The antenna dilemma

The number of applications for cellular-phone antennas is on the rise, and so is the number of resident concerns. Los Altos already has 15 antenna sites, and that number promises to go up. The number of antenna towers nationwide is expected to double in five years.

As cell phone coverage providers such as Cingular and Verizon attempt to fill gaps in coverage, the companies are targeting residential areas and unleashing a raft of questions about health risks, noise impact and a potential loss in property values.

Ousted Foothill soccer coach fighting to restore his reputation

Vava Marques, who has guided the Foothill College men’s soccer team the past 13 years, claims he has been unjustly removed from his coaching position. He says proof of that lies in a binder filled 2-inches thick with documents.

In December Marques received his second suspension in as many years from the Coast Conference, prompting Foothill in February to remove him as coach for at least next season. Marques contends neither suspension was warranted. The part-time physical education instructor said he has filed a grievance against the Foothill-De Anza Community College District because he feels betrayed by Foothill administrators - primarily Sue Gatlin, athletic director and dean of physical education, and Rose Myers, vice president of student development and instruction - for not coming to his defense. And worse yet, Marques said, they never gave him a chance to defend himself.

Volunteerism increases at non-profits

Corporate and private donations may be down at most Bay Area non-profit organizations, but volunteerism is on the rise, according to a United Way survey released March 30.

Nine out of 10 non-profit groups, or 87 percent of those surveyed, reported that volunteer support has either stayed the same or increased in the last year. A total of 316 Bay Area agencies participated in the Nonprofit Pulse Survey in February.

Kniss predicts $240 million budget deficit

Santa Clara County could face a $240 million deficit this fiscal year, according to budget projections, Supervisor Liz Kniss told Los Altos residents last week.

“The pie is getting smaller and smaller for the cities,” Kniss said. “Out of the 8.25 percent sales tax, only 1 percent comes back to the city and 1 percent to the county. What we need is more local control.”

Aftermath of library tax defeat to be clearer this week

Library officials next week expect to gain a clearer understanding of how last month’s defeated tax bond measure will impact Santa Clara County’s library system. The Joint Powers Authority board, which governs the countywide system, is scheduled to review a preliminary budget April 22. Without the passage of Measure B, local libraries must adjust to a $5.3 million loss in annual revenues.

Los Altos head librarian Cheryl Houts said all 10 libraries in the system will have to reduce their hours and will collectively lose $700,000 from their materials budget, or the equivalent of 35,000 books a year. Staff cuts are inevitable, she added, although the number of cuts remains undetermined.

Open space district boundaries extended

After six years of heated debate, the fate of the Coastside Protection Program was decided April 7. The San Mateo County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) voted 6 to 1 to extend the boundary of the Los Altos-based Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District from Silicon Valley to the San Mateo Coast.

The approved expansion area stretches from Pacifica to Pescadero and includes 220 square miles of coastline. Over the next 15 years, the district will oversee 11,800 acres of coastside open space.

Police honored for keeping crime low in LA

It’s no coincidence that barking dogs and after-hours leaf blowers are some of the most serious crimes in Los Altos, considering the police department’s quick response time - less than 4 minutes. This, combined with the community’s watchful eyes, has made Los Altos the safest city in Santa Clara County, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual Uniform Crime Report.

Julie Rose, president of the Los Altos Chamber of Commerce, honored the department’s efforts April 7 with a $1,000 donation toward computer equipment from Councilman Ron Packard.

Progress, yes, but consider residents

As wireless providers attempt to fill gaps in coverage, more antennas, including those in residential neighborhoods, are an inevitability. However, we’re convinced that city officials and cell-phone companies can work together to ensure good cell-phone coverage while accommodating residents’ wishes.

For the most part, Los Altos and the wireless companies have been successful at accomplishing this. Cingular, in particular, has been good at filling gaps in coverage by placing “stealth” antennas inside church steeples and behind clock towers, as in the case of the building at Loyola Corners.

The evolving art of letter writing

First cousins Harry and Ray were born a year apart in the early 1920s. Since one hailed from California and the other from Minnesota, they visited infrequently and strengthened their lifelong bond through 60 years of diligent letter writing.

Back in their early days of correspondence, letter writing was a finely honed skill. Ray’s son, Eric, talks of how Ray’s penmanship was always beautiful and perfectly level, even on unlined paper. Ray never let his handwriting deteriorate during the course of a lengthy missive.

LETTERS OF APRIL 14, 2004

Recently, I attended a “Community Dialogue on Education” at which Los Altos School District Deputy Superintendent Patty Boettcher heard that California’s school test scores are the worst in the country.

OBITUARIES FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 14, 2004

died gracefully March 3, 2004, at The Sequoias in Portola Valley, CA, where she had lived for the past twenty years and recently celebrated her 100th birthday with her family.

Nellie was born in Coronado, CA, on November 18, 1903, the second daughter and third child of Peter and Atsje Riedel, who immigrated to America from Friesland, Holland at the turn of the 20th century. Shortly after Nellie’s birth, the family moved to Santa Barbara, where her father, Peter, became widely known as a horticulturist, landscape designer and associate of Dr. Francesco Franceschi.

Kate Wakerly, philanthropist, gave Mountain View its ‘Voice’

Kate Wakerly loved a good laugh. But she took every human being seriously.

