Jim Morgan: Still pitching in

Los Altos Hills resident Jim Morgan, current chairman and former CEO of Applied Materials Inc., has been an unqualified success in business, an active philanthropist and the recipient of some of the nation’s most prestigious awards.

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group recognized Morgan with the Spirit of Silicon Valley Lifetime Achievement Award Nov. 3.

LAH panel fields resident redistricting concerns

A new school district in Los Altos Hills would encompass all the children of that community, but bring with it school boundary changes and a smaller social environment at which some parents balk.

At a special city council meeting Nov. 15, supporters and opponents of redistricting hashed over some of the most sensitive and uncertain issues at stake: How many private and charter school students, currently half of the town’s students, might return to locally controlled public education? Could such a small student population sustain a school system, particularly a

New issues arise in community pool project

Los Altos City Councilmembers discussed changes in a contractual agreement for the development of a community pool on Rosita Avenue at their Nov. 14 meeting.

The project remains unchanged, as does the sentiment - build a pool facility at Rosita Park.

News Briefs

Los Altos Hills hires emergency coordinator
The Los Altos Hills County Fire District, in partnership with the Santa Clara County Fire Department, recently created the position of Emergency Services Coordinator to address the need for emergency preparation in the town and the unincorporated area.
The new coordinator, firefighter Michael Sanders, has more […]

Giffin cell-tower collocation approved

The Los Altos Planning Commission last week approved a T-Mobile proposal to collocate or attach its wireless equipment to an existing Verizon Wireless monopole antenna at 101 Fremont Ave.

The commissioners’ quick deliberation and the absence of public speakers at the meeting marked a departure from the contentious tone that has characterized past decisions over the city’s placement of cell antennas.

California Supreme Court denies sewage lawsuit petition

In what appears to be the final chapter in Dr. Tom Burns’ sewage damage lawsuit against the city of Los Altos, the California Supreme Court denied his petition for review Nov. 15.

Burns, a San Antonio Hills resident, sought more than $1 million in damages from the city, claiming it was responsible for a sewage backflow that damaged his home in 2003.

Open space wins at Cuesta Annex, playing fields proposal nixed

After nearly two hours of public hearings in front of a standing-room-only crowd, the Mountain View City Council approved a motion Nov. 14 to use the Cuesta Annex for open-space activities.

The decision was a defeat for supporters of organized playing fields, who argued that the annex was big enough to accommodate mixed-use activities, where nature programs and youth sports could coexist.

Council OKs process for new member

Los Altos City Council members last week decided to go with an appointment process for selecting the successor to Kurt Colehower.

Colehower resigned Nov. 8 after serving one year of his four-year term on the council to pursue business interests. The chosen applicant would serve the remaining three years, until November 2009.

Editorial

We support the Los Altos City Council’s decision last week to proceed with the appointment process to fill an open council seat.

Councilmembers are faced with replacing Kurt Colehower, who resigned Nov. 8 after serving one year of his four-year term on the council.

Letters to the Editor

It’s been my privilege
For the last 12 months, I have been fortunate to serve the city of Los Altos as a member of the city council. Due to unexpected changes in my professional life, I had to cut short my service to the city, and with great disappointment. Although my service was brief, […]

Thanksgiving - help others, help ourselves

Thanks. Giving. We can do good for others, while having a good time ourselves. Join us Thanksgiving morning and find out.

Thanks to the generosity of Applied Materials’ CEO Mike Splinter, we will host the second annual “Applied Materials Silicon Valley Turkey Trot - Run, or Walk, for Health, Hope and a Home.”

Thanksgiving at my house

My childhood Thanksgiving memories aren’t exactly Norman Rockwell; they’re more like Picasso’s “Guernica,” without all the violence. My family celebrated Thanksgiving just like everyone else, but our version was a bit jumbled and off-kilter, like John Kerry trying to tell a joke, or Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch.

