Closure of school, Gen. Shelton remarks among year's top stories
By Town Crier Staff,
 In one of the biggest stories of 2003, Bullis-Purissima School closed its doors in June due to budget cuts in the Los Altos School District. |
While the nation as a whole followed the developments of the war in Iraq during the bulk of 2003, the Los Altos area carried on relatively minuscule, but nonetheless important, struggles of its own. The still-dormant economy prompted more than a few vacant storefronts downtown, triggering new debate about the future of small retail businesses in this community. The Los Altos-based David and Lucile Packard Foundation worked to overcome the resignation of its CEO and the layoff of half its staff. And the economy-influenced closure of Bullis-Purissima School triggered the formation of a charter school by Los Altos Hills residents who would not accept the idea of their town without a public school. Some changes this year were not as hard to accept, and even welcomed, such as three newcomers to the five-member Los Altos City Council.
January
• A two-alarm fire killed a 30-year-old mother as she slept in her Miramonte Avenue home on Christmas Eve. Firefighters were able to rescue her 18-month-old infant and the father.
• In Los Altos Hills, residents along Moody Road were without power for three days after a storm downed a large heritage oak tree onto a power pole.
• Dan Alexander, a longtime director of the Purissima Hills Water District Board of Directors, stepped down after 20 years of service.
• Los Altos resident Alam Kim, 23, was killed in a gang-style fight between two San Jose State University fraternities Jan. 22.
• Los Altos train enthusiast Fred Vertel lost virtually all his collection, along with his Redwood Drive home, during an early morning blaze Jan. 21. The two-alarm fire was so all-consuming, Vertel barely escaped with his life by going out through a bathroom window. Vertel, who set up the train display at the Los Altos History Museum, had spent 40 years building up his model train collection.
• Former Los Altos Hills City Councilman Steven A. Finn, chief executive officer of Colorado-based GEMISYS Financial Services, reached a $10,000 settlement in civil money penalties with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after a 10-year commission examination of the company revealed that Finn “willfully aided and abetted and caused violations” of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934.
February
• Two former Los Altos researchers died in separate fiery crashes during scientific missions the last week of January. Astronaut Kalpana Chawla, 41, died during her second space mission, when the space shuttle Columbia exploded over Texas. Marine biologist Michael Newcomer, 49, died when his Cessna 337 Skymaster plane went down off the coast of Florida while he was conducting aerial surveys of the endangered North Atlantic right whales for Wildlife Trust.
• The Los Altos School District Board of Trustees, citing a funding deficit, voted unanimously Feb. 10 to close Bullis-Purissima School at the end of the 2002-03 school year.
• Los Altos celebrated the opening of the jointly owned city-school gymnasium at Blach Junior High School Feb. 11. Under the agreement, the city funded the construction of gyms at Blach and Egan junior high schools and the Los Altos School District provided the land.
• Residents in the Rosita Avenue neighborhood who sued the city over construction of a three-pool complex won their case. A Superior Court judge ordered Los Altos to put plans for a community pool center on hold until the city completed more detailed environmental studies.
March
• About 200 residents gathered at the Community Plaza in downtown Los Altos to protest war against Iraq during an hour-long peace vigil.
April
• Former Los Altos Hills Mayor Toni Casey confirmed rumors that she would run for Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat in the 2004 election. Casey made the announcement during a keynote address to the Los Altos Rotary Club.
• Sexual equality in the Jewish pulpit became more than a concept with the unprecedented appointment of Los Altos Hills Rabbi Janet Marder as head of one of the nation’s largest groups of Jewish clergy. Marder became president of the Central Conference of Jewish Rabbis and the first woman to lead a major rabbinical association.
• The Santa Clara County Public Health Department issued SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) warnings to local schools. Teachers and administrators were given guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on what to do in event of exposure.
• A Los Altos Hills couple, fined $27,000 in 2002 for bulldozing the historic Winbigler house, filed a lawsuit against the town for $500,000 in damages, as well as permission to resume construction on a new 30,000-square-foot home on the property.
