Students get the picture

An exuberance of children’s art will fill the multipurpose room at Hillview Center when “Artists in Bloom,” the annual student art show, opens Thursday. Works by every elementary student in the Los Altos School District, and by many middle school students, will be on view in the unjudged exhibit through Sunday.

The students’ work appears through the good graces of the Los Altos Art Docents, who not only volunteered to teach the lessons from which the art sprang, but also sorted, transported and hung or placed every piece - and will take it all away again. That’s about 3,500 pieces or, coincidentally, 100 paintings, collages and sculptures for every year the docents have been taking art instruction into the schools.

El Camino Hospital board releases CEO’s contract

In a move intended to address the public access controversy surrounding El Camino Hospital CEO Lee Domanico’s compensation, the hospital district’s board of directors released his full contract to the public on Monday.

Speaking for the board, member Dr. Dominick Curatola said: “This wasn’t an issue for the public good; it was a personal issue raised by a group of physicians who have a grudge against the hospital and against Lee Domanico.”

Winbigler structure down to the ground

Until recently a few iron structural beams marked the former Winbigler property in Los Altos Hills. Now, nothing but the foundation exists. The site’s looming, unfinished house plagued neighborhood residents for two years.

Former LA mayor fined over campaign reporting errors

One of Los Altos’ most respected community contributors recently found himself contributing a $12,000 fine as a thank-you for his volunteer campaign efforts to support Foothill and De Anza colleges.

Robert Grimm, a former Los Altos councilman and mayor, paid the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission the fine for his work as treasurer with the Measure E committee that campaigned successfully for a $248 million bond measure in 1999.

Los Altos council refuses Hills council on Bullis site support

Three short sentences in a letter from the Los Altos City Council to the Los Altos Hills City Council, denying a request made by the latter, generated a debate within the Los Altos council that could fill volumes.

In a March 4 letter, Mayor Mike O’Malley, on behalf of the Hills council, asked for a resolution of support for returning public education to the Hills.

Vineyard planned for Hetch Hetchy easement

The future of the Hetch Hetchy waterway easement that was earmarked for a controversial public pathway through Los Altos last year has created another kind of “wining” in one neighborhood.

Residents adjacent to the 0.3-mile strip of land that runs parallel to El Camino Real from Los Altos Avenue through Via Del Poso to Mercedes Court are in the process of choosing a local farmer to develop and maintain a vineyard on the property with support from the Los Altos City Council and the San Francisco Water District, which owns the property.

Downtown Mtn. View slated for new look

Mountain View city contractors dispose of branches after cutting down a tree along Castro Street in the city’s downtown.

In February, the city began removing 170 Idaho locust trees along Castro Street. The trees are susceptible to pests and require spraying with insecticides. They will be replaced with sycamore, Chinese pistache and crape myrtle trees - hardier species, expected to add to the downtown’s ambience.

Closure of one more longtime business causes LA council to review city zoning

One more longtime business is closing in Los Altos, raising concern about the loss of retail in the downtown area.

Gregg’s-Boucher’s Appliances, on San Antonio Road, has been selling appliances in Los Altos for more than six decades, but the store’s doors will shut permanently April 30. The business will possibly move to another location. A First Republic Bank might replace Gregg’s, Los Altos Councilman Ron Packard said.

Editorial

It used to be that proclamations were harmless, congratulatory, “official” statements issued by city leaders. The vast majority of them still are. They range from recognizing National Family Week to applauding the achievements of local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

But at least two developments no doubt prompted councilmembers to offer “clarity” on when to dole out such statements of recognition.

Letters to the Editor

Americans should unite at time of war
Frank Zampino

It is interesting that Los Altos’ leading “activist/protester,” Myra Orta, wonders about the American flag in her letter to the editor (Town Crier, March 23) coinciding with a Raging Grannies peacenik rally.
I don’t remember in the last 70 years, any conservative Republicans ever […]

Obituary Notices

BETTIE JAYNE MARIS
Bettie Jayne Maris, at rest March 16, 2005 at the age of 85. Loving mother of Kaaren Schoenberg and John Michael Maris and dear mother-in-law of Charles (Bud) Schoenberg. Proud grandmother of Brad (Myra) and Brian Schoenberg and adoring great-grandmother to Emma Jayne and Cole Michael Schoenberg. […]

Scouting News

The Honorable Charlene Padovani Mitchell and Mr. Arthur Okuno, former Scoutmaster of Troop 343 at the Heart Mountain, Wyoming, internment camp, presided March 5 at the Eagle Court of Honor for Ken Iihara of Troop 35, at St. Nicholas Church. The Mountain View High School junior became an Eagle Scout Nov. 15.

