Let’s state the obvious: Running an $800 million hospital isn’t easy – especially an independent hospital like El Camino that has to compete with the likes of Stanford, Kaiser and Sutter for its business. That it has to compete in an increasingly difficult and complex health-care system makes the task all the more daunting.

It was in this context that the El Camino Healthcare District board last week expanded the hospital board to include two new appointed board positions. This is in addition to the three appointed seats added in 2012. This creates an 11-member hospital board, which includes the five elected district members. Concurrent with the action, the board kept the CEO as a hospital board member, but made it a nonvoting position.

A new year brings a new start, and a new to-do list. We have some specific goals in mind for our local leaders:

• Los Altos Civic Center. Let’s get this problem solved once and for all. Whether or not it’s a scaled-down alternative in the wake of big plans residents emphatically voted down in 2015, most agree that the aging, sorry facilities currently at Hillview must go. The city council should tackle this issue head-on in 2017.

Are we experiencing a renaissance in Los Altos? The spate of ambitious community improvement ideas and resident activism points to it.

Residents gathered recently to discuss the feasibility of a new downtown library, and city officials launched the Downtown Vision project, a blueprint that will determine the look and function of the city’s central business district for decades to come.

The best gift you can give this holiday season is to help someone you don’t know.

Despite what all those car ads with the bows tell you, the spirit of Christmas lies not in materialism, but in the gift of love. Above all else, give your family and friends love. Give help to those who need it. And smile quietly with the satisfaction that you’ve made a difference. No one needs to know. You helped because it was the right thing to do.

Members of the Los Altos City Council appear willing to work with developer Los Altos Community Investments (LACI) in its quest to build a three-story office building and convert a portion of a First Street parking plaza into a park with underground parking.

We wholeheartedly endorse both projects.

Check out this crazy scenario: The U.S. Congress and the Federal Aviation Administration, which implemented the new NextGen flight path system to benefit the airline industry, essentially created a nationwide problem by forgetting to consider the impact of such a change on people on the ground.

The subsequent increase in airplane noise spurred millions of protests in metropolitan areas across the nation. Noise generated by flights into and out of San Francisco International Airport alone generated hundreds of thousands of complaints and spawned the organization of dozens of protest groups.