Locals pitching in

For Christina Jasper, the Hurricane Katrina relief effort is personal.

The Mountain View resident, who relocated to the Bay Area from New Orleans a few months ago, has taken on the task of collecting clothing and supplies for former co-workers, friends and their families who lost their homes or have been displaced by the Aug. 29 disaster.

Residence Inn welcomes guests from New Orleans

joe hu/town crier

New Orleans residents (clockwise from left) Lois and Herman Alugas, son Gregory and mother Ernestine Tyler make their way into the Residence Inn on El Camino Real in Los Altos. The family arrived in Los Altos Thursday with just the clothes on their backs after losing all their possessions in the flood caused by Hurricane Katrina. Residence Inn sales manager Lou Fazo receives thanks from Ernestine Tyler, above right. The hotel chain is donating 14 days of accommodations to the displaced family.

Fund raising and volunteer opportunities to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina

Los Altos-area organizations and residents are pledging their support in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Donating money is the best way to help relief efforts and is most effective through well-established charities.

Los Altos Community Foundation

Failed PG&E connector responsible for house explosion

A faulty Pacific Gas & Electric gas line connector caused the explosion that blew apart a Los Altos home and sent a man and his two children to the hospital in July, PG&E spokesman Jeff Smith confirmed last week.

The ongoing investigation revealed that a copper connector used to join two steel gas pipes failed at the street. Investigators suspect that gas began leaking at the failed connector and entered back into the Frontero Ave. house through the sewer, consequently causing the explosion that destroyed three-quarters of the one-story ranch-style home where owner David Hu and his two children were sleeping. The three escaped with minor injuries.

Scout leader arraigned in molestation case

Los Altos Boy Scout Troop 31 leader Gregory Allen Wagner, charged with child molestation, delayed making his plea last Thursday during his scheduled arraignment. His bail hearing is set for 1:30 p.m. Friday.

The 42-year-old Los Altos resident was arrested Aug. 25 at his home. Until his dismissal from the Boy Scouts on the day of his arrest, Wagner was a Boy Scout leader in the community for more than 20 years.

Judge rules for LASD, charter school to appeal

The Santa Clara County Superior Court ruled late Friday that the Los Altos School District complied fully with state laws, including those regarding joint-use agreements, in leasing the Egan camp school rather than Bullis-Purissima Elementary School to Bullis Charter School.

The order signed by Judge Leslie C. Nichols was in favor of the school district on all active points in the lawsuit brought by the charter school last September. The charter school plans to pursue the case and has 10 days from the Sept. 9 ruling in which to file its response.

Organized crime ring suspected in Los Altos jewelry heist

Four men suspected of belonging to an organized crime ring from South America escaped with what police are calling one of the largest jewelry grabs in Los Altos history.

Los Altos police Sgt. John Hughmanick said the men took an estimated $300,000 in jewelry from a traveling salesman staying at a local hotel last month. The robbery shared similarities commonly associated with what law enforcement officials call the South American Theft Groups (SATGs), prompting the Federal Bureau of Investigation to join Los Altos police in the investigation, police confirmed.

Andrea Leiderman remembered as activist, leader

Andrea Leiderman of Mountain View died Sunday following a battle with cancer. A director of government and community relations for Kaiser Permanente, Leiderman served as a member of the Foothill-De Anza Board of Trustees since 2002. She is remembered for her development of a board policy on neighborhood outreach and as an advocate for promoting workforce education, particularly among underrepresented students.

“Andrea brought her experience at the county board and her many related activities to bear on her thoughtful work on the Foothill-De Anza board. Even as she coped with a devastating illness, she remained as involved as possible in crucial board decisions, which was indicative of the level of commitment she had,” said board President Sandy Hay.

More Moffett studies needed, open space district says

The Los Altos-based Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District wants the Navy and NASA, which now operates Moffett Field, to do more than what is proposed in their draft plan to clean up Site 25.

The district has asked the Navy to test a particular levee thought to be contaminated with toxins thoroughly and to do a property-line survey.

Editorials

LAH solar ordinance a bright idea
Los Altos Hills officials are currently working on the draft of an ordinance that could require homes larger than 6,000 square feet to be more energy efficient - exceeding state standards by as much as 25 percent.
Doing this would require design features that incorporate such efficiency or […]

Letters to the Editor

Mayor has right to voice opinions
Eric Lutkin

I am writing regarding the flurry of letters and articles initiated by David Casas concerning the upcoming LASD election.
Whether you agree or disagree with his position we should all support the right of Mr. Casas, as a private individual, to comment openly about important issues […]

Death sticks

When Peter Jennings died of lung cancer recently, it saddened me that cigarettes had claimed yet another victim. Like so many of his generation, he likely started smoking during the long era of the Marlboro Man.

