Palo December 11, 2020 Alto County prepares COVID-19 ...unbranded websites. She has over 500 custom multi-property websites created by her team, which have been constantly expanded

w w w.Pa l oA l t oOn l i n e .c om

County prepares COVID-19 vaccine plan

Page 5

Vol. XLII, Number 10 December 11, 2020Palo Alto

Upfront Restaurants brace for impact of takeout only Page 8

Upfront Bol Park welcomes new donkey Page 9

Eating Out The ultimate food & drink gift guide Page 26

Pulse 21 Spectrum 22 Arts 24Donate to the HOLIDAY FUND pages 7, 12

Page 2 • December 11, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

U.S. News & World Report recognizes Stanford Health Care among the top

hospitals in the nation. Ranking based on quality and patient safety.

It is as important as ever to get the care you need.

Stanford Health Care is taking every precaution to keep you safe.

To protect your health, we are:

• Sanitizing exam rooms after every patient

• Testing patients for COVID-19 before most procedures

• Screening everyone for COVID-19 risk before entry

• Providing and requiring masks for patients and staff

• Monitoring employee health, including regular COVID-19 testing

Don’t delay your care. Appointments are available at our locations

across the Bay Area and remotely by video visit.

To learn more, visit: stanfordhealthcare.org/resumingcare

dependablehealth care in uncertain times

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • December 11, 2020 • Page 3

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UpfrontLocal news, information and analysis

Paula Rantz, left, Debbie Nichols, center, and Margaret Lawrence, right, stand next to one of the trees they’ve brought to the neighborhood of Old Palo Alto on Dec. 1.

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PUBLIC HEALTH

I f 2020 has been a year of darkness, some Palo Alto residents aim to create a

pathway of light in their neigh-borhood and, perhaps, beyond. The streets are lined with small, brightly lit Christmas trees in those old-fashioned, large col-orful bulbs that many who grew

up in the 1950s and 1960s will remember.

Christmas Tree Lane, the hol-iday tradition on Fulton Street dating back to 1940, is spread-ing throughout the city, with lit-tle lanes and whole blocks now lined with holiday cheer.

Fulton Street’s claim to fame

began spreading in 2011, when one of its previous residents, Debbie Nichols, moved back to her childhood home in Old Palo Alto. Nichols realized she didn’t know many of her neighbors, so she decided to get residents to decorate their street with the colorful trees

during the holiday season.“I lived on Christmas Tree

Lane for about nine or 10 years. I loved it. I got to know all of my neighbors because of the event. I missed that. It was so dark here when I moved,” she said.

She noted that when Judge Hardy started the original Christmas Tree Lane in 1940, he wrote a letter saying he hoped the idea would spread from Fulton Street throughout Palo Alto.

“I took it to heart,” she said.Nichols, with neighbors

Paula Rantz and Margaret Lawrence started knocking on

County leaders plan for COVID-19

vaccinesAlso, PAMF fined for

insufficient testsby Sue Dremann,

Bay City News Service and San Jose Spotlight

S anta Clara County could receive the first 17,550 dos-es of COVID-19 vaccines

from Pfizer Inc. and 39,300 doses from Moderna Inc. this month as soon as the manufacturers gets emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administra-tion for distribution, county health leaders announced this week.

The Pfizer vaccines are ex-pected first and will be given to acute-care health workers and residents of long-term care facili-ties but are not likely to cover all eligible recipients in those groups, Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, head of the county’s COVID-19 testing task force, said during a press conference in San Jose on Dec. 7. With immunization requiring two doses, some 28,425 people would be able to be vaccinated with the first shipments of the drugs.

Fenstersheib noted that while neither Pfizer nor Moderna had approval just yet, both companies are meeting with FDA officials: Pfizer on Thursday, Dec. 10, and Moderna on Dec. 17.

The vaccines require very low storage temperatures. Hospitals and the county are preparing to receive the shipments and the county Public Health Department has purchased freezers, he said.

Patients in skilled nursing facili-ties are being prioritized because they are the most seriously at risk.

