sewing lovely dresses, playing the piano and concertina and she upholstered nearly every chair in the home--each piece looking professionally done!

She loved genealogy and was a stalwart member of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. Lorraine was active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, fulfilling her various callings with love and dedication.

Our family gives special thanks to the entire staff at the Beehive Home in East Millcreek where she was treated like a Queen with tenderness and respect. Farewell to our sweet, darling Mother until we meet again.

She is survived by her four daughters and their husbands: Crystal (Richard) Dunn, Taunita (Doug) Reynolds, Kathryn (Tony) Moreno, and Dresden (Chris) Loafman. She is also survived by nine grandchildren and eight great children.

Preceded in death by her husband of 71 years.

Interment will be at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto, California.

OBITUARY PAID

OBITUARY

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 17

Editorial Win, lose or tie?

School district scorecard of media coverage is another self-inflicted distraction

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core this editorial in the “loss” column.

Incredible as it may seem, we taxpayers have been paying the Palo Alto school district’s “communications coordinator” to go through local press reports each week, enter them onto a spreadsheet and rate them as “win,” “lose” or “tie.”

For the last four months, 108 media stories and editorials, most from the Weekly, have been monitored, scored and cataloged by Tabitha Kappeler-Hurley and reported to Superintendent Max McGee, principals and other administrators.

The practice became public this week when McGee gave the school board his first quarterly update on how staff is progressing on the board’s annual goals, established in August.

Ironically, the goal this activity is supposedly supporting is to “anticipate, respond, and promptly resolve potentially distracting and disruptive issues in order to maintain focus on the District’s vision...”

McGee’s idea, he said, was simply to demonstrate that there is more good than bad written about the schools, data he thought would help correct misconceptions he found when he arrived.

The win-lose-tie record so far, according to Kappeler-Hurley’s scoring system? 52-10-46 But the scorecard, which lacks any clearly thought-out criteria, resulted in ratings that demonstrate one of the many fallacies of this task. For example, stories about recent suicides were rated a “tie,” a story about a school-board candidate forum was rated “lose,” as was a report on the amount of money being spent on legal fees, and a Weekly election editorial endorsing Terry Godfrey and Ken Dauber was rated a “win.” Huh? Kappeler-Hurley told the Weekly that a story categorized as a win successfully shared the “good work that the district is doing.”

“Even if it’s something that you could say is a negative story or a story that highlights a problem or an issue, it’s still very much possible for it to be a ‘tie,’” she explained. “Is it fair reporting?

Is it balanced and give good information? It may still highlight a problem and that’s fine. That’s the role of media, to share information.”

She added that a story that might have left out information the district provided to the reporter “might slide it over to the negative.”

McGee initiated the rating activity, he says, because when he arrived in August he found a “bunker mentality” about the media’s coverage of district activities.

“When I first got here, what I heard from members of the community and especially from the leadership team is, ‘We are under fire from the media. We have a bunker mentality. We are paralyzed by all the negative press,’” he said.

McGee said he had similar data prepared when he served as superintendent of schools in Illinois.

Monitoring media coverage (not the rating of stories) is common for large companies and public agencies where many diverse media outlets over a large region are covering them. In the old days, the result was a “clip file” of news stories that would be circulated to key people within an organization.

But for a local school district to do this is not only a mistaken use of resources, but leads to exactly the kind of distraction that McGee has so correctly targeted.

It was one of several such distractions just in recent days that generated completely avoidable controversy, including a nonsensical proposal to modify the district’s conflict-of-interest rules and a serial meeting Brown Act violation caused by McGee consulting with three board members on an issue and then informing a fourth of the majority’s opinion.

To his credit, since he arrived McGee has been trying to coax the board into realizing the harm that can come from distractions like these. He has underestimated, however, his ability to steer board members away from them, and has contributed a few of his own by being too eager to please each board member and then too defensive when the issue comes to light.

McGee is still learning how to lead in a community weary of controversy and tired of political gamesmanship. And he has the difficult job of still having a board majority who won’t let go of past controversies even as he is strongly urging them to move on.

With a long break for the holidays, we hope McGee and the board will reflect on how they can work on real issues in a productive way. If they do that, the “wins” in press coverage will come naturally.

Page 18 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Spectrum Editorials, letters and opinions

Darkness and bikes

Find the answers

Editor, Every year in December it gets dark early, and I become very concerned while driving. Each day I see bikers (kids and adults) riding with dark clothes, no or woefully inadequate lights, and no or ineffective reflectors. It is very difficult to see them with bright car lights, street lights, house lights and Christmas decorations all attracting drivers’ attention.

These riders may be smart people but they are doing a stupid and dangerous thing. Why don’t they spend a few dollars for reflective clothes, lights and reflectors to protect themselves from serious injury?

Mike Murnane Metro Circle, Palo Alto

Editor, In the midst of the suicides of our children in 2009-10, our communal cry was “Why?” The cry has returned, as noted in a board member’s latest newsletter.

The sources of self-destruction are as mysterious and complex as the human mind and heart, and the best we can do is to keep reflecting — studying our difficult humanity. The question needn’t provoke us to a fear and panic that work against us, and it needn’t be too quickly laid to rest by saying, “We’ll never have answers.”

The “psychological autopsy” investigation, undertaken in 2010 by the PAUSD, Project Safety Net and Stanford — underfunded and understaffed as it was — was supposed to study “Why?” But we in Palo Alto — administrators, parents, counselors, city leaders — chose to let the matter drop. This has not been helpful.

And because “we have no answers,” some people say we

Condos too!

Editor, The Palo Alto Council will soon consider expanding the city’s smoking ban to apartment buildings with shared ventilation systems. It is crucial that condominium buildings also be included in such legislation.

Alas, cigarette smoke from neighboring units invades my residence. At times, the noxious cloud is so dense that it sets off my smoke alarm. This is not simply a benign annoyance; it is a documented health hazard. Even so, our homeowners association declined to take action and advised me to talk with the offending parties — a futile endeavor — leaving me with no official recourse.

Just as the government needed to step in and protect citizens from the secondhand smoke that previously permeated shared transport, workplaces and public spaces, it is time for our municipal officials to protect Palo Altans from this danger in our homes, regardless of whether we rent or own the dwelling.

Jaclyn Schrier Alma Street, Palo Alto

What are priorities?

Editor, As Palo Alto debates how much money, if any, it wants to spend on animals needing sheltering and on those municipal animal shelter facilities that are in desperate need of repair, one only has to remember about priorities — such as the $4 million plus that Palo Alto is spending to spruce up City Hall, because, after all, there are city employees working there...

Dana Gleason Haight Street, Menlo Park

shouldn’t act, put remedies in place, too rashly. I shared this view in 2010, while I was still immersed in teaching at Gunn, getting my students from one day to the next (as my colleagues are bravely doing now). But after my 15 years in the classroom I’ve now had four years to talk with former students, read and reflect.

When Wall Street bankers threw themselves out of windows in 1929, no one said we had to know the “causes” of these deaths, or why some killed themselves while others did not, before putting into place some financial reforms to stop the market recklessness that contributed to the crash in the first place.

There was a financial system then, and (as always in life) at-risk humans. We have a city culture with its school system now, and at-risk kids.

The trick is to find the right reforms, and I believe that they’re offered by “Save the 2,008.”

Marc Vincenti Los Robles Avenue, Palo Alto

WHAT DO YOU THINK? The Palo Alto Weekly encourages comments on our coverage or on issues of local interest.

What should the school district’s priorities be?

Submit letters to the editor of up to 300 words to letters@paweekly.com.

Submit guest opinions of 1,000 words to editor@paweekly.com. Include your name, address and daytime phone number so we can reach you.

We reserve the right to edit contributions for length, objectionable content, libel and factual errors known to us. Anonymous letters will generally not be accepted. Submitting a letter to the editor or guest opinion constitutes a granting of permission to the Palo Alto Weekly and Embarcadero Media to also publish it online, including in our online archives and as a post on Town Square.

For more information contact Editor Jocelyn Dong or Editorial Assistant Sam Sciolla at editor@paweekly.com or 650-326-8210.

Check out Town Square!

Hundreds of local topics are being discussed by local residents on Town Square, a reader forum sponsored by the Weekly on our community website at www.PaloAltoOnline.com. Post your own comments, ask questions, read the Editor’s blog or just stay up on what people are talking about around town!

Off Deadline Judy Kleinberg aims to restart Chamber of Commerce as a ‘startup’

by Jay Thorwaldson he Palo Alto Chamber of C om m e r c e must adopt the methods of a “startup” entrepreneurial company if it is going to reclaim an influential voice in the community and region.

It could be Palo Alto’s first “re-startup,” not unlike Apple Computer with the return of the late Steve Jobs.

Attaining a “startup feeling” for the chamber is the vision of former Mayor and Councilwoman Judy Kleinberg, who has taken on the leadership position of both CEO and president.

In its venerable history, the chamber has gone through a number of evolutions. It has faced severe financial challenges and major changes in policies, vision and direction since its creation in the sleepy Palo Alto of 1909.

“The chamber of the 20th Century is not the same as the chamber of the 21st Century, unless you’re in East Cupcake, Iowa,” Kleinberg quipped in an interview recently.

Well, not having been to East Cupcake. ...

But one gets the idea.

Yet sweeping social and economic changes and lack of strong, consistent leadership have left the chamber alternately drifting between financial crises to new locations, mostly around downtown Palo Alto.

Kleinberg readily acknowledges the chamber’s problems and lack of influence in city/community affairs.

There have been questionable — but not illegal — expenditures, even cases where staff members have yelled at chamber

T

members and some personality issues involving board members.

One of Kleinberg’s immediate steps was to institute a training program for board members about appropriate interactions and responsibilities. There have been “very committed and wonderful people” serving on the board, but they have been hampered in effectiveness by how the board performed as a whole.

Lack of strong interest in (and financial support of) the chamber on the part of local businesses has been a longtime handicap.

Membership in the chamber has never been compulsory, but in past decades it was considered essential to be part of the community. This feeling has faded over the years, as the chamber has faded in influence and community “presence,” however that is defined.

Part of that has been the creation of the Business Improvement District (BID), created by Palo Alto developer Charles “Chop” Keenan and others. BID participation is compulsory in downtown, and one of its contributions to the community was founding the Downtown Streets Team that assists homeless persons and helps keeps the streets clean.

It also has pushed for building parking structures to relieve the chronic parking situation that has overflowed into residential neighborhoods north and south of the downtown commercial core.

But the BID clearly “siphons off” from the chamber, Kleinberg says, adding that perhaps they should be linked or combined. A task force has been formed to look into that.

Kleinberg and others are seeking to strengthen the chamber by recruiting from the young professionals in the area for board membership. They hope to bring in new thinking characterized by IDEO and the d.school (for design) at Stanford University, along with the futuristic thinking

behind the Teslas and innovative elements of Hewlett-Packard and other long-established businesses.

“It’s time to close the book and move on,” Kleinberg said of the recent turnover in leadership and other challenges.

Kleinberg’s initiative is not the first move to redesign, or restart, the chamber.

In March 1968, one year shy of the chamber’s 60th anniversary, I wrote an article for the erstwhile Palo Alto Times that was headlined: “Action keynote of ‘new’ Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce.”

The chamber despite its age was “showing remarkable signs of rejuvenation, some might even say a rebirth” from the traditional role of printing maps and being a booster organization.

The new approach is “a major drive to make the community it represents everything that a more traditional chamber usually says it is.”

Board President Allan Brown and chamber Manager Richard “Dick” Kluzek set up four special planning boards to address economic, environmental, governmental and organizational affairs.

The organizational group focused on traditional chamber activities such as membership drives, community activities and expanding services to its 1,000 members at the time.

(Today’s membership is in the low 400s.)

Economic issues focused on job creation, job-related development of vacant properties and jobs in a sub-region that included East Palo Alto.

Environmental issues included “the future effect of population age changes on the community; local and regional mass transit; getting better use from educational facilities; and the Palo Alto-East Palo Alto economics and job relationship.”

Governmental affairs included everything from proposed revisions in the City Charter

to regional government proposals, inter-city traffic, flood-control problems and local impacts of state and federal legislation.

Some issues never go away.

The chamber embarked on a three-year financial drive to eliminate the annual $8,000 city contribution “so it would have more latitude in expressing opinions.”

Kluzek increasingly exercised that latitude over years of leadership, to the point of creating an occasionally abrasive “us and them” feeling. The chamber relocated to the then-new Palo Alto Office Center in the Stanford Industrial (now Research) Park.

But in doing so, he increased the feeling in the commercial areas of downtown and California Avenue that no one was representing the interests of the businesses there.

That strengthened two organizations — Downtown Palo Alto, Inc., and the California Avenue Area Development Association (created by Realtor Mike Golick) — that became virtual mini-chambers of commerce.

Another big rebirth of the chamber occurred in the latter 1980s under board President John Northway, a longtime Palo Alto architect and city observer. Northway spearheaded creation of the Leadership Palo Alto (LPA) group to give would-be local leaders a solid backing in history and issues relating to the Palo Alto area. LPA itself has been going through a restart of its own in recent years and will be linking with the Palo Alto-based Institute for the Future at a major event next June 11.

So from future leaders to the future of Palo Alto, the chamber under Kleinberg and others has its challenges laid out — to avoid being another déjà vu all over again. Q Former Weekly Editor Jay Thorwaldson can be emailed at jaythor@well.com.

He also writes periodic blogs at www.

PaloAltoOnline.com.

Streetwise

What is South Palo Alto missing?

Asked outside Piazza’s Fine Foods on Middlefield Road. Interviews and photos by Jennah Feeley.

Teresa Bouza

Kevin Carney

Mike Alexander

Sharon Adams

David Hatt

Parkside Drive, Palo Alto Journalist

Schembri Lane, East Palo Alto Self-employed

Saint Michael Drive, Palo Alto Retired

San Antonio Road, Palo Alto Retired teacher

Thaddeus Drive, Mountain View Enrolled agent

“I guess a theater or an auditorium.

Somewhere for live music.”

“An Indian market; there is a huge void of them in this area.”

“I’m honestly not thinking of anything. ... There aren’t any gas stations, but that’s OK, I’m not missing it.”

“Personally, I think we are missing parks for children, ... just an old-time park for the kids.”

“Restaurants. I guess good local ones like in Midtown.”

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 19

Cover Story

F

ew local residents had heard of Palo Alto Forward before Sept. 30, when Cory Wolbach declared at a City Council candidates’ forum that he was a member.

At the time, the group’s website had been up for about three weeks, and its core membership included a few downtown residents and high-tech workers, mostly from Big Data analysis firm Palantir. Its activities were limited to meet-ups at Scotty’s Bar on Emerson Street or a chat at someone’s house. Most of its members didn’t spend much time at City Hall or pondering the city’s vision for the future.

Unlike Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning, a citizens group formed in 2013, Palo Alto Forward was not endorsing candidates or lobbying for (or against) particular projects. Its main goals were broad and vague: better housing and transportation options. In his shoutout, Wolbach praised the group as one that “represents an interesting diversity of views on transportation housing” and that is “very open to new ideas.”

By November, the nascent group had the city’s full attention, even though many residents remained unsure about what

exactly it stood for. Kate Downing, a co-founder of Palo Alto Forward, was appointed by the council to the influential Planning and Transportation Commission, which also includes Forward cofounder Eric Rosenblum. Two other Forward members, Adrian Fine and Kyu Kim, also won appointments to the planning commission and the Architectural Review Board, respectively. By month’s end, Wolbach had edged out Lydia Kou, a candidate affiliated with Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning, by 135 votes to win the fifth open seat on the council.

The group’s “membership” (admittedly a loose concept) soared past the 1,000-person mark, with hundreds of people opting into the group’s email list. Its steering committee has come to include prominent civic activists, including Human Relations Commission member Mehdie Alhassani, regional economist Steve Levy and environmentalist Sandra Slater.

Despite the group’s sudden rise, confusion abounds about what exactly the group stands for. One local newspaper that doesn’t have a website routinely characterizes Palo Alto Forward as a group that advocates for high-density build-

ings. Skeptical bloggers on Town Square, the Weekly’s online forum, have derided Palo Alto Forward as a radical group that looks to “fill every available space with high-density development” and is bent on turning Palo Alto into — gasp! — Manhattan.

Two of the group’s founders, Elaine Uang and Rosenblum, reject these characterizations and stress that the main goal of Palo Alto Forward is to bring people in to talk about transportation and housing. Rosenblum, an Ohio native who recently joined Palantir, said in a recent interview that the group’s tagline is “Better solutions for housing and transportation” and that its members bring a wide range of perspectives about what exactly that means. Though there are plenty of young tech workers in the new group, its roster also includes long-time civic activists and environmentalists. These include Phyllis Cassel, who has served on the city’s planning commission between 1993 and 2006; and Victoria Thorpe, a board member of Partners in Education, a local nonprofit that raises money for Palo Alto schools. Group leaders emphasize that the positions members take on the issue of growth vary as widely as their

The Hotel President, with its historical architecture and first-floor retail and dining below housing, provides benefits to both the public and to private citizens, according to Palo Alto Forward members.

Page 20 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Palo Alto Forward co-founder Elaine Uang cites the building that houses the Hotel President apartments as a good example of mixeduse development in downtown Palo Alto. backgrounds and experiences.

“We’re not advocating for accelerated growth,” Uang said.

“What we want to have is a meaningful conversation around how to do things in a proactive fashion.”

U

ang and Rosenblum officially launched the Palo Alto Forward website on Sept. 5, though the stage for the organization’s debut had been set a month prior. At an Aug. 4 meeting focused on the Comprehensive Plan, the City Council received an unexpected visit from dozens of residents who, in council’s parlance, were “not your usual suspects.” These were men and women in their 20s and 30s.

Some wore T-shirts, many emblazoned with the Palantir logo.

Most had not appeared at prior council meetings, though that didn’t stop them from addressing the council with the urbane confidence of experienced council speakers. Their message, like their outfits, was fairly uniform: Palo Alto needs more housing.

One Palantir employee, Bob McGrew, called the city’s 50-foot height limit a “relic of a different time” and urged the council not to price people out of the city.

“Let’s have one or two more tall buildings downtown, but let’s have them be tasteful and have them dedicated to housing, which is what Palo Alto desperately needs,” McGrew said.

Nick Fohs, another employee of the tech company, asked the council to consider some of the “more

growth-minded” proposals when it goes forward with the Environmental Impact Report for the new Comprehensive Plan.

“We are currently going through a very, very severe drought,” Fohs said. “Not only in water but also housing supply.”

If Palo Alto doesn’t add more housing, McGrew said, people will end up moving to neighboring communities and driving to Palo Alto, adding to the traffic problems. Alhassani, the commissioner for human relations, agreed, saying, “If you plan and build correctly, you can reduce traffic by building more housing in transit areas.

“With prices being so high, it takes a lot of customers to make a profit. I think expanding the customer base downtown would be good for University Avenue,” Alhassani said.

Among the most passionate and eloquent speakers at the meeting was Downing, an attorney who at the time was working for tech company VMWare. Striking a stridently anti-NIMBY note, Downing posited that a “community filled with nothing but very rich millionaires isn’t the way to go.

“If we don’t allow for growth, Silicon Valley as we know it today will cease to exist,” Downing said. “We will have priced out all the young workers in all the new companies.”

Several of those workers at the meeting said they couldn’t afford downtown Palo Alto but instead

Cover Story

Palo Alto Forward co-founder Elaine Uang, left, and member Sandra Slater walk through a public space between Channing and Homer avenues. They say the development is a good example of higherdensity housing that includes sufficient landscaping and public space. live on downtown’s periphery or in a neighboring community. One young person finished his comments with a plea for more development.

The presence of young speakers advocating for growth was an unusual and largely welcome development for council members who have long been calling for more residents to get engaged in the public discourse. The city’s effort to encourage public participation has been a story of high hopes and mild disappointments. In 2008, the council designated “civic engagement” as one of its top priorities, a term that morphed into “civic engagement for the common good” in 2009 before fading from the list in 2010. Though no longer an official priority, the council still routinely talks about the need to get the younger contingent involved in the city’s update of its Comprehensive Plan, with Councilman Larry Klein usually leading the charge.

“I really want to see new people participate,” Klein reiterated during a May 5 meeting. “People who can reach out to areas of our community who don’t come down to City Hall.”

Since 2013, the level of public participation has soared, though this has had more to do with the council’s land-use decisions than with its outreach efforts. The decision by the council in June 2013 to approve a housing development on Maybell Avenue angered hundreds of residents and led to the establishment of the citizens group Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning. In November 2013, the group marked its influence by overturning the council’s June decision through a successful referendum.

Given the recent developments, council members were delighted with the turnout Aug. 5. Here were people who fell into at least one and in many cases two of the three under-represented categories (renters, young people and Asian residents, whose popula-

tion has gone up by 73 percent between 2000 and 2010). They were there not to complain about new developments or accuse the council of being tone deaf and non-transparent. And they came voluntarily to express their views on the city’s future.

‘If we don’t allow for growth, Silicon Valley as we know it today will cease to exist.

We will have priced out all the young workers in all the new companies.’

Kate Downing, co-founder, Palo Alto Forward Two days after the young speakers made their case, Klein said he “very much welcomed” the participation of people under 40 and stressed the need to reach out to other voices in the community that the council hadn’t been hearing from. Councilman Marc Berman cited the comments of the priced-out techies and bemoaned the fact that so many people have to commute from afar because of inadequate housing.

The council’s appetite for younger people getting engaged spilled over to last month’s commission appointments, a triumphant night for not-your-usualsuspects. Fine, an employee of the social-media site Nextdoor, introduced himself during the interview for the Planning and Transportation Commission as a “young citizen ... just starting out on my career and life here.”

Fine beat out eight-year veteran Arthur Keller, Utilities Advisory Commissioner Asher Waldfogel and former Human Relations Commissioner Claude Ezran for his seat.

Kim emphasized during his interview for the Architectural Re-

view Board that he would bring a “younger point of view.” Being more youthful, he told the council, he is into traveling and “observing many different kinds of architecture and buildings across the Internet.” He also noted that he has completed school more recently than some of the older applicants, which may help.

“There are many things we learn in school that are very applicable to duties in serving on the Architectural Review Board,” Kim said.

Mayor Nancy Shepherd observed that he is of her daughter’s generation and called such a point of view “valuable.” Karen Holman, who was one of three council members to support Kenneth Huo, an architect who has worked for the city, was more skeptical.

“If good design is ageless and good buildings stand the test of time, what difference does it make what age you are?” Holman asked. “I’m trying to figure out what you’re going to bring in a design sense to the city.”

Kim responded that different generations have different opinions about what “ageless” means.

“I think, being of the younger

Eric Rosenblum, a co-founder of Palo Alto Forward and member of Palo Alto’s Planning and Transportation Commission, heads into work at Palantir after riding his bike from home in early December.

His goal is to get people talking about transportation and housing. generation, any new buildings that are built with younger generation’s input, those are the buildings that are going to last,” Kim said.

M

any of the speakers who advocated for more development at the Aug. 4 meeting were listed on the Palo Alto Forward website in its early weeks of existence (the membership list has since been taken down from the website, for reasons having to do with “website functionality,” Rosenblum said).

Given that fact, it’s easy to see why many Palo Altans view the organization as pro-development.

Its founding members argue this is not exactly accurate.

As Palo Alto Forward has become better known, the tent has widened to welcome a wider array of views, Rosenblum said. He noted that many people simply

“like” the group on Facebook or join it to receive email updates.

Some, he said, believe Palo Alto already has all the development it can handle and would like to focus on improving transportation options and better managing the parking problems caused by recent growth.

Downing told the council in her interview for the planning commission that she sees no need to mess with the city’s 50-foot height limit, a position not shared by other members of the group. Levy, an economist (and a blogger for the Weekly) who joined Palo Alto Forward in September, said he is primarily concerned about retaining housing for local seniors.