For his Eagle project, Iihara built two 4-foot-by-8-foot carts for the MVHS Spartan Marching Band.

Engagement and Anniversary

Erin Eriksson and Bryan Jones
Erin Eriksson and Bryan Jones have announced their engagement to be married Sept. 4 at the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla.
The bride-to-be is the daughter of Gayle and Erik Eriksson of Valencia. She is a graduate of William S. Hart High School, and […]

Noteworthies

Howard Jarmy, a local author, has recently published a book of 80 short stories and essays, “Fables & Foibles.” KMTV interviewed Jarmy about his writing, and he read two excerpts from his book.

The show is scheduled to air 9:30 p.m., today and April 6, on Channel 15.

Los Altos resident, caught in tsunami, helps victims through grassroots campaign

Sidney Ridgway traveled to India to attend a yoga clinic, but the Dec. 26 tsunami altered her plans considerably. Surveying the destruction around her, Ridgway, a Los Altos resident and retired United Airlines purser, decided she needed to do something to help the victims.

Communicating from India by phone and e-mail, Ridgway began getting the word out about the plight of the people in the fishing village of Vaithikuppam outside the city of Pondicherry on India’s eastern coast.

Metabolic syndrome lecture on Tuesday

Drs. Jerry and Mariam Manoukian are scheduled to discuss their new book, “Metabolic Syndrome Survival Guide,” 7 p.m., Tuesday, at Los Altos Christian School.

Metabolic syndrome is a condition that occurs in 25 percent of the American population. Its symptoms are excessive weight and elevated blood pressure. It is related to the overproduction of insulin, typically in response to excess starch and sugar in the diet. For more information, call 948-3738.

El Camino Hospital update to be topic at Main Street Forum

Dr. Dominick Curatola, a cardiologist and member of the El Camino Hospital District Board of Directors, will speak at the Main Street Forum at the Main Street Cafe & Books at 7 p.m., Thursday.

Curatola, first elected to the district board in November 1992, has been a member of the hospital medical staff since 1984. He plans to discuss the hospital district’s accomplishments and the challenges that lie ahead.

El Camino ethics conference to tackle surrogacy, pain control issues

The intense national attention brought to the Terri Schiavo case has created a poignant atmosphere for the upcoming El Camino Hospital ethics conference.

The sixth annual event, “Do No Harm: Applying Ethical Principals in Clinical Practice,” scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, at St. Timothy’s Church Parish Hall in Mountain View, will be presented by the hospital’s ethics committee. The program features segments on “Palliative Care (pain control),” “Medical Errors” and a panel discussion for the general public on “Issues of Surrogacy.”

Community Briefs

Community reads ‘Kite Runner’
A “Community Read” of Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner” is scheduled Thursday, one of two events related to the book and its author as part of the 20th annual Writers Week at Los Altos High School.
Residents are invited to read Hosseini’s widely acclaimed novel and join in discussion […]

Local volunteers recognized at 2nd Gardner Awards

The Los Altos Community Foundation (LACF) is presenting its second annual John W. Gardner Community Building Awards for volunteers in Los Altos-Los Altos Hills. The awards dinner is scheduled for 6 p.m., Tuesday, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Palo Alto.

This award honors volunteers and their service organizations to recognize their work in local community building. Each organization has chosen its own volunteer to honor. The award is named for the late John Gardner, an honorary founder of LACF. An engineer of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, Gardner’s multifaceted contributions and his writings on community building are the principles that guide the Community Foundation.

Colorful paintings at Gallery 9

COURTESY OF GALLERY 9

Gallery 9, 143 Main St. Los Altos, will exhibit Carol Hake’s recent still-life paintings through April 29. These colorful paintings depict a cheerful mix of fruits, vegetables and flowers with an assortment of old and new objects and fabrics. A reception for the artist, open to the public, is scheduled 5-7:30 p.m., Thursday. For more information, call 941-0458.

‘Paint The Town’ lives on in the past

A new installment in the successful “Paint the Town” series is scheduled for April 16 in downtown Los Altos. Once again professional artists from the greater Los Altos area will set up their easels and create images on canvas.

This time their assignment is to “paint the town history,” in other words paint “what was, not what is.” Most artists will work from black and white historic photos from the archives of the Los Altos History Museum and the Los Altos Town Crier.

Calendar

Monday
Los Altos Youth Commission, 7 p.m., Hillview Community Center, 97 Hillview Ave.
Foothill-De Anza Community College District Board of Trustees, 6 p.m., administrative offices, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills.
Tuesday
Los Altos Library Commission, 5:30 p.m., Community Room, Los Altos main library, 13 S. San Antonio Road.