(continued on page 11)

Experts: Economic recovery could take years

A s the number of COV-ID-19 cases continued to spike across Santa Clara

County this week, Palo Alto’s city leaders found themselves staring at two distinct but related assignments: manage a raging

health crisis and try to save the local economy from falling into a rapid downward spiral.

The county’s shelter-in-place orders, which have been in ef-fect since mid-March, may have prevented a deeper public health

crisis in the region, but they have also taken a heavy toll on the business sector. Scores of restau-rants and retailers have shut down. Some eateries pivoted to outdoor dining, only to find the activ-ity suddenly prohibited under the county’s most recent stay-at-home directive (See story on page 8). Other businesses, including gyms, hotels and entertainment venues, face an even more uncertain

future as residents curtail their travel plans and the work-from-home model continues to stick.

So far, the effects of the eco-nomic recession on the Penin-sula have been significant but geographically uneven. In some areas, sales tax revenues have re-mained relatively flat; in others, they have plunged steeply. Palo Alto and Mountain View both fall in the latter category, according

to a report from Thomas Adams, whose firm Avenu Insights and Analytics serves as Palo Alto’s sales tax consultant. In the third quarter of 2020, sales tax revenues in Palo Alto dropped by 23.2% from the same period in 2019. In Mountain View, the decline was 24.2%. By contrast, sales tax rev-enues in Redwood City and San



As COVID-19 batters the local economy, Palo Alto plots a comeback

by Gennady Sheyner

Spreading light and joy, Christmas Tree lanes are popping up all over town

Fulton Street’s holiday tradition is now being replicated in other neighborhoods

by Sue Dremann

NEIGHBORHOODS


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The Palo Alto Weekly (ISSN 0199-1159) is published every Friday by Embarcadero Media, 450 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306, (650) 326-8210. Periodicals postage paid at Palo Alto, CA and additional mailing offices. Adjudicated a newspaper of general circulation for Santa Clara County. The Palo Alto Weekly is delivered to homes in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley, East Palo Alto, to faculty and staff households on the Stanford campus and to portions of Los Altos Hills. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Palo Alto Weekly, 450 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306. ©2020 by Embarcadero Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited. The Palo Alto Weekly is available on the Internet via Palo Alto Online at: www.PaloAltoOnline.com

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EDITORIAL

Editor Jocelyn Dong (223-6514)

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Contributors Chrissi Angeles, Mike Berry,

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Jay Thorwaldson

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BUON APPETITO! ... Tessa Berney’s Italian dinner kits consist of three simple ingredients: pasta, pasta sauce and a positive note for the recipient all packaged in a Ziploc bag. In about a month, the sixth-grader managed to gather enough donations for a total of 145 sets that were donated last week to Peninsula Family Service. It’s her way of helping out people in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I can’t write them a check, I’m only 10, so I want to help them in a different way,” she said. Tessa was inspired to launch the project after watching a video of a family of four who lived in a small, one-bedroom apartment and received help through the nonprofit. She reached out to her neighbors in Old Palo Alto and surrounding areas through Nextdoor and her school, Silicon Valley International School, to support her food drive. To keep things safe and contactless, donors left their contributions in a bucket set up outside of her home. Then, Tessa and her family would pick them up and wipe everything down. The notes in each kit varied in messaging, from a holiday greeting to simply “Buon Appetito!” She chose to center her food drive on pasta dishes because they’re filling meals and the receiver could make their own additions, such as a protein or vegetables (plus, it’s popular among children, Tessa added). The project caught the attention of Palo Alto Firefighters Local 1319, which gave her a $1,000 check. She plans to spend a majority of the funds to assist firefighters in the Bay Area. Looking forward, Tessa intends to make dinner kits every holiday season. “It just felt good to give back to my community and to help others ... in such a difficult year.”