Slater, an environmentalist who also sits on the organization’s steering committee, has as her top priorities promoting carbon (continued on next page)

A public walkway through townhouses between Channing and Homer avenues downtown is a good example of public space, according to Palo Alto Forward members. www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 21

Cover Story

Palo Alto Forward (continued from previous page)

reduction. She grew up in Palo Alto and, after a stint of living elsewhere (including Manhattan), returned in 1988.

“I want to live downtown, close to services and where I can do everything without a car,” Slater told the Weekly. “So I came to this effort through the angle of environmental impact of parking and cars.”

For Rosenblum, a key issue is economic vitality. The term often pops up in conversations with Palo Alto Forward members (in the same way that members of Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning tend to talk about the city’s quality of life). Rosenblum grew up in Steubenville, Ohio — “a dying steel town,” he said — and learned the hard way to respect, rather than fear, economic growth.

“When my dad was a kid, it was a 30,000-person town with two steel mills,” Rosenblum said. “When I was a kid, it was a 20,000-person town with one steel mill. Now, it’s a 13,000-person town with no steel mills.”

After college, Rosenblum spent 12 years living in China, where he said he was exposed to unfettered growth and over-exuberant planning. He came back to the Bay Area and after stints at Google and Drawbridge recently joined Palantir.

Rosenblum said he and his wife decided to settle downtown so that his son, whose vision is impaired, would be able to get around without driving.

Around that time, Rosenblum — who said he’s immersed himself in Palo Alto’s land-use bible, the Comprehensive Plan — began to notice that the conversation around growth and development was getting increasingly toxic.

Following last year’s successful Maybell referendum, Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning put pressure on the council to reform the city’s controversial “planned community” zoning (used to allow the Maybell development), which led to a moratorium; rethink its pro-

cess for updating the Comprehensive Plan; and explore new density restrictions in commercial zones.

The group endorsed four council candidates this fall, three of whom were successful. Council members-elect Tom DuBois and Eric Filseth rarely pulled punches when bemoaning the recent growth and criticizing the current council for insufficient transparency and untoward deference to developers. Running under the “residentialist” banner, the candidates vowed to restore the citizens’ trust in its leaders and slow down growth.

Rosenblum, who lives downtown, said he was struck by what he considered to be a negative tone of the discussion.

“In my mind, I saw a lot of good in some of the development.

I thought, ‘Oh great, we’ll get a new restaurant here,’ or ‘There’s this dead space, and now I can get from there to Stanford on a bike.’

“And all I saw was a lot of negative discussion about how it’s going to cause a lot of traffic and parking issues. I just sent a note into the ether basically asking, ‘Am I the only one who sees a different side to this? Because, I feel like I’m really lonely here,’” Rosenblum recalled. “And before you know it, about 14 people wrote back: ‘Thank goodness. I thought I was the only one.’”

Rosenblum received an email from Uang, who also lives downtown and who’s been actively engaged in the city’s efforts on housing, parking and traffic management. This includes memberships on committees that worked on downtown’s just-approved Residential Parking Permit Program; the new Housing Element; and outreach for the Comprehensive Plan update. Rosenblum and Uang met for coffee and began to lay the foundation for a new citizens group.

Uang, who has two daughters, has also been meeting with Slater since summer to discuss urban policies and designs. The two have a shared interest in promoting a pedestrian-friendly downtown and a passion for learning about best practices in urban design.

The public plaza at 525 University Ave. has no places for visitors to sit.

Page 22 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Slater said she was particularly drawn to the educational component of Palo Alto Forward. She hopes that holding meetings to exchange ideas and hear from leading experts in urban design could help bridge the gap between the two sides in the growth debate.

“I felt the discourse wasn’t helpful,” Slater said. “I felt it was polarizing. I think most residents in Palo Alto kind of want the same thing. I don’t think we’re that far apart. We want a delightful safe place to live and work, by and large.”

When asked to explain what she means by “delightful,” she said, “Something that kind of stops me and gets me out of my head and into something else.”

Shortly after the Aug. 4 meeting, Rosenblum reached out to Levy, who lives in a five-story building downtown (“You won’t see me quoted as describing a five-story building as ‘stack-and-pack,’” Levy said) and who is commonly cited by media sources on topics of housing and job projects. In early September, he attended a Palo Alto Forward event and said he was surprised to find “all these passionate, energetic folks.”

“I saw all this energy,” Levy said. “I read on the blog that these are just a bunch of techies begging for housing.”

Wolbach, like Levy, said he joined Palo Alto Forward after realizing that its stated priorities — more housing and transportation options — mirror his own.

So do its emphases on public engagement and civility, a concept that was the theme of his council campaign.

“A lot of people involved in Palo Alto Forward have never really been involved politically, whether in Palo Alto or anywhere else,” Wolbach told the Weekly.

“I’ve always been a fan of getting people involved.”

He lauded the fact that more people are now engaged, not just in seeking commission appointments, but on a “more fundamental level of being involved in policy as a citizen — paying attention to what’s happening in the community and participating in the civic discourse.

Palo Alto Forward members cited 525 University Ave. as a poor example of development due to its failure to create an inviting place to gather.

“I like the fact that it’s a group of open-minded people who are very serious about having indepth discussion about how we can improve when it comes to transportation and housing issues,” he said.

The August meeting in which the Palantir workers made their case to the council was “a big impetus for launching the organization,” he said. Coincidentally, it also occurred on the same day that Wolbach declared his intention to run for council.

I

n recent interviews, Palo Alto Forward’s leaders have emphasized that the public isn’t as split over the issues of growth to the degree that’s been portrayed in the media. Yet it’s hard to deny that even if the views of Palo Alto residents fall all over the map, the two groups seem to occupy two distinct continents.

The economic vitality that Palo Alto Forward founders espouse isn’t exactly the top priority of Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning members, who are more focused on protecting their neighborhoods from dense developments. If the former focus on improving their city, the priority for the latter is protecting their town. Though there are many exceptions, the former skew younger and tend to be clustered in the downtown area while the latter tend to be longtime residents, many from the Barron Park, Green Acres and Midtown neighborhoods.

Even if some overlap exists, the differences are stark. The vision statement of PASZ, for instance, notes that the group advocates for a “moratorium on all major proj-

ects (larger than 10,000 square feet) in all zoning districts” until an overarching land-use and transportation plan is completed.

It also calls for a “reduction of the maximum development volume in certain zoning districts.”

Such policy would probably meet at best a mixed reception from members of Palo Alto Forward. Even Wolbach, who believes that the city’s philosophical split is a myth, acknowledged that there is a difference between the two groups.

“I’d say the average median position of who is in Palo Alto Forward is different than in Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning,” Wolbach said.

Palo Alto Forward’s platform contains plenty of concepts that are seemingly designed for mass appeal: park preservation, better data collection and reducing the demand for parking. Others are slightly more controversial, suggesting that those who associate Palo Alto Forward with growth aren’t entirely wrong. The platform includes “add more housing clustered near services and transportation options in Downtown, El Camino and California Avenue” and building “mixed-use buildings that combine housing, retail, and commercial uses.” For the thousands of residents who defeated Measure D in 2013 and the slowgrowth “residentialists” who affiliate themselves with Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning, neither of these is necessarily a good thing.

Clustered housing, for instance, was used to justify the Maybell development (whose proponents, somewhat unconvincingly, cited proximity to services and trans-

Cover Story portation on El Camino Real as the project’s selling point). Mixeduse buildings could be used as an apology for recent developments like 2180 El Camino (College Terrace Centre) or 101 Lytton Ave. (Lytton Gateway) — zone-busting developments with outsized commercial components and benefits to the public that critics have decried as insufficient.

The inherent tension between the two groups was in full display during the commission appointments and in the weeks that followed. All three of the council members whose philosophies align with the slow-growth “residentialist” camp — Holman, Greg Schmid and Pat Burt — voted to reappoint the ultra-skeptical Keller to the planning commission. The rest went for youth and enthusiasm and appointed members affiliated with Palo Alto Forward. This displeased some members of Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning, who accused the council of ignoring the mandate of the voters who had just elected two slow-growth candidates and emphatically re-elected a slowgrowth incumbent.

In a post on Town Square the day after the commission appointments were made, PASZ founder Cheryl Lilienstein spoke for many in her group when she wrote, “I am not surprised that the establishment majority on the council did exactly what they have been accused of: overriding the will of the majority.”

Levy and Rosenblum both believe that the differences between the groups are overplayed and can be bridged. In a recent interview, each focused on what the two groups have in common, including the desire to uphold the Comprehensive Plan and to see new housing placed in strategic locations and parking congestion alleviated. Levy stressed that even though he sits on the Palo Alto Forward steering committee, he endorsed DuBois and Holman in the November election — two candidates who were endorsed by Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning.

Levy also noted that the two PASZ members who won seats on the council in November both stated they are not against growth per se; they just want to focus it at more appropriate locations. Levy said he will take their word for it.

“It’s just starting from the positive tone as opposed to the negativity. Because there are lots of problems — but why not start with ones that can be solved with agreement?” Levy said. Q Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be emailed at gsheyner@ paweekly.com.

About the cover: Sandra Slater, left, and Elaine Uang use Google Street View to take a closer look at housing developments that will be featured on an upcoming walking tour, such as the housing at 345 Everett Ave. pictured onscreen. Photo by Veronica Weber.

PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL CIVIC CENTER, 250 HAMILTON AVENUE BROADCAST LIVE ON KZSU, FM 90.1 CABLECAST LIVE ON GOVERNMENT ACCESS CHANNEL 26 ***************************************** THIS IS A SUMMARY OF COUNCIL AGENDA ITEMS. THE AGENDA WITH COMPLETE TITLES INCLUDING LEGAL DOCUMENTATION CAN BE VIEWED AT THE BELOW WEBPAGE: http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/knowzone/agendas/council.asp (TENTATIVE) AGENDA – SPECIAL MEETING – COUNCIL CHAMBERS December 15, 2014 - 5:30 PM SPECIAL ORDERS OF THE DAY 1. Proclamation for Waverley Writers 2. Adoption of Three Resolutions of the Council Expressing Appreciation to Arthur Keller for His Service on the Planning and Transportation Commission, to Lee Lippert for His Service on the Architectural Review Board, and to Clare Malone-Prichard for Her Service on the Architectural Review Board CONSENT CALENDAR 3. Adoption of a Resolution Approving and Authorizing the City Manager’s Execution of the Northern California Power Agency Meter Maintenance Program Agreement 4. Approve a contract with Goodland Landscape Construction, Inc. in the amount of $4,441,520.11; Authorize the City Manager or his designee to negotiate and execute one or more change orders to the contract with Goodland Construction, Inc., not to exceed $444,151; Approve a contract with NOVA Partners, Inc. in the amount of $320,600 for construction management services; and Adopt a Budget Amendment Ordinance in the total amount of $1,343,047 to transfer $3xx,xxx from Park Development Impact Fees and to transfer $1,0xx,xxx from the Infrastructure Reserve (IR) to the Camino Park Restoration Project (PE-13016) .

YHU[ VM ,HZLTLU[Z [V :HU[H *SHYH =HSSL` >H[LY +PZ[YPJ[ 7HJPÄJ .HZ and Electric Company, City of East Palo Alto and East Palo Alto Sanitary District for the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority’s (JPA) Initial Flood Protection Project (Highway 101 to San Francisco Bay) 6. Approval of Amendment One to Contract with Tandem Creative, Inc. Contract Amendment to Extend the Contract Term Through December 31, 2016 and Increase the Total Compensation by $220,000 from $198,000 to $418,000 to Provide Marketing Design Services for the Utilities Department 7. Approval of a Final Map Submittal for the 1451-1601 California Avenue Development of a total of 180 dwelling units, including 68 detached single family residences and 112 multi-family condo units.

Environmental Assessment: City of Palo Alto/Stanford Development Agreement and Lease Project Environmental Impact Report (State Clearinghouse No. 2003082103) 8. Approval to Standardize Using OldCastle Precast Underground Utility Vaults and to Authorize a New Blanket Purchase Order in the Amount of $350,000 for Fiscal Year 2015 and the Same for Four Additional Years, for a Total Purchase Amount of $1,750,000 over a Five Year Period (UTL) 9. Approval of a Contract Amendment to CompuCom Systems, Inc., in the Amount of $194,470 for Annual Microsoft Licensing True-Up, Contract C12144913; and Approval of a Budget Adjustment Ordinance to the Information Technology Fund in the Amount of $194,470 10. 2755 El Camino Real Prescreening Request: Request by Hayes Group Architects for Council Authorization to Schedule a City Council Preliminary Review (“Pre-Screening”) of a proposal to apply for Architectural Review and Rezoning from PF (Public Facility) to CC2 (Community Commercial) for a vacant site at the corner of El Camino Real and Page Mill Road (the vacated VTA parking lot) 11. Second Reading: Adoption of an Ordinance Establishing a Citywide Framework for Neighborhood Permit Parking Programs and Adoption of a Resolution Enacting a Permit Parking Program in Neighborhoods Adjacent to Downtown

12. From Policy and Services Committee Review and Acceptance of Inventory of Donated City Owned Properties and Policy and Procedure 1-11/ASD (Leased Use of City Land/Facilities) 13. Review of a proposed Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for a Verizon Wireless Telecommunication Facility at the Palo Alto Little League Ball Field, Zoned R-1 (8000), and an Appeal of the Director’s Architectural Review Approval of the Facility, an 18-inch Diameter, 65-foot tall Monopole/Light Pole replacing a 12-inch diameter, 60-foot tall light pole, and associated at-grade equipment enclosure at 3672 MiddleÄLSK 9VHK 14. Adoption of an Ordinance Approving and Adopting a Plan for Improvements to Bowden Park 15. Proposed Changes in Development Impact Fees: Adoption of Ordinance Amending Chapter 16.58 Implementing New Public Safety Facility and General Government Facility Impact Fees and Direction to Draft Resolution Setting Initial Impact Fee Rates at 75 of Levels 0KLU[PÄLK PU 5L_\Z :[\K` 16. Approval of a Resolution Amending Resolution No. 9296, Adopted November 13, 2013, to Extend Statutory Exception for Soil Transfers

by Truck on Oregon Expressway until September 30, 2015 17. Request for Authorization to Increase Existing Legal Services Agreements with the Law Firms of: (1) Ginn & Crosby, LLP, by an additional $50,000 for legal services relating to construction of the Mitchel Park Library and Community Center for a Total Not to Exceed Amount of $250,000; and (2) Musick Peeler & Garrett, LLP, by an additional MVY 7HSV (S[V )H`SHUKZ .VSM *V\YZL 9LJVUÄN\YH[PVU 7YVQLJ[ and the San Francisquito Creek Flood Control Project for a Total Not to Exceed Amount of $85,000 18. Ada’s Café 2nd Amendment to Contract ACTION ITEMS 19. PUBLIC HEARING: Approval of a New Fifty (50) Year Lease to Avenidas for City owned Property at 450 Bryant Street to Allow the Continued Use of the Building to Provide Senior Services 20. Palo Alto Historical Museum’s Request for Funding and Approval of Transfer of Development Rights for the Roth Building 21. Approval of the Proposed Grocery Store Tenant (College Terrace Market) Within PC 5069 (College Terrace Centre) Based on the Finding that the Proposed Grocery Tenant Would Likely be Comparable in Quality of Products and Services as JJ&F as it Existed and Operated on December 7, 2009 at 2180 El Camino Real (Continued from November 17, 2014) 22. Policy and Services Committee Recommendation To Council for Adoption of An Ordinance Amending Chapter 9.14 (Smoking And Tobacco Regulations) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Establish New Smoking Restrictions for Outdoor Commercial Areas, Outdoor Eating Areas, Public Events, Work Sites and Service Areas; Include Penalty ,ZJHSH[PVU MVY 9LWLH[ 6ќLUKLYZ" 9LX\PYL *PNHYL[[L )\[[ 9LJLW[HJSLZ and Signage Immediately Adjacent and Within Areas Covered by the Ban; and Include E-cigarettes 23. Colleagues Memo from Council Members Klein, Burt, and Berman Regarding Fuel Switching 24. Colleagues Memo from Vice-Mayor Kniss and Council Members Holman, Klein and Price Regarding Regulation of Short-Term Rentals in Residential Neighborhoods (e.g., AirBnB, VRBO and Related Businesses)

STANDING COMMITTEE MEETINGS The Finance Committee Meeting will be held on December 16, 2014 at 6:00 PM regarding 1) Fiscal Year 2016-2025 General Fund Long Range Financial Forecast, 2) First Quarter Fiscal Year 2015 Financial Results, 3) Utilities Advisory Recommendation that the Finance Committee Recommend that the City Council Approve a Resolution Amending the City’s Cap-and-Trade Revenue Utilization Policy to Cover the Use of Freely Allocated Allowances for the Gas and Electric Utilities, and a Resolution Amending Rate Schedules G-1, G-1-G, G-2, G-2-G, G-3, and G-3-G to Add a Rate Component for Cap-and-Trade Regulatory Compliance Costs and Combine the Administrative and Transportation Charges with the Distribution Charges.

The Policy and Services Committee Meeting will be held on December 16, 2014 at 6:00 PM regarding 1) Board and Commission recruitment changLZ :[Hќ MVSSV^ \W VU KL[HPSZ VM JVZ[Z MVY KPќLYLU[ [`WLZ VM TLL[PUN minutes, 3) Amendment of the Municipal Percent for Art Policy Updating the Muni Code and Recommended Ordinance, and 4) Annual Council Priority Setting Process.

The City/School Committee meeting will be held on December 18, 2014 at 8:30AM at the Mitchell Park Library regarding City of Palo Alto Library Programs and Services Update.

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 23

Peninsula Christmas Services

Inspirations

a guide to the spiritual community

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

ST. MARK’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH PALO ALTO CHRISTMAS EVE

Valley Presbyterian Church in the Redwoods

V 4:00 pm Children’s Christmas Pageant & Communion V 10:00 pm Festive Choral Christmas Eve Holy Communion beginning with Carols

CHRISTMAS DAY V 10:00 am Holy Communion with Carols 600 Colorado Ave, Palo Alto (650) 326-3800 www.saint-marks.com

945 Portola Road, Portola Valley, CA 650-851-8282 www.valleypreschurch.org

Christmas Eve Worship 5:00 pm

Family Candlelight Service

10:00 pm

Candlelight Service Lessons & Carols

Christmas blessings from St. Bede’s Episcopal Church Let us celebrate together!

Christmas Eve—Wednesday, 12/24 4PM Children’s Christmas Pageant & Eucharist 5:30PM Community Dinner Free to all; RSVP appreciated 7:30PM Choral Prelude 8PM Festival Eucharist with Choir

Christmas Day—Thursday, 12/25 9AM Holy Eucharist with Carols

CHRISTMAS WORSHIP SERVICES Family Worship Service & Christmas Pageant geant Sunday, December 14, 9:30 a.m Christmas Eve Candlelight Service & Reception Wednesday, December 24, 10 p.m

Woodside Village Church 3154 Woodside Road, Woodside, CA

650.851.1587 www.wvchurch.org

Page 24 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

First Sunday after Christmas — 12/28 9AM Christmas Lessons & Carols and Eucharist

Please join us after each service for coffee and cookies, with piñatas following the pageant.

St. Bede’s Episcopal Church 2650 Sand Hill Rd (at Monte Rosa), Menlo Park 650-854-6555 stbedesmenlopark.org

Peninsula Christmas Services

Simply Christmas Celebrate the true meaning of Christmas in Scripture and Song!

Wednesday, December 24th at 6:00 pm First Baptist Church • 1100 Middle Ave Menlo Park

Covenant Presbyterian Church December 14, 2014

(650) 323 8544 • www.firstbaptist.com

Holiday Services at Stanford Memorial Church Sunday, December 21, 2014 10:00 am University Public Worship 4:30 pm Catholic Mass

December 21, 2014

Wednesday, December 24, 2014 4:00 pm Christmas Eve Family service (Doors open at 3:00 pm)

December 24, 2014

Please bring new, unwrapped toys which will be given to children in need.

8:00 pm Christmas Eve Festival Communion service (Doors open at 7:00 pm) Please note: Please arrive early for Christmas Eve services. Attendees must arrive together with their group. Saving seats will not be allowed.

Thursday, December 25, 2014 12:00 am Catholic Christmas Eve Midnight Mass 12:00 pm Catholic Christmas Day Mass

10:30 a.m. Worship Christmas Cantata- Daniel Pinkham Choir Cantata with Organ and Brass 4:00 p.m. Chamber Concert Series Music of the Christmas Season Harpers Hall Harp Ensemble 10:30 a.m. Worship One Starry Night in Bethlehem Children and Youth Pageant 7:30 p.m. Christmas Eve Candlelight Service Lessons and Carols Rev. Dr. Margaret Boles Covenant Presbyterian Church, 670 E. Meadow Dr., Palo Alto 94306 (650) 494-1760 www.CovenantPresbyterian.net

More info: religiouslife.stanford.edu/holiday-services

Memorial Church, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, (650)723-1762

St Thomas Aquinas Catholic Parish, Palo Alto Our Lady of the Rosary, 3233 Cowper Street St. Albert the Great, 1095 Channing Avenue St. Thomas Aquinas, 751 Waverley Street

CHRISTMAS EVE – WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24TH 5:00 pm Family Mass – Our Lady of the Rosary (Children’s Christmas Pageant during Mass) 5:00 pm Family Mass – St. Albert the Great (Children’s Christmas Pageant during Mass) 6:00 pm – St. Thomas Aquinas 7:00 pm – Our Lady of the Rosary (Spanish) Midnight Mass – St. Thomas Aquinas (Gregorian)

CHRISTMAS DAY – THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25TH 7:30am – St. Thomas Aquinas; 9:00am – St. Albert the Great; 10:30am – Our Lady of the Rosary; 10:30am – St. Thomas Aquinas; 12:00 Noon – St. Thomas Aquinas (Gregorian)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 25

Arts & Entertainment A weekly guide to music, theater, art, culture, books and more, edited by Elizabeth Schwyzer

Suffering and suffrage

‘Women and the Great War’ on view at Stanford’s Hoover Institution

by Joshua Alvarez

O

Clockwise from above: Anti-war activist Louise Olivereau was convicted of sedition for encouraging conscientious objectors; Maria Bochkareva, right, with an English suffragette, 1917; Nurse Edith Cavell helped hundreds of Allied soldiers to escape from Belgium and was later executed by German occupation forces; The Women’s Battalion of Death with their commander, Maria Bochkareva, left, 1917; The Australian Red Cross Society was formed days after the outbreak of WWI; Allied propaganda such as this poster by Ellsworth Young emphasized the heartlessness of the German military.

ne hundred years ago this year, World War I began. On the centennial of such a significant event, museums across the world are turning to their archives to offer historical and contemporary perspectives on The Great War. Among those museums is Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, which last month opened a new exhibit: “Women and the Great War.” The exhibit runs through March 2015, but the archives from which it is drawn are open to the public year-round.

“You can have the greatest material in the world, but if nobody sees it it doesn’t matter,” noted Eric Wakin, the director of library and archives and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. “The extent to which the war has been forgotten in the U.S. surprises me. There are exhibits popping up all across the U.S. with different angles. We wanted to do something unique and connect women who lived during the war with women today.”

Hoover’s Assistant Archivist for Exhibits Samira Bozorgi came up with the idea for the exhibit and served as its curator.

“For an exhibit like this, most places would need two years to put together materials and organize it, but we were able to do this in a matter of months,” Bozorgi said. Most of that time was spent researching and working with conservationists to determine which items could be displayed; the Hoover Institution has a vast collection of original WWI writings, some of which are unfortunately too delicate to display publicly.

“Women and the Great War” sticks to a rough chronology, but skews its focus toward individual women and the roles women played in all the belliger-

Page 26 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

photos courtesy Hoover Institution Archives ent countries as nurses, laborers, peace activists, dissidents and even soldiers on the front line. On Eric Wakin display are posters, photographs, letters, diaries, postcards, handbills, pamphlets, medals and memoirs.

