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

Spectrum 16 Movies 25 Eating Out 32 Home 41 Classifieds 59 Puzzles 60

Palo Alto

News City: Fire, police must give $4.3 million Page 3

Arts The history of sound Page 29

Sports Paly, Menlo play for baseball titles Page 34

2 0 1 1Vote for Best Of Palo Alto

Delivering hopeLucile Packard Children’s Hospital celebrates 20 years of evolving medical carepage 18

Inside:Dining

Out

A PUBLICATION OF THE PALO ALTO WEEKLY, THE ALMANAC & MOUNTAIN VIEW VOICE

OutDiningFROM CASUAL TO FINE DINING

ON THE MIDPENINSULA

2O11

On June 26th

You’re Invited! Celebrate the 20th Birthday of

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital

Join us for a community celebration Sunday, June 26, 10 am – 4 pmLocation: Intersection of Quarry + Welch Roads, Palo Alto, CA

There will be fun for all ages, featuring more than 75 interactive booths, musical performances, storytelling,

face painting, local food favorites, cupcakes and more. We’ve helped so many children celebrate their birthdays.

Now we invite you and your family to help us celebrate ours. More information at anniversary.lpch.org.

Page 2

by Gennady Sheyner

P alo Alto’s message to its pub-lic-safety unions during this budget season has been con-

sistent and clear: Give the city more than $4 million in concessions or else.

City officials laid out exactly what “else” might look like Tuesday night — fewer officers patrolling the streets, fewer firefighters working

per shift and temporary closures of fire stations.

After considering these options, the City Council’s Finance Com-mittee followed staff’s lead and rec-ommended fire and police budgets based on optimism rather than staff-ing reductions.

“The best thing to do right now is, frankly, to remain optimistic,” committee Chair Greg Scharff said

at the meeting. “We have outlined what could happen.”

By taking the “optimistic” route, the committee and city management is banking on $4.3 million in con-cessions from the city’s two major public-safety unions, the Palo Alto Professional Fire Fighters, Local 1319, and the Palo Alto Police Of-ficers’ Association. Interim Public Safety Director Dennis Burns wrote

in a memo to the committee that if these savings aren’t achieved, the city would have to eliminate 11 po-lice officers and up to 18 firefighters to balance the 2012 budget of $146 million ($463 million when includ-ing the city’s enterprise and other funds).

Burns’ memo also called for pos-sible “brownouts” of fire stations if the number of firefighters on duty

falls to 25 from its current level of 29. A brownout is the temporary clo-sure of a fire station, with its person-nel redistributed to other stations.

The proposals in Burns’ memo would reduce the service levels in the two departments, particularly in the Police Department, where the city has eliminated 31 positions

UpfrontLocal news, information and analysis

Veronica Weber

City Council committee recommends a budget that assumes $4.3 million in labor concessions rather than cuts

T his Memorial Day, veterans throughout the Peninsula will pause to reflect on their

experiences serving the United States. Among them will be Ed-ward Patton, who fought in Viet-nam, and Herbert Hamerslough, a World War II veteran.

Patton, a cook at Avenidas se-nior center in Palo Alto, will be helping out with a barbecue at the Menlo Park rehabilitation center that helped him overcome his drug problems and gave him vocational training. Hamerslough, a retiree at Palo Alto’s Channing House, will head up the Memorial Day activi-ties at his retirement community and will say — as he always does — “a few prayers for my buddies that didn’t make it back.”

Patton is a tall, solidly built man with a graying, wispy mus-tache and several missing teeth. He speaks softly, his deep voice becoming almost gravelly when he talks of the war.

He is only comfortable men-tioning his combat experiences in vague, overarching phrases that paint a dark picture of what hap-pened.

“When the situation came, I did what I had to do. I found ways to deal with it,” he said.

He was born in Baltimore, Md., and at the age of 16, enlisted in the military.

“I got my mom to sign,” he said.

His reasoning for enlistment was straightforward: He was a handful at home, and his uncle, a man of whom everyone was proud, was already enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He signed on as a private on July 7, 1967.

“It was kid stuff and being pa-

triotic,” Patton said. “I (also) had a lot of buddies going.”

Patton went on to basic train-ing and eventually made his way to jump school, graduating as an Army Ranger in the 173rd Air-borne.

He made it out to Vietnam in 1968 just as General Westmore-land, the commanding general in Vietnam, was requesting more troops to fight an expanded ground war. There were 409,111 service-men in Vietnam by 1969.

When asked about his combat experiences, he said, “I don’t talk about the war because I still have nightmares and trouble sleeping.”

Patton found that best way to adapt to the horrors of Vietnam was “to play a macho solider.”

“I wasn’t so much afraid as curi-ous,” he added.

Patton served in active combat for most of his two years of ser-vice. His memory is scarred by the loss of his friends in combat, al-though he tries mostly to remem-ber “the unity and the fun things we had there.”

Still, he said: “Losing close friends was hard.”

He returned home as a sergeant, five ranks above what he had en-tered the service as.

“I was lucky,” he said.After returning home, Patton

said he was involved with the Black Panthers for a couple of years.

During this time he also be-gan to suffer the consequences of serving in Vietnam, suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disor-der (PTSD). He spent many years homeless, in a home for disabled veterans and as a drug addict.

But with the help of a veteran’s

rehabilitation center, he said, he has been sober for 14 years.

With the aid of the center’s vo-cational training, he was able to find work as a cook.

Despite all that has happened to him, he said, “I’m more patriotic now than I was.”

“I am proud of my service,” Pat-ton said.

Hamerslough, born in Washing-ton, enlisted in the Officer Train-ing Corps in the Marines in July 1942. At 22, near the close of the war, he graduated as a 2nd Lieu-

tenant in the 1st Regiment, 1st Marine Division.

He was quickly deployed to the Pacific Theater, where the United States was wrapping up a bru-tal island-hopping campaign to get close enough to the Japanese mainland to launch an invasion. During the campaign, each is-land captured was held by heavily entrenched Japanese forces that made U.S forces pay with a mas-sive number of casualties.

Veterans consider the lasting effects of warPatriotism, pride mark Memorial Day remembrances

by Aaron Guggenheim

District eyes tougher

graduation requirements

Goal is to address disparity but school board worries about ‘unintended

consequences’by Chris Kenrick

W ith 18 percent of students graduating from the Palo Alto Unified School Dis-

trict unqualified to enter the Uni-versity of California and California State University systems, district staff is proposing tougher high school graduation requirements.

Palo Alto has wrestled for years with an achievement gap, with lower percentages of African-American and Hispanic students taking on challenging course loads.

In the class of 2010, for example, 82 percent of all graduates had com-pleted or exceeded the UC/CSU requirements, but only 46 percent of African-American grads and 50 percent of Hispanic grads had done so.

Many have argued the achieve-ment gap is at least partly attribut-able to ingrained lower expectations for those minority students on the part of some teachers and others.

Members of the Palo Alto Board of Education reacted cautiously Tuesday to the proposal for stiffer requirements.

Raising the graduation bar “could be a significant driver of change,” board member Dana Tom said. “If done right, it could be one of the best things we’ve done for these kids. But if not done right, it could be bad.”

Board members expressed wor-ries about possible unintended con-sequences of making the four-year college prep course load a condition of graduation. Under the proposal, waivers would be granted, if neces-

World War II veteran Herbert Hamerslough sits in the Channing House auditorium in Palo Alto, where he will lead the Memorial Day program.

EDUCATIONCOMMUNITY

Palo Alto pursues ‘optimistic’ police and fire budgets

(continued on page 13)

(continued on page 8)(continued on page 7)

1ST PLACEBEST LOCAL NEWS COVERAGECalifornia Newspaper Publishers Association

Page 3

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Around Town

‘‘‘‘

A BAN WITH AN ASTERISK ... The

bag at the checkout stand of Mollie Stone’s on California Av-

enue in Palo Alto looked

like plastic, felt like plastic,

sounded like plastic when

folded and even included

something called “post

consumer plastic” in

its ingredient list on the

back. Yet the bag, to the

surprise of one shopper who visited

the supermarket last week, doesn’t

violate the ban on plastic checkout

bags that the city famously adopted

last year. The reason is thickness.

Unlike the fluttery plastic bags that

end up in local creeks and storm

drains, the bags at Mollie Stone’s

were created to be reusable. Phil Bobel, the city’s interim assistant

director of public works, said the

bag’s thickness qualifies it as a reus-

able bag, which makes it kosher by

the city’s standards. Bobel, who as

the city’s environmental compliance

manager spearheaded the effort to

get plastic bags out of the check-

out stands of local supermarkets,

said the thicker, heavier bags aren’t

nearly as problematic as the lighter

and more common ones. “I was just

doing some cleanup work at a creek

this past Saturday and I didn’t see

any bags of this type,” Bobel said.

“They don’t blow around like the

other bags do.”

OUTSIDE HELP ... Palo Alto’s staff

may be shrinking, but its ambitions

remain higher than ever. In the com-

ing months, the city plans to create

a new Master Plan for Rinconada Park, consider new and alternative

uses for the dilapidating Municipal Service Center, perform mechanical

and electrical repairs at the Chil-

dren’s Theatre, beef up the city’s

wildly successful “Safe Routes to School Program” and redesign the

streetscape on California Avenue.

To achieve these goals, the city is

relying on one of its most frequently

used tools: consultants. In fiscal

year 2012, which begins on July 1,

Palo Alto plans to award more than

$1.5 million to consultants for vari-

ous master plans and infrastructural

repairs. This does not include the

consultants who are already work-

ing with the city on creating a new

Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan

or the ones who are working with

the city’s recently appointed citizen

task force to formulate the city’s of-

ficial vision for the Caltrain corridor.

The city is also planning to take a

fresh look this fall at the city’s entire

fee schedule, a task that

will also involve hiring a

consultant, staff said this

week.

A TOUGH SELL ... Califor-

nia’s Legislative Analyst’s Office made a splash

earlier this month when

it released a scathing report about

the state’s proposed high-speed rail

system. The report recommends,

among other things, renegotiating

the strict construction deadlines set

by federal grants and reconsider-

ing the starting point of the rail line,

which is currently set for launch

in Central Valley. Now it looks like

both of these suggestions would be

harder to implement than originally

thought. Roy Kienitz, the under

secretary for policy at the U.S. De-

partment of Transportation, wrote a

letter to California High-Speed Rail

Authority CEO Roelof van Ark this

week stressing that both the dead-

lines and the starting segment are

not subject to further negotiations.

Kienitz defended the federal man-

date to spend the stimulus funds

for high-speed rail by 2012, calling

it “one of the most lenient deadline

(sic) for transportation funding in the

Recovery Act.” As far as starting the

rail line in Central Valley? “We believe

the decision to begin there was and

remains a wise one,” Kienitz wrote.

BUILDING A ROBOT ... In snappy

red T-shirts, six members of the

Gunn High School Robotics Team

introduced their red robot to the

Palo Alto Board of Education this

week. Seniors Danielle Tene and

Leonard Woo, juniors Philippe Na-paa, Takuto Sasajima and Jeffrey Sun and sophomore Mia Parat explained that, to compete in the

recent FRST Robotics Competition,

the robot had to be able to drive

itself, pick up tubes from the ground

and hang them on three racks, and

deploy a “mini-bot” that would climb

10 feet by itself. “Building the robot

is a really busy time but through it all

we manage to have a lot of fun and

a lot of team bonding,” Sun said. In

closing the presentation, Sasajima

couldn’t resist thanking the school

board for its narrow and contentious

May 11 vote to change the academ-

ic calendar. “Thanks for changing it

so finals will be before winter break,”

he said.

The best thing to do right now is, frankly, to remain optimistic.

—Greg Scharff, Palo Alto City Councilman, about the chance the city’s fire and police unions will vol-untarily cut $4.3 million total from their budgets. See story on page 3.

PUBLISHER William S. Johnson

EDITORIAL Jocelyn Dong, Editor Carol Blitzer, Associate Editor Keith Peters, Sports Editor Tyler Hanley, Express™ and Online Editor Rebecca Wallace, Arts & Entertainment Editor Rick Eymer, Assistant Sports Editor Tom Gibboney, Spectrum Editor Chris Kenrick, Gennady Sheyner, Staff Writers Sue Dremann, Staff Writer, Special Sections Editor Karla Kane, Editorial Assistant Veronica Weber, Staff Photographer Dale Bentson, Colin Becht, Peter Canavese, Kit Davey, Iris Harrell, Sheila Himmel, Chad Jones, Kevin Kirby, Jack McKinnon, Jeanie K. Smith, Susan Tavernetti, Robert Taylor, Contributors Aaron Guggenheim, Kareem Yasin Editorial Interns Joann So, Arts & Entertainment Intern

DESIGN Shannon Corey, Design Director Raul Perez, Assistant Design Director Linda Atilano, Diane Haas, Scott Peterson, Paul Llewellyn, Senior Designers Gary Vennarucci, Designer

PRODUCTION Jennifer Lindberg, Production Manager Dorothy Hassett, Samantha Mejia, Blanca Yoc, Sales & Production Coordinators

ADVERTISING Walter Kupiec, Vice President, Sales & Marketing Judie Block, Esmeralda Flores, Janice Hoogner, Gary Whitman, Display Advertising Sales Neil Fine, Rosemary Lewkowitz, Real Estate Advertising Sales David Cirner, Irene Schwartz, Inside Advertising Sales Cathy Norfleet, Display Advertising Sales Asst. Diane Martin, Real Estate Advertising Assistants Alicia Santillan, Classified Administrative Asst.

EXPRESS, ONLINE AND VIDEO SERVICES Rachel Palmer, Online Operations Coordinator Rachel Hatch, Multimedia Product Manager

BUSINESS Penelope Ng, Payroll & Benefits Manager Elena Dineva, Mary McDonald, Susie Ochoa, Cathy Stringari, Doris Taylor, Business Associates

ADMINISTRATION Amy Renalds, Assistant to the Publisher & Promotions Director Janice Covolo, Receptionist Ruben Espinoza, Courier

EMBARCADERO MEDIA William S. Johnson, President Michael I. Naar, Vice President & CFO Walter Kupiec, Vice President, Sales & Marketing Frank A. Bravo, Director, Information Technology & Webmaster Connie Jo Cotton, Major Accounts Sales Manager Bob Lampkin, Director, Circulation & Mailing Services Alicia Santillan, Circulation Assistants Chris Planessi, Chip Poedjosoedarmo, Computer System Associates

The Palo Alto Weekly (ISSN 0199-1159) is pub-lished 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 news-paper 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 326-8210. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Palo Alto Weekly, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302. Copyright ©2011 by Embarcadero Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited. Printed by SFOP, Redwood City. The Palo Alto Weekly is available on the Internet via Palo Alto Online at: www.PaloAltoOnline.comOur e-mail addresses are: editor@paweekly.com, letters@paweekly.com, ads@paweekly.com.Missed delivery or start/stop your paper? Call 650 326-8210, or e-mail circulation@paweekly.com. You may also subscribe online at www.PaloAltoOnline.com. Subscriptions are $60/yr.

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UpfrontHIGH SCHOOL MATH AND SPANISH SUMMER COURSES –FULL and SHORT COURSES

SPANISH CAMPS for kids: K-4th

Joseph Eichler (1900-1974) was one of the most influential developers in California’s history. Intrigued by a house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in Atherton, California, which Eichler himself rented, he hired the San Francisco architectural firm of Anshen & Allen to design mass-production houses that would incorporate Wright’s vision. The style has come to be known as “California Modern,” fittingly, as it includes features that would never appear on homes in the Midwest, say, or New England.

Palo Alto is one of the most conspicuous sites for Eichler homes, both north and south of Oregon Expressway. There is even an Eichler-built shopping center, Edgewood Plaza, at Edgewood Drive and Embarcadero Road. Midtown-South Palo Alto features numerous Eichler homes, and an Eichler tract community association and swimming facility, Greenmeadow.

Joseph’s son Edward (“Ned”) worked in his father’s business as Head of Purchasing and sales manager before going on to enter the PhD history program at the University of California, Berkeley. Ned Eichler will be featured speaker at the first annual dinner of the Los Altos Hills Historical Society (LAHHS) at the Palo Alto University Club, 3277 Miranda Avenue, Palo Alto, on Wednesday, June 8, 2011. For more information please see the web site http://www.losaltoshillshistory.org/Events/index.html. Or, call Lana Ralston (650) 776-9226.

It Happened in Palo Alto

Lana Ralston, Realtor® 650-776-9226 www.RalstonWorks.com DRE # 01477598 Intero Real Estate Services

INSPIRATIONSA resource for special events and ongoing religious

services. To inquire about or make space reservations for Inspirations, please contact

Blanca Yoc at 223-6596 or email byoc@paweekly.com

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, UCC

This Sunday: For the Love of CheesecakeDaniel Ross-Jones preaching

An Open and Affirming Congregation of the United Church of Christ

Youth and Young Adult Minister Candidate

Page 4

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It takes a lot for seniors to ask for help.

When they do ask for a ride, help us get them where they need to go!

Become a volunteer driver for Avenidas.

Volunteer Drivers Needed!

Where age is just a number

Call (650) 289-5412 orvisit www.avenidas.org.

Haitian refugee seeks to rebuild his countryPeterson Joseph, 19, studies at Foothill College but needs sponsors

by Sue Dremann

COMMUNITY

N ineteen-year-old Haitian ref-ugee Peterson Joseph’s sunny disposition spread across his

face this week as he spoke about his dreams of a college education. As he chatted in a Palo Alto church, his cheeks dimpled deeply and his eyes twinkled. But they darkened as he talked about the still-dire situation in Haiti.

“The dream that we had — every-thing changed. It was collapsed,” he said, recalling the devastating Janu-ary 2010 earthquake that destroyed 80 percent of the island’s housing. “Everyone was living in a tent city in Port-au-Prince. Nobody wanted to live inside.”

Things are not much better a year and a half later. The water supply is still not fixed; his mother, two sis-ters and brother still live in the tent city, he said.

“Haiti is a very poor country. To (rebuild) would require to start from the ground up. It’s not like the U.S., where if you have an education, you can have a place in society. There you can’t. There is a lot of cor-ruption. They do not take care of youth,” he said.

Joseph came to Palo Alto in spring 2010 with a Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital nurse he’d met while working as a translator in Del-mas, a Port-au-Prince suburb.

But while his entry into the U.S. seemed like a miracle, staying in this country has come with certain challenges. He was learning English at Language Pacifica in Menlo Park last July when his sponsor said she could no longer help him. Suddenly, Joseph faced losing the roof over his head for the second time since the earthquake.

Help, however, was not far off. Riding his bicycle down Middlefield Road in south Palo Alto one Sunday morning that July, he passed church row — a line of many churches be-tween Loma Verde Avenue and East Meadow Drive. Joseph was looking for a place to worship that day.

He turned his bicycle into the horseshoe-shaped parking lot be-hind The Father’s House Church at 3585 Middlefield Road, where Pas-tor Glen Coulter was tending to the flowers. Joseph asked if there were any services, and Coulter invited him in to worship, he said.

When church members learned about his situation, they decided to sponsor him and support his educa-tion, Coulter said.

Joseph has been living at the church ever since. But costs are high for international students, even at Foothill College, where Joseph is a full-time student. Coulter esti-mated expenses run about $1,000 per month.

The church is seeking additional sponsors to help Joseph complete his education and has started a fund for that purpose, he said.

Joseph needs at least two years to finish his associate’s degree. He is hoping to continue at a university to

get a bachelor’s degree in business. One way or another, the church re-mains committed to at least the first two years of sponsorship, he said.

“The money is not the important part; the important part is to educate a mind that wants to do something. You can send all the money to Hai-ti, but it doesn’t always get into the right hands. If we send money there, the government gets it. We decided to invest in the young man,” Coulter said.

Coulter thinks Joseph can get a scholarship to a university. The teenager has top grades, he said.

Joseph wants to return to Haiti to help his family and his country, and he wants to change the system that keeps the country poor, he said.

The earthquake caused thousands of children to drop out of school and live on the streets in Port-au-Prince. The long-term consequences of extreme poverty will be felt for de-cades, he said.

“We will have this problem for three more generations because this generation is not going to school now,” he said.

Education is crucial to develop-ing the island nation, he added. “I believe there is an opportunity for change. We have resources available but we don’t know how to use them well.”

Joseph turned the earthquake into an opportunity to fulfill his dream, he said. He volunteered for Sean Penn’s J/P Haitian Relief Organiza-tion during the quake’s immediate aftermath; he saw so many injured people with broken limbs on the streets.

He was eventually paid to work for the medical team, translating from Creole and French to English. He saved his money, and he began talking to the nurse, who arrived with Palo Alto’s Enoch Choi Foun-dation as part of the relief effort. He told her about his dreams. The nurse agreed to sponsor him, and Joseph gave her his money to help pay for his sponsorship and student visa to the United States, he said.

On the Peninsula, the nurse ar-ranged a 75 percent tuition reduc-tion at Language Pacifica. School officials were impressed by his drive, they said.

“Peterson quickly established himself as a diligent student. Unlike other students of his age playing vid-eo games or watching something on YouTube, Peterson spent his lunch and break time buried in his books, consulting his teachers and doing his homework,” Language Pacifica founder Gerald Brett said.

“It’s not that he wasn’t like his fun-loving peers; it was plain that he had a different mission than they did. His goal was to acquire knowl-edge and professional training in a skill he would eventually take back to Haiti to help his country.”

In January, J oseph became a full-time student at Foothill College. He is trying to get his GED, since his high school education was cut short by the earthquake. He is studying marketing and business, math and English, he said.

“With a bachelor’s degree, I could get a job in Haiti in government,” he said. He also wants to open orphan-ages for the many street children.

In addition, he wants to work with venture capitalists to fund some of his business ideas, which he believes can be highly profitable, he said.

Joseph said he could start a con-struction company to rehabilitate the ravaged city. He could improve agricultural infrastructure so that Haiti won’t have to import most of its food, or build solar power in the tropical country, he said.

For now, he spends most of his time reading and studying. Coulter and his wife are Joseph’s American mom and dad, and they have cared for him “with honor,” he said.

Coulter looked approvingly at the teen. “Sometimes there is a divine appointment,” he said. “I believe this is an appointment for us.”

Staff Writer Sue Dremann can be emailed at sdremann@paweek-ly.com.

Peterson Joseph, a Haitian refugees, is happy to live at The Father’s House Church in Palo Alto. He attends Foothill College and hopes to return to Haiti to work in government and rebuild his country.

Veronica Weber

Page 5

LAND USE

F or residents at the Newell Court apartments in East Palo Alto, change has become

the new normal over the past two years.