RICH IN KINDNESS ... As Aesop once said, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” The Greek fabulist’s words rang true for the people

behind this year’s on Silicon Valley Philanthropy Day. The Nov. 19 event by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Silicon Valley Chapter showed appreciation for a handful of locals who have stepped up to serve the needy. Among the recognized locals were Palo Alto City Council member Alison Cormack, Megan Swezey Fogarty and Lynne Russell for their work in helping low-wage workers with rent and other expenses for basic needs. The organization also recognized Evelyne Keomian, founder of The Karat School Project, a Palo Alto-based nonprofit that works to educate women and girls. Keomian has assisted people who live in recreational vehicles parked on El Camino Real. For a full list of this year’s honorees, visit bit.ly/2K5OkML.

TOP OF THE LINE ... President-elect Joe Biden has wasted no time since the general election was called in his favor. Over the past few weeks, news has circulated of his Cabinet nominees and picks for agency review teams, some of whom have ties to Stanford University. One of the most notable choices was announced this week. State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who received his undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford, has been tapped to serve as the secretary of Health and Human Services. Becerra would be the first Latino to serve in the role if confirmed, according to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ transition team. Five Stanford scholars have been picked to serve on Biden and Harris’ agency review teams. The appointees are Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor; Colin Kahl, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; Pam Karlan, professor of public interest law; Arun Majumdar, director of the Precourt Institute for Energy; and Ramin Toloui, the Tad and Dianne Taube policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. “These teams are composed of highly experienced and talented professionals with deep backgrounds in crucial policy areas across the federal government,” the Biden-Harris transition team said in an announcement.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Around Town

I wonder how many of my business comrades are going to make it through this period.

—Michael Ekwall, La Bodeguita del Medio co-owner, on new restaurant restrictions. See story on page 8.

VERY REALLOCAL NEWS #PressOn

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Upfront

W hen Maribel Ramirez lost her baby in preg-nancy several years ago,

there wasn’t a program available with cultural sensitivity in Palo Alto to help process her grief.

“The cultural and socio-eco-nomic factors influence how we process grief. Grief is a difficult topic in general, but for the Latin community, it becomes a bit more challenging due to all the myths we have about grief,” explained Ramirez, who went on to volun-teer with the Spanish Services Program of Kara, a Palo Alto non-profit grief-counseling agency.

Ramirez learned about the then-fledgling Spanish program in 2016 and immediately wanted to help. Today, she is part of a team of 20 peer-support volunteers who work with Kara’s Spanish-speak-ing clients. The program added six trained volunteers this year to try to meet the need.

“Being part of Kara, and sup-porting the Latin community, has been challenging and rewarding at the same time. As an immigrant and as a person who had many

significant losses, I can relate with some of the struggles the Latin communities have,” Ramirez wrote in a statement celebrating the program’s five-year anniver-sary this past June.

“Helping normalize a person’s feelings is so powerful. I also be-lieve that being able to speak their language provides a sense of com-fort, too. We use phrases, poems and words that help us connect with one another, but most im-portantly, we listen with compas-sion,” she wrote.

Since January, the program has provided peer-based and consul-tative support to more than 200 people. Kara used a $7,500 Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund grant it received last year to train five

of the volunteers in its expanding program. The expansion is needed more than ever.

“The program is at capacity” in terms of the number of clients the volunteers can serve, Santucci said.

The Spanish Services Program was started by Maria Berardi, a Kara outreach volunteer who did research on grief in the Spanish-speaking community. She found barriers to grief support services and saw that the existing services lacked cultural sensitivity to the Latino community. Now direct-ed by Rosario Puga-Dempsey, the program reaches its clients through partnerships with com-munity organizations that include East Palo Alto Senior Center, Menlo Park Senior Center, Com-munity Health Awareness Council in Mountain View, On Lok in East San Jose, Redwood City School District and Samaritan House Redwood City. Puga-Dempsey is also part of the National Alliance for Grieving Children Spanish Services workgroup.

Kara has seen “an increased,

continuous need for services and even more so for the Latinx com-munity,” Executive Director Jim Santucci said.