Perhaps the most striking theme of the exhibit is the way images of women were fashioned to serve two almost contradictory propagandist purposes. In many images from the period, women are portrayed as innocent, powerless victims of German rapaciousness: a presentation designed to fan the flames of the Allies’ enthusiasm for revenge against the Central Powers. On the other hand, images of women were used to sanitize and even feminize the war, a choice intended to diminish the perceived risk of fighting and to shame men into keeping their fears to themselves.

Images of women as victims were particularly effective in sensationalized depictions of the German invasion of Belgium, termed the “Rape of Belgium” by propagandists. One of the main exhibit cases features original propaganda posters in which grotesquely caricatured German soldiers clutch at tattered women and even drag them away.

The image of one female victim of German brutality was particularly effective as a recruitment tool. British nurse Edith Cavell, who worked as a nurse in Belgium and helped thousands of Allied soldiers escape the invading German army, was executed for her actions despite international pleas for mercy. Her image instantaneously became fodder for propaganda and recruitment posters, some of which this exhibit prominently features.

“If you go to England, Canada and

Belgium and ask about Edith Cavell, everyone will tell you who she was,” said Bert Patenaude, a Hoover Fellow who assisted with the research and development of the exhibit. “There’s a prominent statue of her in downtown London.

Major streets in those countries are named after her. But I bet the vast majority of Americans wouldn’t recognize her name. We’ve dedicated an entire case to her and, to me, that should be the part of the exhibit that is revelatory to visitors.”

The butchery of World War I is difficult to exaggerate. If anything, exaggeration would do some good against the fictitious sanitized version perpetuated by the era’s stereotypical image of nurses in sparkling white uniforms.

Stories about the blood-soaked reality women faced in field hospitals near the front were consistently suppressed both by governments and by a frenzied public unwilling to listen and viciously quick to denounce — and incarcerate — those who tried to bring the truth to light.

One of those persecuted torch-bearers was Louise Olivereau, an activist in Colorado who was arrested and thrown in jail for distributing anti-war literature including a book by American nurse, journalist and author Ellen La Motte titled “The Backwash of War.” La Motte was one of the first American nurses to serve in a European field hospital. She kept a diary that described in raw, visceral details what she witnessed (the amount and variety of limbs scattered throughout the hospital on any given day would challenge even the grotesque

Arts & Entertainment

A Red Cross nurse bringing water to an injured WWI soldier.

Palo Alto was no exception. The city’s role during the war was largely founded on the leadership of Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover’s involvement with the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB). Lou Henry, who was a Stanford alumna, played a major

tion in the military.”

“Women and the Great War” illuminates the relationship between the war effort and women’s burgeoning political rights. At the same time, the exhibit reveals the tension between two conflicting images of WWI women: powerful political figures on the one hand, helpless victims weeping beside the graves of their husbands and sons on the other. Looking back across a century, the temptation is to consign the incalculable losses of The Great War to the shortsightedness of the past — until one remembers that global conflicts, and suffering, continue

unabated today. Q Freelance writer Joshua Alvarez can be emailed at joshua. alvarez1189@gmail.com.

What: “Women and the Great War” Where: Herbert Hoover Memorial Exhibit Pavilion, 434 Galvez Mall, Stanford When: Tuesday-Saturday from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. through March 21, 2015. The exhibit pavilion will be closed Dec. 22-Jan. 3.

Cost: Free Info: Go to hoover.org/events or call 650-723-3563

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Dancer: Erica Felsch

imagination of today’s horror filmmakers). These notes would become the basis of her book, which was swiftly censored and was not legally republished until 1934.

Nonetheless, the majority of women, including feminists in both America and Britain, were in favor of the war.

“What surprised me is that most women who supported the right to vote and equal political rights also supported the war,” Patenaude said. “They calculated that if they went anti-war they would be depicted as unpatriotic and not as tough as the men. They saw — correctly — that supporting the war effort was the way to get the right to vote.”

President Woodrow Wilson, in his effort to garner support for entering the war, framed it as a “fight for democracy and freedom,” a phrase suffragettes were quick to seize upon and use to pressure the president. Wilson gave two speeches to Congress explicitly tying women’s right to vote to defeating Germany, building momentum that ultimately led to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Emmeline Pankhurst, Britain’s leading feminist and suffragette, was a vociferous supporter of the war, famously traveling to Russia in 1917, shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution. There, she gave a fiery speech urging Russia to stay in the war.

“There was no way Parliament was going to deny women the right to vote after that display of leadership,” Patenaude said.

Standing next to Pankhurst while she gave her famous speech, wearing her characteristically gruff scowl, was Maria Bochkareva. The Russian female soldier was the commander of The Battalion of Death, an all-female combat unit that is prominently featured in “Women and the Great War.” Bochkareva was a sensation in the West, which restricted women to working as nurses or in industrial factories (some women did serve, but they had to disguise themselves as men). Bochkareva’s image was used to shame men into joining the military, a strategy of which she heartily approved.

As its name implies, World War I involved much of the world, and

role in organizing and implementing the CRB, which at its peak fed more than 10 million people daily. She also shuttled between the U.S. and London, establishing women’s organizations dedicated to relief of both soldiers and civilians. After the war, King Albert I of Belgium decorated her with the Cross of Chevalier, Order of Leopold — the highest order of Belgium.

Ultimately, this exhibit’s aim is to connect the past to the present.

“Some aspects of women’s involvement in World War I persist in our world today, often in even more pronounced forms,” said Katherine Jolluck, a senior lecturer in Stanford University’s History Department who also assisted with the exhibit. “This includes women’s suffering from wartime violence — either targeted at them specifically as females or generally as civilians; women’s peace activism and related challenge to nationalism; the use of normative depictions of women for political purposes; and women’s participa-

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“High-energy, wonderful, highly-entertaining!”

– Daily News

NOW PL AYING! MOUNTAIN VIEW MV CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS | DEC 10–14 | 650.903.6000

smuinballet.org

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 27

Arts & Entertainment

Kevin Berne

Delightfully daft, wonderfully whimsical Peter Pan prequel takes flight in Palo Alto

by Jeanie K. Smith

“P

eter and the Starcatcher” earned a record number of Tony nominations and five awards when it played Broadway in 2012, cementing it in the pantheon of popular new plays and proclaiming its appeal for both youth and adults. TheatreWorks now brings it to life on the Lucie Stern The-

ater stage with vigor and verve and a boatload of talent, creating a lively, laugh-filled and heartfelt gift for the holidays.

American humorist Dave Barry and novelist Ridley Pearson teamed up a decade ago to imagine a prequel to J. M. Barrie’s famous play, “Peter Pan,” producing a bestseller; then “Peter and

NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING of the City of Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan Update Leadership Group 5:00 P.M., Tuesday, December 16, 2014, Mitchell Park *VTT\UP[` *LU[LY (KVIL 9VVT 4PKKSLÄLSK 9K Palo Alto, 94301 The City of Palo Alto’s Comprehensive Plan Update Leadership Group will be meeting to discuss community engagement opportunities for the City’s 2030 Comprehensive Plan.

The group’s primary role is to assist with community engagement during the Comprehensive Plan Update planning process. If you have any questions or you would like additional information about the Comprehensive Plan Update, please contact Consuelo Hernandez, Senior Planner, at 650-329-2428 or Consuelo.hernandez@cityofpaloalto.org.

The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request an accommodation for this meeting or an alternative format for any related printed materials, please contact the City’s ADA Coordinator at 650.329.2550 (voice) or by e-mailing ada@cityofpaloalto.org.

Page 28 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

THEATER REVIEW the Starcatcher” went through an extensive creative process to become a play, eventually scripted

by Rick Elice, with musical interludes by Wayne Barker. In this zany flight of fancy set in Victorian times but with 21st-Century humor and idioms, a young orphan (a dashing everyboy Tim Homsley) finds his name, his future and his flying capability through a series of adventures with a headstrong girl named Molly (a fabulous Adrienne Walters). It’s definitely a comedy, but its gentle message is sure to touch the heart as well.

The Starcatcher, Molly, assists her father, Lord Aster (Darren Bridgett), on a dangerous mission to dispatch some dangerous and powerful Star Stuff before it can fall into criminal hands. This involves two ships, The Neverland and The Wasp; a dastardly sea captain (Will Springhorn Jr.) with plans of his own for the Stuff; two more orphans (Jeremy Kahn and Cyril Jamal Cooper); assorted sailors; Molly’s nanny (Ron Campbell); and more. Just when you think it can’t get any more complicated, pirates arrive, including Smee (Suzanne Grodner in a delicious role for her), and Captain Hook when he’s still known as The Black Stache (an amazing, show-stealing Patrick Kelly Jones) — they of course also want the Treasure.

All ultimately land on Mollusk Island where the evil King (Mi-

Kevin Berne

Adrienne Walters as Molly and Tim Homsley as Peter in TheatreWorks’ production of “Peter and the Starcatcher.”

Tim Homsley as Peter, Patrick Kelly Jones as Black Stache and Adrienne Walters as Molly in “Peter and the Starcatcher.” chael Gene Sullivan) threatens to derail the entire undertaking — but, you know, Peter must live to become the boy who never grows up, and Molly must live to become ... well, ’nuff said.

Almost all the actors play more than one role, become parts of the ship or set itself, or take bits of the narration. The entire ensemble is suitably wacky and energetic. Bridgett, Campbell and Sullivan are up to their usual comic tricks. Springhorn makes a good villain, and the lost orphan boys have great character definition. Walters and Homsley are both terrific as the young leads. Jones as Stache commands the stage, oozing his way as the slimiest, harshest and most effete pirate captain ever. His delivery of three little words brings the house down in gales of laughter.

In short, they’re all great at good campy fun, including fart jokes and puns and sight gags.

It’s a high-theatrical style that would have been familiar even in Barrie’s day — no rigs and wires, just clever staging and physicality and proper enlistment of the audience’s imagination. Even if you’re skeptical, it doesn’t take long to find yourself completely immersed in the convoluted plot and a total believer in Star Stuff.

The enormously talented ensemble isn’t alone of course — a handsome seafaring set by Joe Ragey uses every inch of the Stern proscenium and ingenious but simple devices for an angry sea storm, a drowning sequence, an intelligent jungle and a ship’s

hold that feels much bigger on the inside. Atmospheric lighting by Pamila Z. Gray, inspired costuming by B. Modern, and amusing sound by Brendan Aanes work together beautifully. It’s a gorgeous spectacle, a feast for the senses and a wonder. Don’t leave at intermission or you’ll miss one of the highlights of the show, a mermaid number with insane costuming and Dottie LesterWhite’s understated but superbly silly choreography.

The downsides? Some lulls in a lengthy Act Two, too much choral shouting, and a script that has some difficulty finding its resolution. But the overall excellence surpasses the flaws. TheatreWorks delivers a marvelous entertainment for the holiday season, with a lot of laughs and a good measure of heart. Q What: “Peter and the Starcatcher,” by Rick Elice and Wayne Barker, presented by TheatreWorks Where: Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto When: Through Jan. 3, with 7:30 p.m. shows on Tuesday and Wednesday, 8 p.m. Thursday to 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 www.theatreworks. org or call 650-463-1960.

Arts & Entertainment

Worth a Look

First United Methodist Church on Friday, Dec. 19.

The New Century Chamber Orchestra is one of very few conductorless ensembles in the world. The 19-member string group is led by world-renowned violinist Salerno-Sonnenberg from the concertmaster chair and will perform pieces by Bach, Handel and Corelli among other selections.

The orchestra will also perform collaborative pieces with the chorus, a vocal ensemble that features voices of young women ages 5 through 18.

The program will also feature stand-alone holiday pieces by the chorus, including Vaughan Williams’ “Winter” from Folksongs of the Four Seasons.

Tickets range from $29 to $61 and can be purchased at www.ncco.org, through City Box Office at www.cityboxoffice.com or by calling 415-392-4400.

Discounted single tickets are available for patrons under 35, and open rehearsal tickets are available for $8 through City Box Office.

Theater

‘The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming’ Peninsula Youth Theater kicks off the holidays with the latest production from the “Stories on Stage” program with “The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming.” The performance is an adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s cheeky spin on the classic gingerbread-man tale and features a rambunctious latke who baffles the forest creatures he meets throughout his riotous journey.

Lyn Flaim Healy, Spotlight Moments Photography

Megan Foreman plays the lead in PYT’s “The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming.”

Culture A traditional German market If you’ve had a hankering for bretzln (pretzels), stollen (fruit cake), gebrannte mandeln (toasted candied almonds) or other German delights, you won’t want to miss the annual holiday market hosted by the German International School of Silicon Valley this Saturday, Dec. 13.

The Weihnachtsmarkt, or Christmas market, is the perfect place to learn about German culture and practice simple German phrases. Live orchestra and chorus performances will fill the air with holiday favorites to provide the look and feel of an authentic village market. The event features an ice rink, petting zoo, train, face painting and more activities for the kids, and adults can take advantage of the German beers and mulled wine.

PYT’s finest teen actors perform children’s fiction, fairy tales and poetry in professionally directed shows, and many, like “latke,” are adapted specially for their performances. The shows generally run about 40 minutes and the audience is given the opportunity to ask the cast questions at the end of the play.

Catch the performance at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts (500 Castro St.) Friday, Dec. 12, at 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m., or Saturday, Dec. 13, at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Tickets are available online at mountainview.gov/mvcpa/mvcpa. html or by calling the box office at 650-903-6000.

Admission is $12 for all individuals.

Greg Munson

Concert Chorus, orchestra play holiday favorites Warm up for the holidays with enchanting Christmas classics and other favorites performed by celebrated vocal and string ensembles. Music director Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and the New Century Chamber Orchestra and the San Francisco Girls Chorus usher in the holiday season at Palo Alto’s

Gifts from both German and Bay Area artists will be on sale, including jewelry, clothing, toys and soap. Participate in the raffle and silent auction for a chance to win tickets to Disneyland, an iPad Air or a limited edition San Francisco 49ers NaVarro Bowman football. All proceeds from the event will benefit the nonprofit GISSV, which serves children from preschool through grade 12.

The market will be held from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at City Hall Plaza (500 Castro St.) in Mountain View Dec. 13 and is free to the public. Rain or shine, the market will be in full swing. For more information visit gissv.org/germanholidaymarket?rc=0. Frohe Feiertage! Q — Jennah Feeley

Kristin Hoebermann

Renowned violinist Nadja SalernoSonnenberg leads the New Century Chamber Orchestra.

The village market offers traditional German artworks and delicacies.

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 29

Support our Kids with a gift to the Holiday Fund.

Last Year’s Grant Recipients 10 Books A Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500 Ada’s Café . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$20,000 Adolescent Counseling Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000

E

ach year the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund raises money to support programs serving families and children in the Palo Alto area. Since the Weekly

Bayshore Christian Ministries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000

and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation cover all the

Breast Cancer Connections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000

administrative costs, every dollar raised goes directly to

Building Futures Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 CASSY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000

support community programs through grants to non-profit

Children’s Center of the Peninsula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,200

organizations ranging up to $25,000.

Collective Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500 Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500

And with the generous support of matching grants

Computers for Youth Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000

from local foundations, including the Packard, Hewlett,

Deborah’s Palm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000 Downtown Streets Team. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 DreamCatchers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15,000 East Palo Alto Kids Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 East Palo Alto Youth Court . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 Environmental Volunteers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 EPA Tennis & Tutoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 Family Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500 Foothill-De Anza Foundation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500 Foundation for a College Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000 Friends of Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 Hidden Villa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000

Arrillaga & Peery foundations, your tax-deductible gift will be doubled in size. A donation of $100 turns into $200

Give to the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund and your donation is doubled.

You give to non-profit groups that work right here in our community. It’s a great way to ensure that your charitable donations are working at home.

with the foundation matching gifts.

Whether as an individual, a business or in honor of someone else, help us reach our goal of $350,000 by making a generous contribution to the Holiday Fund.

With your generosity, we can give a major boost to the programs in our community helping kids and families.

CLICK AND GIVE

Donate online at siliconvalleycf.org/ si paw-holiday-fund

InnVision Shelter Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000 JLS Middle School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,500 Jordan Middle School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,500 Kara. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15,000

Enclosed is a donation of $_______________

Mayview Community Health Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000 Music in the Schools Foundation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15,000

Name _________________________________________________________

New Creation Home Ministries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 New Voices for Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$2,500 Nuestra Casa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500 Palo Alto Art Center Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 Palo Alto Community Child Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000

Business Name _________________________________________________ Address _______________________________________________________ City/State/Zip __________________________________________________

Palo Alto Historical Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 Palo Alto Housing Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 Palo Alto Humane Society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$2,500 Parents Nursery School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 Peninsula HealthCare Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500

E-Mail __________________________________________________

Credit Card (MC, VISA, or AMEX)

All donors and their gift amounts will be published in the Palo Alto Weekly unless the boxes below are checked.

________________________________________ Expires _______/_______

T I wish to contribute anonymously.

Phone _________________________________________________________

Project WeHOPE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15,000 Quest Learning Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 Racing Hearts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$2,500

T Please withhold the amount of my

Rebuilding Together Peninsula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000 Silicon Valley FACES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500

contribution.

Signature ______________________________________________________

St. Elizabeth Seton School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500 St. Francis of Assisi Youth Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000

I wish to designate my contribution as follows: (select one)

St. Vincent de Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$6,000 Teen Talk Sexuality Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000 Terman Middle School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,500

T In my name as shown above T In the name of business above

TheatreWorks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500 Youth Community Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$20,000 Youth Speaks Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000

OR:

T In honor of:

T In memory of:

T As a gift for:

_____________________________________________________________ (Name of person)

Non-profits: Grant application and guidelines at www.PaloAltoOnline.com/holiday_fund Application deadline: January 9, 2015

Page 30 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Please make checks payable to: Silicon Valley Community Foundation Send coupon and check, if applicable, to: Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund c/o Silicon Valley Community Foundation 2440 West El Camino Real, Suite 300 Mountain View, CA 94040 The Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund is a donor advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a 501 (c) (3) charitable organization. A contribution to this fund allows your donation to be tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

Eating Out

Thank you for donating to the Holiday Fund Through December 8, 228 donors have contributed $71,006.

With match, $142,012 has been raised for the Holiday Fund New Donors

Solon Finkelstein ......................... 150 John & Florine Galen ........................ * Greg & Penny Gallo ...................... 500 Betty Gerard ................................ 100 Dena Goldberg............................. 250 Margot Goodman ............................ * Lynda & Richard Greene ............... 300 Eric and Elaine Hahn ........................ * Phil Hanawalt & Graciela Spivak.... 500 The Havern Family..................... 5,000 Walt and Kay Hays ........................... * Joe and Nancy Huber ....................... * Jon & Julie Jerome ........................... * Michael & Marcia Katz ................. 200 Sue Kemp ................................... 250 Christina Kenrick....................... 1,000 Michael & Frannie Kieschnick ........... * Hal & Iris Korol ................................ * Tony & Judy Kramer.......................... * The Kroymann Family ................... 250 Patricia M. Levin .......................... 100 Steve and Nancy Levy .................. 500 Mandy Lowell ............................... 100 Gwen Luce ...................................... * Lori & Hal Luft ............................. 100 Kevin Mayer & Barbara Zimmer......... * Richard L. Mazze ......................... 100 Drew McCalley & Marilyn Green .... 100 Eve & John Melton ....................... 500 Merrill & Lee Newman ................. 250

Joanne Koltnow ........................... 200 Diane Ciesinski ............................ 500 Charlotte Epstein ............................. * Caroline Hicks & Bert Fingerhut .... 100 Jessie Ngai .................................. 100 Xiaofan Lin .................................... 50 Hal and Carol Louchheim ................. * Rathmann Family Foundation ............ * Judy Ousterhout ............................... * Debby Roth.................................. 100 Sandy & Rajiv Jain........................ 101 Dennis & Cindy Dillon ....................... * Ho John Lee ................................ 100 Stan & Yulia Shore ........................... * Mehdi Alhassani .......................... 150 Dmitri Seals .................................... * Mike & Dana Nelson ...................... 75 Brigid Barton & Rob Robinson ...... 400 Adria & Beau Brown ......................... * Meri Gruber & James Taylor .............. * Janice Bohman ............................ 250 Jan Swan......................................... * Dexter & Jean Dawes ....................... * Nina Kulgein ................................ 200 Rick & Eileen Brooks ........................ * Michael & Jean Couch .................. 250 Martha Cohn ............................... 100 Maureen Martin ............................... * Diane Moore.................................... * Micki & Bob Cardelli ......................... * Matt Glickman & Susie Hwang ...... 500 Ralph Wheeler ............................. 225 Robyn Crumly .................................. * Bill Johnson & Terri Lobdell............... *

In Memory Of

In Memory Of

John F. Smith............................... 250 Robert Spinrad ............................ 500 My sweet Dad Al Pellizzari ................ * My sweet dog “Tufi” ......................... * Ed Arnold......................................... * Sam Stewart & Alan Stewart ............ * August Lee King ............................. 25 Nate Rosenberg ............................. 75 Betty Meltzer ................................... * Aarol O’Neill .................................... * John Black ................................... 500 Jim Byrnes................................... 100

Ted Linden................................... 200 Al and Kay Nelson ............................ * Dr. Elliot Eisner ................................ * Ruth & Chet Johnson ....................... * Robert Lobdell ................................. * Baxter Armstrong ......................... 100 Phillip Gottheiner ............................. * Boyd Paulson, Jr .............................. * Dan Dykwel ..................................... * Dr. David Zlotnick ............................. * Dr. John Plummer Steward............ 100 Richard Brennan .............................. * Bob Donald ..................................... * Leonard W. Ely ............................. 200 Don and Marie Snow .................... 100 Kathy Morris .................................... * Pam Grady................................... 250 Carol Berkowitz ................................ * Yen-Chen and Er-Ying Yen ............. 250 Francine Mendlin ............................. * Richard Brennan .......................... 100 Helene F. Klein ................................ * Jean M. Law ................................ 100 Ernest J. Moore ............................... * Mary Floyd..................................... 25 Thomas W. and Louise L. Phinney ..... * Leo Breidenbach .............................. * Bob Schauer ................................ 150 Bertha Kalson ................................. * Steve Fasani................................ 100 Jimmie Dickinson ......................... 100

Previously Published Donors 17 Anonymous .......................... 3690 Dorsey and Katherine Bass .......... 300 Faith Braff ................................... 500 Wendy Sinton .............................. 100 Victor & Norma Hesterman ............... * William & Sally Hewlett.............. 1,000 Edward Kanazawa ............................ * Donald & Adele Langendorf .......... 200 Ellen Lillington ............................... 75 Jean M. Colby .................................. * Chris & Beth Martin ......................... * Lawrence Naiman ........................ 100 Tom & Patricia Sanders .................... * Dorothy Saxe ................................... * Roger Smith ................................ 300 Marian Adams ............................. 100 Brigid Barton ............................... 400 Lucy Berman ............................ 1,000 Harriet & Gerald Berner .................... * Roy & Carol Blitzer ........................... * John & Olive Borgsteadt ................... * Linda & Steve Boxer......................... * Larry Breed ................................. 100 Bruce F. Campbell ..................... 2,000 Mr. George Cator ....................... 300 Ted and Ginny Chu ........................... * Keith Clarke..................................... * Constance Crawford ......................... * Theodore and Cathy Dolton .......... 350 Eugene & Mabel Dong ................. 200 Tom & Ellen Ehrlich ..................... 300 Jerry and Linda Elkind .................. 250 Leif & Sharon Erickson ................. 250 Russell Evarts ................................. *

Craig & Sally Nordlund.................. 500 Jim & Alma Phillips....................... 250 Helene Pier...................................... * David & Virginia Pollard ................ 300 Teresa Roberts ......................... 2,000 Dick and Ruth Rosenbaum ........... 100 Peter and Beth Rosenthal ............. 300 Steve & Karen Ross ..................... 100 Nancy & Norm Rossen ..................... * Don & Ann Rothblatt ........................ * Dan and Lynne Russell................. 250 John and Mary Schaefer ............... 100 Jerry & Donna Silverberg .............. 100 Bob and Diane Simoni.................. 200 Art and Peggy Stauffer ................. 500 Peter S Stern ................................... * Jeanne and Leonard Ware ................ * Roger Warnke .............................. 200 Susan & Doug Woodman.................. * Gil and Gail Woolley ..................... 300 Lawrence Yang & Jennifer Kuan . 1,000 Art & Helen Kraemer ........................ * Barbara Klein & Stan Schrier ............ * Patti Yanklowitz & Mark Krasnow... 200 Andrea Smith............................... 100 Larry Baer & Stephanie Klein............ * Ms. Amy Renalds ........................... * Jody Maxmin................................... * Van Whitis ................................... 200 Diane Doolittle ................................. * John & Nancy Cassidy .................. 300 Charles P. Bonini.............................. * Lee & Judy Shulman ........................ * Robert & Barbara Simpson ............... * Janis Ulevich ............................... 100 Judith & James Kleinberg ................. * Leo & Marlys Keoshian .................... * James & Renee Masterson............... * Ralph Britton ............................... 300 Nancy Steege .............................. 100

In Honor Of Gary Fazzino .................................... * Uncle Bill’s 50th birthday ................. * The Settle Family ......................... 500 Palo Alto Weekly staff ...................... * Sandy Sloan ................................ 100 Larry Klein’s service on City Council . *

As a Gift For Mark Zuanich............................... 150

Foundations, Businesses & Organizations Attorney Susan Dondershine ........ 250 Harrell Remodeling, Inc. ................... * Bleibler Properties LLC ................. 500 Alta Mesa Improvement Company ............................... 1,500

Veronica Weber

9 Anonymous............................ 2,690 Jan Thomson & Roy Levin ............. 250 Shirley Ely.................................... 500 Tatyana Berezin ............................... * Bonnie & Bryan Street ..................... * Bob & Joan Jack .......................... 300 Annette Glanckopf & Tom Ashton ...... * George & Betsy Young ...................... * Mahlon & Carol Hubethal ................. * John & Ruth Devries......................... * Linnea Wickstrom ........................ 100 David & Lynn Mitchell ................... 300 Virginia Fehrenbacher ................... 100 Lani Freeman & Stephen Monismith . * Mike & Cathie Foster.................... 500 Don & Bonnie Miller ......................... * Page & Ferrell Sanders................. 100 Joyce Barker ................................ 100 Lijun & Jia-Ning Xiang ................... 200 Hugh McDevitt ............................. 200 Robert French.............................. 100 Patricia Thomas ........................... 100 Scott Wong .................................. 200 Pam Mayerfield ............................ 100 Thomas Rindfleisch .......................... * David Labaree ............................. 200 Mike & Lennie Roberts................. 100 Boyce & Peggy Nute ......................... * Zelda Jury ................................... 100 Karen Sundback & James Moore .. 500 Steve & Mary Chapel ....................... * John & Lee Pierce ........................ 250 Mary Jo & Leonard Levy ............... 250

The Christina Louise sandwich comes with marinated chicken, jack cheese, hot sauce and the Sandwich Spot’s signature “bomb sauce.”