Let me start right off with the turkey: Every year, it was drier than the Sahara, which is why my father claimed the drumstick before anyone else. My mother or aunt prepared the annual bird, and neither one knew how to cook it thoroughly, yet keep it moist at the same time. It didn’t help that turkey was unknown to the two sisters until they arrived in this country as adults, and my mother never liked it to begin with. She was also deathly afraid of contamination, having heard of such risks in roasting a turkey, so she baked every last microbe out of that poor creature, then served it with lots of gravy, which, by the way, contained soy sauce as a flavoring agent.

Annette Mills of Los Altos, touched many with her warm heart

Annette Mills of Los Altos died Nov. 18 after a battle with cancer. She was surrounded by family and loved ones in her home.

Mrs. Mills was born Annette Lajou in the Bordeaux area of France and was educated as a teacher at the University of Poitiers. She immigrated to the United States in 1958, married, had a family and eventually made her home in Los Altos for nearly 20 years.

Rabbi Akselrad, 85, of Congregation Beth Am

Sidney Akselrad, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, died Nov. 14 in his Palo Alto home. He was 85.

Akselrad is survived by his wife of 53 years, Marjorie; his children, Audrey Smith, Deena Shi, Rabbi Sanford Akselrad and Lisa Akselrad; six grandchildren; and two sisters.

Obituary Notices

JUNE HARRIET HARVEY MUSCATELL
June Harriet Harvey Muscatell passed away in her home in Cloverdale on October 29th, surrounded by her loving children. She was born October 18th, 1924 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was a loving, caring beautiful mother of eleven children and fifteen grandchildren, and was married to the late […]

People

Kelsey

Hanson and Jacob

People

Rachel Tobey and Will

Nottingham

CHAM, Career Closet provide vital services

The Town Crier Holiday Fund raises donations each year for a group of local non-profits with small budgets that make a little go a long way to aid the area’s neediest residents. This week, we profile the Community Homeless Alliance Ministry, Career Closet and Truck of Love Ministries in the first in a series of profiles of the fund’s recipients.

Community Homeless

Young train enthusiast impresses at museum event

Six-year-old Jeremy Miller wowed the audience in the Los Altos History Museum on Nov. 12 with a lecture about the gauge and scale of model trains. Jeremy, a Los Altos resident, is in the first grade at Springer school.

“He did a splendid job,” said Carla Bjork, membership chairwoman of the museum. “He was so knowledgeable. Obviously, he has a passion - he’s been bitten by the train bug.”

Pilgrim Haven forum addresses memory loss

Local experts discussed the latest in medical care for patients with memory loss, particularly those afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, during a Nov. 16 community health forum at the Pilgrim Haven retirement community in Los Altos. The event was one of a three-part series on health issues for the aging.

Much of the discussion focused on Alzheimer’s, which accounts for an estimated 64 percent of all patients with dementia, the term for loss of intellectual functions. Dr. Sheila Humphries, medical director at Pilgrim Haven, called Alzheimer’s “the last medical frontier” because it is a disease for which there is no cure.

LASD considers candidates for two open seats on county committee to decide LAH redistricting

The Los Altos School District Board of Trustees evaluated candidates for the Santa Clara County Committee on School District Organization at the board’s Nov. 13 meeting.

The school district and redistricting advocates are closely watching the committee because it will decide whether or not to forward Los Altos Hills’ bid to create a new K-8 school district. The school board will cast their vote for the open seats at the Nov. 27 board meeting.

LASD approves contractor for Bullis construction

The Los Altos School District Board of Trustees voted Nov. 13 to approve Blach Construction Company as contractor for the Bullis-Purissima school renovations, set to begin in June.

The trustees also voted to approve the lease-leaseback construction method after a lengthy discussion about which construction method to use for the renovations.

FHDA board funds retiree medical benefits

At its Nov. 6 meeting, the Board of Trustees of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District approved a plan to fund the district’s retiree medical benefits liability over the 30-year period recommended by the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB).