In the fall of 2009, the sprawl-ing apartment complex in the city’s Woodland Park neighborhood was in disarray — its trash bins over-flowing, its hallways dark, its fire alarms malfunctioning, its manage-ment office shuttered and its swim-ming pool covered with a film of green filth. The building’s owner, Palo Alto-based Page Mill Proper-ties, had just defaulted on a $50 mil-lion balloon payment to Wells Fargo and was preparing to depart from the Woodland Park neighborhood, where it had antagonized thousands of residents by spiking rents and launching a flood of lawsuits against the city.

Over the past year and a half, Well Fargo has hired a new property man-ager, resolved Page Mill’s lawsuits and invested about $4 million in new roofs, fresh coats of paint, spruced up landscaping and other building improvements. The swimming pools were reopened and the vacancy rates dropped. At 5 Newell Court, the hallways are now well-lighted, the management office is spotless and the fire alarms up to code. About 40 apartment buildings now sport new roofs. Some apartment complexes, including ones on Woodland and Manhattan avenues, have been re-painted and refurbished.

Now, another transition is around the corner for the residents of the roughly 1,800 units. Wells Fargo has just begun its search for a new buyer and is in the process of win-nowing down its pool of candidates, said Robert Maddox, a Wells Fargo manager who has been working on the East Palo Alto portfolio since the bank took ownership.

“We’re going to significant effort to make sure they are transferred to a group with a long-term view to-ward the properties — a group that looks to be a partner to the various stakeholders and can execute on the

city’s long-term vision,” Maddox told the Weekly.

“We’re working very hard to make sure neither the city nor the residents are adversely impacted because of the sale process, which could be potentially disrupting.”

The implosion of Page Mill’s port-folio in East Palo Alto in the second half of 2009 had left Wells Fargo with a daunting to-do list. Just after Page Mill defaulted on its loan, the bank hired a new property manager and began tackling the safety issues at the buildings — most notably the deficient fire alarms, Maddox said. The San Mateo County Superior Court appointed a receiver, David Wald, to oversee the Woodland Park properties, and Wald brought in a new property manager to help resolve the long list of outstanding concerns — including shoddy main-tenance, health-code violations and confusion over the city’s rent-stabi-lization ordinance.

Maddox said one of the bank’s prime objectives when it took over the portfolio was increasing the occu-pancy rate. At the time the bank took over the properties, occupancy was at 63 percent, which Maddox said was well below what the Peninsula market can accommodate. Now, the occupancy rate is at around 93 per-cent, Maddox said, an increase he de-scribed as “the fruits of our labor.”

Some residents contend the condi-tions at the mostly rent-controlled apartments remain far from perfect. One resident complained at a recent meeting of the city’s Rent Stabiliza-tion Board about a lack of hot water in his unit, said Matthew Fremont, a member of the board and a tenant in one of Wells Fargo’s units. Another tenant told the Weekly at a recent tour that her apartment at 7 Newell Court remains drafty and that she has been having a hard time getting someone to come and fix it.

“I see things getting patched up and patched up, but not really fixed,” said Annette Booker, 53, who moved into her Newell Court apartment in 2009.

Ruben Abrica, a member of the East Palo Alto City Council and a Wells Fargo tenant, credited the bank for bringing a more “collab-orative” approach to the city. The relationship between the bank and the city has been collegial and Wells Fargo has done a much better job than Page Mill in communicating with tenants and making sure the buildings meet the fire- and health-code regulations.

“I think the relationship between city government and the city’s big-gest landlord, in this case Wells Fargo, has definitely improved,” Abrica said.

But like other tenants, he said there’s still plenty of room for im-provement in taking care of small, day-to-day problems such as bro-ken windows, damaged fences and malfunctioning heaters. Part of the problem, he said, has been the rapid turnover in property management (the current manager, Laramar, took over in September 2010). It’s not un-common, he said, for some of these small projects to get delayed or re-moved from the manager’s to-do list altogether when a change occurs.

“I think they still need to pay more attention and be more responsive to the maintenance issues,” Abrica said. “Not just the emergency things that we know are the most impor-tant ones, but the sort of wear-and-tear that occurs over the years.

“Those are things people deal with and live with and while they may seem minor in the big picture, they are important.”

But the signs of chaos that domi-nated the scene in the fall of 2009 have all but disappeared and sta-bility has generally been restored. Abrica said the bank has not disput-ed the city’s rent-control laws and has approached the city when it’s had questions. John Finau, who has lived at Newell Court for 11 years, said many of his friends moved out of the apartment complex after Page Mill took over and raised rents. But Finau, 51, decided to stick around, and he said everything is now gener-ally back to normal.

Maddox said Wells Fargo had per-formed its own review of the city’s rent-control ordinance (a topic of great dispute and extensive litigation between Page Mill and the city) and decided to lower rent for about 430 tenants. The average rent decrease was $115, he said. The company also resolved 136 administrative actions filed by individual tenants, a process that cost around $50,000.

“We think we had a really good outcome for the residents, who were able to continue living in the portfo-lio, in many cases, without the noise of administrative actions.”

The most telling change for Wells Fargo officials is the feedback (or, as the case may be, the lack of feed-back) they’ve been getting from tenants in recent months, Maddox said.

“What spoke volumes to us when we first took over and the receiver took over was that lots of residents wanted to talk about a lot of the issues going on,” Maddox said. “Now, everyone is quiet. Everyone is happy.”

Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be emailed at gsheyner@paweekly.com.

Upfront

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Please call our Admissions Offi ce at 650.854.9065 Woodland School, 360 La Cuesta Drive, Portola Valley

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Woodland SchoolOpenings Available in Grades K-4

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Notice of Intent to Circulate Initiative Petition

Notice is hereby given of the intention of the persons whose names appear hereon to circulate an initiative petition within the City of Palo Alto for the purpose of authorizing three medical mari-juana dispensaries within the city, taxing sales, and regulating the time, place and manner of sales. A statement of the reasons of the proposed action as contemplated in said petition is as fol-lows:

THIS ORDINANCE WILL HELP THETERMINALLY ILL IN OUR COMMUNITY

This proposed ordinance would allow our neighbors, who are se-riously or terminally ill, to legally and safely obtain marijuana near their home, if they have the approval of their physician. Proposi-tion 215 was passed by California voters in 1996 with over 5 mil-lion votes, and yet Palo Alto has failed to implement the law. 15 years is long enough. Terminally ill patients, many of whom are elderly, are faced with a Hobson’s choice of buying marijuana il-legally, or traveling many miles to a city that has a dispensary.Marijuana is not a cure, but it can help cancer patients. Many have severe reactions to the disease and chemotherapy, includ-ing nausea. One in three patients discontinues chemo due to these side effects, despite a significant chance of improvement. When standard anti-nausea drugs fail, marijuana often eases pa-tients’ nausea and allows continued treatment.

THE TAXES GENERATED BY SALES CAN SAVE MANY JOBS OF OUR PUBLIC SAFETY WORKERS AND TEACHERS

A similar ordinance in San Jose generated $290,000 in the first month! Think how many police, firefighters, teachers and libraries that would support. We have a choice: capture these taxes for our city or continue to lose them to neighboring municipalities. The ordinance will tax marijuana sales and place the revenue in the city’s general fund. This will be in addition to any local sales taxes generated. The ordinance urges the City Council to use the revenue for public safety and education.

THE THREE DISPENSARIES WILL BE RESTRICTED TO APPROPRIATE LOCATIONS

The law will limit the number of dispensaries to three. The dispen-saries cannot be located in a residential area, or near a school, park or day care center. Anyone wishing to operate a dispensary must meet strict qualification requirements.

MARIJUANA HELPS MORE THAN CANCER PATIENTS

University doctors and researchers have found that marijuana is also effective in: lowering the pressure inside the eye associated with glaucoma, slowing the onset of blindness, and alleviating muscle problems and chronic pain due to multiple sclerosis, epi-lepsy and spinal cord injuries. Shouldn’t our city support physicians who prescribe a medicine capable of relieving suffering? Marijuana is not a cure. But often it is the only way to get relief. A Harvard University survey found that almost half of oncologists nationwide would prescribe marijuana to their patients if it were legal in their state.

PLEASE JOIN US BY SIGNING THE PETITION!

Thomas Gale Moore, Ph.D.Cassandra Chrones Moore, Ph.D.

East Palo Alto’s largest landlord looks to sell properties

Wells Fargo, which took over 1,800 apartment from Page Mill Properties, searches for a new buyer

by Gennady Sheyner

Annette Booker, a resident in the New Court apartments formerly owned by Page Mill Properties, sits in the courtyard on Monday.

Veronica Weber

Page 6

Upfront

Palo Alto’s oldest home coming downThe owner of the Juana Briones House has begun deconstructing

the 166-year-old structure after 13 years of lawsuits that delayed its removal.

The 1844-1845 house, built by Palo Alto pioneer Juana Briones, contained remnants of a rare form of adobe architecture, of which there is only one other example in the state, according to architectural historians.

Juana Briones de Miranda was part of the California population of Spanish, Mexican and Native-American descent. She was the daughter of members of the historic De Anza expedition into California in 1776 and became a prominent Palo Alto rancher, according to the Juana Briones Heritage Association.

The property at 4155 Old Adobe Road in the Palo Alto hills also contained a rock wall built by Native Americans that has been taken down as well, Kent Mitchell, attorney for property owners Jaim Nul-man and Avelyn Welczer, said Wednesday (May 25).

Nulman, Welczer and the City of Palo Alto wrote conditions into the demolition permit after the first lawsuit with the city that allows preservationists and historians to salvage certain historical elements, including the rock wall.

Woodside-based Reusable Lumber, which specializes in historical sites, began work last Friday (May 20).

Clark Akatiff, a member of Friends of the Juana Briones House, said the group made a careful record of the home during a one-month window some years ago when they were allowed on the property.

He met with city officials and preservationists this week to discuss where to store the rock wall and a plaque.

Akatiff said the historic wall cribbing — a slat-style architecture into which adobe or dirt was poured to make walls — and other parts of the home might be made available to the group as the building is deconstructed.

Nulman and Welczer could not be reached for comment on whether they plan to build on the property.

—Sue Dremann

VMWare plans massive expansion in Palo AltoPalo Alto’s information-technology giant VMWare is preparing to

gobble up one of the largest and most lucrative research spaces in Palo Alto — a 1-million-square-foot property formerly occupied by phar-maceutical company Roche.

City Manager James Keene confirmed Wednesday night (May 25) that the deal is being finalized. The lease of the former Roche prop-erty, which makes up about 10 percent of the entire Stanford Research Park, would dramatically expand VMWare’s presence in the bustling technological hub and allow it to nearly double its work force to about 6,000 employees, making it the largest employer in the city.

In the last few years, the Stanford Research Park has seen an infusion of hot, young companies such as Facebook, Skype, Tesla and Better Place. The park is also home to a long list of established industry titans, including HP, Varian Medical Systems and SAP.

—Gennady Sheyner

News Digest

Palo Alto Online is looking for residents interested in joining our team in covering community issues through blogging.

If you have a passion or expertise, or are just an opinionated resident with thoughts to share about life in Palo Alto, we welcome your application to become a blogger on our site. Writers selected as featured bloggers will receive a monthly payment, will be promoted on PaloAltoOnline.com and in the Palo Alto Weekly and are expected to make regular postings at least once a week. Non-paid bloggers may become featured bloggers by generating a high number of page views and comments on their blog.

For more information, send an e-mail to editor@paweekly.com or call Tyler Hanley, online editor, at 650-326-8210.

We’re looking for online columnists/ bloggers!

Hamerslough arrived in time for the campaign to take Okinawa, one of the last islands before the Japa-nese mainland.

“It was a series of ridges, and all you could do was keep your head down and hope for the best,” he said.

“They could see everything you could do, and it wasn’t fun to know that you had to climb up,” he add-ed.

In his first week of combat, on May 21, 1945, Hamerslough suf-fered a devastating injury to his legs from a Japanese mortar shell. It rendered him unable to walk.

“They were targeting officers,” he said.

“Mortar shells were attacking the line. I got blown 10 feet back. Any bigger shell and I wouldn’t be here,” Hamerslough said, adding, “I was lucky that I am still here.”

His injury was one of a number of casualties. Of the 60 officers in

his unit, 40 were casualties. During the month of May, the casualties on Okinawa totaled 4,000 men per week.

It took him two months and nine days to get back to Seattle for a se-ries of three operations. It was al-most a year before he could walk again.

“Not being able to walk for seven or eight months (after the opera-tion), I wondered what the hell my life was going to be,” he said.

He was retired out the military due to disability and moved to San Francisco, where he worked as a notary.

Today, Hamerslough makes time to stop by the VA hospital to visit wounded soldiers.

And as for the effect of the war on him, he has an optimistic outlook.

“Live and let live. I look at it as part of the bigger picture of life,” he said.

Editorial Intern Aaron Guggen-heim can be emailed at aguggen-heim@paweekly.com.

Veterans(continued from page 3)

Edward ‘Eddie’ Patton, a Vietnam veteran and cook at La Comida in Palo Alto, stands in the entryway of the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program in Menlo Park, which trained him in his profession. Patton will help at the center’s Memorial Day celebration this weekend.

Veronica Weber

Page 7

Upfront

Women leaders address East Palo Alto studentsState Attorney General Kamala Harris was one of nearly 100 women

leaders to address middle school girls in East Palo Alto Thursday morning (May 26). (Posted May 26 at 8:54 a.m.)

Neighbors and SFPUC: Move oak tree?Granny might have to move. Tree advocates and the San Francisco

Public Utilities Commission met Tuesday (May 24) to discuss how to save the 65-foot heritage oak tree standing in the way of the Hetch Hetchy pipeline. (Posted May 25 at 2:09 p.m.)

City may raise fees for car chargers, solar panelsFor Palo Alto residents, installing a solar panel or an electric-car

charger is about to get a little more expensive. The city is proposing to raise permit fees for both solar panels and car chargers in July. (Posted

May 25 at 9:25 a.m.)

Zoning administrator OKs Mayfield developmentThe large Mayfield residential development is on its way to the

Mountain View City Council for a vote on June 21, thanks to a deci-sion Wednesday (May 18) by Zoning Administrator Peter Gilli. (Posted

May 24 at 9:54 a.m.)

Menlo Park: Man robbed in parked carTwo men allegedly robbed an 18-year-old man Friday (May 20) who

was sitting in his car. The duo fled in a 2006 Volvo, but didn’t get very far. (Posted May 23 at 2:37 p.m.)

Menlo Park home invaded, victim assaultedAn early-morning call led Menlo Park police to the scene of a home

invasion on Sunday (May 22) in the 1000 block of Windermere Av-enue. (Posted May 23 at 2:32 p.m.)

Suspects arrested in Sunday beating, robberyTwo suspects were arrested for the severe beating and robbery of an

East Palo Alto man early Sunday (May 22), police said. The victim told police the suspects had fled after stealing his wallet. (Posted May

22 at 10:30 p.m.)

Weekly takes home seven journalism awardsThe Palo Alto Weekly won seven awards for its work in 2010 at the

Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards dinner in Foster City Saturday night (May 21), including for coverage of the February 2010 Cessna plane crash and citywide power outage. (Posted May 21 at 11:17 p.m.)

Palo Alto robber pleads guilty, gets five yearsA man responsible for two brazen street robberies that terrorized

Palo Alto residents beginning in September 2010 pleaded guilty to the crimes Friday (May 20) in Santa Clara County Superior Court in Palo Alto, Deputy District Attorney James Demertzis said. (Posted May

20 at 9:32 p.m.)

Stanford University trail opensA long-awaited public hiking trail that has been a decade in the

making opened Friday (May 20). The new trail, called the Matadero Trail, is the “S1” route in the Santa Clara Countywide Trails Master Plan. The trail runs on Stanford University land from the south corner of Page Mill Road and Foothill Expressway and alongside Page Mill to Deer Creek Road. (Posted May 20 at 10:36 a.m.)

Former firefighter threatens police chiefA former Palo Alto firefighter who has held a grudge against the city

for years pleaded no contest on Thursday (May 19) to a felony count of making criminal threats against Palo Alto police Chief Dennis Burns and several city officials. (Posted May 20 at 9:57 a.m.)

Residents: High-speed rail would affect home valuesIf and when high-speed rail is built in Palo Alto, properties and

home values will decrease, residents predicted Thursday night (May 19) at the Rail Corridor Study Community Workshop held at Lucie Stern Community Center. (Posted May 20 at 9:49 a.m.)

Online This WeekThese and other news stories were posted on Palo Alto Online throughout the week. For longer versions, go to www.PaloAltoOnline.com/news or click on “News” in the left, green column.

Want to get news briefs e-mailed to you every weekday? Sign up for Express, our new daily e-edition. Go to www.PaloAltoOnline.com to sign up.

CITY OF PALO ALTONOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, pursuant to Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 2.28.070, that the City Council of the City of Palo Alto will hold a Public Hearing at its Special Meeting on Monday, June 13 and at a Special Meeting on June 20, 2011, at 6:00 p.m., or as soon thereafter as possible, in the Council Chambers, City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California, on the proposed Fiscal Year 2012 Budget, with adoption on June 20, 2011. Copies of the budget are available on the City’s website and in the Administrative Services Department, 4th Floor, City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. There is a $20.00 per book or $10.00 per cd-rom charge for this publication.

NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN that the City Council of the City of Palo Alto will hold a Special Meeting on June 20, 2011, at 6:00 p.m., or as soon thereafter as possible, in the Council Chambers, City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California, to consider adoption of a resolution determining the calculation of the appropriations limit for Fiscal Year 2012. The calculation of the limit and the supporting documentation are available for review in the City Budget Office, 4th floor, 250 Hamilton Ave, Palo Alto. There is a charge of $.12 per page for copying documentation.

DONNA J. GRIDER, MMC City Clerk

Notice is hereby Given that proposals will be received by the Palo Alto Unified School District for bid package:

Contract No. JLSP-11

DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK: The work includes, but is not limited to: The relocation of two (2) existing 960 square foot portable classroom buildings. Work includes dismantling, building moving, asphalt paving & utility trenching, electrical, fire alarm, EMS and reassembly of units for complete and operational portable classroom buildings. Bidding docu-ments contain the full description of the work.

There will be a mandatory pre-bid conference and site visit at 3:00 p.m. on May 18, 2011 at J. L. Stanford (JLS) Middle School located at 480 East Meadow Drive, Palo Alto, California 94306. Contractors who at-tended the previous pre-bid conference and site visit held on May 4, 2011 are exempt from this requirement.

Bid Submission: Proposals must be received at the District Facilities Office, 25 Churchill Ave., Building D, by 3:00 p.m. on June 1, 2011.

PREVAILING WAGE LAWS: The successful Bidder must comply with all prevailing wage laws applicable to the Project, and related requirements contained in the Contract Documents.

Palo Alto Unified School District will maintain a Labor Compliance Program (LCP) for the duration of this project. In bidding this proj-ect, the contractor warrants he/she is aware and will follow the Pub-lic Works Chapter of the California Labor Code comprised of Labor Code Sections 1720 - 1861. A copy of the District’s LCP is available for review at 25 Churchill Avenue, Building D, Palo Alto, CA 94306.

1. A pre-construction conference shall be conducted with the con-tractor or subcontractors to discuss federal and state labor law requirements applicable to the contract.

2. Project contractors and subcontracts shall maintain and furnish to the District, at a designated time, a certified copy of each payroll with a statement of compliance signed under penalty of perjury.

3. The District shall review and, if appropriate, audit payroll records to verify compliance with the Public Works Chapter of the Labor Code.

4. The District shall withhold contract payments if payroll records are delinquent or inadequate.

5. The District shall withhold contract payments as described in the LCP, including applicable penalties when the District and Labor Commissioner establish that underpayment of other violations has occurred.

Bidders may examine Bidding Documents at the District Facilities Of-fice, 25 Churchill Ave, Building D, Palo Alto. Bidders may purchase copies of Plans and Specifications at American Reprographics Com-pany (ARC), 599 Fairchild Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043. Phone: (650) 967-1966

Address all questions to:

Palo Alto Unified School District25 Churchill Avenue, Building DPalo Alto, CA 94306-1099Attn: Heidi RankPhone: (650) 833-4205 Fax: (650) 327-3588 e-mail: hrank@pausd.org

Palo Alto Unified School District

sary, to students who are struggling.Two members of the Parent Net-

work for Students of Color spoke in favor of instituting the higher gradu-ation bar.

Kim Bomar and Sara Woodham Johnson both said Palo Alto’s cur-rent system amounts to a two-tiered structure, where many graduate with multiple advanced classes and head to top universities while others graduate ill-prepared to take care of themselves in the world in the most basic ways.

“Our reputation is based on a Tier One standard that facilitates schools to provide an education that equips our children to apply to the best of the best,” Woodham Johnson said.

“I moved to Palo Alto for exactly that reason.

“But now that I’m here the system disturbs me greatly, because for 18 percent of the students, this same system leaves children behind and they’re not qualified to apply to the most obvious state schools.”

Other California school districts, including large ones such as Los Angeles Unified, have adopted or plan to implement the so-called A-G graduation requirements. All of those districts have some form of waiver system, district staff mem-bers said.

The majority of parents and teachers speaking Tuesday urged the board to move slowly on the A-G issue.

“We absolutely endorse higher expectations,” said teacher Trina Gogarty, president of the teachers’ union Palo Alto Educators Associa-tion.

“But it will be tainted if students aren’t able to graduate or gradu-ate with a diploma stamped with a waiver.”

Board members said they had too many unanswered questions to pro-ceed at this time. A major concern was whether a student obtaining a waiver of the tougher require-ments would end up carrying what amounts to a black mark on his or her diploma.

Rather than scheduling a vote on the proposal for June, as had been planned, Superintendent Kevin Skel-ly said he will return to the board this fall with more information.

In particular, he said he will re-search why some students are not currently fulfilling the A-G require-ments and how the district would implement the tougher graduation requirements should they be ad-opted.

“I don’t think there’s any way for-ward except raising the expectations for the system and the students in it to achieve,” Skelly said. n

Staff Writer Chris Kenrick can be emailed at ckenrick@paweekly.com.

Grad requirements(continued from page 3)

VOTE BY JULY 3PaloAltoOnline.com

Page 8

Page 9

Upfront

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your home, who will understand exactly what you’re going through? Your local real estate professional knows about all the positives and negatives that can be associated with selling your home.

Perhaps you’re under pressure to sell because of unpleasant cir-cumstances. Being overwhelmed by these issues can sometimes cloud your judgment when making home selling decisions. Place yourself in the capable hands of a qualified real estate professional who will coordi-nate a smooth sell transaction.