Games and

grub Mountain View’s Sandwich Spot hopes to make a fan out of you

by Jennah Feeley

A

San Mateo native, Vinny Ferrando has been a Bay Area sports fan for as long as he can remember.

Practically raised at Candlestick Park, Ferrando recalls how his father used to drive the family to games in his San Francisco Giants-themed car, which landed them a front row parking spot every time.

Ferrando began working in the food industry as a teenager, eventually managing a restaurant in Chico during his college years. He said organizing employee schedules, maintaining stock orders and pulling long hours there gave him the confidence and the know-how to open his own joint, Sandwich Spot, about a year and a half ago.

“I’ve always just liked dealing with food and dealing with people,” Ferrando said. “It just became time, and I decided I wanted to be my own boss. So that’s how we got here.”

Today, just over 18 months since opening his first Sandwich Spot, Ferrando combines his love of local sports, good food and happy people at one of the top Yelp-rated eateries in Mountain View. The shop has designated wall space for each of Ferrando’s favorite sports teams, and the big screens tune in for every game.

There are 27 Sandwich Spots in the Bay and surrounding areas, but each is operated by a different owner and has its own style and menu. The Spots are not franchised, (continued on next page)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 31

Eating Out

ShopTalk

by Daryl Savage

Veronica Weber

Big screens tune in for every game, so customers can catch up on their favorite teams while enjoying a meal. (continued from previous page)

Veronica Weber

but rather run under a licensing agreement that allows each owner to personalize and maintain each outpost as he or she sees fit.

Ferrando has a fun-loving, alllaughs attitude — but his sandwiches are no joke. His shop offers 24 specialties with the option to create your own. The bread is baked in-house and Ferrando takes pride in using all fresh ingredients for his subs.

He has also incorporated a love of barbecue and offers pulledpork specials on Wednesdays and Thursdays, plus tri-tip on Fridays and Saturdays — both of which always sell out. The pork and tritip are dry-rubbed, marinated and smoked on site, and a few different sauce options are prepared fresh daily. Ferrando guarantees that the Spot’s “bomb sauce,” a house-made jalapeno ranch, tastes good on everything.

“It is bomb,” he jokes. “I tell people I put it on my cereal.”

The menu features sandwiches named after teams’ athletes, Ferrando’s dogs and even a veggie option named after his mother Annette. The Christina Louise, with marinated chicken, pepperjack cheese, hot sauce and bomb sauce, is one of the most popular orders, Ferrando said. The mari-

Vinny Ferrando opened Mountain View’s Sandwich Spot more than a year ago, as a way to combine his love of sports with his love of providing food. nated chicken is flavorful on its own but the combination of hot and bomb sauce packs an added punch, and the Dutch-crunch bread is a great fit for the spicy sandwich.

Another chicken option, the “hooligan,” comes with pineapple and jack cheese and is smothered in warm teriyaki sauce. Ferrando suggests a sweet roll with his hooligan sub, saying the soft bread coupled with the sauce makes a sticky but delicious meal. With turkey, bacon, avocado, bomb sauce and cream cheese on the roster,

The Sandwich Spot 123 E. El Camino Real, Mountain View 650-906-6176 thesandwichspot.com Hours: Monday-Friday: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Saturday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Sunday: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Veronica Weber

The Sandwich Spot’s decor has a familiar feel for Bay Area sports fans.

Page 32 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

San Jose Sharks or sandwich fans might enjoy No. 16, The Sharky.

All sandwiches cost between $7 and $9, and are more than big enough to satisfy most appetites.

The sports theme at the shop is a big hit with customers, drawing in Giants, Oakland A’s, San Francisco 49ers, Golden State Warriors and Sharks fans. The shop gets extra-packed on game days, because according to Ferrando’s philosophy, sports and sandwiches go hand-in-hand.

“People can always relate, especially in the Bay Area, with how hot we are with all of these sports right now,” Ferrando said.

“If it’s not the Warriors, it’s the Giants; (if it’s) not the Giants, it’s the Niners; if it’s not that, it’s the Sharks losing in the first round of

GENERAL STORE TURNS UP IN PALO ALTO ... A general store inspired by history is putting on the finishing touches in anticipation of its Dec. 18 opening in Palo Alto. Rejuvenation, a 35-year-old Portland, Oregon-based company, has taken over the former space of LegalForce at 323 University Ave. But what exactly is a general store these days, and why Palo Alto?

Rejuvenation CEO Alex Bellos said the store is all about home improvement. “We’ll have lighting, hardware such as doorknobs, cabinet hardware and new furniture — all with a mid-century emphasis,” he said, and it will be displayed in the general store tradition of tack boards and bins. “We’re very excited about being in Palo Alto and especially thrilled to have found a location on vibrant University Avenue,” he added. Because of the store’s proximity to Eichler-styled homes, Bellos has partnered with Stephen Eichler, the grandson of real estate developer Joseph Eichler. “We will have midcentury products here that speak to Eichler homes. In addition, the Palo Alto store will have an exhibit that celebrates the legacy of the Eichler family’s iconic mid-century homes on the Peninsula,” Bellos said. This will be the fifth brick-and-mortar store for Rejuvenation. And at only 2,000 square feet, the Palo Alto site becomes the smallest of all the company’s stores. Bellos explained that he used San Francisco-based architects to design a reinterpretation of the store’s traditional model “by curating a modern experience in which shoppers can easily view and interact with merchandise. This store is a perfect fit for Palo Alto.”

NEW TEA SHOP LOOKS TO BUCK TREND ... Palo Alto may look like a coffee town to some, with cafes dotted up and down major streets, but a Canadian-based company thinks a change is coming. David’s Tea opened late summer in a portion of the space formerly occupied by The Sports Gallery at 318 University Ave. No coffee here; just tea and accessories. It is the com-

the playoffs every year.” He even made a vow to Raiders customers that he will put something up to represent Oakland’s team if they make it to the playoffs before his lease is up.

Ferrando is a people-person and seems to spend as much time cultivating relationships with his customers as he does making sandwiches. He said he is careful to hire like-minded people to ensure everyone who comes through the door feels at home — even Los Angeles Dodgers fans can stop by, and the staff will treat them with respect, Ferrando promised.

To take his sports haven to the

pany’s 136th shop in the six years it’s been in business, with the bulk of its tea stores spread across Canada. The Palo Alto location was personally selected by David’s Tea co-founder, 33-year-old David Segal. “I think we’ve found the ideal home on University Avenue,” he said. Early signs seem to indicate Segal is right. “Usually it takes a while for our stores to catch on, but this one instantly took off,” said Emily Hamel, a district manager for David’s Tea. “The response in Palo Alto has been phenomenal. And I haven’t said that about any other store.” A former fashion designer, Hamel sees parallels between her past and current professions. “I take a fashion approach to tea. It’s seasonal,” she said. David’s Tea’s current flavors reflect that philosophy. Sugar Plum Forest, Cocomint Cream and Bubbie’s Baklava are all holiday-inspired. Other teas that are on the shelves year-round also have unique names: Secret Weapon, Main Squeeze, Jumpy Monkey.

There’s also Glitter and Gold, a sweet-smelling tea. “That one actually sparkles,” Hamel said. She admitted there is one employee of the company whose sole job is to come up with names for the teas.

Hamel noted, “Palo Alto is a very educated city, and we educate them about our teas.” Customers are invited to sample a variety of teas kept in large canisters behind the counter. Each tea’s source is identified and its ingredients are fair trade. Also, the packaging was designed with an eye toward the environment. Tea canisters and paper cups are made from recycled materials, plastic cups are made from cornstarch and the designs on the shopping bags are made from soy-based, non-toxic ink. Prices for a single ounce of tea range from $2.50 to $12.25, with most teas selling for $5.25.

Heard a rumor about your favorite store or business moving out, or in, down the block or across town? Daryl Savage will check it out. Email shoptalk@paweekly.com. next level, Ferrando plans to secure a liquor license as soon as he can and extend the shop’s hours so customers can stick around for evening games. Eventually, he hopes to open a second location to serve sports and sandwich fans closer to his hometown of San Mateo.

“I’m always here. But it’s cool, I like it. I love sports, and I love sandwiches and being here,” Ferrando said. “What’s that saying, ‘If you love what you do, you don’t work a day in your life’ or something like that? Well, it’s true.” Q Editorial Intern Jennah Feeley can be emailed at jfeeley@ paweekly.com.

OPENINGS

Let my people ‘Whoa!’

Ridley Scott’s Moses epic ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ leans on CGI spectacle 001/2 (Century 20, Century 16) Ever since the 2004 megahit “The Passion of the Christ,” Hollywood has been open-minded to faith-based entertainment, and 2014 has seen both economic true-believer productions (“Left Behind,” “God’s Not Dead” and “Heaven is for Real”) as well as would-be blockbusters “Noah” and now, Ridley Scott’s $140 million Moses epic “Exodus: Gods and Kings.” There’s gold in them thar sand dunes, or so 20th Century Fox hopes.

And yet, a biblical epic in 2014 is a strange beast indeed, walking a fine line in the hopes of pleasing both the faithful and those audiences more accustomed to secular myths. Indeed, the religio-historical “Exodus: Gods and Kings” at times feels like a stone’s throw from both superhero cinema (after all, erstwhile Batman Christian Bale plays Moses) and Scott’s

own “Freedom!”-championing Oscar winner “Braveheart.”

“Exodus: Gods and Kings” kicks off in 1300 BCE, with Moses ensconced, as a general, amongst Egyptian forces set to do unneighborly battle with the Hittites over ye olde “land of milk and honey.” Screenwriters Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, Jeffrey Caine and Steven Zaillian set up an unfortunately anemic “Angels with Dirty Faces” dynamic between Moses and stepbrother Ramses (Joel Edgerton): Raised alongside each other, they’re nevertheless destined to wind up on opposite sides of the chariot tracks.

Clashing chariot wheels, swords and sandals, spears and hails of arrows compete for the soul of Scott’s picture, with considerations of the relationships between manly men Moses and Ramses, between kings and

Ali Paige Goldstein/Paramount Pictures

Twentieth Century Fox Film

Christian Bale stars as Moses in “Exodus: Gods and Kings.”

slaves, and between men and gods. The picture most distinctly roars to life when Scott apparently relishes his chance to play “Ben-Hur” with those dangerouslooking, fast-as-lightning chariots careening across battlefields or on the edges of treacherous mountain passes—and not so much when making its way through at-times chewy dialogue (like Ramses’ negotiation with Moses: “From an economic standpoint, what you are asking is problematic to say the least”).

As for God, he appears in the form of a drily droll, perpetually unimpressed pubescent boy (Isaac Andrews). The filmmakers try to play it coy, feinting in a skeptical direction suggesting Moses could be concussed or schizophrenic, but ultimately the picture—which sets off from the epigram “God has not forgotten them”—falls on the side of depicting God and man in uneasy alliance: Bet-hedging debates about the sources of the plagues can’t explain the dutifully depicted spontaneous deaths of firstborn children.

And so it goes, with “Exodus” checking off Moses’ greatest hits (familiar from the Bible stories and Cecil B. DeMille’s perennial “The Ten Commandments”): the burning-bush encounter; the plagues; the climactic “parting of the Red Sea”; and a stone-tabletchipping resolution. That these aren’t spoiler alerts highlights one problem plaguing Scott’s picture: a lack of dramatic tension given the widespread familiarity of the story.

Despite earnest acting from the leads (and some of the supporting players, like Ben Kingsley and Aaron Paul), the story has a muddy effect, hampered partly by the “economic standpoint” arguably necessitating casting lily-white stars as Middle Eastern characters and partly by the hollow-ringing impression that political and spiritual concerns matter far less here than grand 3-D spectacle.

Rated PG-13 for violence including battle sequences and intense images. Two hours, 30 minutes.

— Peter Canavese

Chris Rock and Gabrielle Union star in “Top Five.” Rock plays a comedian who tries to make it as a serious actor when his realityTV star fiancée (Union) talks him into broadcasting their wedding on her TV show.

Like a rock Comic performer Chris Rock writes, directs and stars in the semi-autobiographical ‘Top Five’ 001/2 (Century 20) When it comes to comedy, funny always wins, and Chris Rock’s third directorial effort does run on engagingly amusing riffs.

But “Top Five” also steers hard into undisciplined storytelling, damning the comic’s overhyped awards-season comedy with the faint praise of being better than (though just as cannily commercial as) the typical Adam Sandler vehicle.

Sandler pops up briefly in “Top Five,” along with many other celebrity friends of the writerdirector. Rock plays Andre Allen, a former stand-up comic who rose to megastardom in three “Hammy the Bear” buddy-cop pictures (in a ludicrous shorthand parody of crap Hollywood comedy, these find Allen wearing a bear suit to fire off a machine gun and wisecracks). The Allen at the outset of

“Top Five,” however, longs to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor, and so earnestly does his promotional duties to flog “Uprize,’ the historical slave rebellion picture Allen hopes “could be like a Haitian ‘Django.’”

Allen’s getting married in three days to diva Erica (Gabrielle Union), who’s shadowed by Bravo’s reality-TV cameras; meanwhile, Allen reluctantly agrees to let conspicuously beautiful New York Times reporter Chelsea Brown (ever-charming Rosario Dawson) — who, like Allen, is four years sober — trail him around New York City. Long a vocal fan of Woody Allen, Rock not only adopts his name here but openly borrows the central character beat of Allen’s “Stardust Memories.” Though every(continued on next page)

++++ (HIGHEST RATING)

“A MESMERIZING

MASTERWORK. ONE OF THE YEAR’S VERY BEST FILMS.” -Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

WINNER

BEST DIRECTOR CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF Kerry Brown/Twentieth Century Fox Film

Christian Bale and María Valverde in “Exodus: Gods and Kings.”

Century Theatres at Palo Alto Square Fri 12/12

The Theory of Everything – 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, 5:30, 7:00, 8:30, 10:00 Sat 12/13 The Theory of Everything – 1:00, 4:00, 5:30, 7:00, 8:30, 10:00 Sun 12/14 The Theory of Everything – 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, 5:30, 7:00, 8:30 Mon, Tues, and Thurs 12/15, 12/16, 12/18 The Theory of Everything – 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, 5:30, 7:00 Weds ONLY 12/17 The Theory of Everything – 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, 7:00

Tickets and Showtimes available at cinemark.com

“M O N E Y B A L L” A N D “C A P O T E”

STEVE CARELL CHANNING TATUM MARK RUFFALO

FOXCATCHER NOW PLAYING

WRITTEN BY E. MAX FRYE AND DAN FUTTERMAN DIRECTED BY BENNETT MILLER

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CHECK THEATRE DIRECTORIES OR CALL FOR SHOWTIMES

VIEW THE TRAILER AT WWW.FOXCATCHERMOVIE.COM

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 33

Movies

Openings

2215 Broadway St., Redwood City

650.FOX.7770

(continued from previous page)

one around Allen professes to love his “early, funny” work, he maintains, “I don’t feel like doing funny movies anymore. I don’t feel funny.”

Were “Top Five” more deeply felt and less by-the-numbers, Rock might have avoided the impression of a long-winded, self-massaging fantasy about reclaiming authenticity (and finding romance with the psychologically incisive woman who helps him do so). Instead, the picture lays what feels like miles of emotionally clichéd track (including Ben Vereen playing, in one weightless scene, the jiving leech of a dad who greets Allen as “Hollywood!”).

Silly plot twists unfortunately take the edge off a story that keeps name-checking “rigorous honesty,” and a film-opening conversation including the line “Sometimes a movie is just a movie ... sometimes a joke is just a joke” doesn’t quite excuse the film’s narrative letdowns, condescending depiction of Erica as a pathetically empty dress (“I don’t have a talent!” she wails), or the fleeting but distasteful bits about icky gay sexuality and falsely crying rape.

That said, “Top Five” is mostly as genial as its writer-directorproducer-star. Like seemingly every character in the film, we’re relieved when Andre Allen/Chris Rock steps away from the scattered hilarity and simply takes a comedy-club stage to let loose with a stream of signature wit, giving an unintentionally selfdefeating meaning to that bit of dialogue “Sometimes a movie is just a movie ... sometimes a joke is just a joke.”

Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, crude humor, language throughout and some drug use. One hour, 41 minutes.

— Peter Canavese

Michael Repka Before you select a real estate agent, meet with Michael Repka to discuss how his real estate law and tax back-ground benefits Ken DeLeon’s clients.

Support our Kids with a gift to the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund

Ali Paige Goldstein/Paramount Pictures

TIM FLANNERY CIRQUE ZIVA from the SF Giants Golden Dragon Acrobats Jan. 25, 2 & 4 PM Jan. 23, 8 PM LES MISERABLES MY FAIR LADY March 6–15 June 5–14 WEST SIDE STORY KISS ME KATE August 14–23 November 6–15 Get Your Tickets Online At: www.FoxRwc.com

Chris Rock and Rosario Dawson in “Top Five.”

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.

Apartment for Peggy (1948) (Not Rated) Stanford Theatre: 7:30 p.m. Sat & Sun 3:55 p.m.

Big Hero 6 (PG) Century 16: 11 a.m., 1:40, 4:25, 7:10 & 9:50 p.m.

Century 20: 11 a.m., 1:35, 4:15, 7:10 & 9:50 p.m.

Birdman (R) +++

Century 16: 11:05 a.m., 1:55, 4:55, 7:45 & 10:35 p.m.

Citizenfour (R) +++1/2

Aquarius Theatre: 1:45, 4:30, 7:20 & 10:10 p.m.

Dumb and Dumber To (PG-13) Century 16: 11:25 a.m., 2:25, 5:05, 7:50 & 10:30 p.m.

Century 20: 10:40 p.m. Fri & Sat 11:45 a.m., 2:35, 5:15 & 7:55 p.m.

Exodus: Gods and Kings (PG-13) ++1/2 Century 16: 1 & 8 p.m. In 3-D at 11:15 a.m., 2:45, 4:30, 6:15 & 9:45 p.m.

Century 20: 10 a.m., 1:20, 4:45, 8:15 & 9:35 p.m. In 3-D at 11:05 a.m., 12:15, 2:30, 3:40, 6:10, 7:10, 10:35 & 11:40 p.m.

Foxcatcher (R) +++1/2 Fury (R) +++

Aquarius Theatre: 12:45, 3:45, 7:05 & 9:55 p.m.

Century 20: 4, 7:15 & 10:25 p.m. Fri & Sun 12:45 p.m.

Gone Girl (R) ++1/2

Century 20: 12:20, 3:45, 7:05 & 10:20 p.m.

Horrible Bosses 2 (R) Century 16: 11:20 a.m., 2:20, 5:15, 7:55 & 10:35 p.m.

Century 20: 11:50 a.m., 2:30, 5:10, 7:55 & 10:40 p.m.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (PG-13) ++1/2 Century 16: 11:10 a.m., 12:10, 1:10, 2:10, 3:10, 4:10, 5:10, 6:10, 7:05, 8:10, 9:10 & 10:10 p.m. Sat 9 a.m. Century 20: 11 a.m., 12:25, 1:55, 3:20, 4:50, 6:15, 7:45, 9:15 & 10:40 p.m.

The Imitation Game (PG-13) Century 16: 11:30 a.m., 12:50, 2:15, 3:40, 5, 6:25, 7:45, 9:15 & 10:30 p.m.

Interstellar (PG-13) ++1/2 Century 16: 11:30 a.m., 1:35, 3:30, 5:20, 7:30 & 9 p.m.

Century 20: 11:10 a.m., 2:50, 6:30 & 10:05 p.m.

The Metropolitan Opera: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Century 16: Sat 9 a.m. Century 20: Sat 9 a.m.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947) (G) Stanford Theatre: 7:30 p.m. Sat & Sun 3:55 p.m.

Nightcrawler (R) Century 16: Fri & Sun 11:10 a.m., 4:35 & 10:05 p.m. Sat 5:05 & 10:30 p.m.

Century 20: 11:25 a.m., 2:10, 4:55, 7:40 & 10:25 p.m.

The Penguins of Madagascar (PG) ++ Century 16: 11:15 a.m., 12:25, 2:50, 5:25, 7:50 & 10:15 p.m. Fri & Sat 1:40, 4:05, 6:30 & 8:55 p.m. Sat 9 a.m. Century 20: 11:15 a.m., 12:30, 1:45, 4:25, 5:45, 7 & 9:35 p.m. In 3-D at 3, 8:10 & 10:40 p.m.

The Pyramid (R)

Century 20: 12:40, 3:15, 5:40, 8:10 & 10:40 p.m.

St. Vincent (PG-13) Century 16: 11 a.m. Fri & Sun 2 & 7:25 p.m. Sat 7:55 p.m.

The Theory of Everything (PG-13) ++ Century 20: 11:05 a.m., 1:55, 4:45, 7:45 & 10:35 p.m.

Palo Alto Square: 1, 2:30, 4, 5:30, 7 & 8:30 p.m. Fri & Sat 10 p.m.

Top Five (R) ++1/2 Century 20: 10:20 & 11:40 a.m., 1, 2:20, 3:40, 5:05, 6:20, 7:50, 9 & 10:45 p.m. Fri & Sat 11:40 p.m.

White Christmas (1954) (G) Century 16: Sun 2 & 7 p.m. Century 20: Sun 2 & 7 p.m.

