Hidden Villa in transition

A young woman leads two goats on leashes down a dirt road. Fifty second-graders, released from an outdoor environmental education lesson, break into a run. A resounding holler of glee rises as they stampede across the parking lot to their school bus. A trail winds through the woods, and around each bend a graceful ikebana arrangement, playfully woven into the surrounding plant life, becomes visible. This is Hidden Villa.

Nestled at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains, in the heart of Los Altos Hills, Hidden Villa is a demonstration organic farm, an environmental education foundation and a 1,600-acre wilderness preserve. For 75 years, the center has provided innovative lessons for schoolchildren in the Bay Area. It remains a haven of natural beauty for local residents.

Support lacking for underground utilities proposal

The results are in. An independent survey of Los Altos Hills residents, presented to the Los Altos Hills City Council, May 6, found insufficient support for a townwide undergrounding project.

Forty-nine percent of residents oppose undergrounding utility wires while 44 percent support it, according to a report presented to councilmember Dean Warshawsky, chairman of the undergrounding committee. Two hundred fifty of 8,350 Los Altos Hills residents were surveyed.

The Echo at Loyola Corners, to close its doors Friday

A favorite Loyola Corners eatery since World War II is closing down for good.

The Echo of Los Altos, with its scenic views of Adobe Creek and its portraits of famous actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood, will serve its faithful customers for the last time on Friday.

Whole Foods Market plans store in Los Altos

One of the world’s largest natural and organic food supermarkets plans to open a store in Los Altos. Whole Foods Market announced on its Web site last week that the company has inked property lease deals to open stores at seven new sites in the United States, including Los Altos.

City Planner David Kornfield confirmed that the company had submitted an application last Friday to open a single-story, 55,000-square-foot store with basement parking at 4800 El Camino Real, adjacent to the See’s Candy property near Showers Drive.

Reservoir neighbors left without a paddle

Los Altos residents expressed concerns about the city of Mountain View’s expansion of the Miramonte Reservoir at the April 27 meeting of the Los Altos City Council.

Discussion focused on notes from a Feb. 2 joint Mountain View-Los Altos subcommittee meeting on the construction status placed on the agenda by Ron Packard.

City asks neighbors for input on park’s future

Los Altos residents who petitioned door-to-door to turn a former public school campus into Grant Park 22 years ago will finally have a say in the type of recreational activities the city will sponsor at the three-acre site.

Two of the facility’s four classrooms are currently leased to Stepping Stones Preschool. Neighborhood outcry last year over a possible 10-year lease extension for the preschool prompted the Los Altos City Council to turn down the preschool’s request in favor of public recreation and to develop a future-use plan for Grant Park that would include public input. The preschool was granted a two-year lease extension, which expires Dec. 31, 2005.

Hetch Hetchy path will qualify for funding without ECR access

Los Altos may keep a $434,000 grant for Hetch Hetchy pathway improvements without exposing a residential neighborhood to El Camino Real. The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority unanimously agreed earlier this month that Los Altos would not be required to connect a bike path to El Camino as initially proposed when city staff applied for the grant money.

Neighbors along the one-third mile stretch of the San Francisco Water Department’s Hetch Hetchy right-of-way earmarked for improvements have been urging the city to return the VTA funds rather than extend a pathway to El Camino, which they say is the city’s worst crime spot.

High school district revises field trip policies following teen drinking binges

Following incidents of illegal drinking by 19 Los Altos High School students on field trips in early April, the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District has revised its field trip contract to make school rules more explicit. The students were suspended, and the district is also considering consequences for the groups they represented on the trips.

The 12th-graders among the students have lost their senior privileges, said Superintendent Rich Fischer. They will, however, walk with their classmates during commencement, said LAHS Principal George Perez.

Appropriate response to suspensions

The Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District has been taking the appropriate steps in the wake of the suspensions. Administrators are amending permission slips for such trips. The forms previously stated that students must conform to district policies without saying what those policies were.

According to Superintendent Rich Fischer, the new contract will explicitly spell out district policies so that students and parents should have no questions about behavior expectations.

What about mothers-in-law?

Is it any wonder that Mother’s Day is widely celebrated but that few know about Mothers-in-Law Day? Perhaps it is because mothers-in-law have a reputation for being meddlesome and difficult. Mine is not, but unfortunately I couldn’t say the same for my own grandmother. Grandma Rosella was, God rest her soul, a snob. She was a city girl, prone to picking the “right” friends and flagrantly turning up her nose at anything or anyone who didn’t measure up to her ideals of status and wealth.