This is borne out in her philanthropic efforts, ranging from helping local day workers and needy mothers in Nigeria to abused female inmates in the county jail.

Wedding Artifacts Exhibit

From the heavy brocade dresses of the Victorian era to Vera Wang sleeveless ball gowns, you don’t need to go far to learn about the history of American wedding attire. An exhibit chronicling more than 100 years of wedding fashions will open April 29 at the Los Altos History Museum.

Wedding artifacts - including dresses, shoes and veils from the museum’s collection and local donors - will be arranged to represent six historical periods: the 1890s, 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1970s and contemporary times.

Speakers at 10th LA prayer breakfast share startling personal experiences

Prayer is a “dialogue between man and God,” said Kevin Compton, a keynote speaker at the 10th annual community prayer breakfast last Friday.

“The first example of prayer was a dialogue between Adam and Eve and God,” Compton explained to an audience of 260 at Rickey’s Hyatt Palo Alto.

Poet shares life experiences with Morning Forum

Morning Forum members were invited into a poet’s life last Tuesday, as Eavan Boland, an Irish poet, movingly portrayed her life. Through stories and poems, she transported the audience into her mind and emotions as she described her Irish background, her parentage, her family, her children - all in the context of that troubled country.

She began with a vivid prose description of the red brick maternity hospital where her maternal grandmother, the fifth child of a fifth child, died at the age of 31, leaving Boland’s mother an orphan. Her father, a sea captain, had drowned when she was 3. Undocumented, with no photographs, and no official records, Boland’s mother represented the past, a “place of whispers, shadows, lost identities.”

Hidden Villa executive director Steiner announces retirement

Hidden Villa, the environmental and multicultural education center in Los Altos Hills, is currently seeking a new executive director following news that longtime director Judith Steiner is leaving.

Steiner, who has served in the position since 1994, has announced her retirement, effective July 31.

The artistic debut of Los Altan Madie Lazenby

Over the years Los Altos resident Madie Lazenby has been a painter, a potter and a weaver. She is back to painting again, this time with watercolor and gouache instead of oils. In the 60 years since she began painting, Lazenby has exhibited her work only on rare occasions, such as the Life magazine contest for amateur artists during World War II.

“Exhibiting has never been really important,” Lazenby said.

Loyola, Oak construction, Egan track are approved

Los Altos School District trustees have voted to make $6 million worth of improvements to Oak Elementary School, build administrative offices and a multipurpose room at Loyola Elementary School, and purchase a detailed design for restoring the playing fields at Egan Junior High School.

Trustees advanced different theories last Monday night about how much money is available for particular campus renovations but agreed that they have more money to work with now than they had thought possible six months ago.

Girls break records in run for orphans

Thirty-five schools from around the Bay Area sent their fastest runners to the 5th Annual Run for Zimbabwe Orphans at St. Joseph School in Mountain View March 28. The event raised $15,000 for Makumbi Children’s Home.

Organizer Ellen Clark said, “It was ladies’ day at the races.”

Rivalry renewed

Mountain View High last Thursday faced Los Altos in a league meet for the first time since 1992, revitalizing a rivalry between the swim teams at the local schools.

The teams competed in different divisions of the SCVAL until this season when Mountain View joined Los Altos in the upper De Anza Division.

Student art enhances Los Altos downtown

Art is alive in downtown Los Altos, and the emphasis is on Main and State streets.

A monthlong event, “Arts Alive,” features banners painted by local school students hanging from the street lights in the downtown Village. The festive banners sparkle and hopefully will increase foot traffic for the downtown merchants.

St. Timothy’s parish spends Lent collecting food for needy

They are walking down the altar- not to get married but- to pile it with food. The members of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Mountain View are collecting non-perishable items and have been piling it around the altar since the beginning of Lent. This will then be sent to Santa Maria Urban Ministry in San Jose at Easter and distributed to the poor.

“The season of Lent is a period of reflection,” said Kevin Phillips, rector of the church “and our theme of focus has been the hungry world.” America may be a prosperous nation but there are 840 million hungry people worldwide. By bringing a can of food and placing it around the altar, our people including children remember that reality, he said.

Foothills Congregational joins Center of Progressive Christianity

Foothills Congregational Church of Los Altos has joined the Center for Progressive Christianity in an effort to further its reputation as an inclusive congregation.

Foothills is a longstanding member of the United Churches of Christ (UCC), a blend of four distinct Christian traditions - Congregational, Christian, Evangelical and reformed.

All aboard! TC train heading to Ashland Shakespeare Festival

“I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.” So said “The Little Engine That Could,” and so said Los Altos Hills resident Ann Duwe when Town Crier publisher Paul Nyberg dreamed out loud about putting together a train trip from San Jose to Ashland, Ore., to attend the Shakespeare Festival.

Town Crier Train Tours developed out of that conversation, and the inaugural trip - an Amtrak journey to Oregon - takes place Sept. 20-24. Participants board the “Coast Starlight” in San Jose for an easy, overnight ride north. The train stops in Klamath Falls, and the group takes a chartered bus from there to Ashland. During a two-night stay at the historic Ashland Springs Hotel in the heart of town, travelers see four shows, with time in between to stroll among the shops and galleries and learn more about the Festival.