Wild (R) +++ Century 20: 11:05 a.m., 12:25, 1:50, 3:10, 4:40, 6, 7:30, 8:50 & 10:20 p.m. Fri & Sat 11:40 p.m.

Guild Theatre: 1:30, 4:15 7:05 & 9:40 p.m.

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

Managing Broker DeLeon Realty JD - Rutgers School of Law L.L.M (Taxation) NYU School of Law

(650) 488.7325 DRE# 01854880 | CA BAR# 255996

michaelr@deleonrealty.com

www.deleonrealty.com Page 34 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Visit Palo Alto Online to learn how

Aquarius: 430 Emerson St., Palo Alto (266-9260) Century Cinema 16: 1500 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View (800-326-3264) Century 20 Downtown: 825 Middlefield Road, Redwood City (800-326-3264) CinéArts at Palo Alto Square: 3000 El Camino Real, Palo Alto (493-0128) Guild: 949 El Camino Real, Menlo Park (266-9260) 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 ON THE WEB: Up-to-date movie listings at PaloAltoOnline.com

“A SENSATIONAL PERFORMANCE,

BY FAR THE BEST ONE OF REESE WITHERSPOON’S CAREER. THE HIKER, CHERYL, CARRIES ONLY A HUGE PACK ON HER BACK. MS. WITHERSPOON CARRIES THE WHOLE MOVIE, AND SHE DOES SO WITH UNFLAGGING INTENSITY AND REMARKABLE VERVE.” Joe Morgenstern,

ACADEMY AWARD WINNER ®

REESE WITHERSPOON

BASED ON THE INSPIRATIONAL BEST SELLER BY

CHERYL STRAYED

SCREENPLAY BY DIRECTED BY

NOW PLAYING

NICK HORNBY

JEAN-MARC VALLÉE

THE DIRECTOR OF

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB

SAN MATEO SAN JOSE REDWOOD CITY MENLO PARK CAMPBELL Century 12 San Mateo Camera 7 Pruneyard Landmark’s Guild Theatre Century Redwood Downtown 20 & XD CinéArts Santana Row (800) FANDANGO #983 (800) FANDANGO #968 (800) FANDANGO #990 (650) 266-9260 (408) 559-6900 www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 35

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H A PPY HOLIDAYS

When the simple counts gift

by Sue Dremann | photographs by Veronica Weber

From candles to magic tricks, Catherine Debs offers ideas on practical and creative gifts for hosts

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Great holiday hostess gifts include whimsical paper placements with the dinnerware printed right on them, flameless candles and pine-cone candles with a pine scent, according to Catherine Debs, former assistant chief of protocol for San Francisco.

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Catherine Debs, in her Palo Alto home, stands by a table full of holiday items, including flameless candles and nutcrackers — objects she says make for excellent gifts for holiday party hosts.

Page 36 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

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H A PPY HOLIDAYS

– through December 24th –

H O L I D A Y

S A L E

If it’s holiday... it’s here!

P

alo Alto resident Catherine Debs knows a thing or two about finding the appropriate gift for a host. As San Francisco’s former assistant chief of protocol under Mayor Willie Brown, she traveled the world with gifts for dignitaries: Tiffany crystal; cuff links; scarves woven with city landmarks; and polished redwood urns.

A tea towel depicting Palo Alto landmarks would make for a good gift for a party host, says Palo Alto resident Catherine Debs.

Despite a world of experience in international giftgiving, Debs keeps it simple at home. She hunts for interesting things at stores as diverse as downtown Palo Alto’s Letter Perfect and Menlo Park’s Ace Hardware. She has even made some great finds at Walgreens and Kmart, she said.

“I believe in giving something special that says who you are,” she said during a recent visit at her Old Palo Alto home, noting that the redwood urns given to Japan represented the iconic California tree.

Debs opened a gargantuan woven bag filled with potential gifts to bring to parties: tea towels printed with Palo Alto maps; corn-cob holders for barbecues; a scented, electronic candle; a ceramic, bronze-colored pine cone candle holder.

“Don’t you want to get something that’s kind of fun? Then you have a conversation piece,” she said, displaying a box of magic tricks and whimsical paper place mats with the plate and silverware printed on.

When it comes to bringing a gift, Debs recommends simplicity and practicality. Even the most mundane gift can be brought to life with creative packaging.

“If someone has a dog, you can bring dog biscuits,” she said. “A container can do it all.”

Coming up with stunning packaging was one of Debs’s biggest jobs in the Office of Protocol, and she often looked to young urban artisans for the best box design, she said.

Presentation was so important that there was a philosophy around how gifts would be presented and unfolded, she said. Most dignitaries — and party hosts — don’t have the time to untie knots and paw through packing material, she said.

“Tiffany’s was the worst,” she said of going through layers of tissue paper to get to the crystal ornament inside. “You want the box to open — to just pull a ribbon — and, ‘Ta-DA!’” On the international stage, giving many gifts is an important part of diplomacy, according to Debs. “That’s how you make many friends,” she said.

A bit of cultural sensitivity was needed, and Debs had to do her homework. There were things

that one didn’t do, she said.

“You don’t give certain colors or things with numbers on them; you only give lucky numbers.

You don’t want to offend,” she said. “You want to go with the colors that are theirs.”

In mainland China, for example, she used so much red that she still has a collection of red ribbons, she said.

Personalized gifts were also important. Affixed on each redwood urn she brought to Japan was a gold-plate plaque with the recipient’s name. Similarly, one can bring personalized gifts to dinnerparty hosts, such as stationery, she said.

“That person will think, ‘You went to all of that trouble for me,’” she said.

Fun-loving Debs is often on the fence about bringing something that is amusing or something that’s practical, so she often finds gifts that are both. One host raved about a pair of rubber gloves with big flowers years later, she said.

Debs recommends choosing gifts that won’t distract the host, who is usually focused on cooking or entertaining, she said.

“If somebody brings cut flowers, it’s not a good idea,” she said. But one friend brings orchid plants, which come in a nice basket and are meaningful, she said.

Over the years, Debs herself has received several stand-out hostess gifts. A voodoo doll and a magnetized soap dish are among her favorites, she said.

She isn’t particularly fond of picture frames.

They force her to hunt for a suitable photo to put inside, she said. But after her mother died, a friend of her brother’s brought a framed picture of her mother.

“I was deeply moved that he went to all of that trouble,” she said.

On the subject of food and wine, a gift doesn’t have to be fancy, but it does pay to know the host’s tastes, food restrictions and allergies. Food isn’t always the best choice for older people, she said, but “if you’re young, you gotta bring food.”

Once again, packaging can go a long way to turn the usual into something special. Debs displayed a colorful, insulated reusable wine jacket she found at Ace that she will use to spruce up a bottle of wine or champagne.

In most cases, finding a gift that will be at least somewhat appreciated is likely a no-brainer.

“Let’s face it. You’re probably not going to go to dinner at the house of somebody you don’t like.

You’re probably on the same wavelength,” she said.

But when in doubt, it doesn’t hurt to do a little online research about a host’s interests and tastes, including social media sites.

Of all of the gifts she’s given and parties she helped throw internationally, Debs had only one glitch, she recalled. During a trip to San Francisco’s sister city, Shanghai, she and Chief of Protocol Charlotte Schultz brought books to celebrate the opening of a new library. Arranged on gathered, red table cloths illuminated by red, glowing lights from beneath to look like lanterns, the stunning presentation was nearly derailed by customs inspectors who initially wouldn’t let the tablecloths into the country.

“They weren’t made in China,” she said. But officials eventually relented after the American delegation explained that Debs had purchased the tablecloths in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

“They were made by Chinese in California,” she said. Q Staff Writer Sue Dremann can be emailed at sdremann@paweekly.com.

Framed Prints, Unique Gifts, Ready-Made Frames, Calendars, Cards, Toys, Journals, Sketchbooks Photo Frames

Canvas, Brushes, Oils, Watercolors, Pastels, and much, much more...

Create Your Holiday at UArt!

University Art UArt Redwood City 2550 El Camino Real 650-328-3500 Also in San Jose and Sacramento UniversityArt.com

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 37

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WHAT’S UNDER YOUR TREE?

SHOP ONLINE • FREE SHOPPING or IN-STORE PICK-UP Complimentary Gift Wrap Create your shopping list online too!

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H A PPY HOLIDAYS

Festive doesn’t have to mean expensive. This mantel is decorated with do-it-yourself pine trees crafted from plastic spoons, a garland of glittery paper stockings, rustic twig candle holders, reindeer-silhouette art, and a chalkboard made from an old picture frame.

Deckthe mantels From chalkboard to canvas art, set a festive mood with DIY decorating ideas

by My Nguyen | photographs by Veronica Weber

TRUNK SHOW

Saturday November 15 10am-3pm

P

eople often associate the fireplace and mantel with warmth, and during the holidays the fireplace is likely the focal point of the room that brings families together. So decking out the mantel for the holidays is just as important as dressing up the Christmas tree, but who has extra cash to splurge on holiday decor?

Fortunately, Christmas decorating doesn’t have to break the bank. Here are some budgetfriendly tips to crafting your own festive mantel decor.

Start with greens

2014

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650.324.3937 www.luxpaloalto.com Page 38 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Skip the garland, which is a traditional piece of holiday decor to use as filler to give the arrangement a full and festive feeling, and instead try these decorative trees made from plastic spoons.

The faux pine trees will add a perfect backdrop to a Christmasthemed mantel.

What you’ll need: • 10.6-inch papier-mâché triangle cones (available at any crafts supply store) • Green plastic spoons • Wire cutter • Hot glue Approximate cost: $10 Instructions: • Using the wire cutter, cut the heads off the spoons just above the bend.

• Start from the bottom of the papier-mâché cone and begin hot gluing the heads of the spoons around the base of the cone, with the tip of the spoon pointing downward. Add a second layer, being sure to place the second layer so each spoon head slightly overlaps those in the first row.

Continue gluing all the way to the top, till the cone is fully covered.

Choose a statement piece The perfect mantel arrangement

needs a focal point, whether it’s a large mirror, piece of art or holiday wreath. But if you have an old picture frame lying around, you can give it new life by transforming it into a chalkboard on which you can scribble holiday cheer.

What you’ll need: • Picture frame with glass • White primer • Chalkboard paint Approximate cost: $17 Instructions: • Prime the frame and glass with white primer. You can use either spray primer or primer from a bottle or can. Let the frame and glass dry for 24 hours to ensure it is thoroughly dry.

• Apply the chalkboard paint to the glass.

• Let the glass dry for 24 hours.

Make it sparkle Add some seasonal sparkle to the mantel with minature lights, glittery balls or easy-to-make reindeer wall art. Best part? They can be re-used every Christmas.

What you’ll need: • 16-inch by 20-inch blank artist’s canvas (available at any crafts supply store) • Glitter • Mod Podge or glue • Scissors • Pencil (for tracing) • Q-tip or paintbrush • Reindeer shape Approximate cost: $9 Instructions: • Print the shape on paper and cut it out.

• Trace the shape onto the canvas with a pencil.

• Using a Q-tip or paintbrush to fill in the shape with Mod Podge or glue.

• Cover the shape completely

L L

H A PPY HOLIDAYS

All that’s needed for this cozy candle holder are twigs and glue, plus a red ribbon for accent.

Don’t forget the stockings A Christmas mantel is not complete without stockings, but instead of the traditional felt stockings, try a garland of glittery paper stockings to bring some cheer and glam into your holiday season.

What you’ll need: • Red glitter paper • Clothespins • Twine • Stocking shape Approximate cost: $4 Instructions: • Print the stocking shape onto paper and cut it out.

• Trace the shape onto the red glitter paper with a pencil.

• Cut out the paper stockings.

• Instead of punching holes and stringing the stockings, pin them to a piece of twine with clothespins. Q Palo Alto Weekly Digital Editor My Nguyen can be reached at mnguyen@paweekly.com.

with glitter, and let it sit for a few minutes so the glitter can set.

• Shake of the excess glitter.

• Let it dry completely for a few hours and gently shake off any loose glitter.

Introduce natural elements Bring the outdoors inside with these easy-to-make twig candle holders. The weathered, beat-up appearance of the twigs adds a rustic touch to the mantel.

What you’ll need: • Glass or candle holder • Twigs • Hot glue • Candle Approximate cost: $2 Instructions: • Find twigs and cut them in various lengths that are as close to the height of the glass as possible.

• Glue the sticks vertically to the glass until they cover the entire holder.

• Place the candle in the glass.

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Watercourse Way Bath House Spa 650.462.2000 www.watercourseway.com www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 39

Home&Real Estate

OPEN HOME GUIDE 52 Also online at PaloAltoOnline.com

Home Front GREENS SALE ... Gamble Garden will offer custom-made holiday greens arrangements during its annual “Holiday Greens Sale” from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Dec. 13, in the Tea House, 1431 Waverley St., Palo Alto. Cost for the arrangements ranges from $30 to $50, with all proceeds benefiting Gamble Garden. Info: 650-3291356 or gamblegarden.org FELT ORNAMENTS ... The Mountain View Public Library will hold a free workshop called “ITSPHUN to Make Felt Ornaments” at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 13, at the Mountain View Public Library, 585 Franklin St., Mountain View. Info: 650903-6880 or itsphun.com MAKE A WREATH ... Christine Hopkins will teach a one-day class on how to make a permanent Christmas wreath from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 13, at the Arrillaga Family Recreation Center, 701 Laurel St., Menlo Park. Cost is $39 for nonresidents, $30 for Menlo Park residents, plus $20 for materials.

Info: 650-330-2200, menlopark. org or csd@menlopark.org

Eco-friendly,

HOLIDAY SHARE FAIRE ...

Wreath-making (using plant materials from your yard), water-saving trips, Hatha Yoga, growing succulents, solar-oven demonstration and winter gardening are all part of the upcoming Share Faire on Sunday, Dec. 14, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Cubberley Community Center, Room H6, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. A special group will be set up for reading books with children.

The event will take place rain or shine. Info: transitionpaloalto.org/ sharing-expos/ KUDOS FOR LANDSCAPES ...

The California Landscape Contractors Association awarded Frank Grossman & Landscape Contractors Inc. of San Francisco first place in medium residential installation for work in a Menlo Park Garden, as well as in residential estate installation for two Atherton estates and in landscape renovation installation for a Menlo Oaks garden. Gachina Landscape Management of Menlo Park took the outstanding achievement in “large residential maintenance” for its work at a Los Altos residence. Modern Landscaping Inc. of Campbell won awards in residential estate installation and large lighting

(continued on page 42) 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.

festive

parties

Palo Alto’s ‘party packs’ enable waste-free celebrations story by Kimberlee D’Ardenne | photos by Veronica Weber

I

n Palo Alto, you can reduce, reuse, recycle — all while partying in style.

The popular phrase describes environmentally friendly practices and also the way the city of Palo Alto is working towards its goal of having no landfill waste by 2021.

Zero Waste Palo Alto, in the Public Works department, has the task of implementing the goal.

“First and foremost, our goal is to reduce the amount of waste created and then reuse, recycle or compost what is discarded,” said Wendy Hediger, a Zero Waste coordinator.

Since 2005, when City Council set a goal of zero waste, Palo Alto has reduced its solid waste. The city offers recycling, and according to the Zero Waste website, it is possible to recycle almost anything.

Palo Alto also reuses. One way Palo Alto reuses is by scattering “party packs” throughout the city. Party packs are portable containers — filled with reusable dishware, utensils and napkins — that are housed at Zero Waste block leaders’ homes throughout the city.

“Zero Waste block leaders are neighborhood experts who go through training so they can answer questions about what goes where for recycling and also foster reduction proj-

Page 40 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

ects,” Hediger said.

Block leaders, educated by the city, become a local resource for recycling and waste reduction.

“The training gave us a deeper understanding of the solid-waste system,” said Debbie Mytels, a Midtown Zero Waste block leader.

“We learned why you couldn’t just put plastic bags into the plastics recycling bin. We saw the (plastics) shredding machine and (thought), ‘Ah, that makes sense.’”

Mytels described Zero Waste block leaders as “citizen ambassadors” and when she learned about the opportunity to host a party pack, she thought it was a wonderful idea.

“I got the set,” Mytels said, “and I told everybody.”

Currently, there are around 17 block leaders hosting party packs, Hediger said.

To use a party pack, Palo Alto residents can search the Zero Waste website for the contact information for a Zero Waste block leader near them. An added benefit of the party pack program and the Zero Waste block leader structure is building community, Hediger said.

“People have to contact their neighbor and work with them to pick up the party pack,” she added.

Annette Isaacson is a Zero Waste block

Top: Friends and family of Andrew Kassel, second from left, enjoy slices of birthday cake served on plates from the Zero Waste party pack during Andrew’s party at Duveneck Elementary School on Dec. 6, 2014. Above: Birthday boy Andrew Kassel, center, his sister Julie, right, friend Oryan Raday, far right, and other friends eat birthday cake at his party. leader in Midtown who hosts a party pack. “(The party pack) is a way of preventing refuse going into the dump and helping people to think about what they’re doing,” she said.

“In 2013, we lent the pack out to 71 different events, to an estimated ... 1,700 people,” Hediger said.

The data for this year is not in yet to Zero Waste, but according to block leaders Isaacson and Mytels, Palo Alto residents are becoming more aware of party packs.

One such resident is David Kassel, who recently borrowed the party pack hosted by Isaacson. Kassel has used the party packs several times for his children’s birthday celebrations.

Each party pack contains 24 reusable place (continued on page 42)

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Home & Real Estate

Party packs

Home Front

(continued from page 40)

(continued from page 40)

settings and napkins. The napkins are royal blue and there are eight dishware settings each in red, blue and lime green.

“The dishes are nice because they’re bright, crisp colors,” Mytels said.

Isaacson said the colorful party-pack dishware could be made to accommodate many kinds of celebrations.

“There are still many ways to make a party festive,” she said, “but this way, you do not have a whole garbage can full of refuse at the end.”

“It can be hard to incorporate the colors into a Dora the Explorer theme or a princess theme, but for our boy’s parties, (the colors) are easier to manage,” Kassel said.

“Regardless of the color-matching challenges, we feel the environmental benefit of using the party pack is far more important.”

The most recent celebration was his son’s eighth birthday party, where they set up a green and red table, Kassel said.

Palo Alto’s party packs have been used for block parties, children’s and adult birthday parties, picnics at the park and a wedding, said Hediger.

They even exist in Palo Alto schools.

Each classroom at El Carmelo Elementary School, where Isaacson is a teacher, has its own party pack.

“The PTA at El Carmelo bought the containers, and we filled them with little plates, cups and bowls from Ikea,” Isaacson said.

“Teachers have the plastic box, and they keep it in the classroom. After a party, one parent takes home the party pack and washes it.”

Getting party packs into more classrooms is a goal of some Palo Alto school

installation for work at an estate in Atherton.

Info: clca.org

The Zero Waste party pack, left and above, supplied by the City of Palo Alto, comes with plates, bowls, napkins, cups and utensils.

Green Teams and supports district-wide efforts to decrease the amount of waste going into landfills.

“The district has had a Sustainable Schools Committee for quite some time,” said Rachel Gibson, head of the Green Team at Lucile M. Nixon Elementary School and member of the Palo Alto Unified School District’s Sustainable Schools Committee. “From what I’ve seen, the district has been incredibly receptive, and not just a willing, but a really engaged participant, in the effort to make school campuses more sustainable.”

The amount of waste diverted from the landfill by using a party pack can be appreciated from data on disposable cups.

ReThink Disposable, a project of Clean

Water Action in collaboration with several Bay Area governments, advertises such data, Hediger said. According to ReThink Disposable, the amount of disposable cups that end up in landfills equals the combined weight of all people living in Houston, Texas.

The reusable cups, plates and bowls in Palo Alto’s party packs are made from recycled plastic, which is also BPA-free. “(The dishes) had to be durable,” Hediger said. “Then we wanted them to be affordable, dishwasher safe and microwave safe. If they were all of those things, we wanted them to be made from recycled-content materials.”

Using a party pack is an easy way to decrease the amount of waste a celebration generates and also reminds his family and others about their impact on the environment, Kassel said.

To request a party pack, visit www. cityofpaloalto.org/zwbl. Q Freelance writer Kimberlee D’Ardenne can be emailed at dardenne.kim@gmail. com.

THINKING AHEAD ... Registration for winterquarter classes through Palo Alto Adult School begins Friday, Dec. 12. Classes include gardening, upholstery, woodworking, cooking and much more. For the full list of classes, visit www.paadultschool.org. Q

HOME SALES

Home sales are provided by California REsource, a real estate information company that obtains the information from the County Recorder’s Office. Information is recorded from deeds after the close of escrow and published within four to eight weeks.