Rosella’s rare soft spot was her only child, my dad. In her eyes, he could do no wrong except for pick the wrong girl, an inevitability given that few girls in America would have been good enough for her Tommy. As a country girl, my poor mom didn’t stand a chance. Although she was lovely in every way, she was a far cry from the cosmopolitan woman Grandma clearly envisioned for her son.

LETTERS OF MAY 12, 2004

We support the need for a community swimming pool in Los Altos, but at a site other than Rosita Park. The current project as described in the Draft Environmental Impact Report will have an unacceptably large impact upon the environment of the area surrounding Rosita Park. The traffic and pedestrian safety problems in the neighborhood have worsened since the last time the City Council considered locating an aquatic complex at Rosita Park.

OBITUARIES FOR THE WEEK OF MAY 12, 2004

Known to his friends as “Steck”, Howard was born in Canada on December 24, 1917. The fourth in his family of four brothers and two sisters, he later moved to Mason City, Iowa where he became an outstanding high school basketball player.

Margaretta ‘Wennie’ Staskus, ’simple but elegant’ antique store owner in downtown Los Altos

“Simple but elegant.” That’s how one son described his mother, Margaretta J. “Wennie” Staskus, a Los Altos resident since 1959 and a downtown businesswoman for 41 years. Mrs. Staskus died April 24 at the age of 80.

The warm and soft-spoken daughter of a lumber mill owner took a liking to simple but elegant furniture that was clearly country, but accented with sophisticated French and Italian designs. Her son Kim of Los Altos said Mrs. Staskus championed this brand of antique furniture 20 years before it became “the rage” among New York dealers.

Pets and art collide downtown

Animal and art lovers will likely find plenty of interest in this weekend’s slate of activities in downtown Los Altos, courtesy of the local Kiwanis and Rotary clubs.

The 57th annual Los Altos Kiwanis Pet Parade is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday. The parade begins at First and Main streets. Meanwhile, Los Altos Rotarians prepare for their 29th annual Fine Art in the Park. It runs 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, at Lincoln Park, Foothill Expressway and Main Street.

LASD approves teacher contract 3-0

The Los Altos School District Board of Trustees approved the proposed collective bargaining agreement with the Los Altos Teachers Association 3-0 at its regular meeting last week. The agreement, which is for the current and the next fiscal year - July 1, 2003, through June 30, 2005 - had already been approved by the teachers’ union.

The agreement will give 222 teachers a 1 percent salary increase, retroactive to April 1 of this year. Teachers employed in the next fiscal year will receive a 1.84 percent increase. This year’s increase will raise beginning teachers’ total compensation to slightly less than $48,000 a year.

No more cuts expected for FHDA 2004-2005 budget

Foothill-De Anza Community College District expects to serve 35,420 full-time equivalent students (FTES) next year without further state-level budget cuts.

“The governor’s office has proposed fully funding the COLA for 2004-2005, and we have included that revenue in the budget assumptions,” said Mike Bandy, vice chancellor of business services. “Recent discussions indicate the COLA will be recalculated at 2.4 percent.”

Eagles advance to semis

It seems fitting that the team standing between Los Altos High and the Central Coast Section finals is Menlo School.

The longtime boy tennis rivals were scheduled to meet Tuesday (after the Town Crier went to press) in a CCS Division II semifinal match at Menlo. The winner advances to Thursday’s noon final at Courtside Tennis Club in Los Gatos.

Google IPO brings individual investors back in the market

Google, the Internet search engine, is about to become Google the stock. A successful Google stock sale would signal the return of high-technology investing and a possible return to the vigorous, confident economic climate we saw in the late 1990s.

In the biggest deal to hit Silicon Valley since the tech boom sputtered, two weeks ago Google Inc. filed for a whopping $2.7 billion public stock offering.

Seniors hold court with bocce ball

Bocce ball conjures up visions of old Italian men flaking out on a warm Mediterranean afternoon, discussing politics and drinking red wine with friends. Monday and Wednesday mornings at the Los Altos Senior Center, you can find some of those Italian men and their wives walking back and forth on the bocce courts sans the red wine.

“I lived in New York, and when the city built this court two years ago it was the first time in 35 years that I played bocce ball,” Andy Alimona said. “I’ve been playing here for about two years now, and I enjoy it again.”