MVW postpones Slater’s closure one year

The five trustees of the Mountain View-Whisman School District, after an exhaustive and exhausting review of their options March 22, unanimously agreed to close Slater Elementary School at the end of the next school year.

Trustees reached their decision through a two-part process, voting unanimously by voice and raised hand for each in the public meeting. First, they voted to postpone closing any school at all until 2006-2007, then they stated reasons for their choice of one of three closure proposals they had publicly discussed at length.

Cupertino’s Stevens Creek re-enacts colonial days

Fifth-grade teacher Sarah Beetem teaches her class about the colonial home during Stevens Creek Elementary School’s Colonial Day last week. The school began the tradition nine years ago to give students firsthand experience of the U.S. history curriculum. It is part of a three-day series that includes Explorer Day and Revolutionary War Day.

Egan camp LASD’s final offer to charter school

The camp school at Egan Junior High is the Los Altos School District’s final facilities offer to Bullis Charter School for 2005-2006. Trustees voted unanimously to extend the offer at their March 21 meeting.

Charter school board member Peter Evans told trustees the offer is two classrooms short of the school’s needs. The district has offered seven, and the charter school has stated a need for nine.

Here’s looking at you, kids

Howard Bischoff, center, president of the Los Altos Kiwanis Club, helps the Loyola Elementary School K-Kids Club sort and pack more than 400 pairs of donated eyeglasses. The K-Kids collected the eyeglasses in February and early March. Through a program called Share Our Spectacles, the spectacles will be repaired, cleaned prescription-identified and donated to individuals around the world who cannot afford to purchase eyeglasses.

MVHS seniors who damaged school back in class and playing baseball

Four Mountain View High School students whose senior prank went too far are back in school after district trustees voted to expel them.

The Santa Clara County Office of Education heard the students’ appeal and overturned the mid-March decision of the Mountain View-Los Altos High School District Board of Trustees only days after the trustees’ vote.

Make a difference by becoming a ‘Partners’ member

Do you have an hour or two of spare time and want to change the life of a child? You can make a difference! Partners for New Generations (PNG) is looking for volunteers. Watch for the PNG “You Can Make A Difference” column that will appear on a regular basis in the Town Crier.

PNG began in 1997 as a Los Altos Rotary project to match adult volunteers with organizations serving youth in the Mountain View-Los Altos-Los Altos Hills area. Since then, it has chalked up many successes. Mentors and tutors have helped many troubled high school students build their self esteem, get back on track and graduate from high school.

Eagle Strike goes to national championship in April

Los Altos High School Robotics Team 114 - Eagle Strike - was chosen as a member of the seventh-seeded alliance of teams after finishing 21st in the qualifying rounds with a record of 5-6-1 at the Silicon Valley Robotics Regional last weekend. Pitted against the No. 2 seed in the elimination rounds, the LAHS alliance was not quick enough to overcome its opponents in the quarterfinals. Nevertheless, the judges presented the team the Radioshack Innovation in Control award for its robot control system.

Coach Leo Florendo said, “We are still most proud that our students are responsible for the success of our team. Our students maintain, repair and operate the robot - an opposite philosophy from other teams. On to the national championships in Atlanta during spring break.”

Schools Briefs

Superintendent search down to two candidates
Los Altos School District Trustee Victor Reid III said Monday that trustees have narrowed the field of superintendent candidates to two finalists. Extensive background searches and interviews with people who know the candidates on their home turf will begin soon.
“We may come to a conclusion by […]

Noteworthies

Los Altos High School students Tessa Ameri of Los Altos and Miranda Friedman of Mountain View participated in the National Young Leaders Conference Feb. 22-27 in Washington, D.C. Tessa and Miranda were selected to attend the conference on demonstrated leadership potential and scholastic merit.

The theme of the conference was “The Leaders of Tomorrow Meeting the Leaders of Today.” Tessa and Miranda met with a variety of personnel who operate within the three branches of government, the news media and the international community.

Eagles face rough waters

The swim season has not gone swimmingly for Los Altos High. The boys and girls teams are each competing without three swimmers who were projected to make the Central Coast Section meet.

The three girls are out with injuries and may not swim this season; two of the boys transferred to Palo Alto High and another chose not to come out for the team.

Child-focused businesses open at Loyola Corners

Loyola Corners is turning into a mecca for children’s programs, with three child-oriented businesses having opened there in the past couple of months and two more scheduled to open. FasTracKids, for 3- to 7-year-olds, and KidsArt, which offers art classes for children, are open for business. A barbershop for children also opened recently.