Maybe you have other concerns about selling or buying a new home. You want a safe neighborhood, or

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Be sure to fully explain all of your anxieties and your desires to your agent who is trained to handle the transaction ups and downs and who genuinely cares about helping you through this process. Even if you’re not sure what you want or need, your agent can offer solid information and guidance. You deserve nothing less.

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City Council The council did not meet this week.

Board of Education (May 24)Graduation requirements The board discussed a staff proposal to stiffen high school graduation requirements by aligning them with entrance criteria for the Uni-versity of California and California State University systems. Members asked for more information before making a decision, and the issue will be discussed again in the fall. Vote: NoneGarland lease The board discussed terminating the lease of the former Garland Elementary School site, at 870 N. California Ave., to the private tenant Stratford Schools, Inc., as of June 30, 2014. A school board vote is expected June 14. The tenant notification deadline is June 30, 2011. Vote: None

City Council Finance Committee (May 24)Public safety The committee discussed and tentatively approved the fiscal year 2012 budget for the Fire Department. Yes: Scharff, Schmid, Shepherd Abstained: YehPublic Works The committee discussed and tentatively approved the fiscal year 2012 budget for the Public Works Department. Yes: Unanimous

Parks and Recreation Commission (May 24)Bicycles The commission discussed the city’s proposed bicycling improvements and ways to improve pedestrian and bicycle connections between the Palo Alto Art Center, the Main Library and the Community Gardens. Action: None

City Council Finance Committee (May 25)Municipal fees The committee accepted proposed changes to the city’s municipal fee schedule in fiscal year 2012. Yes: Scharff, Schmid, ShepherdAbsent: Yeh

Planning & Transportation Commission (May 25)711 El Camino Real The commission discussed a proposal for a 44-room “con-cierge wing” and decided to continue the discussion to June 22. Yes: Fineberg, Gar-ber, Keller, Lippert, Martinez, Tuma Absent: Tanaka

City Council Rail Committee (May 26)Caltrain The committee heard a presentation from Caltrain staff and engineering consultants about Caltrain’s electrification proposal. Action: None

CityViewA round-up of Palo Alto government action this week

Page 10

Upfront

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Lu Hugdahl of Mountain View opened up a safe deposit box at a bank in Los Altos in November of 2006. Two years later she went to open her safe deposit box and was horrifi ed to discover four or fi ve rings and three necklaces missing. On a police report she estimated two of the rings were worth approximately $1,500.00, “one being a keepsake from a cherished friend who passed away”, as reported by the Los Altos Town Crier. Hugdahl was stunned.

CITY COUNCIL ... The council

has no meetings scheduled next

week.

HISTORIC RESOURCES BOARD ... The board plans to discuss

1005 University Ave., a request

by Norman Beamer and Diane

Taska to designate the property

to the city’s Historic Inventory.

The meeting will begin at 8 a.m.

on Wednesday, June 1, in the

Council Chambers at City Hall

(250 Hamilton Ave.).

UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMIS-SION ... The commission plans

to discuss a business plan for

the citywide ultra high-speed

Internet system and consider

potential topics for its joint ses-

sion with the City Council. The

meeting will begin at 7 p.m. on

Wednesday, June 1, in the Coun-

cil Chambers at City Hall.

ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD ... The board plans to

discuss 2080 Channing Ave., a

request by Kenneth Rodriques &

Partners, Inc., for a preliminary

review of a proposal for Edge-

wood Plaza Shopping Center.

The project includes renova-

tion of three retail structures, a

relocation of one retail structure

and construction of 10 houses.

The meeting will begin at 8:30

a.m. on Thursday, June 2, in the

Council Chambers at City Hall.

RAIL CORRIDOR TASK FORCE ... The task force will continue its

discussion of the city’s land-use

vision for the Caltrain Corridor.

The meeting will begin at 6:30

p.m. on Thursday, June 2, in the

Lucie Stern Community Room

(1305 Middlefield Road).

Public AgendaA preview of Palo Alto government meetings next week

The Best of Palo Alto

It is time again for the readers of the Palo Alto Weekly and users of Palo Alto Online to voice their views on the top establishments in or around Palo Alto. With a musical theme amplifying this year’s Best Of poll, voters can sing the praises of their favorite business. From manicures to Mexican food, yogurt to yoga, we’re asking you to single out the best restaurants, the best re-tailers, the best services and the best places for sheer enjoyment.

Convenient online voting starts Friday, May 27. To access the online ballot, visit our homepage at www.PaloAltoOnline.com.

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Page 12

T he bustling hotel hub next to Palo Alto’s downtown transit center may soon become more

crowded — and luxurious.Clement Chen of the hotel con-

glomerate Pacific Hotel Manage-ment is asking the city to rezone a small site at 711 El Camino Real to enable construction of a new five-story hotel. The new building would be an addition to the Westin and Sheraton hotels, which Chen’s firm also owns.

Chen has requested that the city change the site to a Planned Com-munity (PC) Zone, a designation that enables applicants to exceed the city’s zoning regulations in ex-change for negotiated “public ben-efits.” The proposed hotel would be about twice as dense as the city’s zoning regulations allow.

Members of the city’s Planning and Transportation Commission said Wednesday night they would be open to starting the rezoning process but decided Chen needs to provide more benefits. The commis-sion agreed to hold off on the zone change until Chen comes back with a stronger proposal.

Although they expressed reserva-tions about public benefits — which include sidewalk improvements, new crosswalks, $50,000 in land-scaping upgrades and way-finding signs to direct pedestrians from downtown to the Town & Coun-try Village shopping center — the commissioners also found much to like in the hotel proposal. Perhaps the most enticing benefit the new hotel would bring is revenue, in the form of transient-occupancy taxes. Chen estimated the new luxury wing would provide the city about $500,000 in annual taxes.

Though dubbed by Chen as a “concierge wing” to the Westin and

Sheraton hotels, the new structure would stand across the street from the existing hotel complex. The top four floors would house 44 guest rooms.

On the ground floor, the new ho-tel would include a cocktail lounge, guest pantry, business center and dining room, which would provide guests with complimentary break-fast, afternoon snacks and evening hors d’oeuvres. The roof would fea-ture a sun deck, two fire pits and a hot tub.

The new hotel would stand at the former site of the Palo Alto Pet Hospital. Chen, whose father built the two existing hotels, told the commission that the constraints of the proposed site make a zoning change necessary. These constraints include the site’s location right next to the Palo Alto Medical Founda-tion’s complex, the existing zoning designation (which can accommo-date only a one-story hotel) and the small size of the property. Given these limitations, the only feasible way to run a hotel at the site is to share facilities with the Westin and Sheraton, he said.

“A lot of support functions that normally a stand-alone has to cram into the little site, we could be han-

dling with ease and cost efficiency at the Westin and Sheraton,” Chen said.

Vice Chair Lee Lippert said he was “seduced by the project,” which he called “handsome” and “appro-priate” in its land use. The tax rev-enues make the project particularly lucrative, numerous commissioners said.

But Lippert and others also ar-gued the bulk of the public ameni-ties would benefit mainly the hotel and its clientele, not the public at large. These benefits, the commis-sion agreed, fall short of what the applicant would need to offer to get the zone change.

“It’s rich like cream — there’s a lot of really good feelings about the project,” Lippert said. “Many of the community benefits don’t quite measure up to the same richness.

“I feel that can possibly be the skim milk or the low-fat milk or even the whey of the project.”

Commissioners Eduardo Martinez and Daniel Garber proposed initiat-ing the zone change at Wednesday’s meeting but ultimately agreed to delay the vote and allow the appli-cant to present a stronger package of benefits. Garber pointed to the site’s close proximity to the downtown transit station as a good reason to support the new development.

“This is where we want to have density in the city,” Garber said.

Chair Samir Tuma also said the proposed project “makes a tre-mendous amount of sense” when it comes to land use. But with so many reservations about the public-benefits package, he and the rest of the commission agreed to delay the vote until June 22.

Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be emailed at gsheyner@paweekly.com.

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since 2003. Last year, the council considered making further cuts, in-cluding eliminating the five-officer “traffic team” and the school cross-ing-guard program. The council ul-timately backed off these proposals after heavy lobbying from residents who argued that the cuts would put their children in danger.

Councilwoman Nancy Shepherd, much like the rest of the committee, said she would prefer labor conces-sions to service cuts. Shepherd, who serves as one of the council’s liai-sons to the Palo Alto Unified School District, said she has already en-countered angst in the school com-munity about the cuts on the table.

“I don’t want to get back to last year, where we had a room full of parents worried about the crossing guard and the traffic team,” Shep-herd said.

The council, however, faces sig-nificant hurdles when it comes to both attaining labor concessions and making staffing cuts. The firefight-ers’ union and city management

have been negotiating on a new con-tract for the past year and remain at an impasse. The two sides are pre-paring to take their disagreements to binding arbitration in the fall. The firefighters’ contract also includes a “minimum staffing” provision requiring at least 29 firefighters to be on duty at all times. The clause makes it impossible for the city to unilaterally cut positions in the Fire Department.

The city is also starting its nego-tiations with the police union, which will see its contract expire at the end of June.

Though the council hopes to get about $2.3 million from the fire union and $2 million from the police union, these numbers are subject to change. At Tuesday’s hearing, the committee repeatedly questioned the staffing level in the Fire De-partment and wondered whether the city really needs to have so many more firefighters (108) than police officers (91). City Manager James Keene said other cities typically have more officers than firefight-ers.

“The truth is, if we were ultimate-ly unsuccessful (in negotiations),

there’s nothing that would tie the council’s hands that would say we have to stay with the same meth-odology,” Keene said. “It may be a completely different ratio based on what the impacts of the cuts could be for the community.”

In addition to assuming $4.3 mil-lion in union concessions, Keene’s proposed budget also allocates about $1 million for a new Office of Emergency Services. The of-fice would include a director, two managers and administrative as-sistants.

The committee unanimously en-dorsed the creation of a new office, which has long been championed by the city’s robust community of emergency-preparedness volun-teers.

“I see this as tremendous leverage to resources because there’s a huge number of people in the community who have volunteered and who want to be engaged and active,” Council-man Greg Schmid said. “What we’re doing is making sure they can be ac-tive in a helpful, positive way.”

Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be emailed at gsheyner@paweekly.com.

Police/fire budget(continued from page 3)

LAND USE

Downtown hotels look to add five-story ‘wing’Planning commissioners say proposal makes sense, demand more ‘public benefits’

by Gennady Sheyner

El Camino Real

Palm

Dr

Wells Ave

Encina Ave

Urban Ln

Town & Country

PAMF

Sheraton

The Westin

Hotel proposed along El Camino Real

Location for proposed hotel expansion

Good for Business. Good for the Community.

Good for You.

The online guide to Palo Alto

businesses

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Page 13

PulseA weekly compendium of vital statistics

Palo AltoMay 18-24Violence relatedAssault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Child abuse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Theft relatedBurglary attempt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Checks forgery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Commercial burglary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Credit card forgery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Grand theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Identity theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Petty theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Residential burglary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Shoplifting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Vehicle relatedAuto theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Bicycle theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Driving w/suspended license . . . . . . . . .3Hit and run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Misc. traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Theft from auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7Vehicle accident/no injury. . . . . . . . . . . .1Vehicle accident/minor injury . . . . . . . . .7Vehicle accident/property damage. . . . .9Vehicle impound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Vehicle tow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Alcohol or drug relatedDrunk in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Drunken driving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Liquor law/possession by minor . . . . . . .1Possession of paraphernalia. . . . . . . . . .1N&D possession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3MiscellaneousAnimal attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Elder abuse/financial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Elder abuse/self neglect . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Found property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Hate crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Juvenile problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Lost property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Missing juvenile/misc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Muni. code/misc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Muni. code/noise complaint . . . . . . . . . .1Prowler/misc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Psych subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Suspicious circumstances . . . . . . . . . . .2Vandalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Warrant/other agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Menlo ParkMay 17-23Violence relatedBattery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Theft relatedAttempted burglary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Burglary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Fraud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Petty theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Robbery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Vehicle relatedAuto recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Driving w/o license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Hit and run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Suspended/revoked license . . . . . . . . . .6Vehicle accident/injury . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Vehicle accident/no injury. . . . . . . . . . . .3Vehicle breakdown/hazard . . . . . . . . . . .1Vehicle tow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Alcohol or drug relatedDrug activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Drunk in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Possession of controlled substance . . . .1MiscellaneousCPS referral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Disturbance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Gang validations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Follow up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Found property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Info. case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Located missing person . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Meet citizen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Missing person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Outside assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Probation violation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Registrant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Resist arrest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Suspicious circumstances . . . . . . . . . . .1Vandalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Verbal disturbance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Warrant arrest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

AthertonMay 17-23Theft relatedAttempted burglary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Fraud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Petty theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Vehicle relatedHit and run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

(continued on next page)

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that the City Council of the City of Palo Alto will hold a Public Hearing, pursuant to Article XIIID, section 6 of the California Constitution, at its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, June 13, 2011, at 6:00 p.m., or as soon thereafter as possible, in the Council Chambers, City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. The Public Hearing will be held to consider changes to Water and Wastewater Utilities Rate Schedules, which if adopted, will be effective July 1, 2011.

Copies of the proposed water and wastewater rate schedules are available on the City’s website at www.cityofpaloalto.org/rateincrease and in the Utilities Department, 3rd Floor, City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. There is a $3.00 per copy charge for this publication.

DONNA J. GRIDER, MMC City Clerk

CITY OF PALO ALTO NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

NOTICE OF HEARING ON PARKING ASSESSMENT ROLLFISCAL YEAR 2012 CALIFORNIA AVENUE PARKING

PROJECT NO. 92-13(Resolution of Intention No. 7230, Adopted August 9, 1993)

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the City Engineer has caused to be prepared and filed with the City Clerk a report which provides for the levying of special assessments on the properties within the parking assessment districts created and established for the projects and pursuant to the Resolution of Intention cited above. The report sets forth the amounts proposed to be levied for the fiscal year 2012 upon the several parcels of real property in the parking assessment districts created to pay the principal and interest of the bonds issued in the projects, which report is open to public inspection.

The report will be heard by the Council at its special meeting to be held on the 13th day of June 2011 at the hour of 6:00 p.m. in Council Chambers, City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California, at which time said Council will examine said report and hear all persons interested therein.

Any person interested in objecting to the amount of the assessment on any parcel of real property owned by him or her, may file with the City Clerk, at or before the hour fixed for hearing, a protest in writing signed by him or her, describing the parcel so that it may be identified, and stating the ground or grounds of protest, and may appear at the hearing and be heard in regard thereto.

DONNA J. GRIDER, MMC City Clerk

NOTICE OF A PUBLIC MEETINGof the Palo Alto

Planning & Transportation CommissionPlease be advised the Planning and Transportation Commission (P&TC) shall conduct a public meeting at 6:00 PM, Wednesday, June 8, 2011 in the Civic Center, Council Chambers, 1st Floor, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. Any interested persons may appear and be heard on these items.

Staff reports for agendized items are available via the City’s main website at www.cityofpaloalto.org. and also at the Planning Division Front Desk, 5th Floor, City Hall, after 2:00 PM on the Friday preceding the meeting date. Copies will be made available at the Development Center should City Hall be closed on the 9/80 Friday.

CONSENT.

1. Approval of CIP SubCommittee Letter.

NEW BUSINESS.Study Session:

2. Rail Corridor Study Session: Study session to receive P&TC’s input to staff and consultants on the preparation of the Rail Corridor Study. The consultant, BMS Design Group, will present an update on the process and the progress of the Rail Corridor Task Force.

Public Hearing:

3. 300 Homer Avenue: Request by Palo Alto History Museum (PAHM) for a Conditional Use Permit for Community Facility use of the 19,182 s.f. Roth Building and additional 1,462 s.f. area. Historic and Architectural Review approvals included exceptions from the South of Forest Coordinated Area Plan Phase 1 parking requirements and from the minimum street side yard setback. Request for hearing by Ken Alsman, 1057 Ramona Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301. Environmental Assessment: Categorically Exempt pursuant to Sections 15301 and 15331 of the CEQA Guidelines.

Questions. For any questions regarding the above applications, please contact the Planning Department at (650) 329-2440. The files relating to these items are available for inspection weekdays between the hours of 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. This public meeting is televised live on Government Access Channel 26.

ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn more about the City’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), please contact the City’s ADA Coordinator at 650.329.2550 (voice) or by e-mailing ada@cityofpaloalto.org.

***Curtis Williams, Director of Planning and Community Environment P A I D O B I T U A R Y

Palo Alto resident Robert N. Varney, Ph.D., Commander, USNR (Ret.), died April 9, five months after his 100th birthday. Dr. Varney, a native of San Francisco, was a physicist, an educator; a research scientist; an expert witness on the effects of lightning; and a Navy scientist during WWII.

A 1931 graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Dr. Varney also earned his masters degree in Mathematics and his doctorate in Physics there. Following his first teaching assignment at UC, he taught at New York University, and then for 26 years at Washington University in St. Louis. After that, he spent ten years at Lockheed, continuing his research on the behavior of electricity in gasses, a field in which he was a pioneer.

Fulbright fellowships and other teaching and research assignments took Dr. Varney and his family to Innsbruck, Austria, and Stockholm, Sweden. For his work, he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor, First Class, for Arts and Sciences, along with an honorary D.Sc.

During WWII, Dr. Varney worked at improving the performance of large naval guns at the U.S. Naval Proving Ground at Dahlgren, VA. It was at Dahlgren that he met and married his wife of 62 years, Astrid, known as Rita.

Dr. Varney had a life-long love of music, shared by his wife and family, and was a long-time supporter of the San Francisco Opera and Symphony.

Dr. Varney is survived by his wife, Astrid Riffolt Varney, of Palo Alto; his daughter, Natalie, Menlo Park; his son Nils, Beaufort, SC; and two grandchildren, Colleen and Tess Varney

The family asks that donations in his memory be sent to the Varney Fund, c/o Dr. David Hall, Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130. This fund supports the Varney Prize, established years ago by alumni in his honor.

Robert N. VarneyNov. 7, 1910-April 9, 2011

AT&T Mobility, LLC is proposing to construct a new telecommunications tower facility northeast of the T-intersection of Page Mill Rd & Deer Creek Rd, Palo Alto, CA. The new facility will consist of an approximately 30.2-foot tall street light tower with 2 antennas mounted on the sides at a top height of 24.5 feet. Associated support equipment will be located on a 6.5 x 9.5-foot concrete pad at the SE base of the light. Any interested party wishing to submit comments regarding the potential effects the proposed facility may have on any historic property may do so by sending such comments to: Project 61111141-GW c/o EBI Consulting, 11445 E. Via Linda, Suite 2, #472, Scottsdale, AZ 85259, or via telephone at 619-453-7240.

Page 14

Lasting Memories

An online directory

of obituaries and

remembrances.

Search obituaries,

submit a memorial,

share a photo.

Visit: PaloAltoOnline.com/

obituaries

Introducing

BirthsAmy McLaughlin and Fraser

Smith of Menlo Park, a son, Scott James Smith, April 26.

Gabrielle Moyer and John Fos-ter of Palo Alto, a son, May 10.

Monica Chacon and Florencio Flores Vasquez of East Palo Alto, a son, May 10.

Angela and Roy Baiamonte of East Palo Alto, a son, May 11.

Memorial ServicesA memorial service for

Franklin Smith will be held Friday, May 27, at 11 a.m. at St. Raymonds Church, 1100 Santa Cruz Ave., Menlo Park.

A memorial service for Phyl-lis Johnson will be held Satur-day, June 4, at 2:30 p.m. at The Sequoias, 501 Portola Road, Portola Valley.

Parking problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Suspicious vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Ticket sign-off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Traffic detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Traffic hazard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Vehicle accident/no injury. . . . . . . . . . . .4Vehicle code violation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7Alcohol or drug relatedDrunken driving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Drunk in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Narcotics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2MiscellaneousAnimal call. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Building/perimeter check . . . . . . . . . . . .9Citizen assist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Construction site check . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Disturbance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Fire call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Hazard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Juvenile problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Medical aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7Meet citizen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7Outside assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Suspicious circumstances . . . . . . . . . . .4Suspicious person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Town ordinance violation . . . . . . . . . . . .4Tree down. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Vandalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Welfare check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

VIOLENT CRIMESPalo Alto400 block Alma Street, 5/18, 8:17 p.m.; assault/police officer.Unlisted block Colorado Avenue, 5/19, 8:05 p.m.; child abuse/physical.Unlisted block North California Avenue, 5/20, 5:13 p.m.; battery/simple.

Menlo ParkSeminary Drive, 5/18, 5:04 p.m.; battery.200 block Waverly Street, 5/21, 11:10 a.m.; battery.

Pulse(continued from preious page)

TransitionsBirths, marriages and deaths

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P A I D O B I T U A R Y

Barbara Katherine GrayMarch 28, 1924-May 18, 2011

Barbara K. Gray, a longtime Midpeninsula resident,

passed away May 18 at Palo Alto Commons. She was 87.

Born in Astoria, Oregon to Edward Everett Gray and Edna

Ida (Hahn) Gray, she grew up in Upland, California where

her father was city attorney. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa

in Political Science from Stanford University in 1945. After

graduation she interned at the National War Labor Board

and the President’s Steel Fact Finding Board in Washington

D.C. Barbara loved working for Macy’s in New York City as

a Fashion Publicist and for many years she organized labor-

management conferences in the US and Europe for non-

profit foundations. She was Executive Assistant to Theodore

W. Kheel, a well known New York lawyer, arbitrator and

mediator. In her forties she returned to California to earn a

J.D. degree at the UC Davis School of Law.

Barbara traveled extensively in her later years as she

pursued her love of history, art, museums and books. She

served as an enthusiastic volunteer at the Cantor Arts Center

at Stanford and the Friends of the Menlo Park Library. She

was a deacon at First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto and

was most thankful for the loving support of that community

as dementia reduced her activities in recent years.

Barbara’s brother, Robert Stuart Gray, preceded her

in death. She is survived by her niece, Susan A. Gray of

Vashon, Washington, and nephew, John S. Gray of Glen

Allen Virginia.

A simple service is being planned for family and friends at

First Presbyterian Church, 1140 Cowper Street, Palo Alto.

Contact the church office for date and time, 650-325-5659.

P A I D O B I T U A R Y

Bernice Ross, daughter of Alex and Rose, was born in Baltimore, Maryland on August 6, 1924. Bernice grew up in a loving household with two working parents; her mother was a seamstress and her father owned a bowling alley. Bernice grew up with a love for clothing, occasionally referring to her eye for fashion as a “sixth sense”.