May
• Arthur “Art” Scott, a prominent local real estate agent known for his generosity as well as his salesmanship, was found dead in Stevens Creek Park outside Cupertino, the victim of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The death was officially declared a suicide by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s office.
• Jon Chu, 23-year-old graduate of the University of Southern California film school and son of Lawrence and Ruth Chu of Los Altos’ Chef Chu’s restaurant, was tapped by Columbia Pictures to make his feature film directorial debut with a remake of the 1960s musical “Bye Bye Birdie.” The film is slated to be released in 2005.
June
• The Los Altos City Council placed an annual $36 price tag on the all-day parking spaces downtown under a new permit system intended to boot unauthorized vehicles from the area and free spaces for customers.
• Veteran Los Altos Hills Councilwoman Emily Cheng was selected the town’s new mayor, marking the first time a person of Asian descent has ever held the position.
• A lean city budget stalled demolition plans for the gymnasium at Los Altos’ Rosita Park, letting the building remain open for recreational use for at least another year, the Los Altos City Council confirmed. The delay freed up $59,000 in the city’s capital improvements.
July
• The David and Lucile Packard Foundation’s top employee announced plans to step down from his position at the start of 2004.
Richard T. Schlosberg, 59, said he would retire from his post as president and chief executive officer of one of the nation’s highest ranked charitable organizations to spend time with his family. The Los Altos Hills resident will stay connected to the foundation in whatever manner helps smooth the transition, he added.
• Family, friends and colleagues gathered at Temple Beth Am in Los Altos Hills July 7 to commemorate the life of sportswriter Leonard Koppett of Palo Alto, who died June 22.
• Workers ended a 12-week succession of protests against El Camino Hospital after striking a deal with management that will provide employees higher wage increases and improved health coverage in a two-year contract.
August
• Candidates for the Los Altos City Council who filed for the November ballot included an 18-year-old recent Los Altos High School graduate, Christopher Nicholson.
Curtis Cole, Valorie Carpenter, David Casas, Ron Packard, Jeannice Samani, Steven Smiley and incumbent Francis La Poll joined the young candidate in the race for three, four-year seats open on the council this fall.
• A memorial service for former St. Francis High School basketball star Patrick Dennehy took place at the Jubilee Christian Center in San Jose.
Dennehy, who graduated from St. Francis in 2000, was found slain July 25 in Waco, Texas, where he attended Baylor University. His roommate and former teammate at Baylor, Carlton Dotson, was charged with shooting Dennehy.
• An 18-year-old Los Altos School District board candidate received his first lesson in local politics when he said he felt pressure from Superintendent Marge Gratiot to withdraw.
Kevin Bella of Mountain View considered dropping out of the running Aug. 12, one day prior to the filing deadline, after the phone call from Gratiot. The superintendent told him his candidacy would force an election, costing the district $30,000.
Gratiot told the Town Crier that she had not pressured Bella to withdraw and meant no threat, but wanted to inform the young candidate about the financial impact of his candidacy.
• Not a single developer accepted Los Altos’ invitation to build a hotel on the city-owned land at the corner of First and Main streets, officials confirmed.
Los Altos city staff sent out Request for Proposals to eight select hoteliers across the country to gauge the interest in building a hotel at the site following severed negotiations with local developer Roxy Rapp.
Money appears to be the holdup. The city wants to lease the property. Under the proposed lease conditions, the developer would provide the city a minimum base rent of 9 percent of the property’s appraised value at the time of the project’s groundbreaking or profit-sharing returns of 4 percent on every dollar of the hotel’s gross receipts from occupancy if higher than the minimum rent.
• A drum and bugle corps rehearsing at the Foothill College stadium hit a sour note with some neighboring Los Altos Hills residents, who convinced the school’s president to kill the tunes and send the musicians packing.
The Renegades Association of California, a San Francisco-based group unaffiliated with Foothill, held a series of rehearsals, which prompted a group of 11 residents to send a written complaint to the school’s athletic department. The neighbors claimed the sounds of the instruments were in violation of the town’s municipal code and that the school wasn’t being “mindful of its neighbors.”