Atherton

2 Atherton Ave. Piersol Trust to Flick Inc. for $2,200,000 on 10/22/14

East Palo Alto

926 Baines St. V. Ngo to T. & P. Schmidt for $850,000 on 10/22/14; previous sale 1/02, $595,000 2208 Pulgas Ave. Working Dirt Limited to A. Menendez for $510,000 on 10/24/14

Los Altos

1287 Fremont Ave. I. Chico to M. & R. Sarin for $2,901,000 on 11/19/14; previous sale 1/06, $1,850,000 2737 Ramos Court Cappelletti Trust to C. & P. Pires for $1,703,000 on 11/18/14 351 Richelieu Court Sears Trust to Tsang Trust for $3,216,500 on 11/19/14; previous sale 9/02, $1,525,000

Los Altos Hills

13430 Country Way Esber Trust to C. Wu for $6,500,000 on 11/14/14; previous sale 7/93, $2,225,000

Menlo Park

603 14th Ave. Dinkel Trust to Z. Milenkovic for $599,000 on 10/27/14

TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY TO BUILD

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bev@bbrockway.com Page 42 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Home & Real Estate SALES AT A GLANCE Atherton

Real Estate Matters

Menlo Park

Total sales reported: 1 Lowest sales price: $2,200,000 Highest sales price: $2,200,000

East Palo Alto Total sales reported: 2 Lowest sales price: $510,000 Highest sales price: $850,000

Mountain View Total sales reported: 10 Lowest sales price: $825,000 Highest sales price: $1,900,000

Los Altos

Palo Alto

Total sales reported: 3 Lowest sales price: $1,703,000 Highest sales price: $3,216,500

Total sales reported: 3 Lowest sales price: $2,500,000 Highest sales price: $3,300,000

Los Altos Hills Total sales reported: 1 Lowest sales price: $6,500,000 Highest sales price: $6,500,000

Redwood City Total sales reported: 9 Lowest sales price: $745,000 Highest sales price: $1,475,000 Source: California REsource

433 6th Ave. Trapp Trust to M. Lucas for $635,000 on 10/27/14; previous sale 4/87, $118,000 49 Politzer Drive P. & T. Gerber to Ismail Trust for $2,550,000 on 10/22/14; previous sale 11/12, $1,725,000 2051 Valparaiso Ave. P. Wasserstein to Mcgeever Trust for $1,350,000 on 10/24/14; previous sale 5/95, $339,000

Mountain View

927 Barbara Ave. D. Mitchell to Thorn-Poon Trust for $1,900,000 on 11/19/14 100 Chetwood Drive E. Allanic to P. & K. Johnson for $1,175,000 on 11/14/14; previous sale 7/02, $675,000 802 Devoto St. I. Davidson to H. & A. Labana for $1,610,000 on 11/19/14 100 W. El Camino Real #53 J. & K. Barraza to D. Oh for $880,000 on 11/19/14; previous sale 7/07, $500,000 2459 Elka Ave. H. & K. Doege to P. & S. Lethers for $1,412,000 on 11/19/14; previous sale 12/10, $765,000 217 Heartwood Lane Ritenour Trust to J. Wu for $1,525,000 on 11/19/14; previous sale 6/00, $772,700 2224 W. Middlefield Road W. Seto to S. Hall for $1,263,000 on 11/17/14; previous sale 2/12, $1,147,500 602 Midrock Cors K. & L. Manuel to J. & K. Irwin for $825,000 on 11/18/14; previous sale 10/86, $128,000 209 Ortega Ave. Moonshine & Holtzman Trust to D. Schlager for $1,155,000 on 11/19/14; previous sale 8/97, $330,000 127 Waverly Place R. Navarrete to W. Du for $1,880,000 on 11/20/14; previous sale 1/83, $160,000

Palo Alto

2614 Cowper St. K. Yap to C. Zhang for $3,300,000 on 11/17/14; previous sale 4/12,

$1,180,000 3611 Lupine Ave. W. Ray to G. Zhao for $2,500,000 on 11/20/14; previous sale 9/01, $650,000 420 Pepper Ave. Peppernium Property to L. Luh for $2,688,000 on 11/14/14; previous sale 8/13, $1,100,000

patio door, $3,232 299 California Ave., Suite 110 True Salon: demise space and condense to new 1,100-squarefoot space on ground floor, $73,000 1805 Guinda St. remodel kitchen, $21,000 4184 Old Adobe Road remodel residence, including reconstruct stairs, relocate bathroom, new openings at rear, $50,000 2237 Waverley St. revise roof and ceiling framing, $n/a 3423 Cork Oak Way demo pool, $n/a 4187 Coulombe Drive re-roof, $14,650 483 Forest Ave., Unit E replace heat pump, $n/a 1103 Forest Ave. new plaster on swimming pool, $n/a 323 Curtner Ave. re-roof, $18,500 3916 Louis Road demo pool, $n/a 1536 Emerson St. re-roof, $14,295 325 Curtner Ave. re-roof, $18,500 555 Hamilton Ave. Trip Advisor: tenant improvement, $129,500 650 Barron Ave. voluntary foundation repairs at right rear corner, $n/a 923 Celia Drive replace window with exterior door at side yard, install outdoor light and switch, $1,600 454 Ferne Ave. dedicated 50A circuit for new above-ground spa, $n/a 876 Warren Way changed overall layout of kitchen, family room and in-law suite, valuation increased to $178,265 855 El Camino Real, Suite 160 remove floor drain and additional specs for floor finishes, ice maker and coffee brewer, $n/a 1477 Dana Ave. re-roof house, $30,000; re-roof garage, $5,000 565 Arastradero Road replace AC unit, 4n/a 840 San Antonio Ave. re-roof, $20,525

Redwood City

100 Baltic Circle #134 V. Wu to A. Lai for $885,000 on 10/24/14; previous sale 3/06, $785,000 2645 Brewster Ave. J. Burch to T. & T. Way for $1,080,000 on 10/22/14; previous sale 9/10, $751,000 13 Canepa Court T. & P. Oren to A. & C. Karer for $1,475,000 on 10/24/14; previous sale 6/97, $198,000 433 Cork Harbour Circle #H R. Aradhye to Luskin Trust for $745,000 on 10/22/14; previous sale 12/05, $596,500 46 Murray Court Hendardy Trust to Johannaber Trust for $925,000 on 10/24/14; previous sale 7/12, $699,000 489 Park St. D. Jackson to P. Byrne for $749,000 on 10/22/14 30 Spinnaker Place D. Park to G. & M. Wilson for $988,000 on 10/22/14; previous sale 7/09, $680,000 1038 Vera Ave. #1042 Dunham Trust to D. & M. Patel for $955,000 on 10/22/14; previous sale 4/09, $630,000 1203 Virginia Ave. S. Farias to J. Liebeschuetz for $1,000,000 on 10/24/14; previous sale 7/05, $690,000

BUILDING PERMITS Palo Alto

525 University Ave. Manresa Capital: tenant improvement, new office configuration, $62,870 3000 El Camino Real, Bldg. 2 Mayer Brown: tenant improvement, $n/a 640 Los Trancos Road install two retrofit windows and one

Support our Kids with a gift to the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund

Palo Alto rebounds from global financial crisis

Total sales reported: 4 Lowest sales price: $599,000 Highest sales price: $2,550,000

by Hadar Guibara f home prices are any indicator, Palo Alto has rebounded quite well from the global financial crisis of 2007-08 that had most of the country on edge. A few years later, “recovery� was the buzz-word on everybody’s lips, and the real estate market in this city seems to have listened.

I

Home prices surge In January 2011, the averagesquare-foot price of Palo Alto homes was still a relatively cautious $759, high by most American cities’ standards but not particularly robust for one of the country’s most affluent communities. By June 2011, the number had surged to $978 per square foot. A few minor peaks and valleys notwithstanding, the price has since made a consistent beeline toward levels we expect to see here.

Price per square foot broke the $1,000 mark in September 2012, when it hit $1,072. The largest month-to-month increase between January 2011 and October 2014 came last February, where the average square-foot price was $1,466, up from $1,176 the month before.

In October, the price settled in at $1,401, close to double what it had been at the start of 2011.

Inventories continue to drop and sell fast Comparing Palo Alto home sales stats between 2011 and 2014, we see another

trend that’s not at all surprising: Reduced inventories lead to increased prices and quicker sales. During the first 10 months of 2011, 495 new home listings appeared on the Multiple Listing Service. For the same period in 2014, 393 homes became available, a drop of 102.

Homes coming onto the market in the so-called “hot� listing months of May and June over the last four years adds another shade to the picture: May-June 2011: 101 2012: 113 2013: 87 2014: 77 While the number of available homes has shrunk, it hasn’t affected the number of highly motivated buyers willing to pay 10 percent or more above asking prices. Home sellers in January to October 2011 received 2.9 percent more than the prices they listed their homes for. In the first 10 months of 2014, that percentage catapulted to 13.8.

Buyers are paying more, and they’re paying it aggressively. Looking at the same two 10-month periods, homes averaged 36.6 days on the market in 2011 compared with just 16.3 days in 2014.

Clearly the Palo Alto homes market has rejuvenated since the dark days of 200708. These trends are likely to continue into 2015. Q Hadar Guibara is a Realtor with Sereno Group of Palo Alto. She can be reached at hadar@serenogroup.com.

Residential real estate expertise for the mid-peninsula.

NICKGRANOSKI

Broker Associate Alain Pinel President’s Club DRE #00994196

www.NickGranoski.com

ngranoski@apr.com 650/269–8556

Michael Repka ' 5 & +8&. ) 8(5<

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Before you select a real estate agent, meet with Michael Repka to discuss how his real estate law and tax background beneďŹ ts Ken DeLeonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clients.

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2 I I L F H (650) 326 - 2900 ' L U H F W (650) 346 - 4150 ZZZ VWDQIRUGSI FRP FKXFNIXHU\#JPDLO FRP

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Managing Broker DeLeon Realty JD - Rutgers School of Law L.L.M (Taxation) NYU School of Law

(650) 488.7325 DRE# 01854880 | CA BAR# 255996

michaelr@deleonrealty.com www.deleonrealty.com

www.PaloAltoOnline.com â&#x20AC;˘ Palo Alto Weekly â&#x20AC;˘ December 12, 2014 â&#x20AC;˘ Page 43

OPEN HOUSE SAT / SUN 1:00-4:00

Presenting: 415 Laurel Avenue, Menlo Park

Offered at $2,800,000

Built in 2005 by Laurel Homes, this exquisite 4 bedroom/3 bath home offers an open floor plan with lots of natural light. Attention to detail is apparent throughout with beautiful crown moulding, extensive built-ins, high ceilings, and solid oak floors. The gourmet kitchen and great room with French doors to the expansive rear yard provide a fantastic space ideal for entertaining. The home also boasts an elegant living room with fireplace; a formal dining room; a convenient laundry room/mud room with separate entrance; a fantastic upstairs master suite with a spacious walk-in closet, elegant window seat, & luxurious bathroom; and a two-car detached garage with attic storage. Completing the appeal of this gorgeous home is its close proximity to everything downtown Menlo Park and Palo Alto have to offer. 2,730 sq. ft of living space. Lot size: 8,750 sq. ft. Top-rated Menlo Park schools.

This information was supplied by reliable sources. Sales Associate believes this information to be correct but has not verified this information and assumes no legal responsibility for its accuracy. Buyers should investigate these issues to their own satisfaction. Buyer to verify school availability.

BRIAN CHANCELLOR (650) 303-5511 brianc@serenogroup.com CalBRE# 01174998 Page 44 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Enjoy the tour at brianchancellor.com

BEFORE LISTING YOUR HOME, CONTACT MICHAEL REPKA

OF DELEON REALTY With Michael heading the listing division, the DeLeon team has sold more real estate than any other Realtor® or team in the Bay area this year.

Simply put, DeLeon Realty’s experience, expertise, and marketing program are the best in the business. Also, unlike the vast majority of real estate offices, we do not let independent contractors use the DeLeon Realty name; from agents to interior designers to graphic artists, everyone with a DeLeon Realty business card is actually an employee of the company.

Before selecting a Realtor® to list your home, call Michael to hear about DeLeon Realty’s unique approach to selling homes. You will also appreciate his background in tax and real estate law, which enables him to answer your tax and legal questions related to the sale.

650.488.7325 | www.deleonrealty.com | Michael Repka CalBRE #01854880 DeLeon Realty CalBRE #01903224

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 45

A Luxury Collection By Intero Real Estate Services

Holmes Ranch, Davenport

6 Quail Meadow Drive, Woodside

5 Betty Lane, Atherton

$25,000,000

$22,800,000

Price Upon Request

Listing Provided by: Dana Cappiello, Lic.#01343305

Listing Provided by: David Kelsey, Tom Dallas, Greg Goumas Lic.#01242399, 00709019, 01878208

Listing Provided by: Greg Goumas and Karen Gunn Lic.#0187820, 01804568

280 Family Farm, Woodside

10800 Magdalena, Los Altos Hills

303 Atherton Avenue, Atherton

$9,998,000

$6,995,000

$6,950,000

Listing Provided by: Dana Cappiello, Lic.#01343305

Listing Provided by: Cutty Smith & Melissa Lindt, Lic.#01444081, 01469863

Listing Provided by: Denise Villeneuve, Lic.#01794615

13195 Glenshire Drive, Truckee

18630 Withey Road, Monte Sereno

1730 Peregrino Way, San Jose

$6,900,000

$6,500,000

$4,000,000

Listing Provided by: Greg Goumas, Lic.#01878208

Listing Provided by: Albert Garibaldi, Lic.#01321299

Listing Provided by: Dana Cappiello, Lic.#01343305

38 Hacienda Drive, Woodside

195 Brookwood Road, Woodside

5721 Arboretum Drive, Los Altos

$4,495,000

$3,995,000

$3,888,888

Listing Provided by: David Kelsey, Tom Dallas, Lic.#01242399, 00709019,

Listing Provided by: Virginia Supnet, Lic.#01370434

Listing Provided by: Gail Sanders & Denise Villeneuve Lic.#01253357 & 01794615

850 Vista Hill Terrace, Fremont

356 Santana Row #310, San Jose

PENDING

2091 Park Blvd., Palo Alto $3,488,000

$3,299,950

$1,888,888

Listing Provided by: Sophie Tsang, Lic.#01399145

Listing Provided by: Albert Garibaldi, Lic.#01321299

Listing Provided by: Velasco DiNardi Group, Lic.#01309200

See the complete collection

w w w.InteroPrestigio.com

2014 Intero Real Estate Services Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate and a wholly owned subsidiary of HomeServices of America, Inc. All rights reserved.

All information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. This is not intended as a solicitation if you are listed with another broker.

Page 46 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

®

®

The Solution to Selling Your Luxury Home.

303 Atherton Avenue, Atherton | $6,950,000 | Listing Provided by: Denise Villeneuve, Lic.#01794615

Customized to the unique style of each luxury property, Prestigio will expose your home through the most influential mediums reaching the greatest number of qualified buyers wherever they may be in the world.

For more information about listing your home with the Intero Prestigio International program, call your local Intero Real Estate Services office.

Woodside 1590 Cañada Lane Woodside, CA 94062 650.206.6200

Menlo Park 807 Santa Cruz Avenue Menlo Park, CA 94025 650.543.7740

Los Altos 496 First Street, Ste. 200 Los Altos, CA 94022 650.947.4700 ®

®

2014 Intero Real Estate Services Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate and a wholly owned subsidiary of HomeServices of America, Inc. All rights reserved.

All information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. This is not intended as a solicitation if www.PaloAltoOnline.com you are listed with another broker. • Palo Alto

Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 47

240 MARICH WAY, LOS ALTOS OpenOpen House Friday, 9:30AM - 5:00PM & Saturday & Sunday, 12-5PM House Friday 1-5PM & Saturday & Sunday, 12-5PM www.240Marich.com This charming home, occupied by the same family for many years, has been thoughtfully upgraded for today’s buyer. 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, over 2000± sf on a 9512± sf lot. Allowable buildable area per architect is 3329± sf with an equal sized basement.

OFFERED AT $1,925,000

LYNN WILSON ROBERTS

(650) 255.6987

ePRO, GREEN, QSC, SRES, CRS, ASP (MWXVIWWIH 4VSTIVX] 'IVXM½IH

lwr@wilsonroberts.com www.LynnWilsonRoberts.com

“Empathy, Creativity and Experience”

CalBRE# 01814885

Page 48 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 49

Coldwell Banker

#1 IN CALIFORNIA

Saratoga

By Appointment $29,000,000 12.98acres of rolling hills, bordered by 60acres of open space, close to downtown Saratoga 3 BR/2 BA Debbie Nichols CalBRE #00955497 650.325.6161

Atherton $14,900,000 Incomparable Quality Custom-built French masterpiece with unsurpassed attention to detail. 5 BR/7 full BA + 3 half Chris McDonnell/Kelly Griggs CalBRE #00870468/01812313 650.324.4456

Los Altos $4,590,000 PENDING EXCLUSIVE Outstanding new construction! Lots of impressive features throughout home! 6 BR/6.5 BA Rod Creason CalBRE #01443380 650.325.6161

Los Altos Hills $3,499,000 Tranquil Setting! Stunning Bay views from this gorgeous 1 AC+ contemporary property w/PA schools. 4 BR/3 BA Hanna Shacham CalBRE #01073658 650.324.4456

Palo Alto $3,095,000 www.4226SuzanneDr.com Beautiful 1 story home, 2335 sf, 6000 sf lot. Gorgeous curb appeal w/all new landscaping. 4 BR/3 BA Hanna Shacham CalBRE #01073658 650.324.4456

Emerald Hills $2,395,000 Must See! Stunning Craftsman built in 2005, the epitome of excellence in an open floor plan. 5 BR/4.5 BA Doug Willbanks CalBRE #01458067 650.324.4456

Los Altos Hills $1,988,000 PENDING Rare opportunity: remodel or build new, quiet pastoral setting, great SW views, PA schools 3 BR/2 full BA + 2 half Clara Lee & Rod Creason CalBRE #01723333 & 01443380 650.325.6161

Menlo Park $1,695,000 Multi-level townhouse on the 18th fairway at Sharon Heights CC. Private quiet location. 3 BR/2 BA Erika Demma CalBRE #01230766 650.851.2666

Menlo Park Sun 1 - 4 $1,588,000 139 Oak Ct 139-137 Oak - 2 separate homes. No common walls, acts as duplex. Front home renovated! 5 BR/2 BA Keri Nicholas CalBRE #01198898 650.323.7751

Redwood City $1,295,000 Mt Carmel home w/ fabulous views, open floor plan, remodeled kitchen & private backyard. 3 BR/2 BA J Hickingbotham IV CalBRE #01203333 650.323.7751

Burlingame $1,200,000 Great investment opportunity! Duplex has been completely remodeled! Upgrades throughout! / Hossein Jalali CalBRE #01215831 650.323.7751

San Jose Sat 1:30 - 4:30 $850,000 4030 Altadena Lane Sprawling estate, soaring ceilings, gorgeous kitchen, spacious master, park like grounds. 4 BR/2.5 BA Gordon Ferguson CalBRE #01038260 650.325.6161

East Palo Alto $649,000 PENDING Remodeled 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, plus den. Crown modlings, hardwood floors. Nice lot 5670 sf 4 BR/2 BA Shawnna Sullivan CalBRE #00856563 650.325.6161

Sunnyvale $599,000 PENDING Exceptional suites feature fully remodeled bathrooms, granite, new vanities, crown molding 2 BR/2.5 BA Gordon Ferguson CalBRE #01038260 650.325.6161

©2014 Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker® is a registered trademark licensed to Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. An Equal Opportunity Company. Equal Housing Opportunity. Each Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage Office is Owned by a Subsidiary of NRT LLC. Real estate agents affiliated with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage or NRT LLC. CalBRE License #01908304.

Page 50 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

OPEN SATURDAY & SUNDAY 1:30-4:30

1614 Parkhills Avenue, Los Altos 5bd/2.5ba

$1,500,000

2,639+/-sf Home

Wonderfully Large Home!

JeffandSteve.com

Jeff Stricker

Broker & Attorney 650.823.8057 jstricker@apr.com

Steve TenBroeck

Broker, President’s Club 650.450.0160 stenbroeck@apr.com

#1 Realtor Team in Los Altos and Palo Alto Combined Sales for 2013

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 51

WEEKEND OPEN HOMES UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL TIMES ARE 1:30-4:30 PM

ATHERTON

MENLO PARK

4 Bedrooms

3 Bedrooms

87 Nora Wy Sat/Sun Alain Pinel Realtors

$4,998,000 323-1111

Your Realtor and You SILVAR Recognized for Global Achievement for Second Consecutive Year

584 Sand Hill Ci $1,600,000 Sun 2-4 Pacific Union International 314-7200

4 Bedrooms

7 Bedrooms 303 Atherton Av $6,950,000 Sat/Sun Intero Real Estate Services 543-7740

415 Laurel Ave Sat/Sun 1-4 Sereno Group

$2,800,000 323-1900

PORTOLA VALLEY

LOS ALTOS

2 Bedrooms

3 Bedrooms 1665 Fairway Dr $2,775,000 Sun 2-4 Pacific Union International 314-7200

377 Wayside Rd Sun Coldwell Banker

$1,750,000 851-2666

3 Bedrooms

4 Bedrooms 240 Marich Wy $1,925,000 Fri 1-5/ Sat/Sun 12-5 Alain Pinel Realtors 323-1111

5 Bedrooms 1614 Parkhills Av Sat/Sun Alain Pinel

$1,500,000 941-1111

4 Bedrooms 17 Linaria Wy $2,725,000 Sun 1-4 Pacific Union International 314-7200

REDWOOD CITY 2 Bedrooms

LOS ALTOS HILLS

3653 Jefferson Av $1,125,000 Sun Pacific Union International 314-7200

4 Bedrooms 26800 Almaden Ct Sat/Sun Coldwell Banker

445 Portola Rd $2,300,000 Sun 1-4 Intero Real Estate Services 206-6200

$3,499,000 324-4456

2932 Calvin Av Sun 1-4 Coldwell Banker

FIND YOUR NEW HOME PaloAltoOnline.com/real_estate EXPLORE OUR WEB SITE â&#x20AC;˘ Interactive maps â&#x20AC;˘ Homes for sale â&#x20AC;˘ Open homes â&#x20AC;˘ Virtual tours â&#x20AC;˘ Prior sale info and more

$475,000 324-4456

For the second year in a row, the National Association of REALTORSÂŽÂ (NAR) has recognized the Silicon Valley Association of REALTORSÂŽ (SILVAR) with its prestigious NAR Platinum Award as part of its Global Achievement Program.

The local professional trade organization representing over 4,500 REALTORSÂŽ and affiliate members engaged in the real estate business on the Peninsula and in the South Bay, is the only REALTORÂŽ association in Northern California to achieve Platinum status since the programâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inception in 2011.

SILVAR was one of eight associations recognized with the NAR programâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s highest honor at the REALTORSÂŽ Conference and Expo held in New Orleans Nov. 7-10.

SILVAR 2014 President David Tonna accepted the award on behalf of the local trade association at the International Night Event on Nov. 8. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are honored to receive the National Association of REALTORSÂŽâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; prestigious Platinum Award for two years in a row.

This award reflects SILVARâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment to helping our members expand and excel in the business of global real estate,â&#x20AC;? said Tonna.

SILVARâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment to international real estate goes beyond members assisting foreign nationals buying property in Silicon Valley. As a membership benefit, SILVAR REALTORSÂŽ have free access to Proxio, the global networking platform that connects them with real estate agents

in the U.S. and abroad and enables them to share their listings with each other.

Members also have access to the Proxio Developer Showcase, which connects REALTORÂŽ members to property developments around the world.

The associationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s global business council conducts activities and education programs to raise membersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; awareness of global business in their local market.

SILVAR offers NAR-accredited courses for REALTORSÂŽ seeking the At Home with Diversity certification and Certified International Property Specialist (CIPS) designation. â&#x20AC;&#x153;SILVAR is dedicated to helping our over 4,500 members serve their clients. This award is a testament to SILVARâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s accomplishments and mission to give its members the proper tools that will help them succeed in their business here and abroad,â&#x20AC;? said Executive Officer Paul Cardus.

In recognizing SILVAR, NAR noted the great strides made in SILVARâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s global initiative over the past year, its impressive CIPS designee growth during that time, the extensive outreach efforts the association conducted over the past year, and specifically its collaboration with ethnic real estate associations in the area.

Information provided in this column is presented by the Silicon Valley Association of REALTORSÂŽ. Send questions to Rose Meily at rmeily@silvar.org.

Fabulous Ladera Home!

Attractively Priced at $2,725,000

17 Linaria Way, Portola Valley 4 Bedrooms, 4.5 Baths | Spacious Open Floor Plan

Do not miss the unique opportunity to own this beautiful 4 bedroom, 4.5 EDWK RQH OHYHO KRPH RQ D ODUJH žDW ORW ZLWK YLHZV DOO HQFRPSDVVHG LQ a private retreat.

650.387.4333

sscott@pacunion.com bre# 01386007

1HVWOHG ZLWKLQ WKH ZRQGHUIXO FRPPXQLW\ RI /DGHUD WKLV JRUJHRXV KRPH VLWV DW WKH WRS RI D TXLHW VWUHHW DQG KDV D FRQYHQLHQW FLUFXODU GULYHZD\

Virtual Tour: obeo.com/953738

Page 52 â&#x20AC;˘ December 12, 2014 â&#x20AC;˘ Palo Alto Weekly â&#x20AC;˘ www.PaloAltoOnline.com

suzannescotthomes.com

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 53

Marketplace PLACE AN AD ONLINE fogster.com

E-MAIL ads@fogster.com

P HONE

650.326.8216 Now you can log on to fogster.com, day or night and get your ad started immediately online.

Most listings are free and include a one-line free print ad in our Peninsula newspapers with the option of photos and additional lines. Exempt are employment ads, which include a web listing charge. Home Services and Mind & Body Services require contact with a Customer Sales Representative.

So, the next time you have an item to sell, barter, give away or buy, get the perfect combination: print ads in your local newspapers, reaching more than 150,000 readers, and unlimited free web postings reaching hundreds of thousands additional people!!

INDEX Q BULLETIN

BOARD

100-155 Q FOR SALE 200-270 Q KIDS STUFF 330-390 Q MIND & BODY 400-499 Q J OBS 500-560 Q B USINESS SERVICES 600-699 Q H OME SERVICES 700-799 Q FOR RENT/ FOR SALE REAL ESTATE 801-899 Q P UBLIC/LEGAL NOTICES 995-997 The publisher waives any and all claims or consequential damages due to errors Embarcadero Publishing Co. cannot assume responsibility for the claims or performance of its advertisers.

Embarcadero Publishing Co. right to refuse, edit or reclassify any ad solely at its discretion without prior notice.

fogster.com

TM

THE PENINSULA’S FREE CLASSIFIEDS WEB SITE Combining the reach of the Web with print ads reaching over 150,000 readers!

fogster.com is a unique web site offering FREE postings from communities throughout the Bay Area and an opportunity for your ad to appear in the Palo Alto Weekly, The Almanac and the Mountain View Voice.