Under new accounting rules enacted by GASB, public agencies such as cities, local school districts and community college districts are required to adopt plans to fund anticipated costs for retiree health benefits.

Ease Thanksgiving burden, share the work

Q. Any tips on how to make my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, less physically exhausting?

We open our home to two other families with teens, plus strays. The sheer volume of work has become the Thanksgiving memory … not the joy of gathering people we love around the turkey.

SF Opera members perform with Almond students

Sixth-grade students at Almond Elementary School joined professional vocalists and musicians from the San Francisco Opera to perform a short English version of Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” Nov. 13.

As part of “Opera a la Carte,” an outreach program sponsored by the San Francisco Opera Guild, students auditioned in September and rehearsed during lunch hours in preparation for their two performances.

Noteworthies

Los Altos High School alumna Michele Kumi Baer, who attends Brown University, and Mountain View High School alumna Michelle Buchholz, who attends Georgetown University, have been accepted to the Silicon Valley Realtors Scholars Program.

Lisa Battle and Derek Fletcher, Los Altos High School alumni; Alexander Henke and Noam Levy, Mountain View High School alumni; and Los Altos resident Sarah Laird received academic distinction from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. Distinction is granted to students who achieve a grade-point average of 3.5 or higher.

Schools Briefs

Ballet school performs read-aloud “Nutcracker”
The Western Ballet School has scheduled a read-aloud performance of “The Nutcracker” 7 p.m. Nov. 30 in the Los Altos main library program room, 13 S. San Antonio Road.
Children are invited to hear the story of “The Nutcracker” while dancers from the Western Ballet School demonstrate selected portions […]

Eagles down Mills

The play didn’t decide the game - it was just another example of a Los Altos High player doing all he could to ensure his football team would win its first postseason contest in 21 years.

Kenny Peterman was cramping up and could have gone down after making an interception deep in Eagles’ territory with just more than two minutes left. Instead, he found the energy to race 91 yards for the final touchdown in Los Altos’ 38-14 home win over Mills Saturday.

Mtn. View runners headed to state cross country meet

The Mountain View High girls cross country team’s first trip to the state meet in more than a decade could be the start of something.

The Spartans head to Woodward Park in Fresno this weekend with a young team poised to return to state next year, and maybe even the year after that.

LA girls water polo falls in OT in CCS semifinals

The Los Altos High girls water polo team had been here before.

The Eagles were in sudden-death overtime for the third time this season, with a trip to the Central Coast Section Division I final on the line.

Lancers fall to mighty Mitty in CCS final

If the St. Francis High girls volleyball team dreaded playing top-ranked Mitty for a fifth time this season - especially after losing the first four meetings - it wasn’t obvious.

The Lancers entered Saturday’s Central Coast Section Division II final anxious for another crack at the Monarchs, according to coach Kim Oden.

Large-company stocks on the rise as Dow hits all-time highs

Small and midcap stocks have led the overall stock market higher since 2003, leaving large-company stocks in second place. Real estate stocks have generally outperformed during that period, as have energy and gold stocks.

Markets don’t go straight up, and this year, the month of June offered a fire sale of lower prices on almost every market sector. But out of the ashes of that market correction, large-company stocks have emerged as leaders, with the Dow hitting new highs almost every day lately.

Autodialer software takes small campaigns to the big leagues

Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Phil Angelides and Los Altos Hills City Councilman Breene Kerr ran November campaigns on differing scales, Angelides with a war chest of nearly $10 million and Kerr with almost $10,000. Nonetheless, both used the same technology to call voters with personalized messages - a software-based autodialer created by Voicent Communications Inc., a Los Altos-based company founded by Michelle and Joe Wu of Los Altos Hills.

“The concept of the autodialer has existed for 20 or 30 years,” Michelle Wu said. “We implemented software to do the work of hardware.”