While working to meet the growing challenge, the orga-nization has also pivoted from many face-to-face services due to the COVID-19 crisis this year, Santucci said. In response to COVID-19, Kara is regularly conducting peer-based, one-to-one support by phone or Zoom video for its clients, including in the Spanish Services Program. It began weekly blog posts in Span-ish to support Spanish-speaking community members; created a

six-part video series for clients produced by the director and vol-unteers; presented a four-part on-line workshop for Sunday Friends Foundation in San Jose, an orga-nization working to lift people out of poverty; trained seven new volunteers in an online format in September; conducted an online mindfulness-based stress reduc-tion course for more than 20 cli-ents and volunteers in the fall; and celebrated the traditional Day of the Dead with an altar at the Kara building in the Professorville neighborhood, where community

In times of grief, a culturally understanding support network

Kara’s Spanish Services Program reaches out to those who are underservedby Sue Dremann

HOLIDAY FUND

The Day of the Dead display is one of the culturally sensitive events put on by Kara’s Spanish Services grief-counseling program at 457 Kingsley Ave. in Palo Alto.

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S etting aside their concerns about numerous allegations of sexual harassment and

misconduct against top executives at the Downtown Streets Team, Palo Alto City Council members agreed on Monday to sign a new deal with the nonprofit to maintain the cleanliness of downtown park-ing lots, alleyways and sidewalks.

By a 6-0 vote, with council member Alison Cormack absent, the council voted to continue its relationship with Downtown Streets Team, a nonprofit that pro-vides outreach services and sup-port to homeless individuals. But rather than sign the three-year, $323,244 contract that City Man-ager Ed Shikada was recommend-ing, council members opted for a one-year deal for $107,748.

In approving the contract, coun-cil members chose to trust the nonprofit without verifying the assertion of Owen Byrd, chair of the organization’s board of direc-tors, that the Downtown Streets Team has already investigated the allegations that were brought forward against CEO Eileen Rich-ardson by five former female em-ployees. Byrd claimed that most of these complaints were deemed

unfounded over the course of the investigation.

When questioned by the council, Byrd asserted that the non-profit has found “absolutely no evidence” of harassment or pay dispari-ties based on gender. At the same time, he told the council that since these allegations were made, the non-profit instituted new governance measures, including a strengthened Human Resources Department with a director who reports direct-ly to the board and increased man-agement and employee training.

The Downtown Streets Team board had also commissioned in 2018 an independent investigation of allegations from five former employees by The Law Offices of Amy Oppenheimer. While Byrd claimed that the investigation found no evidence that supported most of the complaints, he has consistently rebuffed the city’s at-tempts to obtain the document and to verify its conclusions. As in the

past, he cited on Monday privacy concerns as a reason not to release even a redacted version of the re-port to the city.

Byrd also emphasized that none of the former employees had filed lawsuits against the Downtown Streets Team. He characterized their complaints as “entirely alle-gations brought in the press,” al-luding to investigations that were published by San Jose Inside and, later, the Weekly.

His assurance notwithstanding, the nonprofit did in fact face a le-gal challenge from a former em-ployee, Zia MacWilliams, relating to unemployment benefits that she was set to receive after she quit her job. In 2018, the California Un-employment Insurance Appeals Board sided with MacWilliams and granted her the unemploy-ment benefits after it concluded that she had good cause to quit.

Byrd falsely maintained Mon-day that the legal challenges that the nonprofit has faced — includ-ing an ongoing dispute over wages — have nothing to do with the nu-merous claims of misconduct, in-cluding allegations that Richardson facilitated a hard-drinking culture and that she made advances toward

an employee who was intoxicated and unconscious at a 2014 holiday party. In fact, the Appeals Board’s ruling explicitly stated: “Based upon the claimant’s (MacWil-liams’) sworn testimony, which was provided in a manner which caused the administrative law judge to conclude her testimony credible, it is found that the claimant was sub-jected to sexual harassment and a hostile work environment.”

