News

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier

The former site of Aruna Day Spa in Mountain View will eventually house Planned Parenthood, which is relocating from San Antonio Road to California Street.

The local Planned Parenthood clinic in jeopardy due to a new mix-used development has found a new home. The Mountain View clinic provides primary health care, women’s health care, contraceptives and abortion services.

The agency is moving one-third of a mile down the street from its San Antonio Road location to a nearly 8,000-square-foot building at 2500 California St. The new site most recently housed Aruna Day Spa, which closed March 12.

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier

Santa Clara County Fire Department firefighter engineer Jeff Brown, left, and Capt. Matthew Maxson display some of the large-animal evacuation equipment they used to help liberate a 16-year-old Arabian horse from a Milpitas drainage ditch on Easter. Their tools include a yellow fire hose, center, which rescuers tied around the horse’s hindquarters.

In the seven years since the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s El Monte Fire Station crew first assembled its cache of large-animal rescue equipment, firefighters have employed it for jobs ranging from extracting a deer from a fence to helping an immobile horse with cancer access medical treatment. On Easter, however, firefighters faced their most challenging animal rescue operation to date: liberating an upside-down, 900-pound Arabian mare from a drainage ditch.

“For us to get this horse out alive with just a couple of scratches was truly amazing,” said firefighter engineer Jeff Brown.

The lease to secure Children’s Corner’s spot at the new Hillview Community Center is heading back to the drawing board yet again after the Los Altos City Council and the preschool’s board of directors couldn’t reach an agreement at last week’s council meeting.

Courtesy of Olenka Villarreal
Loyola School third-graders are advocating for an inclusive playground like Magical Bridge in Palo Alto, left. The students attended a Parks and Recreation Commission meeting April 11 to lobby for one, even though they were on spring break.

Although it was spring break, two Loyola School teachers and seven third-graders attended the Los Altos Parks and Recreation Commission meeting April 11 to lobby for an inclusive playground.

The students – accompanied at the meeting by third-grade teacher Tracy Grinberg and STEM instructional support teacher Grace Choi – first raised the idea of an inclusive playground March 14 when Los Altos Mayor Jean Mordo visited their class. Mordo recommended that they speak to the Parks and Recreation Commission. So they did, even though the commission meeting was scheduled during their vacation.

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier
Vehicles last week pass through the El Monte-Marich Way intersection in Mountain View, where Los Altos resident Michelle Montalvo, honored through a roadside memorial, died in October 2015. Montalvo’s death prompted traffic safety improvements for the intersection, and construction is expected to start this summer.

A busy Mountain View intersection where a pedestrian lost her life in 2015 could experience a traffic safety transformation come summer.

Mountain View city staff members will soon sign a contract for $280,000 worth of improvements – including new signage and the removal of a crosswalk – to the El Monte Avenue-Marich Way intersection, according to senior traffic engineer Lorenzo Lopez.

Perez

Police are crediting an intended kidnapping victim’s moxie for helping save her from two men who attempted to force her into a vehicle early Saturday morning in downtown Mountain View.