Business & Real Estate

Donors distraught by the recent destruction of California’s oldest state park by wildfire have given $543,000 toward recovery efforts, a Los Altos-based nonprofit revealed last week.

There has always been a fairly robust “off-market” component of local real estate. While some would argue that selling a house without exposing it to a fuller audience of buyers allows for a degree of seller privacy or limits the number of “looky-loos,” it also shrinks the pool of potential buyers, theoretically decreasing demand and potentially the final sales price as well.

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors presented several Los Altos and Mountain View organizations with the Service Medal during a meeting last week for their dedication and commitment to the community during the pandemic.

Proposition 19, which narrowly passed last month, includes a very complicated change to two current benefits, one involving the transfer of ownership from parents to children, and the other associated with property-tax base portability for seniors changing homes. Here is a brief description of the changes.

The extended pandemic calls for businesses to invest in online tools that enable them to engage with existing and prospective customers in more effective manners. Today, businesses not only need to have functional websites, they also need their websites to be ready in understanding their customers’ browsing behaviors, and responding to live inquiries instantly, without long delays that could turn prospects away.

Jacque Rupp/Special to the Town Crier

Two female-owned Salinas Valley farms are reaping the rewards of partnering with Los Altos resident Sheena Vaidyanathan’s Tera Farm.

An overabundance of kale prompted Los Altos resident Sheena Vaidyanathan to establish Tera Farm, a nonprofit enterprise that supports local farmers by directly connecting them to their customers.