When asked by Vice Mayor Tom DuBois about the Appeals Board rulings, which the Weekly previously reported on, Byrd said that the news organization “got it wrong” when it linked the pay dispute with the sexual harassment allegations — notwithstanding that the ruling itself stated exactly that. In considering MacWilliams’ testimony, the two judges also con-curred that it should be accorded “greater evidentiary weight” and “probative value” than the sworn testimony from the employer witness, which according to the judges was “lacking in conviction and frequently non-responsive to questions posed to her regarding the issue of sexual harassment.”

The only public investigation that Byrd said remains ongoing

was a dispute over whether the agency did its “record-keeping correctly” when it came to hourly employees.

“That’s a wage and hour dispute that is separate from the allega-tions of harassment,” Byrd said.

The council’s approval of the Downtown Streets Team contract came a week after some members expressed reservations about pro-viding funding to a nonprofit that continues to withhold the investi-gative documentation that the city has been seeking.

Several council members indi-cated Monday that they remained uncomfortable approving addi-tional funding for the nonprofit, notwithstanding the valuable ser-vices that its team members pro-vide. Council member Liz Kniss said that the group’s failure to release the Oppenheimer report — even with redactions — makes her “uneasy.” She noted that nu-merous people had complained about the Downtown Street Team executive culture and that they had “apparently had some justification for their complaints.”

“I’m not worried about what the Downtown Streets Team does in our city — it does a good job,” Kniss said. “What I’m concerned about is the overall reputation that was altered at Downtown Streets Team as a result of the allegations.”

Council member Lydia Kou said that after recent discus-sions with Byrd, she came away “pretty disappointed” by the city’s

Palo Alto looks past harassment allegations, inks new deal with Downtown Streets TeamDespite some unease, City Council agrees to enter a one-year agreement with nonprofit

by Gennady Sheyner

COMMUNITY SERVICES


Eileen Richardson

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Upfront

B ay Area officials’ Dec. 4 announcement that they would expedite the state’s

new stay-at-home order meant that Santa Clara County restau-rants had just two days before outdoor dining would be shut down temporarily.

Gov. Gavin Newsom an-nounced on Dec. 3 that all sec-tors other than retail and essen-tial operations would be closed in regions of the state where less than 15% of intensive care unit beds are available under a new stay-at-home order. But five Bay Area counties — Santa Clara, San Francisco, Alameda, Con-tra Costa and Marin counties — and the city of Berkeley decided to implement the new order this week rather than wait until local hospitals are near crisis.

Santa Clara County restaurants had to revert to takeout and de-livery only starting on Dec. 6 and through at least Jan. 4.

“We understand that the clo-sures under the state order will have a profound impact on our

local businesses,” Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said. “However, if we act quickly, we can both save lives and reduce the amount of time these restrictions have to stay in place, allowing businesses and ac-tivities to reopen sooner.”

It’s a blow — though not an altogether surprising one given mounting warnings about un-precedented levels of COVID-19 in the region — for restaurants that have been relying on outdoor dining to bring in revenue, partic-ularly during the holidays when their dining rooms would usually be booked for parties and corpo-rate events. Many invested in par-klets and extensive outdoor dining set-ups, particularly in streets that have been closed to traffic like University Avenue in Palo Alto, Castro Street in Mountain View and Santa Cruz Avenue in Menlo Park. In the wake of the news, several restaurants announced temporary closures, including Steins Beer Garden & Restaurant in Mountain View.

“Going back to takeout and delivery, it’s going to be really hard. It’s not a model we can sur-vive on,” said Anu Bhambri, who owns Rooh on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto. “Without any stimulus package or any help from the government it’s going to be very hard to survive.”

Rooh’s landlord paid to build the restaurant’s parklet, Bhambri said, but she recently purchased additional heaters and new tents to prepare for the winter. She immediately thought of the im-plications for inventory at Rooh, where outdoor dining sales out-pace takeout.

Patio heaters are just one of the additional costs Zareen Khan has incurred for outdoor dining at her eponymous restaurants in Palo Alto, Mountain View and Red-wood City. Heaters that used to go for $150 are now as expensive as $400 and much harder to come by, she said.