155 Pets

Bulletin Board

215 Collectibles & Antiques

345 Tutoring/ Lessons

Sq.Green Glass Dish Set - $75.00

Online Writing Tutor

237 Barter Did You Know that not only does newspaper media reach a HUGE Audience, they also reach an ENGAGED AUDIENCE. Discover the Power of Newspaper Advertising. For a free brochure call 916-288-6011 or email cecelia@cnpa.com (Cal-SCAN)

115 Announcements Pregnant?

Thinking of adoption? Talk with caring agency specializing in matching Birthmothers with Families Nationwide.

LIVING EXPENSES PAID. Call 24/7 Abby’s One True Gift Adoptions.

866-413-6293. Void in Illinois/ New Mexico/Indiana (AAN CAN) Pregnant?

Considering adoption? Call us first.

Living expenses, housing, medical, and continued support afterwards. Choose adoptive family of your choice. Call 24/7.

1-877-879-4709 (CalSCAN)

LOST DOG AT TOWN AND COUNTRY 11/3, 1215pm, my dog fled from my car and was said to run towards the Stanford stadium. I have not heard ANYTHING about where he is and am afraid someone has picked him up without turning him in. He is a ridgeback mix and is 65 lbs, (see picture) He’s non aggressive and can be timid.

Microchipped (4B7D5C4276)/ no collar. $500.00 reward. PLEASE help get my dog back

240 Furnishings/ Household items

Screen Door - $60

For Sale

Stanford music tutoring substitute pianist available USED BOOKSHOP AT MITCHELL PARK

201 Autos/Trucks/ Parts

130 Classes & Instruction

Chevrolet 1969 Camaro - $13300

Airbrush Makeup Artist course for: Ads . TV . Film . Fashion.

35% OFF TUITION - SPECIAL $1990 Train and Build Portfolio . One Week Course Details at: AwardMakeupSchool. com 818-980-2119 (AAN CAN) Airline Careers begin here - Get trained as FAA certified Aviation Technician. Financial aid for qualified students. Job placement assistance. Call Aviation Institute of Maintenance 800-725-1563 (AAN CAN)

202 Vehicles Wanted Cash for Cars Any Car/Truck. Running or Not! Top Dollar Paid. We Come To You! Call For Instant Offer: 1-888-420-3808 www.cash4car.com (AAN CAN) Donate Your Car, Truck, Boat to Heritage for the Blind. Free 3 Day Vacation, Tax Deductible, Free Towing, All Paperwork Taken Care of.

800-731-5042 (Cal-SCAN)

Did You Know Newspaper-generated content is so valuable it’s taken and repeated, condensed, broadcast, tweeted, discussed, posted, copied, edited, and emailed countless times throughout the day by others? Discover the Power of Newspaper Advertising. For a free brochure call 916-288-6011 or email cecelia@cnpa.com (Cal-SCAN)

Wanted: Old Porsches WANTED! I buy old Porsche’s 911, 356.

1948-1973 only. Any condition. Top $$ paid. Finders Fee. Call 707-965-9546 or email porscheclassics@yahoo.com (Cal-SCAN)

German Language Classes

Women’s Terry Symmetry Bicycle $ 450 obo

Instruction for Hebrew Bar and Bat Mitzvah.

For Affiliated and Unaffiliated. George Rubin, M.A. in Hebrew/Jewish Education 650/424-1940

133 Music Lessons Christina Conti Private Piano Instruction (650) 493-6950 Hope Street Music Studios In downtown Mtn.View.

Most Instruments voice. All ages & levels 650-961-2192 www.HopeStreetMusicStudios.com

135 Group Activities Learn to Square Dance Thanks St Jude

145 Non-Profits Needs DONATE BOOKS/HELP PA LIBRARIES WISH LIST FRIENDS PA LIBRARY

150 Volunteers Become a Nature Volunteer!

FRIENDS BOOKSTORE MITCHELL PARK FRIENDS OF THE PALO ALTO LIBRARY

203 Bicycles colonago bicycle - $1500 best

210 Garage/Estate Sales Menlo Park, 1340 Corinne Lane, Dec 14 9am-1pm Menlo Park, 303 Chester St, Dec. 12th & 14th, 10:30 - 4:30 Rain or Shine!

ESTATE SALE, Part 1, reflecting 20+ years of residency and collecting in Japan!

Many Asian items, antiques including tansu, tables, Japanese screen and scroll paintings, vintage rugs, Imari& Kutani porcelain, lamps,textiles and decorative accessories. PLUS, a qn. adjustable bed w/ remote control, set of 6 cane-back dining chairs, Laz-e-Boy recliner, rare pr.of Budji rattan and woven bamboo occasional chairs, vintage & contemporary designer clothing, handbags, costume jewelry + all the typical estate sale/household items and numerous one-of-a-kind items perfect for unique Xmas gifts. We do not expect a large turn-out (given the weather forecast) but in such case, a sign-up board will be posted to avoid over crowding. Plenty of street parking, and no early birds, please.

Mountain View, 1005 High School Way, Saturday Nov 15 8-3

JOIN OUR ONLINE STOREFRONT TEAM

Mountain View, 1005 High School Way, Sun Nov 23 9 am - 2 pm

152 Research Study Volunteers

Palo Alto, 4000 Middlefield Road, Dec. 13 & 14, 10-4

Paid study for teens with bipolar disorder

Palo Alto, 50 Embarcadero Rd., Dec. 13

Drivers: No Experience?

Some or LOTS of experience? Let’s Talk!

No matter what stage in your career, it’s time, call Central Refrigerated Home. 888-891-2195 www.

CentralTruckDrivingjobs.com (CalSCAN)

403 Acupuncture

Drivers: Truck Drivers Obtain Class A CDL in 2½ weeks.

Company Sponsored Training. Also Hiring Recent Truck School Graduates, Experienced Drivers. Must be 21 or Older. Call: (866) 275-2349. (Cal-SCAN)

Diningroom Table - $ make off

new Holiday music original ringtones

Drivers ATTN: Drivers - $2K Sign-On Bonus Make $55k a Year! Great Benefits + 401K. Paid training/Orientation. CDL-A Req (877) 258-8782 www.ad-drivers.com (Cal-SCAN)

Christmas Dishes 48Pc. - $ 100.

Montclair Women’s Big Band Live!

Hilarious revue: Never Too Late!

Mind & Body

4 Diningroom Chairs - $ make off

JEWLERY AND FURS Tiffany, MKors, Hermes, Dior, etc. watches, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings.

Diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, pearls of all kinds, including South Sea. Sable, mink, fox furs at reduced prices. Serious buyers only. Must sell by end of the year.

BOOK SALE - MPL Friends

Africa, Brazil Work/Study!

Change the lives of others and create a sustainable future. 1, 6, 9, 18 month programs available. Apply now! www.OneWorldCenter.org 269.591.0518 info@OneWorldCenter.org (AAN CAN)

Business Services

Treatments for Alzheimers Acupuncturist Jay Wang PhD, specialized in chronical illness for seniors.

Call 650-485-3293 for a free consultation. 747 Altos Oaks Dr., Los Altos

245 Miscellaneous DirecTV! Get The Big Deal from DirecTV! Act Now$19.99/mo. Free 3-Months of HBO, starz, SHOWTIME & CINEMAX. FREE GENIE HD/ DVR Upgrade! 2014 NFL Sunday Ticket.

Included with Select Packages. New Customers Only. IV Support Holdings LLC- An authorized DirecTV Dealer.

Some exclusions apply - Call for details 1-800-385-9017 (Cal-SCAN) DISH TV Starting at $19.99/month (for 12 mos.)

SAVE! Regular Price $32.99 Call Today and Ask About FREE SAME DAY Installation! CALL Now! 888-992-1957 (AAN CAN) DISH TV Retailer Starting at $19.99/month (for 12 mos.) & High Speed Internet starting at $14.95/month (where available.) SAVE! Ask About SAME DAY Installation! CALL Now! 1-800-357-0810. (Cal-SCAN) beautiful dresses on a budget!!! - $10-20 Looking for Dresses? click here! - $20-40 Ugly Christmas Sweaters Also beautiful party clothes. Vintage.

See all at 831 Villa St., (x-street Castro) MV. Hours 1-6pm.

Wow! Next To New! Sony Camera $85.00

270 Tickets Did You Know 7 IN 10 Americans or 158 million U.S. Adults read content from newspaper media each week? Discover the Power of Newspaper Advertising. For a free brochure call 916-288-6011 or email cecelia@cnpa.com (Cal-SCAN)

Kid’s Stuff

415 Classes

624 Financial

Mixed-Level Belly Dance Classes

425 Health Services Safe Step Walk-in Tub Alert for Seniors. Bathroom falls can be fatal. Approved by Arthritis Foundation.

Therapeutic Jets. Less Than 4 Inch Step-In. Wide Door. Anti-Slip Floors.

American Made. Installation Included.

Call 800-799-4811 for $750 Off. (Cal-SCAN) Struggling with Drugs or alcohol? Addicted to pills? Talk to someone who cares. Call The Addiction Hope & Help Line for a free assessment.

800-978-6674 (AAN CAN)

Did You Know 144 million U.S. Adults read a Newspaper print copy each week?

Discover the Power of Newspaper Advertising. For a free brochure call 916-288-6011 or email cecelia@cnpa.com (Cal-SCAN)

Reduce Your Past Tax Bill by as much as 75 Percent. Stop Levies, Liens and Wage Garnishments. Call The Tax DR Now to see if you Qualify 1-800-498-1067. (Cal-SCAN)

636 Insurance Autto Insurance starting at $25/month.

Call 855-977-9537 (AAN CAN) Lowest Prices on Health and Dental Insurance. We have the best rates from top companies!

Call Now! 888-989-4807. (CalSCAN)

Jobs

Home Services

500 Help Wanted Inventory Takers Now hiring! Start: $10.75/hr. Flex P/T work! Reg wage reviews.

Advancement oppts. Must have reliable trans. EEO/Vet/Disabled.

Apply at www.rgisinv.com Select San Francisco Bay Area.

748 Gardening/ Landscaping J. Garcia Garden Maintenance Service Free est. 21 years exp. 650/366-4301 or 650/346-6781

550 Business Opportunities

Bright Start Child Care!!!

340 Child Care Wanted

560 Employment Information

Nanny/Babysitter Am looking for a good Nanny/ Babysitter, its important you include resuming when responding. kindly state the days you will be available to babysit. Applicant who do not send a resume will not be considered for the position. $20/hr email : PatrickMark10@hotmail.com

Do You Owe $10,000 to the IRS or State in back taxes? Get tax relief now! Call BlueTax, the nation’s full service tax solution firm. 800-393-6403.

(Cal-SCAN)

Social Secuity Disability benefits. Unable to work?

Denied benefits? We Can Help!

WIN or Pay Nothing! Contact Bill Gordon & Associates at 1-800-966-1904 to start your application today! (Cal-SCAN)

460 Pilates

AVON Earn extra income with a new career!

Sell from home, work, online. $15 startup. For information, call: 877-830-2916. (CalSCAN)

330 Child Care Offered

Big Trouble with IRS? Stop wage and bank levies, liens & audits, unfiled tax returns, payroll issues, and resolve tax debt FAST. Seen on CNN. A BBB. Call 1-800-761-5395. (Cal-SCAN)

$1,000 Weekly!!

Mailing brochures from home.

Helping home workers since 2001.

Genuine Opportunity. No Experience required. Start Immediately www.mailingmembers.com (AAN CAN)

fogster.com

TM

LANDA’S GARDENING & LANDSCAPING *Yard Maint. *New Lawns. *Rototil *Clean Ups *Tree Trim *Power Wash *Irrigation timer programming.

18 yrs exp. Ramon, 650/576-6242 landaramon@yahoo.com R.G. Landscape Yard Clean-ups, debris removal, maintenance, installations.

Free est. 650/468-8859 Tired of Mow, Blow and Go? Owner operated, 40 years exp.

All phases of gardening/landscaping.

Ref. Call Eric, 408/356-1350

go to fogster.com to respond to ads without phone numbers Page 54 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

“Gimme All Your Lovin’”--hugs and kisses all around. Matt Jones

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751 General Contracting A NOTICE TO READERS: It is illegal for an unlicensed person to perform contracting work on any project valued at $500.00 or more in labor and materials. State law also requires that contractors include their license numbers on all advertising. Check your contractor’s status at www.cslb.ca.gov or 800-321-CSLB (2752). Unlicensed persons taking jobs that total less than $500.00 must state in their advertisements that they are not licensed by the Contractors State License Board.

759 Hauling Answers on page 56

©2014 Jonesin’ Crosswords

Across 1 Little bites 5 Full of snark 10 Bill dispensers 14 Frigg’s husband, in Norse myth 15 Be loud, like a radio 16 Brush off 17 Succumb to gravity 18 Spanish guy who joined a Germanic tribe?

20 “I just thought of something!”

21 “___ my heart open...” (Papa Roach lyric) 22 Vegetarian option 24 Academic aides, briefly 27 Hidden beneath the surface 30 Avant-garde composer Glass 33 Big house fixture 34 Like many actresses on “Baywatch”?

38 Modeler’s moldable medium 39 Devious little devil 40 Less complicated 42 Eisenhower’s WWII command 43 “J’adore” perfumier 45 Author of “The Watergate Diaries”?

47 Actress Pompeo 49 Assumes the role of 50 Infrequently 52 Opening piece?

53 Produce 57 Bassoons’ smaller relatives 59 Swing in the ring 60 The most one-sided line in US history?

65 Money in Milan, before the euro 66 Destroy 67 Emcee’s delivery 68 Sandler on guitar 69 “Nurse Jackie” star Falco 70 Posh neckwear 71 Is the author of

Down 1 Health food claim 2 “Famous Potatoes” state 3 Rice side 4 “Celebrity Jeopardy” broadcaster, for short 5 Network Stephen Colbert is moving to 6 Carte or mode preceder 7 Levy 8 “Star Trek” counselor Deanna 9 Streisand movie 10 Afro-___ languages 11 Song that goes “So whyyyyyy don’t you use it?”

12 Item stating “World’s Greatest Dad” 13 Nestle’s ___-Caps 19 It’s sealed with a shake 23 Code for a scanner 24 It’s below the femur 25 Reunion attendee 26 Beer buy 28 “Hey, that’s cool!”

29 Model, like clothes 31 Dept. formerly headed by Kathleen Sebelius 32 Well-behaved 34 ___ one’s time (waits) 35 “Germinal” author Zola 36 Mission that included a moonwalk 37 Cluttered up 41 Genetic info carrier 44 Leon who sang the theme to “Mr. Belvedere” 46 School of thought 48 Hands-together time 51 News outlets 54 Tolerate 55 Holy book 56 Major tests 58 Serious sevensome 60 Beats by ___ 61 Diaphragm alternative 62 “Senses Working Overtime” band 63 “___ y Plata” (Montana’s motto) 64 “Uh-uh!”

65 Once around

J & G HAULING SERVICE Misc. junk, office, gar., furn., mattresses, green waste, more.

Lic./ins. Free est. 650/743-8852 (see my Yelp reviews)

767 Movers Sunny Express Moving Co. Afforable, Reliable, References. Lic. CalT #191198. 650/722-6586 or 408/904-9688

771 Painting/ Wallpaper DAVID AND MARTIN PAINTING Quality work Good references Low price Lic. #52643

(650) 575-2022

Glen Hodges Painting Call me first! Senior discount. 45 yrs. #351738. 650/322-8325 STYLE PAINTING Full service painting. Insured.

Lic. 903303. 650/388-8577

775 Asphalt/ Concrete Roe General Engineering Asphalt, concrete, pavers, tiles, sealing, artificial turf. 36 yrs exp. No job too small. Lic #663703. 650/814-5572

779 Organizing Services End the Clutter & Get Organized Residential Organizing

by Debra Robinson (650)390-0125

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Public Notices 995 Fictitious Name Statement MathGymUSA FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No.: 598297 The following person (persons) is (are) doing business as: MathGymUSA, located at 328 Higdon Ave. #5, Mountain View, CA 94041, Santa Clara County.

This business is owned by: An Individual.

The name and residence address of the owner(s)/registrant(s) is(are): FRANCO H. REYES 328 Higdon Ave., #5 Mountain View, CA 94041 Registrant/Owner began transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed above on November 12, 2014.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Santa Clara County on November 12, 2014.

(PAW Nov. 21, 28, Dec. 5, 12, 2014) PALO ALTO LIMOUSINE FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No.: 598591 The following person (persons) is (are) doing business as: Palo Alto Limousine, located at 305 Cowper St., Palo Alto, CA 94301, Santa Clara County.

This business is owned by: Married Couple.

The name and residence address of the owner(s) is(are): DWIGHT MATHIASEN 305 Cowper St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 KATHRYN SHUGART 305 Cowper St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 Registrant/Owner has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name(s) listed above.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Santa Clara County on November 19, 2014.

(PAW Nov. 28, Dec. 5, 12, 19, 2014) PALO ALTO RIDES FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No.: 598664 The following person (persons) is (are) doing business as: Palo Alto Rides, located at 305 Cowper St., Palo Alto, CA 94301, Santa Clara County.

This business is owned by: Married Couple.

The name and residence address of the owner(s)/registrant(s) is(are): DWIGHT MATHIASEN 305 Cowper St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 KATHRYN SHUGART 305 Cowper St. Palo Alto, CA 9301 Registrant/Owner has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name(s) listed above.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Santa Clara County on November 21, 2014.

(PAW Nov. 28, Dec. 5, 12, 19, 2014) LIVING CULTURES SUPERFOODS LIVING CULTURES PROBIOTICS LIVING CULTURES ELIXIR LIVING CULTURES CAFE FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No.: 599035 The following person (persons) is (are) doing business as: 1.) Living Cultures Superfoods, 2.) Living Cultures Probiotics, 3.) Living Cultures Elixir, 4.) Living Cultures Cafe, located at 3101 Magliocco Dr., Apt. #308, San Jose, CA 95128, Santa Clara County.

This business is owned by: A Limited Liability Company.

The name and residence address of the owner(s)/registrant(s) is(are): HEISSEL LIFESCIENCES LLC, 3101 Magliocco Dr., Apt. #308 San Jose, CA 95128 Registrant/Owner began transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed above on N/A. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Santa Clara County on December 5, 2014.

(PAW Dec. 12, 19, 26, 2014, Jan. 2, 2015) PACIFIC WORKPLACES FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No.: 598751 The following person (persons) is (are) doing business as: Pacific Workplaces, located at 2225 E. Bayshore Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303, Santa Clara County.

THE PENINSULA’S FREE CLASSIFIEDS WEBSITE TO RESPOND TO ADS WITHOUT PHONE NUMBERS GO TO WWW.FOGSTER.COM

This business is owned by: A Limited Liability Company.

The name and residence address of the owner(s)/registrant(s) is(are): PBC PALO ALTO, LLC. 2225 E. Bayshore Road, Suite 200 Palo Alto, CA 94303 Registrant/Owner began transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed above on 09/01/2014.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Santa Clara County on November 25, 2014.

(PAW Dec. 12, 19, 26, 2014, Jan. 2, 2015) RebexArt Studio FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No.: 598935 The following person (persons) is (are) doing business as: RebexArt Studio, located at 233 Homer Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301, Santa Clara County.

This business is owned by: An Individual.

The name and residence address of the owner(s)/registrant(s) is(are): REBECCA NIE 233 Homer Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94301 Registrant/Owner began transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed above on 11/12/2014.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Santa Clara County on December 3, 2014.

(PAW Dec. 12, 19, 26, 2014, Jan. 2, 2015) ACME FINE ARTS FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No.: 599053 The following person (persons) is (are) doing business as: Acme Fine Arts, located at 1938 Channing Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94303, Santa Clara County.

This business is owned by: An Individual.

The name and residence address of the owner(s)/registrant(s) is(are): ALAN SONNEMAN 1938 Channing Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94303 Registrant/Owner began transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed above on N/A. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Santa Clara County on December 8, 2014.

(PAW Dec. 12, 19, 26, 2014, Jan. 2, 2015)

997 All Other Legals NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF CALLUM LOGAN Case No. 114PR173855 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of CALLUM LOGAN A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by Jessie Harper and Donald Sinclair Logan in the Superior Court of California, County of SANTA CLARA. THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that Jessie Harper and Donald Sinclair Logan be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held on Dec. 24, 2014 at 9:30 AM in Dept. No. 12 located at 191 N. First St., San Jose, CA 95113.

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code.

Other California statutes and legal

authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for petitioner: STEPHEN M MAGRO ESQ SBN 132196 LAW OFFICES OF STEPHEN M MAGRO 14101 YORBA ST STE 101 TUSTIN CA 92780 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: Helen Schrader, also known as Helen W. Schrader and Helen Wheatley Schrader Case No.: 1-14-PR-175522 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of Helen Schrader, also known as Helen W. Schrader, and Helen Wheatley Schrader.

A Petition for Probate has been filed by: SUSAN HUFFSTUTLER in the Superior Court of California, County of SANTA CLARA. The Petition for Probate requests that: SUSAN HUFFSTUTLER be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court.

The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held on January 22, 2015 at 9:30 a.m. in Dept.: 12 of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, located at 191 N. First St., San Jose, CA, 95113. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

If you are a creditor or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58 (b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code.

Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor.

You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Petitioner: /s/ Susan Huffstutler 6030 China Hill Road El Dorado, CA 95623 (530)642-2584 (PAW Nov. 28, Dec. 5, Dec. 12, 2014) SUMMONS (CITACION JUDICIAL) CASE NUMBER: 113CV253557 (Numero del Caso): NOTICE TO DEFENDANT: (AVISO AL DEMANDADO): MARYANNE A. WONG aka MARY WONG aka MARY M AU-YEUNG dba UNIVERSITY GIFTS COLLECTIABLES ETC. YOU ARE BEING SUED BY PLAINTIFF: (LO ESTA DEMANDANDO EL DEMANDANTE): Blue Whale International, Inc. NOTICE! You have been sued. The Court may decide against you without your being heard unless you respond within

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 55

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30 days. Read the information below.

You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this summons and legal papers are served on you to file a written response at this court and have a copy served on the plaintiff. A letter or phone call will not protect you. Your written response must be in proper legal form if you want the court to hear your case. There may be a court form that you can use for your response. You can find these court forms and more information at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www. courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp), your county law library, or the courthouse nearest you. If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the court clerk for a fee waiver form. If you do not file your response on time, you may lose the case by default, and your wages, money, and property may be taken without further warning from the court.

There are other legal requirements. Your may want to call an attorney right away. if you do not know an attorney, you may want to call and attorney referral service. If you cannot afford an attorney, you may be eligible for free legal services from a nonprofit legal services program. You can locate these nonprofit groups at the California Legal Services Web site (www.lawhelpcalifornia.org), the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp), or by contacting your local court or county bar association. NOTE: The Court has a statutory lien for waived fees and costs on any settlement or arbitration award of $10,000 or more in a civil case.

The court’s lien must be paid before the court will dismiss the case.

AVISO! Lo han demandado. Si no responde dentro de 30 dias, la corte puede decidir en su contra sin escuchar su version. Lee la informacion a continuacion.

Tiene 30 DIAS DE CALENDARIO despues

de que le entreguen esta citacion y papeles legales para presentar una respuesta por escrito en esta corte y hacer que se entregue una copia al demandante. Una carta o una llamada telefonica no lo protegen. Su respuesta por escrito tiene que estar en formato legal correcto si desea que procesen su caso en la corte. Es posible que haya un formulario que usted pueda usar para su respuesta.

Puede encontrar estos formularios de la corte y mas informacion en el Centro de Ayuda de las Cortes de California (www. sucorte.ca.gov), en la biblioteca de leyes de su condado o en la corte que le quede mas cerca. Si no puede pagar la cuota de presentacion, pida al secretario de la corte que le de un formulario de exencion de pago de cuotas. Si no presenta su respuesta a tiempo, puede perder el caso por incumplimiento y la corte le podra quitar su sueldo, dinero y bienes sin mas advertencia.