Bernice attended UCLA where she met Da-vid, her future husband. They married in Santa Monica and moved to Berkeley where Dave at-tended graduate school. A series of jobs led the two across the country to Boston, Seattle and eventually back to California.

Bernice and Dave produced three children, Barbi, Rich and Steve. As the kids grew up and attended schools in Palo Alto, Bernice took up knitting, often

creating beautiful sweaters and blankets for family and friends. As the kids got older she began writing poetry and essays that exemplified her creative and imaginative talents. She became an accomplished needlepoint craftswoman, often showcasing her beautiful work in picture frames.

After the passing of her husband, Bernice moved to Channing House in 2006. She lived life to the fullest, expanding her literary talents in writing classes, attending cultural events and spending time with her three kids, seven grand-children and two great grandchildren.

Bernice Ross Feller

P A I D O B I T U A R Y

Earl “Don” AlexanderMay 27, 1924-May 14, 2011

U.S. Air Force veteran, WWII

Earl “Don” Alexander passed away peacefully on May 14 after a courageous battle with cancer. Born to Sylvia and William Hinkley in San Francisco, Earl assumed the name of his stepfather, Don Alexander, when he entered the Army Air Force in World War II. He served as a B-17 bombardier out of Foggia, Italy. Briefly shot down and missing in action, he was rescued by the Russians. He returned to the U.S. and married his fiancée the day before the war ended.

Don and his wife Kathryn (Kay) lived in the Bay Area while attending U. C. Berkeley. Don worked in the fire insurance business in San Francisco until he was transferred to Southern California, taking his young family with him, including three children, Steve, Lauren and Douglas. He attended Long Beach State College where he earned a Master’s degree and his teaching and administrative credentials. He worked in the Savanna and Cypress school districts as a teacher and principal.

In 1969, the family returned to the Bay Area where Don became first a teacher and then administrator in the Menlo Park School District, enjoying his many friends and colleagues until his retirement in 1983. He was a much awarded photographer and was active in several camera clubs over the years. A master wood craftsman, Don stayed busy with both the practical and arts side of woodworking the length of his life. He also enjoyed the beauty of his garden.

Don lived 43 productive and peaceful years in Los Altos. He is survived by his wife, Kay Alexander of Los Altos and three children, Steve Alexander of Costa Mesa, Lauren Hildebrand of Blaine, Minnesota, and Douglas Alexander of Woodside, California, and by four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Page 15

College Terrace parkingEditor,

In the last 10 years the city of Palo Alto has done nothing to clean up nonresidents’ parking in the CN zone of College Terrace on a perma-nent basis. I live on Oxford Avenue and pay $50 per year for the privi-lege of parking on College Terrace streets. There is a person who does not own or rent property in Palo Alto (assuming that if he did he would not be sleeping in his van on Oxford) who parks about 15 vehicles on a permanent basis. Usually six of them are within 100 feet of my house. The police cannot do anything because he keeps a record of when he parks each vehicle and moves them to avoid the 72-hour ticket.

Right now he occupies on a regu-lar basis six to eight precious park-ing spaces that Starbucks and the other businesses near Stanford and El Camino could use during this construction period. Why not make this block of Oxford two-hour park-ing during the day during this current construction period? Then if the local businesses do not complain, make it permanent. Palo Alto government could also allow the local businesses to opt in to the adjacent parking dis-trict.

Palo Alto government could also take a leadership role by proposing that all blocks in College Terrace zoned CN be permanently part of the adjacent parking district. Our country and state elect leaders by a majority of those who care to vote. Palo Alto could create the parking district un-less a “majority” of those adjacent businesses oppose the project. That way a non-vote is a yes vote instead of the way they made us adopt our cur-rent parking program. In that vote, we needed to get a majority of residents to say yes, which was much more dif-ficult. Is this anyway to run a democ-racy? Making it harder for the major-ity of concerned, hopefully informed and community oriented, citizens to get change is certainly not what our founding fathers envisioned.

Larry Robert KavinokyCornell Street

Palo Alto

Downtown North parkingEditor,

Bravo to Ken Alsman for his letter to the editor May 13 regarding down-town employees’ use of residential parking in Professorville.

We would like to add our “two-cents worth” as residents of the Downtown North neighborhood. Un-til two years ago, our quiet, residential neighborhood was mostly frequented by park visitors and parents walk-ing their young children by day. Our neighborhood kids play in the streets and we’ve always felt safe here. Now we live in a massive parking lot, cars piled up so tightly in spaces they overlap our driveways and make it difficult to get out. Nearly all these cars belong to downtown startup

employees, who are apparently too impoverished to afford a parking garage closer to their jobs. As most of our houses do not have garages, we are forced to park blocks away, difficult with groceries and small children. The cars often stay parked on our streets till late at night. When the owners of these vehicles finally come to remove their vehicles, they speed off, iPods dangling from their ears, oblivious to pets, pedestrians and kids. We’ve also noticed a huge increase in weekend parking here as well.

Downtown has several large park-ing lots that were put in to appease residents’ uneasiness about Palo Alto’s out-of-control growth. The lots are barely half full. It does not seem to be an enormous cut to com-panies’ budgets to simply pay for an-nual employee parking permits (or, heaven forbid, require them to pay for it themselves!).

J MorganCowper Street

Palo Alto

Juana Briones HouseEditor,

I was fortunate enough to be born and raised at the Juana Briones House and my family was blessed to call it

home for many generations. Ashes of my relatives are scattered on the prop-erty and memories of the years it was ours fill my heart.

At a time in California history when women had few options and women of color fewer still, Juana Briones man-aged to not just survive, but to flour-ish. She raised eight children, includ-ing an orphaned Ohlone Indian girl. She gained a clerical separation from her husband, establishing herself as the first woman in California to be granted a divorce.

In 1844 she purchased, from two Ohlone Indians, 4,400 acres of land in what are now the foothills of Palo Alto. It was on this land that Juana built Rancho La Purisima Concepcion. Jua-na Briones excelled not only in busi-ness and farming but her reputation for hospitality and skills in medicine were widely recognized. Although she never received a formal education and could not read or write, Juana Briones thrived as a single mother, a medicine woman, a business woman and a hu-manitarian.

Rancho La Purisima Concepcion was an exceptional and rare monu-ment that has been destroyed.

Cheyenne GoodmanBerkshire Avenue

Santa Cruz

SpectrumEditorials, letters and opinions

Consensus over new hospitals Stanford Hospital, Packard Childrens’ Hospital

projects should win final approval

A fter a long review process warranted by the massive size of the largest and most complex development project ever con-sidered by the city of Palo Alto, the time has come for the

City Council to enthusiastically embrace these critically-important expansions.

Doing so will ensure the community has adult and children’s hos-pitals able to withstand and continue operating after a devastating earthquake, provide exceptional, state-of-the-art care in facilities designed for patient comfort, and continue to attract the best clini-cians and researchers in their fields from around the world.

Anyone who has been a patient or had a relative treated at Stan-ford is all too familiar with the need for these projects. From the cramped emergency room to the chronic shortage of available beds, the infrastructure is no longer able to meet the technology needs of today’s medical practice or the desires of patients for a more comfortable environment.

These needs shouldn’t, nor have they, trumped legitimate en-vironmental and other concerns. But through a process that has remained remarkably focused and productive for more than five years, Stanford has agreed to a strong package of financial and other measures that strike the right balance for this enormous $3.5 billion project.

The Planning and Transportation Commission approved a sub-stantial revision to the city’s Comprehensive Plan last week that will permit Stanford to exceed some zoning regulations in return for about $45 million in payments to the city. Stanford’s estimate of its community benefits payments is substantially higher — $175 million — because it includes the cost of purchasing Caltrain Go Passes for hospital staff over the next 51 years, which the city con-siders to be mitigations required by state law.

When the development agreement is approved by the City Coun-cil it will be the culmination of about 100 meetings and hearings in front of various city commissions.

At times, there were big disagreements over the severity of the anticipated impacts and value of the community benefits being of-fered and concerns that the city might overreach in its demands for concessions unrelated to the actual hospital projects.

But in the end, even the Planning Commission, some of whose members were openly hostile during earlier hearings, voted unani-mously (Chair Samir Tuma recused himself because his wife works at Stanford) for the necessary zoning amendments.

The agreement guarantees that the city will receive a major infu-sion of cash from Stanford related to various aspects of the project, including $7 million for health care programs and services; $23 million for housing programs and $12 million for climate change initiatives. In addition to buying Go Passes, Stanford will give the city $3.4 million to improve bicycle and pedestrian paths near the hospital buildings.

Construction would begin next year and portions of the buildings occupied in 2013 or 2014. The project was launched in part to meet the state’s seismic codes, and would add about 1.3 million square feet to of total new development to Palo Alto.

According to the development agreement, the project would: re-build Stanford Hospital and Clinics, replacing 456 hospital beds, adding 144 beds for a total of 600 beds; expand Lucile Packard Childrens’ Hospital, adding 104 beds for a total of 361 beds; recon-struct various buildings at the University School of Medicine and renovate Hoover Pavilion and build new medical office buildings.

The agreement would allow Stanford to exceed the city’s 50-foot building height limit by 80 feet, permitting the main hospital buildings to reach 130 feet. The revised Comprehensive Plan would create a new “hospital district” that is designed to accommodate Stanford’s hospital, medical office and research facilities “with the need to minimize impacts to surrounding areas and neighbor-hoods.”

Both Stanford and city officials deserve accolades for persever-ing through the long and arduous negotiations which culminated in the agreement that the council will vote on June 6. In almost every respect, starting points in the bargaining over impacts and mitiga-tions changed over the last two years, but as in any good negotia-tion, both sides now support the finished product. For example, Stanford did not start off agreeing to pay $23 million into the city’s housing fund, but the final document specifies that such payments will be made, which was a significant win for the city.

Only time will tell if the agreements reached to lessen the im-pacts of this project will do the job. But Palo Altans have every reason to be enthusiastic and grateful that in a few years it will have medical facilities in its back yard that will rival any in the world.

Editorial

The Palo Alto Weekly encourages comments on our coverage or on issues of local interest.

What do you think? How fair do you think the terms of the Stanford expansion are?

YOUR TURN

Submit letters to the editor of up to 250 words to letters@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 ac-cepted. You can also participate in our popular interactive online forum, Town Square, at our community website at www.PaloAltoOnline.com. Read blogs, discuss issues, ask questions or express opinions with you neighbors any time, day or night. 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 Online Editor Tyler Hanley

at editor@paweekly.com or 650-326-8210.

Page 16

What was your favorite summer job?Asked on California Avenue, Palo Alto. Interviews and photographs by Kareem Yasin and Aaron Guggenheim.

Amy AdamsPhysicianFulton Street, Palo Alto“Probably being a college summer advi-sor for high-school students, advising kids in math and science when they were from areas where they couldn’t get that kind of experience. They were nice girls and it was nice to help give them oppor-tunities they might never have had.”

Paul BundyRetiredPark Avenue, Palo Alto “Working as a lab assistant for a mining company in the highlands of Central America, when I was 16. I was kind of an indentured servant, but it was a great experience and the indigenous commu-nity there was super.”

Bruce OlsenSoftware Product MarketerMarine Parkway, Redwood City“I worked in the carpenter’s shop at my college. I got to go to all of the buildings on campus. There was a lot of work to do but I had a lot of freedom. And my boss would leave at 2 p.m., meaning I could do what I wanted from then until closing, which was perfect for a college job!”

Peter BadeAttorneyPaseo Padre Parkway, Fremont“Probably working at Great America when I was younger. I managed rides, like the roller coasters. It was a lot of fun working at a theme park.”

Mary FieldsSeminary StudentChurin Drive, Mountain View“I was a waitress at a steakhouse. I liked working with people. It was a very social environment and I like the service industry.”

by Jay Thorwaldson

T he vision of a new world of tech-nology-assisted

journalism — one that raises the quality of political decision-making and may even help achieve peace in war-ravaged areas of the world — was out-lined in explicit detail this week in a three-day conference on “innovation journalism” at Stanford’s Tresidder Memorial Union.

The topic even has a shorthand nickname: InJo.

But there could be unintended negative consequences, such as a shallower level of ab-breviated discourse and a loss of professional standards and training found in traditional newsrooms, one speaker cautioned.

Yet the tsunami of change is impacting tradi-tional forms of print and electronic journalism around the world. And the economic and tech-nological trends seem to be irreversible, most panelists and speakers adopted as a premise.

The primary example this year is the “so-cial networking” trigger of the pro-democracy Arab uprisings in the Middle East. Several speakers discussed how news was being gath-ered in Pakistan, India and areas of conflict throughout the Middle East, where cell-phone images become part of mainstream news cov-erage.

Yet the impacts of innovation are being felt in virtually every town, city and state in America, as print-based media struggles to adapt to the economic realities of shrinking revenues and rapidly changing world of iPhones, Androids,

iPads, laptops and the exploding software that drives them and, increasingly, is melding them into one big technological melting pot.

The moderate-sized audience of more than 60 persons — perhaps 50 if speakers and support staff are not counted — was heavily weighted with journalists, some from tradi-tional media and some self-identified from their blogging and online reporting projects.

A core theme of the 8th Conference on In-novation Journalism is that “journalism is no longer a gatekeeper of mass communication and knowledge dissemination. As the impact of print and broadcast diminishes, gatekeeping is evaporating, and the business of journalism has joined the innovation economy.”

The scope of the change is global: There are more than 5 billion cell phones in use — more than 100 million smartphones were sold in the final quarter of 2010. As of last January, there were 600 million Facebook users and a billion Google search queries per day as of March.

David Norfors, the founder and executive director of the Stanford Center for Innovation and Communication, which sponsored the conference, said the awareness of the wave of innovation surfaced in the 1990s — when it was primarily focused on new technologies. Nordfors coined the term Innovation Journal-ism and set up the first Innovation Journalism initiatives in Sweden and at Stanford. He is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Journalism.

He and a range of other speakers noted there were significant technological changes under-way in the 1970s and 1980s, but most were below the radar of most people, including jour-nalists. Change also was much slower, with years to bring new technologies to market. Yet being a “gadget journalist” was not a flashy

beat and the techno devices were left mostly to special-interest magazines.

“Today when there’s a release of a new cell phone it’s on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. It’s not only a gadget anymore.”

In the past decade the economic impacts of the changes have been felt big time on tra-ditional print and electronic journalism. The change now encompasses both business and technology as news organizations desperately struggle to respond to plummeting revenues and plunging numbers of readers and view-ers.

But the revolution is not complete, Nordfors warned in kickoff comments Tuesday morn-ing.

“I think the next era of innovation is going to be focused on ‘story,’” he said.

By “story” he means the broader perspec-tive of recognizing the change as being part of an “attention economy and an engagement economy” in which individuals are drawn into direct involvement with the news in a two-way flow between devices.

“Your attention and engagement is the com-modity,” he said. “We become part of that story.”

The challenge, Nordfors believes, is that as a society we need to develop the story, or language and terms, to describe what is hap-pening.

“Every innovation, everything, needs to have a name so we can relate to it. If it doesn’t have a name we can’t talk about it,” he said.

Yet journalists for years failed to recognize or report cohesively on the early emergence of technology or its implications, Nordfors and other speakers noted. Many journalists simply didn’t recognize the scope of what was occur-ring, and many newspapers thought it was suf-

ficient to put up websites and just post their printed content.

Yet there may be a dark side to the brave new world of omnipresent technology, Stanford communications professor Theodore “Ted” Glasser warned on one panel. Glasser, who has focused for years on press responsibility and accountability and whose extensive academic and writing career is recognized internation-ally, said there are numerous unknowns and some real dangers “as we try to figure out who we are and where we fit in.”

Journalism education has evolved from teaching both writing and production tech-niques to a multi-media journalism program, that includes even Web design, he said.

But that takes away from larger questions and “takes its toll” on the more intellectual substance of the educational program.

“We ought to be asking about unintended consequences,” he said.

With lower barriers to entry into journalism the academic world needs to address questions such as, “What does professionalism mean? What does accountability mean?”

He asked about the “unintended conse-quences of living in a society where you are constantly tethered to others” in terms of an individual’s ability to develop as a problem-solver.

One big thing will be “the loss of the institu-tion of journalism,” he said. Newsrooms rap-idly disappearing will take a toll on the train-ing and “socialization of journalists” — the passing on of techniques, writing skills, ethics and what it means to be a journalist.

The full program is online at http://ij8.inno-vationjournalism.org/p/program.html .

Former Weekly Editor Jay Thorwaldson can be e-mailed at jthorwaldson@paweekly.com.

What’s revolutionary about ‘InJo’? Plenty, good and badOn Deadline:

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 com-munity 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!

Streetwise

Page 17

Cover Story

Delivering hope

Breathing and feeding tubes no thicker than strands of angel-hair pasta poked out from Samuel’s mouth and wires connected him to a heart monitor in the neonatal inten-sive care unit, or NICU, at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.

When Samuel was born April 27, he was just 24 weeks into gestation. His birthday was supposed to be Aug. 11. He weighed 1 pound and 13 ounces and measured only 14 inches.

Martz and his wife, Stacey Foster Martz, held hands inside the incubator as they gen-tly touched their firstborn.

“We’re so thankful to be here,” Steve said, noting the number of times he has watched warning bells go off around the roomful of tiny beds, including Sam’s, and seen the

nurses and doctors running to their patients’ sides.

“I hear those bells in my sleep,” Stacey said.

In the 20 years since the pediatric hospital opened, thousands of children have received a chance at life they might not have had if not for the care they get at Packard Hos-pital.

The 311-bed hospital is among the na-tion’s top 10 in cardiology/heart surgery, neonatology and nephrology, according to the U.S. News Media Group’s 2011-12 Best Children’s Hospitals survey. Its cardiology and neonatology programs are the highest-ranked on the West Coast, and eight pro-grams in all placed in the top 25.

On June 26, Packard Hospital will cel-

LUCILE PACKARD CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF EVOLVING MEDICAL CARE

Veronica Weber

BY SUE DREMANNPHOTOS BY VERONICA WEBER

Vero

nica

Web

er

Right, Stacey Foster Martz and her husband, Steve Martz, visit their son, Samuel, who was born at 24 weeks gestation and only 1 pound, 13 ounces, in the NICU at Lucile Packard Hospital. They visit three times a day, often staying until 1 a.m.

Below, Clayton Hagy, who is being treated for biophenotypic leukemia, laughs with nurse practitioner Karen Kristovich as she examines his skin for signs of graft-versus-host disease.

S teve Martz cupped his infant son Samuel’s tiny head in his hand, crooning softly into the glass incubator.

“Hey, little dude,” he said, watching the baby’s delicate lungs pumping hard to breathe.

Imag

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Page 18

Cover Story

ebrate its 20th anniversary with a 5K/10K race and daylong party fea-turing storytelling, face painting, booths, music and more.

The hospital has led many innova-tions in pediatric medicine, includ-ing the discovery of a simple, inex-pensive blood test to help doctors halt organ rejection before it impairs hearts and kidneys. It launched an industry-leading program for pla-cental disorders and has been at the forefront of anorexia and childhood obesity treatment, according to the report.

When Samuel was delivered, Stacey’s room was only steps away from the NICU. Packard places la-bor and delivery suites, newborn nurseries and neonatal intensive care next to one another — a radi-cal concept at the time, said Dr. Da-vid Stevenson, director of Packard’s Johnson Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Services.

But the biggest change in patient care since Packard opened on June 10, 1991, hasn’t been technological innovation, hospital officials said. It has been in so-called family-centered care — how families are integrated into the decision-making process. Fifteen years ago, parents stood on the sidelines of decision-making, hospital officials said. Now they participate in every aspect of

patient care, from going on rounds or being present during medical crises to joining hospital advisory groups.

Marilyn Anderson is one fam-ily member who returned with her husband, Arden, to volunteer at the hospital, following their grand-daughter’s liver transplant.

“It’s really different in the 16 years since Miranda’s transplant,” Marilyn said.

“It seemed like parents were tol-erated and medical people did their job. Now it’s like teamwork,” Arden, a family-care navigator, added.

“Family-centered care teaches parents how to use the system for their child. It helps doctors and nurses to understand how to com-municate with parents on the raw

In the 20 years

since the

pediatric hospital

opened,

thousands of

children have

received a

chance at life

they might not

have had if not

for the care they

get at Packard

Hospital.

(continued on page 22)

Veronica Weber

Marilyn Anderson, a volunteer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, instructs mom-to-be Beth Bariski how to knit in Bariski’s room in the antepartum maternity ward. Bariski, who is 24 weeks pregnant, expects to stay in the hospital for another 10 weeks because of her high-risk pregnancy.

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Page 20 Page 21

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Cover Story

K ate Meyer wasn’t given much time when her 13-year-old son, Clayton Hagy,

was diagnosed in 2008 with bio-phenotypic leukemia. Clayton nearly blacked out in the school gym. Meyer took him to his pe-diatrician, expecting diabetes. But the diagnosis was dire.

On the way home from the doc-tor visit, Meyer received a call: Go directly to the emergency room at Lucile Packard Children’s Hos-pital. The oncology team would meet them there, she recalled.

That day turned the family’s world upside down. Clayton im-mediately received chemotherapy and was isolated in a special room where visitors dressed in gowns, masks and gloves so they wouldn’t transmit infections. His immune system was wiped out by che-motherapy. It took a year, but he finally received a bone-marrow transplant, although it wasn’t a perfect match, she said.

Meyer became keenly aware of the family’s good fortune in com-ing to Packard Hospital, she said.

She had just started working for a place that brings information to Third World countries. “In many places, this (disease) is pretty much of a death sentence,” she said.

Not only has the advanced med-ical care helped Clayton battle the

leukemia, the hospital has tried to meet his emotional and academic needs as well.

During the first 56 days of his initial hospitalization, he was in-troduced to Packard’s Child Life program. The service offers art therapy, schooling and role-play-ing to prepare patients for difficult procedures. Clayton received tick-ets to San Jose Sharks and Golden State Warriors games, where chil-dren with compromised immune systems stay in special suites in the stadiums, she said.

“When I went in for the trans-plant part of it, I got a dartboard with plastic tips. It was something to do. It felt good to throw some-thing at the wall,” said Clayton, now a 15-year-old high school sophomore.

“One of the most helpful things was the art therapist,” he added.

Services for family members are available as well, to help them keep their emotions and mental health in balance.

“I used everything,” Meyer said. She attended a parents’ sup-port group and received 15-min-ute massages to reduce stress, she said.

One of the most important ele-ments of care for patients such as Clayton and their families is the relationship-based nursing pro-gram, according to Packard staff.

Introduced in 2009, the program helps Clayton and other children develop a trusting relationship with nurses.