She’s frustrated by the new restrictions, which she said are penalizing small businesses that

have already been barely tread-ing water for eight months. She’s reduced prices at Zareen’s and feels like she’s constantly adver-tising discounts to bring in more business. She told her employees on Dec. 4 that they would have to start taking turns taking time off to manage staffing levels with the loss of outdoor dining.

“I request the county be more creative in how to control CO-VID,” Khan said. “Closing busi-nesses is not a solution.”

During a press conference on Dec. 4, Contra Costa Health Offi-cer Dr. Chris Farnitano said, “Any kind of activity that involves tak-ing off your mask to eat or drink — even though outdoors is safer — even outdoors poses a risk for COVID spread. With the high risk

of transmission in our communi-ties, outdoor dining is more risky than it was two months ago.”

Lars Smith, co-owner of State of Mind Public House in Los Altos, felt a grim kind of resil-ience in the face of the news. He feels better equipped to help his restaurant navigate another shut-down, having done it before. He knows now that he can keep on more staff than he did in March, when in a panic they laid off front-of-house staff and cut em-ployees’ hours — and then were overwhelmed by a spike in take-out business.

At La Bodeguita del Medio in Palo Alto, however, co-owner Michael Ekwall was facing the

Restaurants brace as outdoor dining ban kicks in

Santa Clara County eateries return to takeout, delivery onlyby Elena Kadvany

BUSINESS

Palo Alto has temporarily reopened University Avenue to traffic while outdoor dining is shut down.

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Upfront

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A fluffy, chocolate-colored donkey has moved into Barron Park.

Named Buddy, the 21-year-old miniature donkey arrived to share the paddock adjacent to Bol Park with the neighborhood’s other fa-mous miniature, Perry, on Dec. 5, according to lead donkey handler Jenny Kiratli.

Perry’s previous companion, a female standard-sized donkey named Jenny, was euthanized on Nov. 18 after an extended illness. Perry had been braying for his lost companion since then, as donkeys are herd animals and need to be around others of their breed, Ki-ratli said.

So far, it looks like the two will get along well.

“When they first met, they went right up mouth to mouth and they nuzzled muzzles for a long time. They circled each other for min-utes,” Kiratli said.

In typical donkey style, Perry then had to let Buddy know who was boss of the paddock.

“Perry rushed him. He’s a little Napoleon,” she said.

Whereas Miner Forty Niner, Perry’s companion prior to Jenny, was the alpha donkey, Jenny let Perry believe he was superior. Buddy seems like he won’t take over, Kiratli said.

When Perry displayed his domi-nance, Buddy retreated to a more secluded spot in the paddock and just kept an eye on things, but the two also began playing, running and kicking at each other, as don-keys do: one bites and kicks and then runs off, she said.

But Buddy has his own way of communicating his presence.

“He has a little bray,” Kiratli said.

For now, Perry is the one hog-ging the paddock gate, the place where the donkeys greet visitors. “We need people to give Perry lots of attention. When Jenny came, he was kind of ignored. Everybody was excited to meet the new don-key,” she said.

On Sunday, Dec. 6, donkey han-dlers Michael Holland and Stepha-nie Kaplan took Perry and Buddy for a walk in Bol Park where the donkeys greeted people. Kiratli

was there, giving them hugs.“He’s a very cuddly, friendly

donkey. He’s super child-friendly and he was led on walks. He won’t kick or bite,” she said.

Woodside resident Kerry De-Benedetti donated Buddy, who was one of two donkeys she owned. She heard that handlers at The Donkey Project, which cares for the animals, were looking for another companion for Perry.

DeBenedetti owned Buddy for three years. She adopted him from a friend in town who was moving away, she said. Buddy was cud-dly and affectionate, but Curly, her standard-sized donkey, never warmed up to him.

A friend asked DeBenedetti if she knew of any donkeys that might be adoptable by Barron Park.

“I thought of loaning Buddy to Perry as a temporary companion,” she said, but after talking to some people who work with donkeys, she decided to donate him, she said.