For decades the Marlboro Man perpetuated the myth that smoking was a good thing. He sat on his horse out on the prairie and wore Levi’s, cowboy boots and a well-worn hat. A cigarette hung casually from his oh-so-cool lips. When people saw the Marlboro Man, they saw a sexy, rugged outdoorsman who was firmly in charge of his life. They didn’t think lung cancer. They didn’t think emphysema.

Obituaries

RICHARD FRANKLIN JENSEN
Richard Franklin Jensen was born on October 14, 1927 in Wenatchee, WA, the second of two sons to Edward Victor and Irene Oretha Jensen. After graduating from Wenatchee High School in 1946, where he played on the championship football team and the trumpet as a member of the Drum & Bugle […]

Community Services Agency to salute new ‘Hometown Heroes’ at Oct. 21 breakfast

The Community Services Agency (CSA) will honor two local “Hometown Heroes,” Jim Cochran and Debbie Wu, Oct. 21, with a 7:30 a.m. breakfast at the Crowne Plaza Cabana in Palo Alto.

Cochran has had a long career as a public servant: as member and president of the Board of Trustees of the Whisman School District, as member of the city council and mayor of Mountain View, and as board member and president of CSA.

Community Briefs

New de Young Museum subject of lecture
In light of the imminent opening of the new de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, the Los Altos Library has scheduled an illustrated lecture, “Splendor in the Park: The New de Young Museum,” 7:30 p.m. Sept. 21 in the Program Room of the […]

Caddies once played free at LA country club

Colin Peters was a caddy at the Los Altos Golf & Country Club in 1931-1932. Then, the boys were paid $1 to tote a full golf bag for 18 holes - pretty good Depression-era money.

As another benefit, the Club allowed caddies to play free on Mondays. Most of the boys played the entire18 holes with a No. 3 iron, the only club they personally owned.

Children, local businesses travel distance to help Los Altos-based Help One Child

Whether she walks, runs or jogs does not matter to 15-year-old Sarah Johnson. All she cares about is raising funds to find more homes for children in the same situation as her 9-year-old foster brother before he joined her family four years ago.

“I want to walk in the Help One Child Walk-A-Thon for children like my brother,” she said. “It gives me satisfaction that I can make a difference in someone’s life.”

New executive director for Help One Child

Help One Child’s new executive director, Susan Kammerer, is on a mission. A former foster parent herself, Kammerer knows firsthand both foster parents’ special needs and the urgency of finding good homes for at-risk children. She aims to increase awareness of what can and should be done to support what the county and foster family agencies struggle to provide.

“My father always told us, ‘Knowledge is responsibility,’” she said. “Once I became aware of the tragedies that face at-risk children, I could not ignore the call. I jumped at the chance to join Help One Child. The Oct. 1 walkathon is an excellent opportunity for the community to take a step - literally - toward understanding the need to find homes for these children”

Introduction to blogs: These ‘creatures’ of the ‘Net can help you express yourself

From time to time as I’m helping people with computers the question of Weblogs, or “blogs,” comes up. To the unsuspecting, a blog sounds like a creature from “Star Trek” or something you might find hiding under your bed. Despite its sinister sound, a blog is actually a powerful online publishing medium, one that has reshaped social commentary and political dialog and debate in America.

Strictly defined, a blog is a Web site, a location on the Internet where someone puts up chronologically ordered content for others to view. Most but not all blogs feature some sort of response mechanism that enables anyone who reads them to post greetings, questions, comments or opinions.

Lew Platt, former HP CEO, fondly remembered

The business and nonprofit communities alike are mourning the death of former Hewlett-Packard CEO Lew Platt. The former Los Altos resident, who ran HP during the 1990s, died Thursday of an apparent brain aneurysm. He was 64.

Mr. Platt had been serving as lead director at aerospace giant Boeing, which he joined in 2003 and for which he had worked as nonexecutive chairman through this past June.

A girl’s prize is her castle

Los Altos Hills residents Megan Hubble, Amanda Zunino, Jessie Cherry and Sarah Mason, all 11, took first place in the 9-14-year-old category at the Capitola Sand Castle Contest Sept. 3 for their sand sculpture creation, “Sunflowers on Vacation.” Their sand sculpture depicted a sunflower “family” relaxing on the beach and included a huge smiling mama sunflower over 20 feet long and two young sunflower buds building a sandcastle.

‘Rock Back the Clock’ draws a festive crowd at Rancho

The 17th annual “Rock Back the Clock” 1950s-themed dance went off without a hitch last Friday at Rancho Shopping Center in Los Altos. The benefit for the Los Altos Festival of Lights Parade drew a crowd of hula-hoop-swinging fun-seekers, dancing to the music of disc jockey Rens Borsma, lower right. Matty Carmel and Erin Burkes try out the hula hoops as Jerry Sorensen, Angela Richards and Marie Backs look on.