“It is sad that a nationally recognized musical group such as the Renegades would be dismissed so abruptly,” said Chris Nails, executive director of the corps, in an e-mail to the Town Crier. “We have thousands of fans across the country. Just not in Los Altos, it seems!”
• Jack Huston, known by some as “Mr. Los Altos” for his relentless community involvement, died Aug. 15.
During his 50 years in Los Altos, Mr. Huston played major roles in the Kiwanis Pet Parade and the annual Festival of Lights Parade.
September
• Los Altos’ Mayberry image as an all-American town earned it top honors in Sacramento. The 40/8, a select group of the American Legion, recognized Los Altos as “City of the Year” for the state of California for its public display of patriotism and support of the American Legion. This is the first time Los Altos has qualified for such a distinction.
• Stepping Stones preschool will have to relocate from Grant Park in two years to make room for recreational programs in the four-room facility. The Los Altos City Council turned down the preschool’s request for a 10-year lease.
• The Santa Clara County Board of Education conditionally approved the Bullis Charter School petition Sept. 3, by a 6-1 vote.
The LASD later declined to sponsor the charter, leaving it under county supervision. The charter school plans to open in the fall of 2004.
A charter school is an independent public school, supported with public funds and held accountable by a public authority. Charter schools have a written legal agreement with a sponsoring agency, usually a school district.
• St. Nicholas School celebrated 50 years of education in Los Altos. In September 1953, the city of Los Altos had just celebrated its first anniversary when St. Nicholas School opened its doors to 180 local students in grades one through four.
• After putting $1 million on the line to star in NBC’s “For Love or Money 2,” Los Altos native Erin Brodie walked away with both cash and romance after the show’s finale.
The daughter of ‘49ers football great John Brodie won $2 million when bachelor Chad Viggiano picked her over $1 million.
Brodie narrowed down 15 bachelors until only Viggiano was left. The show was a spinoff of the surprise summer ratings winner, “For Love or Money,” in which Brodie beat out 15 other women when bachelor Rob Campos picked her as his potential mate. The show’s producers offered her the chance to take the money or gamble double-or-nothing on the sequel.
• Foothill-De Anza administrators intimated the historic Griffin House on the Foothill College campus is more of a liability than an asset.
The Griffin House was built in 1901 for Willard Griffin, a founder of Del Monte Packing Co. It survived the 1906 earthquake and was purchased by Foothill College in 1959. In 1976 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
• Retired Gen. H. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11, rocked his Foothill College Celebrity Forum audience with a surprise public criticism of Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark. The comments, first printed in the Town Crier, made national and world headlines.
“What do you think of General Wesley Clark, and would you support him as a presidential candidate?” was the question put to him by moderator Dick Henning.
“I’ve known Wes for a long time,” Shelton said. “I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. I’m not going to say whether I’m a Republican or a Democrat. I’ll just say Wes won’t get my vote.”
October
• Nearby residents had complaints about the reconstruction of the Antiochian Orthodox Church of the Redeemer, 380 Magdalena Ave., destroyed by arson April 2002. Santa Clara County approved plans by the church to build a 24,800-square-foot structure. The three-phase plan called for rebuilding and expanding the destroyed church, constructing a new administration building and replacing the church’s former one-story social hall with a two-story, 350-person banquet hall. Neighbors complained that the new hall could increase off-site parking, traffic and noise in the area.
• A two-alarm fire destroyed a cottage on Border Hill Drive, Los Altos. A woman who lived in the converted garage escaped the fire but suffered burns on 89 percent of her body; she later died. The fire completely destroyed the detached garage.
• Los Altos may rank as one of the wealthiest communities in the United States, but only one resident made the latest Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans. Jerry Yang, 34, is the nation’s 162nd wealthiest resident, according to the magazine’s annual list. The Stanford University graduate and co-creator of the Internet search engine Yahoo! Inc. is worth $1.4 billion.
• St. Francis High School mourned the loss of popular teacher and aquatics coach Steve Yamamoto, 53, found dead in his San Jose condominium Sept. 29. He died of an aneurysm. Mr. Yamamoto spent 28 years at St. Francis, where he taught math, science and computers, in addition to coaching swimming and water polo.