Laura Broderick, owner of FasTracKids, said the program has been devised to develop children’s gifts and talents and help them develop skills not taught at public school. The curriculum has been designed to stimulate brain development and give children tools for learning.

‘Old School’ speaks softly of deception

“Old School” is an engaging novel, short and profound. In it, Tobias Wolff tells the story of a boy’s self-discovery, while also probing the questions of honesty and deception. “Old School” (Knopf, 2003) was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist as well as a New York Times Notable Book.

The narrator is a scholarship boy from the West, thrilled to be a student at an elite Eastern school in 1960. He readily becomes a part of the school, mingling easily with his more privileged classmates.

Author examines 50 years of Mexican assimilation

“What is new is not so much the increased volume of immigration, but a growing despair and uncertainty over how - or even whether - to assimilate the arrivals into the fabric of the United States,” says Victor Davis Hanson, author of “Mexifornia” (Encounter Books, 2003).

In his hometown of Selma, near Fresno, Hanson grew up surrounded by Mexican immigrants, many of whom are now his friends, relatives and stalwarts of the town infrastructure. In the 1950s, they were pushed to learn English and United States history, and to assimilate.

Updating and restoring a classic

Morgan Manor is now Stonebrook Court. Once the grand home of Percy and Daisy Morgan, the half-timber, Tudor-style mansion in Los Altos Hills built in 1916 became a popular brothel in the 1930s, then did a complete about-face to enjoy a term as an elite day school in the 1950s before becoming a residence again. After nearly 90 years of use and neglect, the structure was in frat-house condition in 1999 when Kelly and Christina Porter were swept off their feet by the beauty beneath the bruises.

The ensuing six-year, multimillion-dollar renovation with a cast of thousands peeled back the years to the studs, but, like archeologists, the new owners found and preserved the oldest layers of the house’s colorful, textured history.

History museum home tour focuses exclusively on LAH homes

The Los Altos History Museum has scheduled its fourth annual Spring Home Garden Tour, “Los Altos Hills Lifestyles Along Historic Moody Road” 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., May 7.

For the first time in its history, the tour will focus exclusively on the Los Altos Hills area. It will feature a mix of five historic and modern homes including the landmark Adobe Creek Lodge, the bucolic former residence of the Duveneck family in Hidden Villa; two unique homes located in exclusive Pink Horse Ranch; and a contemporary residence reflecting today’s Los Altos Hills lifestyle.

A delightful stop on the Mills College Club’s ‘Charming Cottages of Palo Alto House Tour’

The Palo Alto Area Mills College Club has scheduled its 14th annual “Charming Cottages of Palo Alto House Tour,” featuring five homes, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., April 15 and 16. The owners agreed to present their homes without staging and feature remodeling within their financial means to maintain the theme.

One of the cottages, owned by Barbara McBride, is located at 531 Hilbar Lane. McBride lived on University Avenue for 18 years before her 1989 move to Hilbar because it was smaller and more manageable.

Spring is the time to replace your entry door

A wood door is more than a simple gateway between the outside world and your home. In the hands of expert artisans, the characteristics of wood can enhance a home’s beauty and charm.

Premier Door Services Inc. fashions wood doors that do just that. Using a skillful combination of quality materials, expert craftsmanship and unique designs, entry doors can become works of art. Premier’s display room is the ultimate resource for learning about reliable entry and interior doors.

Eurodesign wall furniture merges with Campbell custom furniture company

Eurodesign Ltd. a well-known Los Altos furniture manufacturer, and Valet Organizers Inc. of Campbell will merge April 11. By combining, the two respected Bay Area companies expect to offer additional product options and provide the same superior level of quality and service customers have come to expect.

“By taking the best design features and construction techniques from the two companies, we have created a newly engineered product line that will be unsurpassed in quality and function,” said Larry Fox, the president of both companies. “Together with Valet Organizers’ added expertise in custom closets, garage cabinetry and epoxy flooring, we can offer custom design solutions for the entire home.”

Expert: Weather remains unpredictable, so don’t jump the tomato season

It might be too wet to start your gardening, but it’s not too wet to get the garden soil ready.

“The Los Altos and Mountain View area is full of red clay, and this is a good time to start working with the soil,” said Deane Furuichi, proprietor of Los Altos Nursery, one of the city’s longest-running businesses. “It’s easier to manipulate compost and chicken manure as you turn it over.

Datebook

Datebook items are run on a space-available basis for entertainment, non-profit events, low-cost classes and groups of wide interest in our circulation area. The deadline is noon, Tuesday, for the next week’s paper. Notices must be typed and include a contact name and phone number. Items may be submitted via e-mail (peteb@latc.com); fax (948-6647) or post (138 Main St., Los Altos, CA 94022).

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