Prior to autumn 2009, nursing care at Packard was largely driven by a schedule of tasks such as ad-ministering medication, inserting tubes and checking lines, said Cathy Hedges, project coordina-tor for relationship-based nursing practice.

But now nurses spend five min-utes on each shift in uninterrupted conversation at the patient’s bed-side. Sitting with the patient at eye level and making eye contact, the nurse asks specific questions to understand the patient’s needs and concerns, she said.

“It’s very rewarding and helps establish a relationship with the patient. Especially with Spanish-speaking families, it’s tremen-dously helpful. Nurses learn how the mother thinks the baby is do-ing or can initiate a social-worker referral,” she said.

When a new nurse comes on shift, he or she and the outgoing nurse go to the patient’s bedside to see the patient together. They talk about what was learned about the patient during the previous shift and meet with the family, she said.

“It’s a big change that’s been positively received. Parents appre-ciate the tone,” she said. Parents know which nurse will attend to their child from the start. Previ-ously, it might be two hours before a new shift nurse would see the pa-tient, she said.

Nursing team continuity, through on-and-off shift debrief-ings, also help identify issues early and improve patient safety, she said.

Hedges said she has seen a cultural transformation that has improved patient care and nurse satisfaction since she started at Stanford in 1984 and began at Packard when the hospital opened its doors in 1991.

“There’s been a big shift. It’s been fantastic to see the trans-formation in the past five or six years,” she said.

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edge of frantic concern,” Marilyn said.

O n Sunday, May 15, the Mar-tzes were pushed to that raw edge, they said. Samuel had

surgery on May 13 to repair a hole in a blood vessel outside of his heart, which normally closes on its own after a baby is born. He was having a couple of rough days, Sta-cey said.

As the couple comforted Samuel, they noticed his color wasn’t right.

Stacey notified the nurse.Then Samuel stopped breathing.Samuel’s oxygen levels, which are

monitored on his foot with a tiny version of the finger oxygen moni-tor that was developed at Stanford, started dropping precipitously. Up-ping his oxygen level didn’t help achieve the ideal 85 to 95 percent saturation rate the way it usually did, Stacey said.

A nurse began administering breaths manually, but Samuel’s numbers kept dropping: 50 percent, then into the 30s, she said.

Bells sounded. All at once, every-one was in motion.

Samuel turned blue.“Our hearts were in our throats,

and we felt helpless. We thought he was going to die. His chest did not rise and fall,” she said.

An issue with the tubing on the

ventilator was fixed, and Samuel revived.

When things settled down, the nurse raised the incubator’s lid and let Stacey and Steve touch their son. There are no visiting hours for par-ents of child patients, Karen Way-man, director of family-centered care, said.

“Families can be present when a child has a ‘code.’ Before, we used to make them leave the room. When I came in 1995, the expert-conduct-ed model of medicine told families what things were going to happen and what doctors were going to do.

“Parents used to be considered visitors. Now we don’t call them visitors. They are family.

“For families, that’s a huge

Bringing a new culture to hospital careEmotional support, nurse-patient relationships have changed the face

of care at Lucile Packard Hospital

Clayton Hagy listens to his doctor, Dr. Chau-Ri Shin (left), a stem-cell-transplant specialist, and nurse practitioner Karen Kristovich (far left) talk about the risks of graft-versus-host disease as his mother, Kate Meyer, looks on.

Packard(continued from page 19)

Veronica Weber

Page 22

Cover Story

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Milestones at Lucile Packard Children’s

HospitalResearch, surgical and clinical highlights, 1991-2010

1991 At its June 10 opening, Packard Children’s is one of the only chil-

dren’s hospitals in the country to incorporate labor and delivery and new-

born nurseries, setting it up to become a national leader in neonatology

research and care. The neonatology team, for example, developed a new

diagnostic instrument for rapid bedside screening of hemolysis in jaun-

diced newborns, in 1994.

1993 The first clinical trial testing methods for preventing eating disorders

in adolescents is completed.

Mid 1990s Stanford/Packard research sheds light on how the immune

system responds to varicella, the virus responsible for chickenpox. The

same research group also helps test the now-standard pediatric varicella

vaccine, which has dramatically reduced childhood cases of chickenpox.

1996 Discovery of a mutated gene that causes a childhood form of in-

herited epilepsy, followed by the development of a genetic model of the

disease in mice two years later.

1997 Completion of a multicenter trial showing that standard chemo-

therapy for most children with early-stage non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma can

be safely reduced.

1999 First experimental trial demonstrating that limiting children’s televi-

sion watching prevents excess weight gain.

1999 Identification of the disease responsible for Rett’s syndrome, a com-

mon cause of mental retardation in girls.

2002 Packard Children’s surgeon Mohan Reddy performs open-heart

surgery on the youngest and smallest infant ever to undergo such an op-

eration, successfully repairing a congenital heart defect in Serena Brown,

who was born prematurely at 25 weeks’ gestation. Serena weighed as

much as two cans of soda at the time of the operation, and her heart was

the size of the tip of Reddy’s thumb.

2003 Stanford/Packard researchers develop a new immune-suppressing

drug regimen for children who have received solid organ transplants,

which allows kids to avoid steroid drugs and their significant side effects.

2005 Research at Stanford and Packard shows that kids with bedroom

TVs have lower standardized test scores.

2007 A Packard team successfully separates a pair of twins born con-

joined at the abdomen and sharing a liver. One twin then undergoes sur-

gery to repair her congenital heart defect.

2007 Severe post-traumatic stress disorder is shown to cause lasting

damage to children’s brains, including smaller size of the hippocampus,

the part of the brain responsible for memory.

2008 The first-ever scarless splenectomy in a child is performed at Pack-

ard Children’s when an 8-year-old boy has his spleen removed through an

incision in his belly button to treat a genetic disease. The operation dem-

onstrates how Packard Children’s surgeons seek to advance minimally

invasive approaches to cut post-surgical pain, infection risk and scarring.

2008 A new prenatal test is developed for Down Syndrome that carries

lower risks to the pregnancy than amniocentesis.

2009 A 3-year-old boy treated at Packard Children’s becomes the young-

est child ever to have a complete bone, his humerus, replaced with a cus-

tom-fit implant that will grow with him. The orthopedic surgery, a treatment

for a bone tumor, saves his arm from amputation.

2010 Packard Children’s research shows that family therapy is twice as

effective as individual psychotherapy for treatment of adolescent anorexia

nervosa.

2010 A multidisciplinary team uses a novel combination of prenatal care,

medications and a liver transplant to cure an infant of an often-fatal meta-

bolic disease, an approach that amounts to “gene therapy with a scalpel.”

Source: Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital

change. You are part of the team — you are a team member. Rather than, ‘Does this work for the system?’ We ask, ‘Is this what the family wants? ... What’s their experience? What’s their journey here?’” she said.

Families bring information that doctors and nurses don’t know in-stinctively, and they know their child best, often alerting nurses to subtle changes, she said.

The concept of family-centered care is embedded in all areas of hos-pital care, with programs adjusted to address specific needs in cardiology and lung-, kidney- and liver-trans-plant programs, and many others, Wayman said.

Volunteers such as the Andersons bring their own experience and a level of comfort and confidence in helping new families adapt to the hospital setting, they said.

“We had two very intense encoun-ters with the hospital,” Arden said, noting his granddaughter’s liver transplant and a fall that caused a subdural hematoma, or bleeding in the brain, in their 5-year-old grand-son. The girl is now a happy, healthy high school sophomore, and the boy

is now a graduate of the University of Oregon, he said.

As a family-care navigator in the pediatric intensive-care unit, Arden teaches parents the ins and outs of the ICU. He helps nurses locate parents and accompanies them to a child’s bedside in the surgical recov-ery room.

“It’s a continual relationship with them. I wear a big button that says ‘Ask Me,’” he said.

An even more specific service — the parent-mentor program — puts parents new to the hospital experi-ence together with a parent who has already “walked the walk,” and it is being replicated in other hospitals, Wayman said. The mentors don’t hand out advice but offer only the example of their experience and ask how the parents want different things to work for them, she said.

Problems such as how to coordi-nate and take care of other children in the family who are living and go-ing to school three states away or how to handle coming to the hos-pital over a long period are experi-ences parents can share with other parents, she said.

“They are learning a new parent-ing role. There’s not a lot of experi-ence about parenting for an ill child. You’re learning a new set of skills often in an alien environment: how to help your child through proce-dures; how to be in a hospital room for a long time,” she said.

The hospital offers a variety of other services to families; the Mar-tzes have used many, from lactation consultants to an early-development counselor and social workers.

“They are helping you understand what is going on and help you to progress,” Steve said.

Packard also provided a financial consultant to help the Martzes un-derstand and gain control over their medical expenses.

“It’s very easy for things to fall through the cracks” when all of the couple’s energy is focused on help-ing Samuel survive, Stacey said.

Packard is also working to for-malize programs to teach families care management, tracking medi-cations and managing information among doctors, she said. Learning family self-management is a need when caring for kids with complex medical conditions as they return home, she said.

E very day at 9:08 p.m. Stacey and Steve Martz read a story to Samuel. It’s the time when

he was born.The NICU has its rhythm of hum-

ming monitors, bells and nurses administering medications and adjusting machinery for the other preemies and infants with medi-cal conditions. No one minds the couple. Stacey and Steve have been given more access to Samuel recent-ly. Steve held Samuel for the first time and the couple has changed Samuel’s diapers.

Stacey has held her child twice since his birth, bundled in a blan-ket that was hand made by senior volunteers and given to the couple

(continued on next page)

‘Parents used to be considered visitors. Now we don’t call them visitors. They are family.’-Karen Wayman,director of family-centered care

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Page 23

Cover Story

as a gift.She sat in a chair with Samuel

nestled close to her chest. That bonding, the skin-to-skin contact, is important and therapeutic to mother and baby, doctors say.

“Hands down, it was the best day of my life,” Stacey said.

Samuel’s eyes open as his parents talk to him, and he looks in their di-rection. At 2 pounds and five ounc-es, his face and body have filled out some since he was born.

“He’s tipping the scales,” Stacey said.

But they still have a long way to go, the couple conceded.

Samuel won’t be going home until he reaches the full nine-month ges-tation period — until the due date in August.

“You live breath by breath,” Sta-cey said.

Last week, a baby boy arrived in the NICU amid commotion. Nurses and doctors surrounded the child, hooking him up to machines.

“So many,” Stacey said later that day on her blog.

She was scheduled to hold Samuel for only the second time, but it was clear that wouldn’t be happening, as she watched the medical staff work feverishly over the infant. The child did not survive.

It was the second time that day the Martzes witnessed the death of someone’s child, she said.

It’s a sad reality in children’s hos-pitals, even though the majority of newborns — Packard had 4,574 deliveries last year — go on to live healthy lives.

“I just got an email from a dear friend whose son was in the NICU in North Carolina last year and she talked about the trauma of seeing other babies not make it. It’s some-thing I will never, ever forget. My friend mentioned she has PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and

I’m positive I see signs of that in my-self now. I dreamed of (the babies) over the weekend and continued to pray and feel a lot of sadness,” she said.

On her way to the lactation con-sultant’s office last week, Stacey passed the room where the compli-cations that led to Samuel’s early birth began.

“I will always be haunted by room F239. Lots of flashbacks that leave me feeling strangely. Fearful,” she said.

That reaction is common, said Nancy Contro, director of the Fam-ily Partners Program and bereave-ment services.

“Especially in oncology (cancer), a lot of families get close to each other. They feel fear when they see a child die who was diagnosed at the same time as their child,” she said.

Social workers assigned to each family when they arrive help guide parents and children through the en-tirety of the life-and-death process, she said.

Social workers, chaplains and Packard’s palliative-care division help families make care decisions. If the end time comes, programs are in place to help families through their grief.

“What I have learned is it’s in-credibly important that families don’t feel completely cut off,” Con-tro said.

When families leave the hospital, they often feel the loss of their hos-pital family and of people who un-derstand them. In the world outside the hospital, neighbors, friends and school acquaintances don’t know what to do or say, she said.

A relatively new Family Partners program brings together families who have gone through bereavement with newly grieving families.

The impact of a death also has a cumulative effect on staff members, who become tied to kids and their families, she said.

Staff members sometimes partake

in memorial services at the hospital. They receive counseling and staff debriefings to help continue their emotionally demanding work, she said.

As a child goes in and out of phas-es and in and out of setbacks, pal-liative care can be used for years so that the child has the best possible quality of life, she said.

The ebb and flow of life — and sometimes death — within hospital walls has celebratory moments and setbacks. It is a hugely demanding experience physically, emotionally and financially, caregivers said. But the one consistent thread for every-one involved — from parents and caregivers to counselors and the sick child — is hope, Contro said.

“It’s critical we let them maintain some level of hope. That’s not to deny what’s going on. ... They need something to get out of bed for in the morning. If you support their strengths, they will come around to the reality of where they need to be,” she said.

In the face of difficult challeng-es, Stacey Martz said the couple is acutely aware of the fragility of life and the precarious nature of each moment.

“We held each other and looked down at our beautiful Sam, who continues to do so well, realizing how lucky we are despite the long road ahead,” she said.

Staff Writer Sue Dremann can be emailed at sdremann@paweek-ly.com.

Packard(continued from previous page)

About the cover:Baby Samuel Martz, connected to tubes resembling angel-hair pasta, has already reached 2 pounds, 5 ounces after a month in the NICU at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. His parents have only recently been allowed to hold him. Photograph by Veronica Weber.

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Notice is hereby Given that proposals will be received by the Palo Alto Unified School District for bid package: Palo Alto High School Haymarket Boiler Replacement

Contract No: PAB-11

DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK: The work includes, but is not limited to asbestos abatement work, the removal and replacement of existing boilers, hydronic piping, installation and integration of associated components, and other work included but not limited to associated electrical work and as indicated in the plans and specifications.

There will be a mandatory pre-bid conference and site visit at 1:00 p.m. on June 6, 2011 starting at the 50 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto, California 94301. Please meet in front of the Haymarket Theater.

Bid Submission: Proposals must be received at the District Facilities Office building D, by: 10:00 a.m. June 21, 2011.

PREVAILING WAGE LAWS: The successful Bidder must comply with all prevailing wage laws applicable to the Project, and related requirements contained in the Contract Documents.

Palo Alto Unified School District will maintain a Labor Compliance Program (LCP) for the duration of this project.In bidding this project, the contractor warrants he/she is aware and will follow the Public Works Chapter of the California Labor Code comprised of labor code sections 1720 – 1861. A copy of the Districts LCP is available for review at 25 Churchill Avenue, Building D, Palo Alto, CA 94306.

1. A pre-job conference shall be conducted with the contractor or subcontractors to discuss federal and state labor law requirements applicable to the contract.

2. Project contractors and subcontracts shall maintain and furnish to the District, at a designated time, a certified copy of each payroll with a statement of compliance signed under penalty of perjury.

3. The District shall review and, if appropriate, audit payroll records to verify compliance with the Public Works Chapter of the Labor Code.

4. The District shall withhold contract payments if payroll records are delinquent or inadequate.

5. The District shall withhold contract payments as described in the LCP, including applicable penalties when the District and Labor Commissioner establish that underpayment of other violations has occurred.

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Page 24

MoviesMidnight in Paris 1/2

(Guild) The opening montage of Woody Allen’s wistful comedy reveals the director’s new love af-fair. Not a word is spoken, but images of the object of desire cast a spell on you, just as they must have seduced the filmmaker best known for his long-term relationship with New York City.

Paris looks breathtakingly beautiful. The City of Light emerges as a main character, as alive and shim-mering as a backlit Marlene Dietrich in a Josef von Sternberg film. Allen and lenser Darius Khondji (“In Dreams”) have constructed the Paris of the imagina-tion — idealized and romanticized — in an ode to imagination.

Meticulous craftsmanship might be expected of a writer-director who has made more than 40 features. The big surprise is Owen Wilson (“Little Fockers”) as Gil Pender, an American in Paris beguiled by the notion that “every street, every boulevard is its own special art form.” Bringing a laid-back West Coast sensibility to the archetypal Woody Allen protagonist, Wilson offers wide-eyed wonderment tinged with an underlying regret. A self-described Hollywood hack, Gil is a successful screenwriter who grinds out movie scripts but longs to write real literature.

He’s lost. Whether strolling the streets of Paris alone or with his fiancee, Inez (Rachel McAdams of “Sherlock Holmes”); her insufferable parents (Mimi Kennedy and Kurt Fuller); or know-it-all former pro-fessor (Michael Sheen); Gil finds solace in dreaming of the past.

Allen’s self-reflexive script cleverly develops par-allel characters and story threads that illustrate the power and perils of nostalgia. As Inez tours and shops her time away, Gil wanders or works on his book, a novel revolving around the proprietor of a nostalgia shop. And then with a magical stroke reminiscent of “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” the admirer of 1920s Paris becomes immersed in his favorite period.

An incredulous Gil interacts with expatriate icons of the Lost Generation and the artists who contributed to the legendary time and place: Hemingway (Corey Stoll), Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston), Picasso (Mar-cial Di Fonzo Bo), Dali (Adrien Brody) and Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates). Marion Cotillard is luminous as Adriana, the former lover of Modigliani and Picasso, elevating the definition of art groupie to a whole new level, as Gil notes.

But the clever and amusing encounters wear a bit thin, like watching an endless parade of celebrities walking the red carpet. There’s Man Ray. Here comes Luis Buñuel. Look at Josephine Baker shake her tail feathers. The symphony of a great city dwindles to one note.

Although “Midnight in Paris” lacks the complex layering of “Match Point,” there’s much to admire. Woody Allen revisits his signature themes of learning to enjoy life in the present, celebrating creativity and searching for meaningful relationships. Allen fans and armchair travelers alike will find themselves singing along with Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love.”

Rated PG-13 for some sexual references and smok-ing. 1 hour, 34 minutes.

— Susan Tavernetti

The Double Hour 1/2(Aquarius) The new Italian suspense picture “The

Double Hour” is a slippery piece about slippery char-acters with slippery identities and slippery states of mind. So pay attention.

The mere fact that summer is seeing a film release that requires the viewer’s attention is a victory in it-self, and indeed “The Double Hour” offers the old-fashioned pleasure of an unfolding story with an un-hurried pace. It’s first-time feature director Giuseppe Capotondi’s way of encouraging you to stop, look and

listen, the better to process motifs that also function as pieces to a puzzle.

In Turin, Italy, hotel chambermaid Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport) must deal with the deeply unsettling sui-cide of a stranger. Death hangs in the air for the rest of the film, with ghosts perhaps literal and certainly metaphorical. Sonia’s friend and co-worker Margher-ita (Antonia Truppo) consistently prods Sonia about her love life, leading her to a life-changing speed dat-ing session. There, she meets ex-cop Guido (Filippo Timi of “Vincere”), a man still contending with his own ghosts of relationships past.

Before long, hot and heavy appears to turn serious for the couple, but then the unexpected happens. And keeps happening. Guido’s current work as a security guard — a sort of watcher in the woods responsible for a country estate’s fine art collection — gets both Sonia and him into trouble, tying a knot the rest of the film busies itself untying. Reality becomes un-certain and trust issues arise: The duplicity suggested by the title may refer to people turning up where they shouldn’t or to run-of-the-mill betrayal.

If I sound like I’m being vague, you betcha. The film gets by in no small part due to the element of surprise. The atmosphere is also crucial: Despite crime and an element of danger, this is a grown-up mood piece more than a thriller, and Timi and Rap-poport (named Best Actress at the Venice Film Fes-tival) give sensitive, subtle performances that make up for the film’s chain-yanking gimmickry. Due to the actors and their chemistry — in conversation and in convincingly intense sex scenes — “The Double Hour” wins perhaps more audience investment than it deserves.

Despite being in large part about a security guard, Capotondi’s film is downright suffused with insecu-rity. Of speed dating, Guido remarks, “With too many choices, you always make the wrong one,” and signs point to his having made a mistake in choosing Sonia. Add to that Sonia’s growing distrust of her own mind, and the ostensible genre elements that seem to pitch the film somewhere between crime film and ghost story begin to look like the stuff of an allegory about modern relationships and the fright of commitment.

The results are about what you’d expect from a phi-losophy student turned music-video director turned feature filmmaker. Though “The Double Hour” isn’t quite all that and a bag of cannoli, it’s worth a look.

Not MPAA rated. One hour, 35 minutes.

— Peter Canavese

The Hangover Part II (Century 16, Century 20) Viewer buzz (and buzzed

viewers) helped make “The Hangover” a surprise

OPENINGS

OPENING NIGHTCannes Film Festival

VIEW THE TRAILER AT WWW.MIDNIGHTINPARISFILM.COM

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Midnight in ParisMidnight in ParisWritten and Directed by Woody AllenWritten and Directed by Woody Allen

“EXHILARATING! BRIMS OVER WITH BRACING HUMOR AND RAVISHING ROMANCE, BUT THERE ARE ALSO

HAUNTING SHADOWS. THAT ALONE MAKES IT A KEEPER. OWEN WILSON IS PITCH PERFECT.

MARION COTILLARD IS SUPERB.”-Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

“MARVELOUSLY ROMANTIC.A CREDIBLE BLEND OF WHIMSY AND WISDOM.”

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“ROMANCE, FANTASY, LAUGHS, AND A WHOLE LOT OF STARS!”

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“A JOYOUS DELIGHT! IN THIS BEGUILING AND THEN BEDAZZLING NEW COMEDY, NOSTALGIA ISN’T AT ALL

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SCAN THIS FOR MORE INFORMATION

(continued on next page)

Ksenia Rappoport in “The Double Hour.”

Page 25

Movies

CITY OF PALO ALTO

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARINGS ON URBAN WATER MANAGEMENT PLAN

AND URBAN WATER USE TARGETS

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Palo Alto City Council will hold a public hearing at the special scheduled meeting on Monday, June 13, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. or as near thereafter as possible, in the Council Chambers, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto for the following purposes:

1. To consider the City of Palo Alto (City) adoption of the draft 2010 Urban Water Management Plan (Draft 2010 Plan) in compliance with the California Urban Water Management Planning Act; and

2. To allow community input regarding the City’s implementation plan for compliance with the California Water Conservation Act of 2009 (SBx7-7), consider the economic impacts of its implementation, and adopt a method for determining the City’s urban water use target as required under SBx7-7.

The California Urban Water Management Planning Act requires the City to review and update its Urban Water Management Plan every five years. The City’s Draft 2010 Plan includes an evaluation of methods to comply with the requirements of SBx7-7. The Draft 2010 Plan is available for public review and comment through the end of the public hearing described above. The Draft 2010 Plan is available online for public review at www.cityofpaloalto.org/uwmp, in print at the City libraries, and in the Council Chambers of City Hall.