• Retired Mountain View pediatrician George Kirn, 80, pleaded no contest Friday in Santa Clara County court to hitting a 5-year-old boy with his car in Los Altos and leaving the scene.
• The Los Altos Hills City Council approved a final design for the new town hall structure - a “modified rural” design. The finalized plan is for a structure just over 8,000 square feet to be built on a budget of around $3.75 million, a 25 percent to 40 percent slash from last year’s originally proposed mission-style structure. Residents selected the rural design from among Craftsman, sustainable, rural and revised mission-style options offered on a direct-mail survey in April.
• Despite camping at other schools during construction and breaking in a new instruction superintendent, local public schools once again captured the No. 1 rankings and surpassed the state’s goal on the Academic Performance Index (API). The last academic year was the fourth for which the state issued API growth reports and the fourth in which Los Altos School District elementary schools exceeded their targets for growth in academic performance. The district itself scored 939 points, making it the top-performing school district in the state for the fourth consecutive year.
November
• The first 22 firefighters from the Santa Clara County Fire Department sent to help battle the wildfires that broke out Oct. 26 in Southern California returned after fighting the blazes for seven days, according to Ken Waldvogel, assistant fire chief of the Santa Clara County Fire Department. Gov. Gray Davis called the fires among California’s most expensive natural disasters.
• Measure D, the El Camino Hospital District reconstruction measure, received 70.82 percent of the vote in the Nov. 4 election. The $148 million raised by issuing bonds will help rebuild the hospital tower, which does not meet state seismic safety laws.
• The Los Altos council unanimously agreed that Bandera restaurant should pay the city the full cost of creating new parking elsewhere for every additional space it would use in the plaza for its lunch-time draw. The council recommended that Bandera pay approximately $30,000 a space for 35 additional parking stalls over as long as a 30-year period. Bandera rejected the proposal
• The Los Altos City Council directed staff to move forward with an ordinance that will essentially ban restaurants and service-oriented businesses from taking over Main and State streets. The move is intended to preserve downtown’s character with one-of-a-kind, mom-and-pop retail shops. Main and State streets reported eight vacancies during this year’s third quarter. Four restaurateurs - Togo’s, Quizno’s, Subway and Il Fornaio - allegedly made offers or inquired about moving into those sites.
• The Purissima Hills Water District Board of Directors unanimously approved an ordinance establishing a set of rules prohibiting “wasteful water use,” as well as penalties for noncompliance effective in December. An estimated 80 percent of the district’s water supply goes to landscape irrigation in Los Altos Hills.
At the eleventh hour of his term on the Los Altos City Council, Francis La Poll moved to correct a 1999 council decision that would have lingered in the archives as a city folly. The council stripped the name Conner from the park on the corner of San Antonio Road and Edith Avenue, named for the city’s first mayor, who said he hated parks and changed the name to Village Park.
December
• Eugene Kleiner, an early entrepreneur and one of the founders of Silicon Valley, died of heart failure Nov. 20 at the age of 80. The 42-year resident of Los Altos Hills, who played a pivotal role in building Silicon Valley, was a scientist, an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist.
• Carol S. Larson was named the third president and CEO in the 39-year history of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Larson had been vice president and director of programs at the Los Altos-based foundation for 14 years.
• Mountain View police announced the arrest of three suspects connected to the brutal attack and murder of Doris Condon. The Jardin Drive resident died Nov. 28 from injuries sustained in an Oct. 25 attack. Through tips, police arrested Leonel J. Cantor, Jose G. Sosa and David A. Olayo, all of San Jose. All three are charged with murder and burglary. Cantor and Olayo are also charged with conspiracy to commit murder, elder abuse and robbery.
• Los Altans bade farewell to the city council responsible for bringing the first hotel chain to town and adding 19 new units of affordable housing within city limits over the past eight years. Councilmembers Kris Casto, Lou Becker and Francis La Poll handed over their council roles Dec. 2. Ron Packard, David Casas and Curtis Cole joined John Moss and King Lear on the council. Moss was named mayor and Casas mayor pro tem.