Hay otros requisitos legales. Es recomendable que llame a un abogado inmediatamene. Si no conoce a un abogado, puede llamar a un servicio de remision a abogados. Si no puede pagar a un abogado, es posible que cumpla con los requisitos para obtener servicios legales gratuitos de un programa de servicios legales sin fines de lucro. Puede encontrar estos grupos sin fines de lucro en el sitio web de California Legal Services, (www.lawhelpcalifornia.org), en el Centro de Ayuda de las Cortes de California, (www.sucorte.ca.gov) o poniendose en contacto con la corte o el colegio de abogados locales.

AVISO! Por ley, la corte tiene derecho a reclamar las cuotas y los costos exentos por imponer un gravamen sobre cualquier recuperacion de $10,000 o mas de valor recibida mediane un acuerdo o una concesion de arbitraje en un caso de derecho civil. Tiene que pagar el gra-

vamen de la corte antes de que la corte pueda desechar el caso.

The name and address of the court is: (El nombre y direccion de la corte es): Santa Clara Superior Court 191 N. First Street San Jose, CA 95113

THE PENINSULA’S FREE CLASSIFIEDS WEBSITE TO RESPOND TO ADS WITHOUT PHONE NUMBERS GO TO WWW.FOGSTER.COM Registrant/Owner began transacting business under the fictitious business name(s) listed above on N/A. This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Santa Clara County on December 1, 2014.

(PAW Dec. 12, 19, 26, 2014, Jan. 2, 2015)

The name, address, and telephone number of plaintiff’sattorney, or plaintiff without an attorney, is: (El nombre, la direccion y el numero de telefono del abogado del demandante, o del demandante que no tiene abogado, es): Martin D. Goodman, Esq. Shanshan Zou, Esq. Law Offices of Martin D. Goodman, 456 Montgomery Street San Francisco, CA 94104 (415) 677-4497

A bold new

Date: Sep. 24, 2013 (Fecha) David H.Yamasaki Clerk, by M. Rawson , Deputy (Secretario) (Adjunto) (PAW Dec. 12, 19, 26, 2014 Jan. 2, 2015) PHO #1 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No.: 598843 The following person (persons) is (are) doing business as: Pho #1, located at 568B East El Camino Real, Sunnyvale, CA 94087, Santa Clara County.

This business is owned by: A General Partnership.

The name and residence address of the owner(s)/registrant(s) is(are): DUNG TRAN VIET LE 487 Broderick Drive San Jose, CA 95111 PHONG THANH NGUYEN 1869 Yosemite Drive Milpitas, CA 95035

approach to classifieds for the Midpeninsula

Did you know?

• The Palo Alto Weekly is adjudicated to publish in the County of Santa Clara.

• Our adjudication includes the Mid-Peninsula communities of Palo Alto, Stanford, Los Altos, and Mountain View • The Palo Alto Weekly publishes every Friday.

Deadline: Noon Tuesday

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Call Alicia Santillan (650) 223-6578 to assist you with your legal advertising needs.

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E-mail asantillan@paweekly.com Answers to this week’s puzzles, which can be found on page 55.

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C R O S S W O R D S

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Sports Shorts

NCAA VOLLEYBALL

Stanford counting on experience

OLYMPIC TRIALS . . . Gunn High grad Tori Tyler qualified for the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials by finishing eighth in the women’s division at the California International Marathon on Sunday in Sacramento. The 27-year-old Tyler, who lives in Danville, clocked two hours, 38 minutes, 48 seconds and averaged 6:04 per mile over the 26.2-mile course that finished in front of the state capitol building. Tyler, who was a California state champ in the girls’ 3,200 meters in 2005, ranked sixth in the women’s 25-29 age bracket out of 294 entrants.

Cardinal women take on Oregon St. with a 60-0 record against the Beavers

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ALL-AMERICAN . . . Menlo College senior outside hitter Courtney Calicdan added another major achievement to her long list of accolades when she received honorable mention on the 2014 Tachikara-NAIA Volleyball All-American Team this week. A two-time California Pacific Conference Player of the Year and three-time first team all-conference selection, Calicdan helped lead the Oaks to three consecutive Cal Pac titles.

ON THE AIR Friday Women’s volleyball: Stanford vs.

Oregon St., 3 p.m.; ESPN3; KZSU (90.1 FM)

Saturday Men’s basketball: Denver at Stanford, 3 p.m.; Pac-12 Bay Area; KNBR (1050 AM) Women’s volleyball: StanfordOregon St. winner vs. Illinois-Florida winner, 6 p.m.; ESPNU

Sunday Women’s basketball: Santa Clara at Stanford, 7 p.m.; Pac-12 Networks; KZSU (90.1 FM)

www.PASportsOnline.com For expanded daily coverage of college and prep sports, visit www.PASportsOnline.com

Stanford juniors Inky Ajanaku (12) and Jordan Burgess combined for 28 kills in a victory over Michigan State last weekend that earned the Cardinal a berth in the NCAA Sweet 16.

(continued on next page)

A 13-0 season certainly worth celebrating While not selected for regional playoff, Gators’ year is special

by Keith Peters acred Heart Prep football coach Pete Lavorato was in need of some holiday cheer earlier this week and headed over to a small Christmas party on campus to perhaps find it.

“Every year is always a letdown,” said Lavorato. “You work and train so hard and play all your games and then it stops.”

Unlike any other year in program history, however, the Gators’ season came to an end last Friday in a victory — a 14-0 triumph over Bellarmine in the Central Coast Section Open Division championship game at San Jose City College.

Top-seeded Sacred Heart Prep finished 13-0 and remained alive to play at least one more game.

S

(continued on page 59)

Richard C. Ersted

READ MORE ONLINE

Hector Garcia-Molina/stanfordphoto.com

CARDINAL CORNER . . . Four Stanford men’s soccer players, the program’s most since 2000, were named to the 2014 NSCAA/Continental Tire NCAA Division I Men’s All-Far West Region Teams it was announced Wednesday. Sophomore forward Jordan Morris and junior defender Brandon Vincent were first team selections, freshman midfielder Corey Baird earned a spot on the second team and fellow freshman defender Tomas HilliardArce was selected to the third team . . . Stanford football players Andrus Peat and Ty Montgomery earned All-American honors from CBS Sports on Wednesday. Peat was a second team selection at offensive tackle with Montgomery claiming second team honors as an all-purpose performer . . . Stanford head coach Tara Danielson was named the 2014 4U Field Hockey/NFHCA West Region Coach of the Year . . .

Stanford associate head coach John Smith has been named Far West Region Assistant Coach of the Year by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA).

By Rick Eymer he third round of the NCAA women’s volleyball tournament will match the veteran against the newcomer when Stanford takes on Oregon State in the Ames (Iowa) Regional on Friday.

Stanford has made 26 appearances in the third round of the NCAA tournament and has advanced to the next round 19 times. Oregon State is making its first appearance in the Sweet 16, in its third overall NCAA appearance.

The Beavers (21-12) have never beaten Stanford (31-1) in women’s volleyball in 60 meetings and won their first two NCAA matches ever to get this far. The Cardinal, meanwhile, has won 106 NCAA matches.

However, when the two Pac-12 rivals meet on the court at Iowa State in the regional semifinal on Friday at 3 p.m., those statistics will mean absolutely nothing.

“They played well both times we faced them,” Stanford junior middle blocker Inky Ajanaku said.

“They have a lot of different weapons. We know what we’re facing and we need to execute our game plan.”

Ajanaku was named to the 14-player all-Pacific North Region team earlier this week, and was joined by senior libero Kyle Gilbert, junior setter Madi Bugg, junior outside hitter Jordan Burgess, and redshirt freshman middle blocker Merete Lutz. Senior Morgan Boukather received honorable mention.

Oregon State is represented by West Region Freshman of the Year Mary-Kate Marshall and regional Coach of the Year Taras Liskevych.

The Beavers, one of three unseeded teams remaining, finished the Pac-12 tied for seventh with Utah and Arizona State. The Utes and Sun Devils were eliminated in the second round.

Oregon State upset Creighton in four sets in the first round and then squeezed past Arkansas-Little Rock with a 19-17 fifth-set victory on Saturday.

While the Sacred Heart Prep football team won’t be playing in a NorCal regional bowl game, the Gators were able to celebrate a memorable 13-0 season and CCS Open Division championship. www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 57

Sports

Only thing Stanford women missed was NCAA soccer title

By Rick Eymer he goals set at the beginning of the season went by the wayside, yet there was a real sense of achievement for the Stanford women’s soccer team this year.

Stanford’s return to the NCAA College Cup instilled in the team the confidence that comes with knowing you belong among the elite in the sport.

Stanford lost, 2-0, to eventual national champion Florida State last weekend in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament at Florida Atlantic Stadium in Boca Raton.

The Cardinal finished its season a step short of the ultimate goal.

Stanford did, however, make it further than Pac-12 champion and

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defending NCAA champ UCLA, the team that ended Stanford’s season a year ago.

It’s a rough road out there, just ask perennial champion North Carolina, which was nowhere to be found in the Final Four. Three of the Tar Heels’ losses were to Stanford, the Seminoles and Virginia.

The Cavaliers, led by former Stanford coach Steve Swanson, knocked the Bruins out of the NCAA tournament and reached the title match.

Florida State won its first national title and Virginia was playing for its first title. Stanford has shown the kind of consistent success over the years to always challenge, to be able to set the highest

of standards for its program.

The Cardinal, which loses seven seniors, should still have enough talent returning to compete for a spot in the Final Four a year from now. Several of the websites that cover recruiting have given Stanford’s latest class two thumbs up.

The third-ranked Cardinal showed it belonged with the last four teams standing but also showed just how much more is needed to go all the way.

Stanford, which finished 20-2-3 on the year, lost only to champions: UCLA and Florida State, and both by a single goal. The Cardinal knows those extra goals take months of quality preparation and attention to detail.

“You can’t take anything for

granted,” said senior Lo’eau LaBonta, who was named an AllAmerican. “We thought this was our year and we let it slip through with little stuff. You have to give everything you can, every game.

Maybe we were looking past that game at the championship, but you have to give it your all and leave your heart out on the field.”

LaBonta was the only Stanford player able to get off more than one shot, with three (two on goal) as Florida State held the advantage in that category, 11-7, including 4-3 on goal. Alex Doll, Kendall Romine, Chioma Ubogagu — three veterans of Stanford’s last national title in 2011 — and freshman Andi Sullivan each recorded a shot. The shots were a

season low for Stanford.

“It has been an amazing run this year,” Stanford coach Paul Ratcliffe said. “We are disappointed.

We wanted more. The game kind of felt like it slipped away from us at times we started to get our rhythm but didn’t play to what we are capable of, so that is disappointing. But overall, I’m proud of them and it was a great season.”

The Cardinal returned to the Final Four after missing out last season and will return eight players who made significant contributions this season.

Stanford was playing in its sixth College Cup in seven seasons, but was unable to play its preferred ball possession-style that has become its trademark. Q

Plenty of goals were achieved Stanford men’s water polo just missed one in national tournament

By Rick Eymer needing 66 to match four-time Holland, also a member of the enior Alex Bowen’s career All-American and four-time U.S. national team player pool, in ended without him win- Olympian Tony Azevedo’s school a bid to win Stanford’s first naning a national champion- record of 332. Bonanni is the only tional title in 12 years.

“Nick Hoversten has had many ship. He earned something else Cardinal in history to post multrials and tribulations in his though, something he can carry tiple 90-goal seasons.

Azevedo is expected to rejoin last five years, and if you guys through the rest of his life.

Junior Bret Bonanni, on the the national team this summer in knew his story, you would be reverge of rewriting Stanford’s preparation for the 2016 Rio de ally impressed by what he’s gone men’s water polo record books, Janeiro Olympics. Imagine the through. I certainly am,” Vargas three highest scorers in said. “With all three of those has another season to Stanford history play- guys, I always tell them, we’ll pursue that elusive goal ing together for Team be connected for the rest of our of an NCAA title. He’s USA. Now that’s a sum- lives. As I get older, those conready to jump back into mer worthy of attention. nections seem to be a little more the water and start get“We have training in important.” ting ready.

Stanford will return 11 of its the winter,” Bowen said USC sank Stanford’s of the national team. top 13 scorers from the season national title hopes with “We have a nice little and will be helped by a group of a miraculous comeback exhibition against Italy quality freshmen, each of whom in regulation and the in southern California. took a redshirt season. Freshman second overtime beOther than that we have Cody Smith, who scored six goals fore finishing the job in World Championships in a game against Loyola Marysudden death, beating Bret Bonanni coming up here this mount, and redshirt freshman the Cardinal, 12-11, at Canyonview Pool in La Jolla last summer as well as the Pan Am Sam Pfiel, who had five in a conGames. I’ve worked my way onto test against Chapman, are among weekend.

Stanford (26-4) came back to the team, and I hope to stay there the returning players.

“We had some younger guys in beat host UC San Diego, 20-11, for as long as I can.”

There is still one thing on there,” Vargas said. “Obviously on Sunday and claim its second Bonanni’s mind: “We want to I’m proud of the effort our guys consecutive third-place finish.

“I’ve been really fortunate to win. That’s really on our minds. put in, and our youth showed a have been able to coach someone It starts on Monday. We want to little bit at times.

Holland has 480 career saves, as talented as Alex,” Stanford win.” within striking disAs for Cleary, Vargas coach John Vargas said. “We’ll tance of Stanford’s top be looking forward to watching remains impressed at three all-time of Chris him play in multiple Olympics. what he’s accomplished Aguilera (744), Larry We all will. He’s just a phenom- since coming to StanBercutt (727) and Nick ford. enal player.”

Ellis (714). He finished “Really happy to be Bowen, Bonanni and senior his sophomore season Connor Cleary are all part of the able to coach someone with 269 saves.

U.S. national team program and like Conner Cleary, Against the Tritons, could remain teammates for a who’s developed so Bonnani combined with much over his four long time. fellow All-Americans “It’s been one heck of a ride,” years and a quarter at Bowen, with four goals, Bowen said. “I’ve met the best Stanford,” Vargas said. Alex Bowen and BJ Churnside, with friends of my life. I wouldn’t “I mean, that was a kid make a run at the title with any that wasn’t recruited by anyone three, for 15 goals as the Cardiother team. We came up short but and he came in and played a nal scored at least 20 goals for the significant role on our team and 11th time.

I still wouldn’t trade it.”

Bonanni was one shy of the sinBonanni scored eight times made a huge impact. He also, in the consolation contest after somehow, worked his way onto gle-game record in NCAA tourscoring three times before get- the national team, because it is nament history. His combined ting called for his third exclusion the work that he’s put in, and I’m 11 goals are the most in NCAA championship history since 1994. super proud of him.” in the semifinals.

Bonanni had the secondStanford also loses senior Nick Bonanni finished with 96 goals, one shy of his own single-season Hoversten, but will have plenty of highest total in Stanford history depth returning to join Bonanni behind James Bergeson’s 12 in school record of a year ago.

He will enter his senior season and sophomore goalkeeper Drew 1981. Q

S

Hector Garcia-Molina/stanfordphoto.com

Page 58 • December 12, 2014 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Jordan Burgess became the ninth player in team history to accumulate at least 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs.

Volleyball (continued from previous page)

“You have to get better every week,” Stanford coach John Dunning said. “You can’t go by record. You have to come to play.

Oregon State, what a story. They didn’t have a fun season last year and now they are so much better.

I’m really happy for them.”

The Oregon State-Stanford winner will meet the winner of the match between No. 9 Illinois and No. 8 Florida on Saturday with a berth in the Final Four at stake. The Fighting Illini took the Cardinal to five sets at Maples Pavilion earlier this year. Florida beat Stanford the last time the teams met, which was last year in Texas.

“This time of the year is just awesome,” Dunning said. “I love this time of the year and I think the team does, as well.”

Jordan Burgess recorded 15 kills and had 18 digs, becoming the ninth player in Stanford women’s volleyball history to accumulate at least 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs as the top-ranked Cardinal

beat visiting Michigan State, 2520, 25-22, 24-26, 25-23, Saturday to advance to the Ames Regional.

“We try to get ourselves to enjoy the moment,” Burgess said.

“We play for love of the game and love of each other.”

Burgess netted her 17th doubledouble as Stanford qualified for its 19th Sweet 16 appearance in the past 22 years.

“I’ve been lucky enough to play all three years I’ve been here,” Burgess said. “Madi does a good job of setting me. It was a mustwin situation and the team stayed in control.”

Ajanaku, who added 13 kills on a hitting percentage of .458, called her one assist of the evening “my favorite stat.” That’s because it came on a kill to Burgess that moved Stanford to match point.

Bugg, who leads in the nation with about 12 assists per set, didn’t have to take the reception “but I’m glad she did,” Ajanaku said. “I’m always confident in my setting.”

Bugg, the two-time Pac-12 Setter of the Year, had 53 assists of her own, including the one to set up Burgess for match point. Q

Sports CROSS COUNTRY

Menlo’s Lacy will chase after the nation’s best

by Keith Peters

T

tionals and receiving this incredible opportunity to spend a few days with many exceptional athletes and some really great people as well,” Lacy said.

Lacy trailed only Makena Morley of Montana (17:33.5) and CIF Division IV state champ Caroline Pietrzyk of Malibu (18:01.6).

Lacy is the first Menlo athlete to advance to the national championships.

Lacy, who took third in Division IV at the state meet on Nov. 29, said she went into Saturday’s race with a clear strategy.

“I felt so great throughout the whole race, and I’m so happy with how well I followed my strategy and how well it worked out for me in the end,” Lacy said.

Menlo’s Robert Miranda, meanwhile, was fifth (17:10.4) among 207 freshmen boys and Gunn junior Gillian Meeks was 14th (18:58.1) among the seeded girls. Q

ATHLETES OF THE WEEK

Elizabeth Yao

Ben Burr-Kirven

MENLO SCHOOL

SACRED HEART PREP

The senior won both of her tennis matches in straight sets at the CIF NorCal Championships, including a win at No. 1 singles to clinch a 5-2 win over St. Francis to give the Knights their first title since 2001.

The senior two-way football standout rushed for 95 yards and scored both touchdowns in a 14-0 victory over Bellarmine in the CCS Open Division title game as the Gators capped the first 13-0 season in program history.

Honorable mention Sara Aguilar Palo Alto wrestling

Alexa Austin Palo Alto wrestling

Ilana Baer Menlo-Atherton basletball

Naomi Baer Menlo-Atherton basketball

Marissa Hing Pinewood basketball

Lizzie Lacy* Menlo cross country

Chioke Bryant Palo Alto wrestling

Seth Goyal Palo Alto wrestling

Cole March Sacred Heart Prep

Matt Odell Sacred Heart Prep football

Nick O’Donnell Sacred Heart Prep football

Mason Randall* Sacred Heart Prep football * previous winner

Watch video interviews of the Athletes of the Week, go to PASportsOnline.com

Richard C. Ersted

he Menlo School girls soccer team will have to wait a little longer for senior Lizzie Lacy to join the team this season.

Lacy kept herself out of that winter sport for another week after she took third among 143 seeded girls at the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships West Regional in Walnut last weekend.

By finishing among the top 10, Lacy is headed to the 36th Annual Foot Locker Cross Country Championships at Balboa Park in San Diego this Saturday.

The national meet features the 80 fastest male and female high school distance runners from across the country.

Lacy heads into nationals after clocking 18:03.4 over the 3.1-mile layout at Mt. San Antonio College last Saturday.

“I’m just really excited for Na-

Sacred Heart Prep celebrated its 13-0 season following a 14-0 win over Bellarmine in the CCS Open Division finals on Dec. 5. The Gators finished a three-year run of 38-3 with three section titles.

CCS football (continued from page 57)

Two days later, the Gators’ season was officially over when they were not selected to play nationally ranked Folsom in a NorCal Division I Regional Bowl Game.

And thus, Lavorato’s letdown.

“There was no closure,” Lavorato said. “We were this close to playing one of the best teams in the country.”

But, all is not lost.

“We’re going to have a party in January to celebrate the season,” Lavorato said. “Then I’ll feel better.”

Sacred Heart Prep was left out of the NorCal playoffs for the second time in three years, based on a vote of CIF commissioners. Two years ago, the Gators finished 121. Being left out was easier to reconcile. This time, after finishing 13-0, it wasn’t.

“I have no sour grapes and I don’t feel like I’ve been wronged,” Lavorato said. “But, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.

We would have liked to have kept playing.”

That was the consensus of most of the players, nine of whom already have moved on to winter sports.

“It’s definitely disappointing,” said senior Ben Burr-Kirven, who rushed for 95 yards and scored both touchdowns against Bellarmine. “But, it’s one of those things; you have to let it go.”

Added senior defensive back Mitch Martella, who had a fourthquarter interception to help end Bellarmine’s hopes: “When we didn’t get picked, I was pretty disappointed. It definitely stung a little. I was definitely happy to have the opportunity to play in the Open Division, but after going 130, it’s hard to have someone tell you you can’t play.”

Many of the players hung out on campus on Sunday with the coaches, awaiting word on the possible regional bowl berth.

“We were looking forward to

getting our name chosen,” said senior defensive back John Van Sweden, who also had a fourth-quarter interception against the Bells.

That, of course, didn’t happen as unbeaten Grant of Sacramento was selected and the Gators were left with the pride of having an undefeated season.

“Our success has never happened before,” Van Sweden said.

Added Burr-Kirven: “It’s definitely nice to go out with a win.

(But) I’d rather gone on. It’s kind of tough to be told your season is over.” But what a season it was.

SHP beat three teams in the CCS playoffs that rank No. 2 (Los Gatos, 82 games), No. 3 (Oak Grove, 76 games) and No. 4 (Bellarmine, 74 games) as the most accomplished teams in section playoff history. Only St. Francis, with 101 games, has played in more.

This season also saw the Gators become the most successful CCS football team over the past three years with a 38-3 record. Milpitas is second at 32-7 while Bellarmine (29-9), Los Gatos (28-11), St. Francis (26-13) and Oak Grove (22-12) trail.

The CCS Open Division title was also SHP’s third straight section crown, the most of any section team during that time.

Perhaps most important, this season showed doubters that a school with only 603 students could compete the elite schools like Bellarmine (3,278 students), Oak Grove (1,920) and Los Gatos (1,820).

SHP beat Los Gatos in the semifinals (28-21). The Wildcats beat Serra in the opening round, 28-0, and Serra lost to national power De La Salle by 28 points.

“To get a chance to prove ourselves, as a small school, sets a precedent for Sacred Heart Prep teams in years to come,” said senior linebacker Cole March.

“Maybe they’ll get an opportunity to move on.”

Added Van Sweden: “People didn’t think we could play at the highest level with the teams from the WCAL.”

Sacred Heart Prep, however, did just that while becoming the smallest school in CCS history to win on the biggest stage.

“With these guys, we walk on the field and compete with anybody,” said Lavorato. “We can compete; we’ve proven that.”

Sacred Heart Prep set the table for this season by reaching last year’s CIF Division III state finals, losing there to Corona del Mar. “Winning the Open (Division) is more enjoyable than losing state,” said Burr-Kirven.

Added Lavorato: “I feel like this was a greater accomplishment than last year . . . If anyone told me 6-7 years ago that we’d be playing Bellarmine in the Open Division finals, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

That mindset, however, changed quickly.

“Coming into this season, I don’t think anyone came in thinking we were going to win every game, go back to state and finish 15-0,” said Burr-Kirven. “(But) After we beat Los Gatos it was like, ‘we got it.’ There was never a doubt in my mind that we wouldn’t beat Bellarmine.

“I would have liked to win state but, everything we could do we did — to the best of our abilities.”

Added March: “This was like the perfect ending to the perfect story.”

The Gators, however, will never know what another playoff chapter would have brought.

“I don’t think we’d have a problem hanging with Folsom,” BurrKirven said. “I would have love to have seen what our coaches would have could up with. But, you can’t let that eat you up.”

“It’s bittersweet, I suppose,” said Lavorato. “It was a great year.

How could you be upset after going 13-0? We won the Open. I think we are the best team in the CCS. I can’t say enough good things about our coaching staff and our kids and how wonderful they were and are.

“This was a special year. This might not happen again.” Q

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 12, 2014 • Page 59

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