DONNA J. GRIDER, MMC City Clerk

42nd Street (1933) Stanford Theatre: Wed. & Thu. at 7:30 p.m.

Babes in Arms (1939) Stanford Theatre: Wed. & Thu. at 5:45 & 9:10 p.m.

Bridesmaids (R) 1/2 Century 16: 1:25, 4:20, 7:40 & 10:40 p.m.; Fri.-Mon. also at 10:30 a.m. Century 20: 11 a.m.; 12:35, 1:55, 3:35, 4:55, 6:30, 7:50, 9:25 & 10:45 p.m.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams Century 16: In 3D at 11:20 a.m.; 1:40, 4:05, 7:20 & 10:15 p.m. Century 20: In 3D at 12:05, 2:20, (G) (Not Reviewed) 4:35, 7 & 9:15 p.m.

The Conspirator (PG-13) Palo Alto Square: Fri.-Tue. & Thu. at 4:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sun. also at 9:45 p.m. (Not Reviewed)

The Double Hour Aquarius Theatre: 2, 4:30, 7 & 9:30 p.m. (Not Rated) (Not Reviewed)

Everything Must Go (R) Palo Alto Square: 2 p.m.; Fri.-Tue. & Thu. also at 7:20 p.m. (Not Reviewed)

Fast Five (PG-13) Century 16: 11 a.m.; 1:55, 4:50, 7:45 & 10:40 p.m. Century 20: 10:40 a.m.; 1:45, 4:40, 7:40 & (Not Reviewed) 10:35 p.m.

The First Grader (PG-13) Palo Alto Square: 2:15, 4:45 & 7:15 p.m.; Fri.-Sun. also at 9:50 p.m. (Not Reviewed)

The Hangover Part II Century 16: 11:30 a.m.; noon, 12:30, 1:30, 2, 2:30, 3, 4, 4:30, 5:10, 5:30, 7, 7:30, 8, 8:40, 9:40, (R) (Not Reviewed) 10:20 & 11:10 p.m.; Fri.-Sun. also at 10 & 10:50 a.m. & 11:10 p.m.; Mon. also at 10 & 10:50 a.m.;

Tue.-Thu. also at 11 a.m. Century 20: Fri.-Mon. at 10:50 a.m.; 12:10, 12:45, 1:30, 2:10, 2:45, 3:30, 4:05, 4:40, 5:20, 6, 6:45, 7:25, 8, 8:40, 9:20, 9:45, 10:05, 10:40 & 10:50 p.m.; Fri. also at 10:20 p.m.; Tue. at 12:10, 2:45, 5:20, 8 & 10:40 p.m.

Incendies (R) (Not Reviewed) Aquarius Theatre: 2:30, 5:30 & 8:30 p.m.

Kung Fu Panda 2 (PG) Century 16: 11 a.m.; 1:25, 3:05, 4, 6:30, 8 & 9 p.m.; Fri.-Mon. also at 10 a.m.; In 3D at 11:40 a.m.; (Not Reviewed) 12:30, 2:10, 4:40, 5:30, 7:10, 9:40 & 10:30 p.m. Century 20: Fri.-Mon. at 10:30, 11:20 & 11:50

a.m.; 12:55, 3:20, 4:50, 5:40, 8:05, 9:40 & 10:25 p.m.; Tue. at 10:30 a.m.; 12:55, 3:20, 5:40, 8:05 & 10:25 p.m.; In 3D Fri.-Mon. at 11 a.m.; 1:25, 2:15, 3:50, 6:10, 7:15 & 8:30 p.m. Sat 10:30, 11:20 & 11:50 a.m.; In 3D Tue. 11 a.m. & 1:25, 3:50, 6:10, 8:30 & 10:50 p.m.

Maytime (1937) Stanford Theatre: Fri. at 7:30 p.m.

The Metropolitan Opera: Century 20: Wed. at 6:30 p.m. Palo Alto Square: Wed. at 6:30 p.m. Die Walküre (Not Rated) (Not Reviewed)

Midnight in Paris (PG-13) Guild Theatre: 2:30, 5, 7:15 & 9:30 p.m.; Fri.-Mon. also at noon. (Not Reviewed)

The Pirate (1948) Stanford Theatre: Sat.-Mon. at 5:35 & 9:25 p.m.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Century 16: Noon, 1:10, 3:10, 4:40, 6:40, 8:30 & 10 p.m.; Fri.-Mon. also at 10 a.m.; In 3D at 11 On Stranger Tides a.m.; 12:40, 2:10, 3:50, 5:40, 7:30, 9 & 10:35 p.m. Century 20: 11:40 a.m.; 12:20, 1:40, 3, 3:40, 5, (PG-13) 1/2 6:15, 6:50, 8:15, 9:35 & 10 p.m.; In 3D at 11:10 a.m.; 12:50, 2:30, 4:10, 5:50, 7:30, 9 & 10:35 p.m.

Priest (PG-13) (Not Reviewed) Century 20: 2 & 7 p.m.; In 3D at 11:55 a.m. & 4:50 p.m.

Rio (PG) Century 16: Fri.-Wed. at 1:20 & 7 p.m.; In 3D Fri.-Thu. at 3:55 & 9:55 p.m.; Also in 3D Fri.-Mon. at 10:45 a.m. Century 20: 11:35 a.m. & 4:25 p.m.; In 3D at 2:15 & 7:20 p.m.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952) Stanford Theatre: Sat.-Mon. at 7:30 p.m.; Sat. & Sun. also at 3:40 p.m.

Something Borrowed Century 16: 10:30 p.m. Century 20: 11:35 a.m. (PG-13) 1/2

Thor (PG-13) Century 16: 4:10 & 9:55 p.m.; Fri.-Mon. also at 10:40 a.m.; In 3D at 1:15 & 7:05 p.m. Century 20: 11:45 a.m.; 2:35, 5:15, 7:55 & 10:40 p.m.; In 3D at 10:45 a.m.; 1:35, 4:15, 6:55 & 9:45 p.m.

The Vagabond King (1930) Stanford Theatre: Fri. at 5:35 & 9:50 p.m.

X-Men: First Class (PG-13) Century 16: Thu. at 12:01 a.m. Century 20: Thu. at 12:01 a.m. (Not Reviewed)

Skip it Some redeeming qualities A good bet Outstanding

MOVIE TIMES

Internet address: For show times, plot synopses, theater addresses, trailers and more information about films playing, go to PaloAltoOnline.com.

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sensation in 2009. The principal cast — led by hunk du jour Brad-ley Cooper, “Office” standout Ed Helms and oddball funnyman Zach Galifianakis — returns for this comical romp through the streets of Bangkok, Thailand.

And while Cooper, Helms, Gali-fianakis and Ken Jeong (reprising his role from the first film) serve up terrific performances and plenty of humor, “Hangover Part II” is so similar to its predecessor — right down to the “hurry up and get to the wedding” climax — that the story feels stale after about the first 30 minutes. Director Todd Phillips and his filmmaking team could have taken a lesson from anyone who has ever experienced an actual hangover: One is enough.

Phil (Cooper), Stu (Helms), Doug (Justin Bartha) and Alan (Galifiana-kis) — the “wolf pack” from the first flick — reunite for Stu’s wed-ding to Thai beauty Lauren (Jamie Chung of “Sucker Punch”). Stu is somewhat of a square, ridiculed by his condescending soon-to-be fa-ther-in-law and determined to avoid the same kind of bachelor-party an-tics that led him to lose a tooth in the first “Hangover.” So the gang — joined by Lauren’s younger brother

(continued from previous page)

Page 26

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Teddy (Mason Lee) — agrees to a quiet night on the beach (with only a six-pack of beer) in lieu of a tradi-tional bachelor party.

If only it were that easy. Phil, Stu and Alan awake in a dingy room with no memory of the previous night. Alan’s head is mysteriously shaved and Stu has a tribal tattoo on the left side of his face. Doug and Teddy are nowhere in sight, though a phone call from Doug reveals that he left the group earlier in the night. As Stu and company go into full-blown panic mode searching for Teddy, they turn to help from gangster Mr. Chow (Jeong) and a pint-sized monkey that sports a tiny Rolling Stones jacket.

Chaos reigns as the gang hunts for Teddy, leading to interactions with a no-nonsense tattoo artist (a cameo by “Alpha Dog” director Nick Cassavetes), a pair of Russian drug dealers, a wheelchair-bound monk and a group of transsexual Thai prostitutes. “I can’t believe this is happening again!” Stu exclaims. Well, neither can the viewers.

“Hangover Part II” is not a stand-alone film, so if you haven’t seen the first one, don’t bother with the second. Characters and scenarios from the gang’s wild experiences in Las Vegas are frequently recounted, including even a return cameo by former boxing champ Mike Tyson. Laugh-out-loud moments abound early on, usually courtesy of Gali-fianakis and Cooper, but taper off down the stretch. A pre-Thailand scene in Alan’s bedroom, where a poster of recently deceased pro wrestler Randy “Macho Man” Sav-age hangs on the wall like a specter, is rife with humor.

But the novelty of the first “Hang-over” has worn off, and a lack of creativity (not to mention an uptick in squirm-inducing debauchery) makes the film feel like the cin-ematic equivalent of the backwash at the bottom of a beer bottle. The monkey is an amalgam of the baby and the tiger from the first “Hang-over”; the guys have to get to Stu’s wedding instead of Doug’s; the tat-too artist stands in for the doctor from the first flick; and so on.

Although Cooper, Helms and Galifianakis give it a yeomen’s ef-fort and truly do shine in their re-spective roles, the seen-it-all-before factor lands “Hangover Part II” di-rectly in the drunk tank.

Rated R for pervasive language, strong sexual content including graphic nudity, drug use and brief violent images. 1 hour, 42 minutes.

— Tyler Hanley

Page 27

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Notice is hereby given that the governing board of the Palo Alto Unified School District will receive sealed bids from Contractors who have been pre-qualified for the following project:

Contract Name: Palo Alto High School New Media Arts Center and New Classroom Building Contract No. PACMA-11

DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK: The work includes, but is not limited to: a two (2) story new Media Arts Center and a new two (2) story Classroom Building for complete and operational buildings. Bidding documents contain the full description of the work.

There will be a mandatory pre-bid conference and site visit for Contractors who have been prequalified for this project at 10:00 a.m. on June 1, 2011 at the District Facilities Office, 25 Churchill Avenue, Building D, Palo Alto, CA. Attendance at the pre-bid conference by Subcontractors is encouraged, but not mandatory.

Bid Submission: Proposals must be received at the District Facilities Office, 25 Churchill Avenue, Building D, Palo Alto, CA by 3:00 p.m. on June 20, 2011.

PREVAILING WAGE LAWS: The successful Bidder must comply with all prevailing wage laws applicable to the Project, and related requirements contained in the Contract Documents.

Palo Alto Unified School District will maintain a Labor Compliance Program (LCP) for the duration of this project. In bidding this project, the contractor warrants he/she is aware and will follow the Public Works Chapter of the California Labor Code comprised of Labor Code Sections 1720 – 1861. A copy of the District’s LCP is available for review at 25 Churchill Avenue, Building D, Palo Alto, CA 94306.

1. A pre-construction conference shall be conducted with the contractor or subcontractors to discuss federal and state labor law requirements applicable to the contract.

2. Project contractors and subcontracts shall maintain and furnish to the District, at a designated time, a certified copy of each payroll with a statement of compliance signed under penalty of perjury.

3. The District shall review and, if appropriate, audit payroll records to verify compliance with the Public Works Chapter of the Labor Code.

4. The District shall withhold contract payments if payroll records are delinquent or inadequate.

5. The District shall withhold contract payments as described in the LCP, including applicable penalties when the District and Labor Commissioner establish that underpayment of other violations has occurred.

Bidders may examine Bidding Documents at the District Facilities Office, 25 Churchill Avenue, Building D, Palo Alto. Bidders may purchase copies of Plans and Specifications for $750.00 at American Reprographics Company (ARC), 599 Fairchild Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043. Phone: (650) 967-1966

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Page 28

Past meets present in the archive’s listening room, where machines from earlier decades are patched into a computer for making digital copies of recordings. But there’s something spe-cial about hearing an album or a poetry reading on the device it was meant for. Listeners can choose from turntables and cassette decks, or players for CDs, digital audiotape and VHS and Betamax videos. A reel-to-reel tape player atop a tower of machines looks down on its neigh-bors, seeing the past and the future.

In other rooms, shelves are packed with books and periodicals on the recording indus-try, along with the recordings and their many accoutrements: liner notes, sheet music, concert programs, photos and record catalogs. Related videotapes and video discs abound as well.

Neatly stacked boxes of newer acquisitions wait to be cataloged. LPs are everywhere — some of the very same LPs, in fact, that might have been new when the archive was founded in 1958.

Music librarian Edward Colby started the ar-chive when the popularity of 78-rpm discs was giving way to a love for LPs. Libraries were starting to collect LPs, and he wanted to make sure the older items weren’t lost, McBride says. Stanford graduate William Moran, who had an interest in vintage recordings, was also an early force in helping the archive grow.

Over the years, the collection has indeed grown, fueled mostly by donations. One never

knows what will arrive in boxes. While archive staff members don’t seek out phonographs, for instance, one might show up as part of a do-nated assortment.

At the moment, McBride is surrounded by many such pleasant surprises. A corner of the archive’s front room is filled with wooden cabi-nets that house phonographs. Unlike today’s minimalist iPod speakers, these were often large decorative pieces of furniture with orna-mental carving.

McBride turns to a tabletop phonograph for cylinders. Its smooth wood looks pretty good for being from 1903. “This recording that I’m going to play is about 100 years old,” he says matter-of-factly, holding a dark wax cylinder.

When the cylinder spins on the phonograph, fuzzy-sounding men’s voices emerge from the machine’s large horn. McBride gently advises a visitor to stand right in front of the horn, and the sound gets clearer. It’s “The Jolly Black-smith,” a chipper novelty number sung by the Edison Quartet.

“They were making these cylinders up un-til about 1929,” McBride says. “Then discs really took over.”

Moving forward in time, McBride places a disc on a record player that was state-of-the-art in 1927. Its gold-colored arm gleams as he winds up the machine. Like many of the pho-

To the Stanford student pausing between classes to

listen to her favorite song, sound is as small and

simple as a pair of white earbuds and an iPod

shorter than her thumb.

Below her feet, sound is thousands of things. It’s

reel-to-reel tape players the size of

carry-on luggage. Shellac 78s and

vinyl LPs. The earliest wax cylin-

ders, and gleaming

wooden phono-

graphs to play

them. Even a few

8-tracks.

Down in the

basement beneath

Stanford’s Braun Music

Center, the university’s Archive

of Recorded Sound is a growing

cornucopia tracing the history of

humans’ efforts to conserve spoken words, music and

other sounds for posterity.

The archive stretches from the 19th-century wax cyl-

inders developed by Thomas Edison all the way to digital

files. Together with an off-campus storage facility, the

collection encompasses some 350,000 items. Visitors can

hear Eleanor Roosevelt’s voice for the first time, gaze

upon autographed photos of early-1900s opera divas, or

watch an archivist wind up a silver music box.

“It just kind of brings the past back to life,” says

Jerry McBride, head librarian of the archive and Stan-

ford’s Music Library.

Arts & EntertainmentA weekly guide to music, theater, art, movies and more, edited by Rebecca Wallace

(continued on page 30)

Above: A brilliantly green Aretino phonograph from the early 1900s.

Left, from top: An 1890s music box, one of the many donated items in the archive; a 1902 portrait of an unnamed opera singer, from the collection of baritone Mario Ancona; head librarian Jerry McBride looking through vintage discs.

story by Rebecca Wallacephotos by Veronica Weber

Page 29

Arts and Entertainment

Unpacking the AmbassadorConcert hall’s archive yields hundreds of boxes of recordings, photos and programs

by Rebecca Wallace

nographs in the room, it’s mechanical instead of electronic.

“It’s just the way Edison did it in 1877, only with a bigger horn and more sophisticated equipment,” he says. Fittingly, a piece of brass music comes trumpeting through the horn.

McBride has spread out several oth-er kinds of discs on a table, including huge ones used by radio stations. A disc might have an entire program on it. Here, one contains several spots for Burgermeister Beer. Its label sports a cheerful red logo for the “Song-ads” company, with a treble clef for the S.

The cylinders and older, thick-er discs look remarkably sturdy. McBride notes that they last longer than some of their newer cousins, as anyone who’s gotten a cassette tape hopelessly snarled can imagine. Still, cylinders can scratch, and will break if dropped, he says. He’s careful to pick up discs by their sides or in the center, or sometimes with white gloves.

“Old discs can be brittle,” sound cataloger and project archivist Frank Ferko notes later. “When you handle them, it’s like glass.”

One can easily wax nostalgic over vinyl. Less familiar to modern eyes are the wire tapes that McBride has stored in a little box. Popular in the 1930s and ‘40s for dictation machines, they saved sounds on thin wires.

McBride unrolls one to display the wire, which looks like a hair. “If it gets out of control, it’s like your worst Slinky nightmare,” he says.

This recording method fell out of favor when reel-to-reel came in. It had

better fidelity and was easier to work with, McBride says.

Also on the table is the scrap-book of Mario Ancona, an Italian baritone who died in 1931. Photos of his fellow singers fill its pages, many crowned with looping auto-graphs. Ancona’s memorabilia are some of the many donated personal collections. The archive recently acquired more than 1,000 discs and reels from the collection of the late violinist Jascha Heifetz.

Another assortment has yielded a small exhibition. On the ground floor of the music library, glass cases are filled with concert programs and pho-tos assembled by the late Jack Lund, an active Bay Area arts patron.

And archive staff are still catalog-ing boxes from the Ambassador Audi-torium, the Pasadena concert hall that had its heyday in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s. (See separate story above.)

The heart of the archive’s jazz holdings is the Monterey Jazz Festi-val Archive. The festival donated all its recordings dating back to its first year, 1958, together with posters and programs.

McBride clearly has a particular ap-preciation for jazz. His eyes light up when he mentions the collection of present-day drummer Peter Erskine. Recently, McBride watched a home video of Erskine playing with the late pianist Stan Kenton.

“It was an early camcorder. We didn’t even know if we could play it,” McBride says. “It was just really thrilling to see.”

McBride is also a musician with a degree in clarinet performance. His first job was as an archivist at the Ar-nold Schoenberg Institute in Southern California. Seeing and hearing the past has given him a greater under-standing of musical trends, especially

Pearl Bailey did a television special there with Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Rudolf Nureyev danced there. Gene Kelly recorded a concert there

called “An American in Pasadena.”The glass-fronted concert hall known as the Ambassador

Auditorium had a heyday of only 20 seasons, from 1974 to 1995, but those seasons were remarkable. Built as a house of worship by the Worldwide Church of God, the venue be-came a popular destination for such big names as Luciano Pavarotti, Emmylou Harris, the Peking Acrobats, Dizzy Gillespie, Bob Hope, Ray Charles and Yo-Yo Ma.

The hall closed in 1995, and the Stanford Archive of Re-corded Sound acquired its collection of artistic and busi-ness materials. All told, it’s more than 600 boxes. Sound and video recordings are plentiful, but the boxes have also yielded photos, concert programs and original artwork of the venue.

With such a big project, the boxes are still being unpacked and their contents cataloged. It’s been a major project for ar-chive sound cataloger and project archivist Frank Ferko and archival assistant Anna Graves.

“Six hundred and nine of the boxes are done,” Ferko says earlier this week in the archive. “We have more coming, about another 40-some boxes.” He smiles. “We’re getting real close to the end.”

The friendly Ferko is also a composer whose music is of-ten performed by choral groups and other ensembles. He’s clearly been enchanted by the Ambassador, and can recite details and history at will.

“They were called the Carnegie Hall of the west,” he says, noting that the performers were high-quality and the venue was, too. He speaks of the top-notch acoustics, the Baccarat-crystal chandeliers. “No expense was spared.”

The Ambassador is relatively small; it seats 1,262, com-pared to Carnegie Hall’s main auditorium, which can hold

2,804, Ferko says. So the Ambassador was also used for solo recitals and chamber concerts.

One particularly memorable solo performance was giv-en by the pianist Arthur Rubinstein in 1975. “January 15,” Ferko clarifies without looking it up. The performance was called “The Last Recital for Israel,” and a recording of it was released posthumously. “It was full of wrong notes, but the man was 88,” Ferko says.

The Ambassador closed because its operators ran out of money, Ferko says. Things are looking brighter these days. The HRock Church bought the venue in 2004 for worship services, but has also been restoring the building and bring-ing back artists.

“Now the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra has made it their home,” Ferko says.

As Ferko catalogs the past, he’s hoping to plan the future — a future visit to the Ambassador, that is. He’s never been there and is waiting for the right concert.

“I’m keeping my eye on their website,” he says. “It looks like an absolutely breathtaking place.”

Sound archive(continued from page 29)

Memorabilia from the Ambassador Auditorium.

Benjamin Bates with some of the many records at the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound.

O P E R A W

EST BAY

Page 30

West Bay Opera is arguably one of the finer small opera com-panies in the country, bring-

ing high-quality operas to the Penin-sula and attracting top-notch talent for each production. It also has the guts to take on lesser-known works, choosing to broaden its repertoire rather than continually repeat the usual canonic warhorses.

The latest production is an excel-lent example of this, pairing the one-act “Dido & Aeneas,” written in the mid-1600s by Henry Purcell, with “La Vida Breve,” a two-acter by Manuel de Falla from 1913.

Both operas cover tragic love and women dying from grief and heart-break, but that’s where the similar-ity ends. “Dido” is a rather fanciful, perhaps allegorical, retelling of one chapter of Virgil’s “Aeneid,” wherein the Queen of Carthage (Cathleen Candia) has a brief but intense ro-mance with Trojan hero Aeneas (Zachary Gordin), only to kill her-self after an evil sorceress (Carla López-Speziale) lures him away.

The voices are superb, Candia’s liquid-velvet sound matching beauti-fully with Gordin’s solid baritone, and both are appealing protagonists. Candia capably sails through the better-known arias, “Dido’s Lament” and “Ah, Belinda.” Secondary voices are strong in their own right, including López-Speziale’s excellent mezzo as the sorceress, and Shawnette Sulker as Belinda. López-Speziale almost steals the show with her wonderful writhing and hip-swinging sorcery. The corset-ed costumes of the three witches, rem-iniscent of the busty figurines from ancient Crete and designed by Abra

Berman, created a bit of a buzz.In addition, stage director Ragnar

Conde’s inventive staging delivers engaging visuals and action galore — and a little welcome skin, too.

