General fund should pay for stormwater work

The Los Altos City Council will be asking residents to approve a special fee to fund maintenance of the stormwater system. Certainly we need to maintain our stormwater systems – no one would dispute that. However, I’m puzzled by the funding discussion.

Most cities fund maintenance projects out of general fund dollars. Our city staff indicates that Los Altos “lack(s) allocated funding for maintaining storm drain infrastructure.” I find that puzzling.

In last month’s column I wrote about the awkwardness that can ensue when getting a massage. Male or female masseuse? Clothed or unclothed?

Tiptoeing into our hotel room just past 1 a.m., with her Bette Davis hazel eyes sparkling brightly, my daughter Jenni instantly became confused when I had an explosive “mommy moment.”

My mom was a woman who was way ahead of her generation. For a woman born in China in 1914, she was bold to have defied her mother’s desire to play matchmaker for her with a son from a wealthy family. This was definitely not the norm for Chinese girls during her days. She had already met a young man she thought had ambition and drive. She married him, my father, and chose to get a secretarial job to help with the finances.

I was too young to know much about the early years other than my father having to settle his father’s debts before he managed to transition into a shipping business after the war. Once the family finances were secure, my parents made sure that we had a quality education and engaged home tutors in Chinese, calligraphy lessons, plus piano lessons for all the kids and ballet for the girls. My mom took on the task of visiting boarding schools on the East Coast before sending my brother and me to prep schools.

Support Alzheimer’s legislative action

I am 15 years old, and my grandmother is one of the 5 million Americans living with Alz- heimer’s disease. In order to help patients like her, I developed a diagnostic tool for the early detection of Alzheimer’s that uses machine learning and de-identified patient data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.

But no amount of individual effort will be enough to end this disease. Instead, we must work together and strive to make public policy choices that advance Alzheimer’s research and patient care.

I had occasion to spend some time in one of the local county parks on Easter Sunday.

The park was mobbed – nearly every picnic table occupied, nearly every barbecue smoking. Many of the tables were decked in Easter-themed cloths and sported Easter baskets filled with colorful eggs, some real, some obviously plastic and prize-filled. We had arrived too late to see the family Easter egg hunts, but the treasure troves were on display on all sides.