Image consultants group, led by LAH resident, gathers for program

Which top designers are making the cut for specific individual body types?

The Bay Area chapter of the Association of Image Consultants International (AICI) addresses the question in “Silhouette Matchmaking,” an evening hosted by image and style guru Colleen Abrie.

Church festival showcases deep love of food

There was no question what would be my first stop at the International Food Festival at the Antiochian Orthodox Church of the Redeemer - the knafeh.

Several days before the festival, held this past weekend, I had stood in the church hall’s small kitchen absorbing thousands of calories by osmosis as parishioners prepared jelly-roll pans full of the delicacy for baking at the festival.

Strings attached to Peninsula Symphony’s new season

Los Altos-based Peninsula Symphony is beginning its 57th season in grand style, with concerts beginning Oct. 21 and a gala fund-raiser Nov. 12 featuring an unusual project, “The Art of the Violin.”

The gala will feature a live auction of 10 painted violins created by prominent local artists. These unique artworks will be on display at Zyt Gallery in Los Altos this week through Sunday. A “Meet the Artists” reception is scheduled 2-5 p.m., Sunday, at the gallery, 923 N. San Antonio Road.

Photo art on display

A photography exhibit featuring the work of Charles Halleck, above, along with Bill Baker, Ellena Steiner, Andy Browne and Roy Harrington is currently on display at Gallery 9, 143 Main St., Los Altos. The exhibition runs through Sept. 24. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, call 941-7969.

Pet of the Week

Rocket is a young red-eared slider waiting for a new home. He is located at Palo Alto Animal Services, 3281 E. Bayshore Rd. Sliders are land and water reptiles and do best in healthy backyard ponds. For more information, call 496-5971.

Calendar

Today
Los Altos Hills Planning Commission, 7:30 p.m., Town Hall, 26379 Fremont Rd., Los Altos Hills.
Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District Board of Directors, 7:30 p.m., district offices, 330 Distel Circle, Los Altos.
Thursday
Los Altos Hills Town Council, 6 p.m., Town Hall, 26379 Fremont Rd.
Los Altos Planning Commission, 7 p.m., […]

Kids work to aid Katrina’s victims

Local children and teens jumped to the aid of victims of Hurricane Katrina last week, devising fund-raising schemes, making blankets and collecting necessities.

Local elementary schools organized sales of baked goods and lemonade. One even undertook to “recycle for relief.”

LASD mulls over how to spend ‘extra’ funds

The Los Altos School District is looking at an extra $254,000 and hoping it isn’t a mirage. An additional $54,000 from the state has been added to $200,000 left at the close of the district’s 2004-2005 books, but it could all evaporate if enrollment remains 40 students below the 4,070 that were expected on the first day of school.

State funding of about $5,000 per student is based on average daily attendance. If 40 students stay away from the classrooms that expected them, the district will lose $200,000 of that aid.

Foothill looks under Europa ice

Astronomer Cynthia Phillips will present “Jupiter’s Tantalizing Moon: Water (and Life?) Under the Ice of Europa,” a nontechnical, illustrated talk, at 7 p.m. Oct. 5 in the Smithwick Theater at Foothill College.

Mtn. View High teens help some sunshine break through the clouds

Fifteen-year-old Erica Fiekowsky, now a sophomore at Mountain View High School, had a bright idea over the summer: Random acts of kindness should be a bit less random. She started a club in August to make sure the local randomness quotient declines and the happiness index rises.

In the past six weeks, members of Raining Sunshine have given away cookies at a stand in front of Erica’s home on Springer Road and made tissue-paper flowers for passersby at Rancho Shopping Center.

Noteworthies

Ashley Watson, daughter of Chris and Georgia Watson of Mountain View, was named to the dean’s list as a scholar athlete for the spring semester at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York.

An alumna of Los Altos High School, the communications major is a sophomore on a volleyball scholarship.

Applied appreciation at Oak

The Oak Avenue School PTA wanted to let teachers know how much parents appreciate all the hard work they did over the summer - packing up the camp school, unpacking at their home school and setting up and decorating their new classrooms - so they hired massage therapist Jan Roy to give head-and-neck massages on Teacher Appreciation Day last week. Here, first-grade teacher Kim Doyle relaxes for a few minutes before returning to class.

Schools Briefs

NASA Ames hosts Sally Ride festival
The Sally Ride Science Festival for fifth- through eighth-grade girls is scheduled 11 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Oct. 2 at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Mountain View.
The festival provides an opportunity to meet and listen to Sally Ride, the first American […]

Schools race requires sophisticated campaigns

When well-known schools volunteer Tammy Logan announced her withdrawal last week from the upcoming Los Altos School Board election, she cited a need for more time to organize and finance a winning campaign.