It must be noted, though, that the music can be challenging for the mod-ern ear. One needs to understand the Baroque sensibility with regard to line and flourish, and not expect a lush Ro-mantic sound. There are long stretches of melodic flourishes that may not sound like standard operatic fare to an audience unused to this musical era. The score is somewhat in question, al-though it is frequently hailed as a great example of early English opera.

The payoff for your Baroque educa-tion comes after intermission, with the stunning Romantic music of de Falla and a most unusual opera, reflecting the composer’s interest in his culture and the music of his country. The modern ear is rewarded with gorgeous orchestral passages, soaring lyrical arias and a story steeped in Spanish folktale.

Young gypsy Salud (Candia) is in love with higher-class Paco (Pedro Betancourt), who throws her over to marry wealthy Carmela (Alex-andra Mena). Salud leans on her grandmother (López-Speziale) and her uncle (Carlos Aguilar), but they can’t spare her the heartbreak that ultimately kills her.

Act One sets the stage for Salud’s betrayal, and includes marvelous solos from Candia as well as a touching duet for Betancourt and her. Act Two puts

us at the wedding party, with fabulous flamenco dances from Julia Schmitt, Javier Frésquez and Rose Leitner, set to perhaps the best-known music from the opera. As Paco’s betrayal unfolds, Salud weakens, and finally succumbs in her uncle’s arms — but not before she has a chance to expose his double-dealing.

“La Vida Breve” is not often per-formed, being relatively short as operas go, but also for the musical challenges presented to orchestra and singers, and the need for genuine fla-menco dancers. Opera lovers should thrill at the chance to see this operatic gem, especially with this fine staging.

Candia shows her mettle in another iconic role; Betancourt’s pleasing vo-cals make up for the nasty character (he graciously takes playful boos from the audience at curtain call); and Aguilar, always a West Bay fa-vorite, admirably fulfills the uncle’s role. López-Speziale is so completely transformed and terrific as the abuela that one scarcely realizes she was also the gleefully wicked sorceress.

If you find the first opera taxing, don’t give up — stick around for the gratifying finish of de Falla, well worth the wait.

What: “Dido and Aeneas,” by Henry

Purcell, and “La Vida Breve,” by Manuel

de Falla, presented on one bill by West

Bay Opera

Where: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305

Middlefield Road, Palo Alto

When: Remaining performances on May

28 at 8 p.m. and May 29 at 2 p.m.

Cost: $35-$60

Info: Go to wbopera.org or call

650-424-9999.

Arts and Entertainment

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in classical music, he says. In the early 1900s, recordings were more like live performances; now musicians sound “much more exact and precise,” with nary a note mistake.

Vocal styles in popular music were more influenced by opera, and singers once had to fill a room with sound on their own. The advent of microphones made more intimate vocalizing pos-sible. Before the mic, McBride says with a laugh, “you couldn’t do croon-ing in an auditorium.”

Info: The Stanford Archive of Recorded

Sound is in the Braun Music Center at

541 Lasuen Mall, Stanford University. It’s

open to the public on weekdays from 1

to 5 p.m., with items from the Jack Lund

collection on display through July 4.

Listening appointments are required, as

recordings must be handled by archive

staff. (The staff also suggests that visi-

tors seeking a specific item call ahead,

as it may be stored off-site.) Call 650-

723-9312 or go to lib.stanford.edu/ars.

OPERA REVIEW

To watch an audio slideshow recorded in the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound by Weekly photographer Veroni-ca Weber, go to PaloAltoOnline.com.

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2 0 1 1

Best Of Palo Alto 2011 is here!

Vote for your favorite local restaurants online at www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Eating Out

T he first time I stepped into the St. Stephen’s Green pub in Mountain View, I did a

double take. I thought I’d absent-mindedly wandered into Fry’s Electronics by mistake. The walls were lined with oversized televi-sion sets airing a myriad of sport-ing events from across the globe.

There were 10 high-definition screens, including one that was a mini-cinema-sized 106 inches. With sports coming at me from all directions, I was in my male ele-ment.

St. Stephen’s Green’s borrows its name from a 300-year-old park in Dublin. The 22-acre common was laid out, fittingly, by the great-grandson of Arthur Guinness.

Both owner Erik Barry and gen-eral manager Des Whelan hail from County Wexford south of Dublin, which borders the Irish Sea. While the two share Irish roots, they met here, through a mutual friend.

Barry, whose day job is in high-tech, bought the pub, formerly Fib-bar Magee’s, in 1999. He brought in Whelan eight years ago to manage the spot. Whelan gained his restau-rant experience in Dublin, London and Frankfurt before deciding Cal-ifornia was the place to be.

“We’ve gone from a pure Irish pub, catering to Irish people and blue-collar workers, to more white-collar office people. From Irish ap-peal to American appeal,” Whelan

said. “In the beginning, we ca-tered to adults. Now we encourage families and even have a children’s menu.”

Not to give the wrong impres-sion. St. Stephen’s is solidly adult-themed. Besides the television sets, there are DJs on weekends, early and late happy hours, Peruvian nights, Irish nights and an online calendar full of events. The pub is on Facebook, has an ATM on the premises and boasts a late-night food menu. There’s a lot going on.

Physically, everything is sturdy inside St. Stephen’s Green, from the tables and chairs to the hearty fare turned out by the kitchen. Lest anyone forget where they are, there is a digital countdown to St. Patrick’s Day that starts March 18 and subtracts every day, hour and minute until the next shamrock celebration.

The menu is straightforward: nothing frilly, nothing fussy, but almost everything is nourishing and well prepared. The waitstaff, many with bouncy Irish lilts, are attentive and efficient.

I found the bucket of onion rings ($6.50) plump, crispy, hot from the fryer and not overly greasy. We waited several minutes for the rings to cool enough to eat. There was plenty for two to share as an appetizer.

The fish and chips ($12.50) were generous hunks of cod filets,

breaded and fried to perfection, golden on the outside and snowy-white and flaky on the inside. The chips, or French fries, were thick-cut, crisp and meaty. I was particu-larly fond of the fries.

Shepherd’s pie ($11.95) was a tasty concoction of ground beef and vegetables in gravy topped with a double scoop of mashed potatoes. It was definitely stick-to-your-ribs fare. The meat was tender, the saucing generous and flavorful, with plenty of mashed potatoes to mop it all up.

Irish stew ($12.95) was loaded with tender chunks of lamb, onion, carrots, celery and potatoes in a rich brown gravy. Stews are simple dishes but restaurants have a ten-dency to overcook them, making mush instead of a dish with color, texture and layers of flavor. Here, it’s perfectly cooked.

No pub these days, American or Irish, from The Curragower Sea-food Bar in Limerick to The Bra-zen Head in Dublin to St. Stephen’s Green in Mountain View can sub-sist without a burger on the menu.

St. Stephen’s takes its burgers to the next step with the build-your-own burger concept ($9.50). Choices are many: beef, turkey, salmon, buffalo, Kobe beef for an additional $2.45, and a vegetarian option that is already topped with mushrooms, onions, peppers and Swiss cheese. Each burger comes with a pile of fries; additional top-pings are available for a nominal charge.

I built a salmon burger with sau-teed onions ($.75) and Irish bacon ($2). Irish bacon is made from the back meat of the hog, while Amer-ican bacon comes from the belly.

Irish bacon is similar to Canadian bacon, does not crisp when cooked, is a tad chewier and delivers a load of flavor.

There was a trough of condi-ments on the table to enrich my salmon burger. After I loaded it up, the bun and patty were too thick to eat. I cut it in half and scrunched the bun to get my mouth around the sandwich. It wasn’t the most flavorful salmon I ever tasted, likely mixed with breadcrumbs and spices. The onions and bacon elevated the sandwich, though. I had no regrets.

Additional Irish menu items in-cluded chicken and mushroom pie, Guinness steak pie, sausage and mash, and mixed grill. Non-Gael-ic-inspired dishes were chicken, pasta, seafood and steaks along with soups, salads and sides.

Desserts are not house-made but I was encouraged to try the apple pie ($5.50). It came with a double scoop of vanilla ice cream. The pie itself, one of those lattice-topped crusty affairs,was just okay: a touch too sweet, a tad lacking in apples.

As for alcohol, there is a formi-dable offering of martinis, a so-so wine list and solid lineup of draft and bottled beers.

Many food items are 40 to 50 percent off during happy hour, 5 to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday: a very good deal.

St. Stephen’s Green is what a good public place should be: re-liable, friendly, a hub of activity serving tasty food and drink at fair prices. Despite its Americaniza-tion, I think this pub keeps Irish eyes smiling.

RESTAURANT REVIEW

Stained-glass booth partitions at St. Stephen’s Green show scenes of the Irish countryside.

The stick-to-your-ribs shepherd’s pie with a pint of Guinness.

Mostly pub grubSt. Stephen’s Green is mostly Irish and all good for

food, drink and watching sportsby Dale F. Bentson

St. Stephen’s Green223 Castro St., Mountain View

650-964-9151

ststephensgreen.com

Hours: Daily 11:30 a.m.-2 a.m.

Sunday breakfast 9:30-11:30

a.m..

Reservations

Credit cards

Parking: City Lots

Alcohol

Takeout

Highchairs

Wheelchair access

Banquet

Catering

Outdoor seating

Noise level: High

Bathroom Cleanliness: Good

Vero

nica

Web

er

Vero

nica

Web

er

Page 32

Search a complete listing of local

restaurant reviews by location or type of food onPaloAltoOnline.com

AMERICAN

Armadillo Willy’s 941-2922

1031 N. San Antonio Rd., Los Altos

Range: $5.00-13.00

Hobee’s 856-6124

4224 El Camino Real, Palo Alto

Also at Town & Country Village,

Palo Alto 327-4111

Burmese

Green Elephant Gourmet

(650) 494-7391

Burmese & Chinese Cuisine

3950 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto

(Charleston Shopping Center)

Dine-In, Take-Out, Local Delivery-Catering

CHINESE

Chef Chu’s (650) 948-2696

1067 N. San Antonio Road

on the corner of El Camino, Los Altos

2010 Best Chinese

MV Voice & PA Weekly

Jing Jing 328-6885

443 Emerson St., Palo Alto

Authentic Szechwan, Hunan

Food To Go, Delivery

www.jingjinggourmet.com

Ming’s 856-7700

1700 Embarcadero East, Palo Alto

www.mings.com

New Tung Kee Noodle House

520 Showers Dr., MV in San Antonio Ctr.

Voted MV Voice Best ‘01, ‘02, ‘03 & ‘04

Prices start at $4.75

947-8888

CHINESE

Su Hong – Menlo Park Dining Phone: 323–6852

To Go: 322–4631

Winner, Menlo Almanac “Best Of”

8 years in a row!

INDIAN

Darbar Indian Cuisine 321-6688

129 Lytton, Downtown Palo Alto

Lunch Buffet M-F; Open 7 days

Janta Indian Restaurant 462-5903

369 Lytton Ave., Downtown Palo Alto

Lunch Buffet M-F; Organic Veggies

ITALIAN

Spalti Ristorante 327-9390

417 California Ave, Palo Alto

www.spalti.com

JAPANESE & SUSHI

Fuki Sushi 494-9383

4119 El Camino Real, Palo Alto

Open 7 days a Week

MEXICAN

Palo Alto Sol 328-8840

408 California Ave, Palo Alto

Oaxacan Kitchen Mobile 321-8003

2010 Best Mexican

We have hit the Road!

Follow Us

twitter.com/oaxacankitchen

Become a Fan

facebook.com/oaxacankitchenmobile

Find Us

www.OaxacanKitchenMobile.com

PIZZA

Pizza Chicago 424-9400

4115 El Camino Real, Palo Alto

This IS the best pizza in town

Spot A Pizza 324-3131

115 Hamilton Ave, Palo Alto

Voted Best Pizza in Palo Alto

www.spotpizza.com

POLYNESIAN

Trader Vic’s 849-9800

4269 El Camino Real, Palo Alto

Dinner Mon-Thurs 5-10pm; Fri-Sat 5-11pm;

Sun 4:30 - 9:30pm

Available for private luncheons

Lounge open nightly

Happy Hour Mon-Fri 4-6 pm

SEAFOOD

Cook’s Seafood 325-0604

751 El Camino Real, Menlo Park

Seafood Dinners from

$6.95 to $10.95

Scott’s Seafood 323-1555

#1 Town & Country Village, Palo Alto

Open 7 days a week serving breakfast,

lunch and dinner

Happy Hour 7 days a week 4-7 pm

Full Bar, Banquets, Outdoor Seating

www.scottsseafoodpa.com

THAI

Thaiphoon Restaurant 323-7700

543 Emerson St., Palo Alto

Full Bar, Outdoor Seating

www.thaiphoonrestaurant.com

Best Thai Restaurant in Palo Alto

5 Years in a Row, 2006-2010

Siam Orchid 325-1994

496 Hamilton Ave., Palo Alto

Organic Thai

Free Delivery to Palo Alto/Stanford/Menlo Park

Order online at www.siamorchidpa.com

STEAKHOUSE

Sundance the Steakhouse 321-6798

1921 El Camino Real, Palo Alto

Lunch: Mon-Fri 11:30 am-2:00pm

Dinner: Mon-Thu 5:00-10:00pm

Fri-Sat 5:00-10:30pm, Sun 5:00-9:00pm

www.sundancethesteakhouse.com

of the week

RISTORANTE

Spalti Ristorante serves delicious,

authentic Northern Italian cuisine, in a casually elegant, comfortable and spacious setting.

Enjoy the freshest pasta, salads, seafood, veal, chicken and lamb attractively presented with the experience

of dining in Italy.

417 California Ave. Palo Alto 327-9390

www.Spalti.com

Page 33

SportsShorts

1ST PLACEBEST SPORTS

COVERAGECalifornia Newspaper Publishers Association

FridayCollege baseball: Stanford at Cal,

12:30 p.m. (DH); KZSU (90.1 FM)

MondayCollege baseball: NCAA Regional se-

lection show, 9:30 a.m., ESPN)

ON THE AIR

READ MORE ONLINEwww.PASportsOnline.com

For expanded daily coverage of college and prep sports, please see our new site at www.PASportsOnline.com

HALL OF FAME . . . The Stanford

tennis program was well-represented

when the Intercollegiate Tennis As-

sociation (ITA) inducted seven new

members into the ITA Men’s Collegiate

Tennis Hall of Fame during the NCAA

Division I Men’s and Women’s Tennis

Championships on Wednesday on

the Stanford University campus. The

Class of 2011 consists of one coach

and six players, four of whom played

varsity collegiate tennis at Stanford.

The former Cardinal players were

Scott Davis, Jim Grabb, Gene Mayer and Jonathan Stark. Players are eli-

gible for election to the ITA Men’s Col-

legiate Tennis Hall of Fame 15 years

after their last collegiate match and

coaches are eligible following retire-

ment. The main criteria for election

are college accomplishments as well

as honors earned after college.

OF LOCAL NOTE . . . The Palo Alto

American Legion Post 375 baseball

program will hold two tryouts for the

upcoming season, the first on May

28 and the second on May 30th,

both from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Palo

Alto High . . . The Menlo Polo Club

will host its second US Polo Associa-

tion (USPA) sanctioned Ladies Cup

on Saturday at the Menlo Circus

Club, 190 Park Lane in Atherton. The

event is also an entry level qualifier

tournament for the Womenís Cham-

pionship Tournament (WCT), the

most-prestigious tournament title in

womenís polo today as well as the

largest womenís tournament series in

the world. Opening ceremonies begin

at 11 a.m. and last match is estimated

to end at 4 p.m. There is an admission

fee with limited bleacher seating on

the west side of the field. Spectators

are encouraged to bring comfortable

chairs. Parking is available at nearby

Sacred Heart Prep or St. Joseph

Middle School.

COACHING CORNER . . . Palo Alto

Knights Youth Football is seeking ex-

perienced head and assistant football

coaches for the 2011 season. Con-

tact: Mike Piha 269-6100 or mike@

in2change.com. . . . Sacred Heart

Prep is seeking frosh-soph and fresh-

man football coaches as well as a

girls’ junior varsity volleyball coach for

next season. All interested applicants

should contact SHP Athletic Director

Frank Rodriguez via email at frodri-

guez@shschools.org or by phone at

(650) 473-4031.

CCS BASEBALL

Stanford seniors (L-R) Jennifer Yen, Carolyn McVeigh and Hilary Barte had to settle for the NCAA runnerup trophy after the Cardinal lost to Florida, 4-3.

Winning pitcher Jake Bruml (30) is hugged by Robert Wickers while Freddy Avis and Jake Batchelder (12) rush to congratulate Bruml following Menlo School’s 9-8 CCS Division III semifinal victory on Tuesday.

NCAA WOMEN’S TENNIS

Keith Peters

Har

jant

o Su

mal

i

They’replaying

for titlesPalo Alto and Menlo

make pitch for section crowns on Saturday

by Keith Peters

S ometimes, just getting to a championship game is more difficult than winning it.

The Palo Alto and Menlo School baseball teams will gladly test that theory.

Both squads probably felt they were playing for Central Coast Sec-tion titles during their semifinal games this week. The No. 3-seeded Vikings faced No. 2 Mitty while the No. 3-seeded Knights took on No. 2 Carmel.

On paper, Paly and Menlo were underdogs. Paper, however, can be crumpled up and thrown away and that’s exactly how the Vikings and Knights treated their respective op-ponents.

On Tuesday, Menlo rallied from six runs down in the top of the sixth to tie its Division III game with Car-mel, before finally claiming a 9-8 victory with a sacrifice fly in the top of the ninth.

On Wednesday, Palo Alto jumped out to a four-run lead in the first in-ning and played solidly on defense while showing defending champion Mitty, 5-2, the in a Division I show-down.

On Saturday, Menlo (25-5) will seek its fifth section title against No. 8 Santa Cruz (15-14) at San Jose

(continued on page 36)

End of streak wasinevitable for StanfordCardinal had to win national title to keep

historic home winning streak aliveby Rick Eymer

L ooking back at Stanford’s historic 184-match home win-ning streak, it’s a wonder something like this could be accomplished over a 12-year span, especially with the

popularity of tennis and the explosion of foreign players adding to an already talented group of college players.

The Florida women earned the NCAA national champion-ship with its dramatic 4-3 victory over the host Cardinal on Tuesday night at the Taube Family Tennis Center. The Gators survived a grueling four-hour match to grind out the victory, taking three singles victories in three sets, including the clincher in a tiebreaker.

Florida (31-1) will carry the nation’s longest home winning streak, at 95, into next season. Stanford (28-1) will start another one.

Cardinal women’s tennis coach Lele Forood said the team never made too much of the streak because it involved genera-tions of players long since graduated or even retired from the professional game.

“We knew it wasn’t going to go on for infinity, so we will take a loss and move on,” she said. “The streak doesn’t mean a lot to us. It is interesting, but it is not a motivating thing. It is kind of fun, but it is trivia. We are much more on the year to year with

(continued on next page)

Page 34

NCAA MEN’S TENNIS

The Stanford women’s tennis team cheers on teammate Carolyn McVeigh in the next-to-last match during Tuesday’s NCAA team final at Stanford. The outcome went down to the final match as the Cardinal lost, 4-3.

what we do because players, situations and teams are different. It just happens that we went an incredibly long period of time without losing a match.”

Stanford and Florida seem to be handing the baton off to each other. The Cardinal had a 52-match home streak end in that February of 1999 loss to California. Stanford ended the Gators’ 60-match home winning streak in the national championship match in 1999. It’s Florida’s turn to carry the banner.

Stanford has won 236 of its past 238 matches played at home, a span that dates to the 1995 season.

The Cardinal loses three seniors in Hilary Barte, Carolyn McVeigh and Jennifer Yen. Barte, who likely will become a four-time All-American this year, took an overall singles record of 136-28 and a doubles mark of 117-33 into the NCAA individual tournament that began Wednesday.

Barte owns a career 90-13 (87-10 as the No. 1 player) in dual matches, tying her with Lauren Kalvaria for sev-enth on the all-time list. She is 71-22 (70-22 as No. 1) in dual match doubles victories.

“It has been the most special experience I have ever had, especially in tennis,” Barte said. “I think this team especially, we had a lot of mountains and we climbed them. The memories I’ll take away, I will have for the rest of my life.”

Mallory Burdette, who fought from behind to give herself, and the team, a chance to win, walked off af-ter her final shot went long Tuesday night, shoulders slumped and head down.

Stanford didn’t necessarily lose the title on Court 2, or anywhere else. Florida just won it, taking advantage of an ankle injury to Cardinal freshman Kristie Ahn to win at No. 5 and No. 6 singles and setting the stage for an epic battle at No. 2 singles.

“It’s hard to lose an impact player like her but I felt comfortable with the people we put on the court,” Forood said. “I feel like we can get four points on any-body.”

The Gators also won the doubles point, taking it to Stanford right away and winning convincingly.

Embree, who played No. 1 singles last year, was ahead 5-1 in the first set before Burdette won seven straight games to snatch the set away. Embree, who won her 24th consecutive match, was in control of the second set.

Burdette went up 4-0 in the third set and Embree ral-lied to win five straight games and was at double match point before Burdette rallied to take the game and then send it to the tie-breaker.

Burdette faced a 6-4 deficit before winning the next two points. Then she missed a sure winner and sent the next one long, ending the marathon.

Barte gave Stanford its first point at No.1 singles, beating Allie Will, 6-2, 6-4. Freshman Nicole Gibbs gave the Cardinal the lead, 2-1, with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Sofie Oyen at No. 3 singles.

“I think that ever since freshman year, when you have

Stanford senior Hilary Barte can’t believe her team’s undefeated season is coming to an end.

Stanford coach John Whitlinger (right) salutes senior Alex Clayton for his career contributions following the team’s season-ending loss.

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someone on your team that is so successful at what she does, in a lot of ways she is a huge idol,” Burdette said of Barte. “I’ve always wanted to be like her, to carry myself like her, with a lot of class. I feel like I have just learned so much, that it is hard to even say everything. It is the little things here and there, how she handles people, how she handles herself out on the court. It has been a really cool two years. And it’s not over yet; we have next week. We still have doubles and we are going to do very well.”

Stacey Tan recovered from a first set loss to beat Jo-anna Mather, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4, at No. 4 singles and give Stanford a 3-1 edge but Alex Cercone returned the favor at No. 5 singles, beating Veronica Li, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4.

Olivi Janowicz’s 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, 6-1 win over McVeigh at No. 6 singles to tie it.

“It was an incredible match,” Forood said. “It was the most electric atmosphere I have experienced at a college tennis match. It was an amazing day; we just came up a little short.”

Barte, Burdette, Gibbs and McVeigh all received all-tournament honors.

