News

Madison Ivy / Special to the Town Crier

Walgreens Pharmacy Manager John Budis gives Town Crier reporter Megan V. Winslow a flu shot last week.

The official start of flu season varies each year, but a two-week waiting period before antibodies reach full potency means health-care officials are already urging patients to roll up their sleeves and get the vaccine.

The flu season usually begins in late September or early October and peaks in January or February, according to the Santa Clara County Public Health Department.

Town Crier File Photo

The Big Three: Town Crier publishers past and present, from left, Paul Nyberg, Mort Levine and David MacKenzie

The Los Altos Town Crier turns 70 years old this month. Sept. 9, to be exact, was the date of the paper’s first issue – a hand-drawn four-pager filled 100 percent with advertising. In fact, the Town Crier would be a “shopper” for several years before finding editorial content.

The good old days

The two men behind the Town Crier’s founding in 1947 were characters, to say the least. David MacKenzie and Warren Good- rich were witty, highly talented gentlemen with a gift for subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) iconoclasm. In his 2001 autobiography, “An Artist’s Life,” Goodrich called the Town Crier “a tabloid shopper.”

The vast majority of Los Altos and Mountain View residents transitioned into Silicon Valley Clean Energy’s GreenStart program without lifting a finger.

That’s because the GreenStart electricity option, touted as 100 percent carbon-free and 50 percent from renewable energy sources, is the default program residents and businesses automatically enrolled in between April and July – unless they specifically opted out. It’s one of two programs offered by SVCE, a community-owned energy provider that buys electricity from clean energy sources and sells to customers. PG&E still delivers the electricity over existing utility lines and continues to handle maintenance, billing and customer service.

Stanford Blood Center and the American Red Cross both have issued pleas for blood donations.

Typical seasonal slowdowns in donations were compounded recently by an anticipated blood shortage in Texas. Blood centers including Stanford have been preparing to supply blood products in support of communities hard hit by Hurricane Harvey.

Photo courtesy of Samta Katta
A large crowd filled the Mountain View Civic Center Plaza Sept. 5, protesting the Trump administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Nearly 1,000 protesters marched to the Mountain View Civic Center Plaza Sept. 5 after the Trump administration announced its decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

On Sept. 8, approximately 100 members of the 129th Rescue Wing left Moffett Field in Mountain View. They headed to Fort Hurlburt in Florida to provide search and rescue for Hurricane Irma. The 129th Rescue Wing recently returned from Texas where they were credited with saving over 100 lives in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.