“Since filing, it has become obvious that earlier organization and intensive fund raising are required in such a competitive race. I will carry this valuable lesson forward into the next LASD election in 2007,” her written statement said.

MV is off & running

The Mountain View High football team still has a decision to make at quarterback, but there’s no controversy at running back.

Returning starters Brandon Hamilton and Alec Nelson are firmly entrenched in the backfield, and their play in Friday’s 34-7 season-opening rout of Gunn only solidified their standing as one of the top tandems in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League. Junior halfback Hamilton ran for 125 yards and two touchdowns - adding another score on a reception - while senior fullback Nelson rushed for 44 yards and sprung Hamilton on several big runs.

Economy may blow past Hurricane Katrina

The Dow Jones industrial average led the market higher last week, rising 2.2 percent, while the S&P 600 small stock index and the Nasdaq rose 2.1 and 1.6 percent respectively. Many leading stocks broke to new highs, and the New York Stock Exchange Index hit an all-time high. Volume was higher than normal and advancing stocks outnumbered decliners 7 to 3. The broad indexes finished the second straight week in higher territory in spite of one of the worst natural disasters in the country’s history.

How will Hurricane Katrina affect the economy? Believe it or not, history has proven that the effect may be minimal, because of the size and diversity of the total economy. Types of jobs will change as components such as tourism and travel will be replaced by construction within the region. Early predictions and modeling are forecasting an overall drop in the GDP of 0.5 percent for the rest of the year, but picking up by that much in the first half of next year.

Fine wine, restaurants, cars, antiques offer ‘taste’ of downtown Los Altos

For the third consecutive year, the Los Altos Village Association is pairing up local wineries with a variety of downtown restaurants and retailers for “Taste of Los Altos Village.” This year’s event, scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m. on Sunday, features 26 eateries and 14 wineries.

Village Association executive director Ted Garrett said downtown visitors will have the opportunity to “experience the cuisine of downtown Los Altos and the vintages of the San Francisco and Silicon Valley wines.”

Los Altos realtors win SILVAR Golf Tournament

More than 180 players and dinner guests participated in this year’s Golf Tournament of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors Charitable Foundation at the Palo Alto Hills Golf and Country Club.

With warm sunshine and a light breeze, golfing members of Silicon Valley’s real estate trade association and their leadership (including President Willi Krauss and President-elect John Tripp) contributed to the good cause at the organization’s successful signature event on the private golf course.

Terrific tomatoes

First, let’s lay this controversy to rest once and for all: The tomato is a fruit in the botanical sense. But it was officially declared a vegetable in 1893 by no less an authority than the U.S. Supreme Court, according to organic gardener Jody Main of Woodside.

Main is herself an expert on tomatoes and many other vegetables and flowers. For years, she has maintained organic gardens in many microclimates all over the area and supplies produce to some of the best local chefs and households.

Fogarty issues vineyard-designated wines as part of its 25th-anniversary celebration

Before you book the train to visit a Napa Valley winery, consider that the award-winning Thomas Fogarty Winery & Vineyards is only 15 miles away from Los Altos, on Skyline Boulevard in Woodside.

In October, the winery celebrates its 25th anniversary with a special tasting and introduction of a new line of vineyard-designated wines with a redesigned label.

Author delves into interrelationships through science and humanities

Combine a brilliant, fertile mind with abundant energy and you may get a big, heavy, interesting book.

Corinne Lathrop Gilb’s “Toward Holistic History” (Atherton Press, 2005) collects her articles and speeches on such disparate topics as symbolism in city planning, biorhythms as determinants of creativity, the intertwined histories of liberalism and corporatism and the role of beauty in public policy.

Books Briefs

Actor Alan Alda to give reading at Books Inc.
Alan Alda, the Emmy Award-winning and Oscar-nominated actor, screenwriter and director, will read from and sign copies of his memoir, “Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, and Other Things I’ve Learned,” 5 p.m. Sept. 25 at Books Inc., 301 Castro St., Mountain View.
MacArthur Fellow […]

Rosslyn Chapel a premier tourist attraction

When I was in Edinburgh earlier this year for a travel conference, a colleague from the Scottish Tourist Board told me that travel agents are expecting Rosslyn Chapel to be one of the top tourist attractions in the coming year because of the best-selling novel, “The Da Vinci Code,” by Dan Brown. Director Ron Howard was in Europe this year filming a version of the novel for the big screen.

I had never been to the chapel, so she offered to take me. We drove in a snowstorm out to Bothwick Castle, a popular destination for tourists about 45 minutes from Glasgow airport. The ancestral home of Clan Galbraith dates back to the 14th century and boasts spectacular highland views and accommodations in a castle that could be straight out of a fairy tale.

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).

THEATER