NCAA women(continued from previous page)

Clayton helped Stanfordget back on its feet

Cardinal senior closes his career on a positive note as he leaves program in better shape than when he arrived

by Rick Eymer

A lex Clayton’s professional tennis career will likely last about a month. He’s scheduled

to join the American work force in July and figures there may not be enough time to stay sharp.

Clayton, one of three seniors (with Greg Hirshman and Ted Kelly) on Stanford’s men’s tennis team, leaves behind a memorable legacy of suc-cess and triumph over adversity. The Cardinal (21-6) saw its season end with a 4-3 loss to top-seeded and un-beaten Virginia in the quarterfinals of the NCAA team tournament last Sunday.

For the first time in his tennis life, Clayton had to fight back the tears.

“It’s hard being done,” Clayton said. “It’s a weird feeling. I’ll wake up tomorrow and won’t be back here playing with the team again.”

Stanford coach John Whitlinger had to fight back tears himself when speaking about Clayton and his in-fluence on the program.

“When he first got here the pro-gram was somewhat in a shambles,” Whitlinger said. “He leaves it in better shape and I can’t thank him enough for his leadership and his contribution.”

As a freshman, Clayton helped lead Stanford into the postseason after failing to reach the NCAA tournament the previous year. He was ranked as high as No. 2 in the country, named the ITA National Rookie of the Year, the Pac-10 Play-er of the Year and Pac-10 Freshman of the Year.

Numerous injuries and setbacks kept Clayton from returning to full strength but that was never an ex-cuse for the man Whitlinger says “is like a son.”

Clayton, who won a pair of NCAA matches before losing the clinching point against the Cavaliers, departs with a 109-44 career singles record and the admiration of his coaches and players. Hirshman, injured for the NCAA tournament, and Kelly combined for a 78-55 career mark.

“I feel like I played as well as I have ever played,” Clayton said. “It was just so close and I just couldn’t get over the line.”

Clayton plans to play in a handful of professional tournaments in June

before beginning a job with Gold-man-Sachs in San Francisco.

Whitlinger is glad he’ll be close to “home.”

“It’s been a crazy ride,” Clay-ton said. “I almost didn’t come to Stanford. I thought about playing professionally. But this has been the most amazing experience of my life. Coach and the team have become like family. Countless people have made it happen and given me life-long memories.”

Clayton reached the semifinals of the NCAA tournament as a fresh-man and the quarterfinals as a sophomore, earning All-American honors both years. He was a second team all-Pac-10 honoree as a junior.

“We were OK when I was a fresh-man but we needed help at the top of the singles and that’s where Bradley (Klahn) and Ryan (Thacher) made a huge difference,” Clayton said. “To get this far, and to take the No. 1 team to the limit is the best experi-ence I’ve had in tennis.”

Whitlinger first saw Clayton as a singles finalist at the USTA Na-tionals in Kalamazoo, Mich., as a 16-year-old. He was the nation’s second-ranked player in the age group and the two of them formed a bond that will continue far past graduation.

“Coaching the team is part of it but it’s also about helping them pre-pare for later in the life,” Whitlinger said. “This guy will be a success. Alex has a great base from which to draw. He’s part of the Stanford fam-ily. He’s part of the legacy.”

Klahn, Thacher, Matt Kandath and Denis Lin are eligible to return for Stanford, a solid foundation for another run at a possible title. Walk-er Kehrer and Menlo School grad Jamin Ball also saw significant ac-tion on the year.

Thanks to players like Clayton, the Stanford men’s program is healthy and headed in the right di-rection.

Blue chip recruit Robert Stine-man, a senior at New Trier High School in Illinois, has made a verbal commitment to Stanford. Stineman has been ranked as one of the top two recruits in the nation. He will be joined by Ireland’s John Morris-sey.

Page 35

Sports

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, pursuant to Government Code Sections 66016 and 66018, that the City Council of the City of Palo Alto will conduct a Public Hearing at its Special Meetings on June 13, 2011 and June 20, 2011, at 6:00 p.m., or as soon thereafter as possible, in the Council Chambers, City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California, to consider changes to the Fiscal Year 2012 Municipal Fee Schedule, including new fees, and increases to existing fees. Copies of the fee schedule setting forth any proposed new fees, and increases to existing fees are available on the City’s website and in the Administrative Services Department, 4th Floor, City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. There is a $3.00 per copy charge for this publication.

DONNA J. GRIDER, MMC City Clerk

CITY OF PALO ALTONOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

Notice is hereby Given that proposals will be received by the Palo Alto Unified School District for bid package:

Contract No. FMM-11 and NM-11

DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK: Scope of work includes but is not limited to moving of an existing 1440 square foot modular building at Fairmeadow Elementary; and installing a new 960 square-foot modular building at Nixon Elementary. This are two separate projects. Work includes asphalt paving, electrical, fire alarm, water, sewer, EMS, new ramps, utility trenching and carpet/vinyl for a complete and operational building. Bidding documents contain the full description of the work.

There will be mandatory pre-bid conferences and site visits as follows:Fairmeadow (FMM-11), 2:00 p.m. on May 25, 2011 at Fairmeadow Elementary School located at 500 East Meadow Drive, Palo Alto, California 94306.

Nixon (NM-11), 1:00 p.m. on June 1, 2011 at Nixon Elementary School located at 1711 Stanford Ave Stanford, California 94305

Bid Submission: Proposals must be received at the District Facilities Office building D, by 11:00 a.m. on June 14, 2011 for FMM-11 and by 1:00PM on June 15, 2011 for NM-11

PREVAILING WAGE LAWS: The successful Bidder must comply with all prevailing wage laws applicable to the Project, and related requirements contained in the Contract Documents.

Palo Alto Unified School District will maintain a Labor Compliance Program (LCP) for the duration of this project.In bidding this project, the contractor warrants he/she is aware and will follow the Public Works Chapter of the California Labor Code comprised of labor code sections 1720 – 1861. A copy of the Districts LCP is available for review at 25 Churchill Avenue, Building D, Palo Alto, CA 94306.

1. A pre-job conference shall be conducted with the contractor or subcontractors to discuss federal and state labor law requirements applicable to the contract.

2. Project contractors and subcontracts shall maintain and furnish to the District, at a designated time, a certified copy of each payroll with a statement of compliance signed under penalty of perjury.

3. The District shall review and, if appropriate, audit payroll records to verify compliance with the Public Works Chapter of the Labor Code.

4. The District shall withhold contract payments if payroll records are delinquent or inadequate.

5. The District shall withhold contract payments as described in the LCP, including applicable penalties when the District and Labor Commissioner establish that underpayment of other violations has occurred.

Bidders may examine Bidding Documents at Facilities Office, Building “D”. Bidders may purchase copies of Plans and Specifications at American Reprographics Company (ARC), 599 Fairchild Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043, Phone Number (650) 967-1966

All questions can be addressed to:

Palo Alto Unified School District25 Churchill Avenue, Building DPalo Alto, CA 94306-1099Attn: Aimée LopezPhone: (650) 329-3927Fax: (650) 327-3588

Palo Alto Unified School District

Municipal Stadium at 4 p.m. Upon that conclusion, Palo Alto (27-9) will seek its first section title against No. 5 San Benito (22-8) at 7 p.m.

Both teams were in similar situa-tions last season as they advanced to section finals, even though both beat lower-seeded teams in the semifi-nals. Menlo was seeded third and faced No. 16 Hillsdale in the finals, winning 8-2. Palo Alto was seeded No. 1 in Division II and faced No. 6 Burlingame in the finals, but dropped a 7-4 decision.

Both Menlo coach Craig Schoof and Paly coach Erick Raich believe the tough semifinals provided good tuneups.

“I do think it was good for us for a couple of reasons,” Schoof said. “One, things had been pretty easy for us in the first two rounds with 8-0 and 10-0 victories, and that game (against Carmel) was a reality check. Two, it proved we can come back no matter what. We will not relinquish the title without a fight — and the seniors will lead the way.”

Raich is probably thinking the same way, especially after facing Mitty’s top two pitchers, Brett Fuller and Tyler Davis.

“We didn’t approach the game last night as our championship,” Raich said. “We just wanted to make sure we played our game of baseball and, if we got beat, we could live with that. Our game plan was to put pres-sure on Mitty offensively and defen-sively, make them earn everything they get.”

Menlo was favored against Hills-dale last season and proved the seedings correct. Saturday’s match-up with Santa Cruz may be a little different.

“As for being the favorite, not so sure about that,” Schoof said. “They are from an ‘A’ League, have played very tough competition, are on a roll, and we will be facing their ace. Watched them the other night (a 12-1 semifinal win over Half Moon Bay), not sure why they were 12-14 coming into the tournament.”

Palo Alto also was favored in last year’s title game against Burlingame for a number of reasons, but came up short. The Vikings have to guard against any letdown on Saturday.

“As for San Benito, they are a very good team and from what I hear, they are bringing Darrin Gilies back to pitch from a wrist injury, and he is very good,” Raich said. “We need to have another great two days of practice and get in the mind frame for a dogfight of a game.”

Raich and his players probably were expecting a dogfight with Mitty on Wednesday as the Mon-archs came in ranked No. 20 in the state while the No. 3-seeded Vikings were No. 41, according to MaxPreps.

When Palo Alto scored four runs in the first inning, those rankings went out the window along with Mitty’s hopes of defending its title as the Vikings went on to post its 5-2 victory.

“What a win for the Palo Alto team and community,” said Raich, whose team earned the program’s fourth trip to the finals and second straight.

CCS baseball(continued from page 34)

It didn’t take long for Paly to put itself in position for another title shot. Senior Christoph Bono got the first of his three hits in the first af-ter one was out. Junior Austin Braff walked and both runners moved up on a wild pitch. Senior T.J. Braff was intentionally walked to load the bases for senior Will Glazier, who lofted a sacrifice fly to score Bono. When the relay throw to the plate got past the catcher, Braff also came home for a 2-0 lead.

Senior Drake Swezey walked and stole second, one of five bases the Vikings swiped. That set the stage for junior Jack Witte, who lined a single to right to score Braff and Swezey.

Bono gave Paly a 5-0 lead in the third after getting a leadoff single and stealing second and third before scoring on a wild pitch by Davis.

“Bono had a huge game offensive-ly and, top to bottom, the offense had great at-bats,” Raich said.

After that it was all pitching and defense for Palo Alto. Junior Ben Sneider retired the first seven bat-ters he faced and allowed four hits and two runs over 4 1/3 innings. Swezey, a senior, held Mitty score-less the final 2 2/3 innings.

“We played unbelievable defense and Sneider and Swezey did an un-believable job of attacking the zone and going right at the Mitty hitters,” Raich said.

Austin Braff made two standout plays at shortstop, taking away po-tential hits in back-to-back innings, while Alec Wong made two nice de-fensive plays on tough ground balls in the sixth as the Vikings avenged their 6-3 loss to Mitty in the Mike Hazlett Memorial Tournament on Feb. 28. Paly started the season 1-3, but has gone 26-6 since.

Palo Alto will take a five-game win streak into Saturday’s champi-onship game and now has won 16 of its past 18 games.

This will be the first all-public school Division I final since 2004, when Wilcox defeated Palo Alto, 5-4, and only the third in the past 21 years. Monta Vista beat Leland in the Division 4A title game in 1990.

Menlo, meanwhile, will be at-tempting to win back-to-back titles since first accomplishing that in 1988 and ‘89. The Knights have a seven-game win streak, outscoring the competition by 78-18 during the streak.

Schoof had plenty of standouts on Tuesday, with junior Freddy Avis and freshman Mikey Diekroeger being two of them. Avis delivered a clutch two-run double to cap a six-run sixth inning and tie the game, 8-8, and force extra innings. The Knights loaded the bases in the ninth and Diekroeger brought home Phil Anderson with a sacrifice fly as Menlo escaped with a hard-fought win over Carmel (26-4).

“Freddy’s hit was huge,” said Schoof.

“That’s what baseball is all about, having those kind of moments,” added Avis.

Trailing 8-2 heading into the top of the sixth, Schoof gathered his team for one final talk. The situa-tion looked grim, for sure.

“Coach Schoof said ‘show the heart of a champion. Leave it all on the field,’ related senior Jake Bruml. “We just left it all out there. We felt, and knew, we could do it.”

Bruml, who had relieved Avis in the fifth and allowed a two-run double, took matters into his own hands with a leadoff double in the top of the sixth.

“I think that leadoff knock was huge,” Bruml said. “I think it put pressure on them. Everything just went our way from then on.”

After a strikeout, Diekroeger singled home Bruml and it was 8-3. Tim Benton’s double-play grounder was dropped at second and Jake Batchelder was safe on a error to load the bases. Senior Robert Wick-ers then delivered a two-run single, a chopper over the third baseman’s head. Suddenly, it was 8-5. Austin Marcus was safe when his apparent groundout was dropped at first, with another run coming home for an 8-6 game. After Carmel switched pitch-ers, Avis greeted him with a boom-ing double to the left-field gap that scored two runs and tied the game.

In the top of the ninth, Anderson walked and Bruml’s popup to short right was mishandled for an error by two converging players. The Padres tried to get Anderson at second, but the throw was wild and both runners were safe. Dylan Mayer laid down a bunt, with the new pitcher throw-ing late to third in an attempt to get Anderson.

With the bases loaded and no outs, Diekroeger brought home Anderson with his sacrifice fly.

Menlo didn’t get its first hit until Anderson singled to center in the fourth. The Knights didn’t get their first run until the fifth, when An-derson drilled a two-run single with the bases loaded. That gave Menlo life at 5-2 until Carmel scored three runs in the bottom of the frame for an 8-2 lead. The Knights’ chances of defending their title looked all but gone at that point.

But, they never gave up.“I thought it was possible,” Schoof

said of coming back, but he wasn’t sure how probable it was. “We were beating ourselves early. It did not look like our game.”

The Knights proved otherwise. Bruml, Batchelder and Anderson all had two hits. Avis, Anderson Diekroeger and Wickers all drove in two runs.

“It doesn’t get any better than that,” Schoof told his team after-ward. Except, perhaps, for winning a fifth CCS title on Saturday.

Menlo’s Jake Bruml celebrates his game-ending strikeout Tuesday.

Keith Peters

Page 36

Sports

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A third straight NorCal tennis championshipis a fitting present for Menlo School coaches

by Keith Peters

I t was a weekend of celebrations for the Menlo School boys’ ten-nis team. Head coach Bill Shine

celebrated his 57th birthday on Sat-urday and assistant coach David Wermuth turned 32 on Sunday.

While there was no cake and can-dles for the coaches, they got some-thing even better as the Knights claimed their third straight CIF-USTA NorCal Championship with a 6-1 victory over Monte Vista (Dan-ville) on Saturday at the Natomas Racquet Club in Sacramento.

“They won on my birthday,” said Shine. “It was a great present. And David Wermuth had his birthday Sunday. The boys wrote up a nice card for David and myself, so it was nice . . . it was a perfect weekend.”

The triumph on Sat-urday afternoon, which came on the heels of a 7-0 win over Piedmont on the semifinals earlier in the day, wrapped up a 28-1 season for the Knights and provided Shine with a bit of history as Menlo as his team won three straight Central Coast Section and NorCal titles for the first time in the same season.

During this three-year stretch, Menlo has gone a remarkable 82-3 while producing its best record ever (27-0 last year) and the most single-season victories in school history (28 this year).

Shine, meanwhile, improved to 351-41 in his 15th season, winning his 10th CCS title this season and eighth NorCal crown.

Shine had no idea that this season would be so good, even though “I was hoping it would,” he said. “As the season went along, I thought this

could be a really, really dangerous team. I was pleasantly surprised on how easily we beat some good teams this year.”

During Menlo’s 4-0 sweep of its CCS foes and 3-0 effort at NorCals, the Knights won six of the matches by 7-0 scores and lost only their first point in Saturday’s finale as junior Justin Chan fell at No. 2 singles, 6-3, 6-4. Other than that, Menlo was perfect in the postseason.

“Even though we’re young, the guys thrive on competition,” Shine said.

The Knights put their competi-tive shoes on fol-lowing Saturday’s semifinals, which saw CCS runnerup Bellarmine fall to Monte Vista, 4-3.

“I was kind of rooting for Monte Vista,” Shine ad-mitted, “so the guy would have somone

new to play. If it was Bellarmine, it would have been, ho-hum, Bellarm-ine for a fourth time.”

The Knights beat the Bells twice during the regular season and again in the CCS finals, 7-0. Thus, having a new opponent in the NorCal finals got the Knights’ in a better competi-tive frame of mind.

While the 6-1 score seemed lop-sided, five of the seven matches were competitive.

“Monte Vistas was tough,” said Shine, who made a slight adjust-ment in his lineup by moving senior Andrew Carlisle from No. 4 singles to No. 1 doubles (to team with fresh-man J.T. Nishimura) and moving sophomore Daniel Morkovine from doubles to No. 4 singles.

The move paid off as Morkovine

won, 6-0, 6-1, while Carlisle and Nishimura battled for a 7-5, 6-4 triumph. Menlo sophomore An-drew Ball won an important No. 1 singles match against Monte Vista senior Shaun Chaudhuri, 6-0, 4-6, 10-8. Chaudhuri is ranked among the top Boys’ 18s singles players in Northern California, according to Shine.

“I thought that was his (Ball’s) best match of the year,” Shine said.

Sophomore Richard Pham won at No. 3 singles, 6-0, 6-1, while the No. 2 doubles tandem of senior Kyle

Sum and freshman Da-vid Ball won, 6-4, 6-0, while senior Mac Os-borne and sophomore Michael Hoffman pro-duced a 6-2, 6-4 win at No. 3 doubles.

Shine credited Wer-muth, a former stand-out player at Palo Alto High, with Menlo’s im-provement this season. In his sixth season with

the Knights, Wermuth whipped the team into great shape.

“He’s instilled a physical tough-ness,” Shine said. “Before, we were really, really good. Now, we’re re-ally, really great. A lot of the credit goes to him.”

Wermuth will be working with many of the same players next sea-son as the Knights lose only Carl-isle, Sum and Osborne. The Knights return their top three singles players -- Andrew Ball, Chan and Pham -- along with Nishimura, David Ball, Morkovine and Hoffman.

If Menlo needed any motivation for next season, improving upon a one-loss season is of course there, along with the opportunity to win four straight CCS and NorCal titles for the first time ever.

David Wermuth Bill Shine

Page 37

Sports

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It’s time to make a runat CIF State Meet berthsTwo relay teams from Palo Alto

High and 14 local individuals will put it on the line at the

2011 Central Coast Section Track and Field Champion-ships on Friday at Gil-roy High. At stake for the top three finishers will be trips to the CIF State Meet at Buchanan High in Clovis on June 3-4.

The local qualifiers to the CCS finals are up from last season when only nine individu-als and one relay team made the grade.

Four veterans from last year’s section finals return for another shot at the state meet. That group includes Palo Alto senior Maurice Williams, Gunn senior Erin Robinson, Gunn junior Kieran Gallagher and Priory junior Kat Gregory. All four qualified follow-ing solid efforts at the CCS semi-finals this past Saturday at Gilroy High.

Williams, who is hoping to earn a third trip to the state meet, will be busy in three events on Friday. He qualified fourth in the 100 at 11.09

and was second in the long jump at 21-10. He’s also on the Vikings’ 400 relay team that clocked a 42.85 while finishing third.

The other relay mem-bers are Tremaine Kirk-man, Morris Gates-Mouton and Miles Anderson. Their 42.85 ranks second in school history to the 42.74 re-cord from 1980.

Robinson cruised to a fourth-place finish of 11:11.98 in the girls’ 3,200 while Gregory finished eighth in 11:15.95 after qualify-ing in the 1,600 with a 5:11.80 for 11th.

Gallagher was one of two local winners from the semifinals as she raced to victory in the girls’ 800 in a season

best of 2:12.82. She set the Gunn record of 2:11.36 in last year’s semi-finals. Teammate Kirsten Baird, a sophomore, was among four who cleared 5-2 in the high jump while tying for first.

Other qualifiers for the girls in-clude Menlo School freshman Mad-

CCS TRACK & FIELD

(continued on next page)

Paly’s Maurice Williams

Page 38

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SHOP!ATHLETES OF THE WEEK

Rachael AckerGunn swimming

Kirsten BairdGunn track & field

Erin GallagherGunn track & field

Grace GreenwoodPalo Alto diving

Ally Howe*Sacred Heart Prep swimming

Erin RobinsonGunn track & field

Freddy AvisMenlo baseball

Austin BraffPalo Alto baseball

Jake BrumlMenlo baseball

Nick HenzeMenlo-Atherton swimming

Richard PhamMenlo tennis

Maurice WilliamsPalo Alto track & field

Honorable mention

Jasmine ToskyPalo Alto High

The junior swimmer set a national record of 51.92 in the 100 fly prelims, winning that race and the 200 free in the finals and anchoring the 200 free re-lay team to victory to help the Vikings take second at CCS.

Tom KremerSacred Heart Prep

The junior swimmer set a CCS record of 1:36.72 to win the 200 free, won the 100 back with a school re-cord of 48.50 and swam on the winning 400 free relay to help the Gators finish fourth at the CCS champion-ships.

* previous winner

To see video interviews of the Athletes of the Week, go to www.PASportsOnline.com

dy Price in the 400 (sixth in 57.76), Menlo-Atherton’s Catherine Car-penter in the 400 (eighth in 58.14), Sacred Heart Prep’s Maggie Fong in the 100 (seventh in 12.67) and the Palo Alto 1,600 relay team advanced after taking fourth in 4:04.54.

For the boys, Menlo-Atherton’s Michael Hester qualified in the 1,600 with a season-best time of 4:22.87, while Gunn junior Andrew Prior was a surprise non-qualifier while taking 19th in 4:29.24 af-ter having a season best some 10 seconds faster. He was among the leaders when he was tripped with a lap to go. While he did manage to get up and finish, it was too late to qualify.

Palo Alto’s Grant Sauer continued to run consistent times in the 110 high hurdles and earned a berth in the CCS finals with a 14.85 clock-ing. Cameron Van of Sacred Heart Prep and Victor Du of Palo Alto each cleared 6-2 in the high jump to advance while M-A senior Stas Della Morte went 21-3 1/2 in the long jump and was the final quali-fier despite being the CCS leader at 23-1 1/2.

Menlo School senior Sam Parker made it to the CCS finals in the 800 with a solid time of 1:56.56.S

The CCS finals get under way

with the girls’ pole vault at 4 p.m. The girls’ 400 relay is the first run-ning event at 6 p.m. The 1,600 relays will wrap up the evening, with the girls starting first at 9:15 p.m.

Gunn’s Erin Robinson will run in the 3,200 finals on Friday.

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Page 39

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