“The setup there is a donkey paradise. There are lots of places to explore. I thought for Buddy, it was a better place for him,” she said.

DeBenedetti, who also has hors-es, said that it wasn’t practical or safe for her to walk the two don-keys at a time. The affectionate Buddy would benefit from being around children, she said.

Her only concern is that people will feed the donkeys.

“There’s nothing worse than overfeeding a donkey. They need high-fiber, low-nutrient food, not carrots and apples,” she said.

DeBenedetti was at the pad-dock on Dec. 5 and watched the two donkeys interact, prepared to take Buddy back if they didn’t get along. Seeing them together, she was confident that Buddy has found a suitable place in Barron Park, she said.

“I have a feeling that’s going to

be his new home,” she said.The Donkey Project has in-

curred many veterinary expenses over the past few months while caring for Jenny. After she died, people made donations.

“We’re really appreciative of the donations that have come in,” Ki-ratli said, noting that quite a few people opened their wallets and hearts to help defray the costs. But the project still has a way to go to make up the costs. Donations are the only source of support, she said.

Anyone who wants to make a donation can visit barronparkdon-keys.org.

Staff Writer Sue Dremann can be emailed at [email protected].

After companion’s death, Perry the donkey gets a new buddyThe new, 21-year-old miniature donkey was donated by a Woodside resident

by Sue Dremann

BARRON PARK

Donkey handlers Michael Holland, left, with Perry, and Stephanie Kaplan, right, with Buddy, visit Bol Park on Dec. 6.

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To our Stanford Medicine CommunityFor months, we have faced the challenges of living through this pandemic together. And

while we have more reasons to hope with each passing day that we will eventually defeat

this virus, it is clear the crisis is far from over.

The number of COVID cases in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as much of California,

has soared over the past few weeks. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention urged Americans to avoid large gatherings in an effort to stop the rapid spread

of COVID-19. Hospitals across the nation are filling their beds more quickly, and our

frontline healthcare workers are facing exhaustion.

This is a dangerous situation to be in, and we need everyone’s help to fix it.

Even with so much uncertainty, the science is clear. We know what works to stop the

spread of COVID-19:

• Wear a mask. Masks can save lives, including your own.

• Wash your hands. Thorough handwashing stops the virus from spreading.

• Keep your distance. Avoid gatherings and stay 6 feet apart from those you don’t live with.

We know you have heard all of these recommendations before, but they are more

important than ever.

Stanford Medicine is here for you, as always, and committed to being a part of the

solution. We know you are counting on us, and we have mobilized everyone—our care

teams, researchers, students, and staff—to rise to this challenge.

But we need you to know that we are counting on you, too. It is your help that will make

the difference and determine whether or not we can slow the spread of the virus in the

weeks and months ahead. It is your care and thoughtfulness that will save lives and

shape the future.

We are here for you and with your help, we will get through this together.

Lloyd Minor, MD

Dean, Stanford School of MedicineDavid Entwistle

President and CEO Stanford Health Care

Paul King

President and CEO Stanford Children’s Health


Upfront

inability to perform due diligence and to fulfill its fiduciary duty as the agency providing the contract. Given the nonprofit’s decision not to release the Oppenheimer report, Kou requested that the City Attor-ney’s Office obtain and provide to the council any publicly available documents pertaining to the com-plaints from former employees.

Kou cited reports that at least 11 former employees had come

forward with allegations against Downtown Streets Team execu-tives, a number that she called “substantial.” While Kou suggest-ed last week that she might vote against the contract, on Monday all six council members support-ed the deal after agreeing to cut it from three years to one.

“Seems like we’ve reached somewhat of a compromise that the city can continue working on in the next year,” Kniss said.

Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be emailed at [email protected].

Streets Team(continued from page 7)

Although they make up 5% of COVID-19 cases, they account for more than 45% of the deaths, Fenstersheib said. The county plans to stick with state and fed-eral guidelines for the priority of who receives the vaccines, but the county also plans to meet the equity requirements so those who are most impacted can receive the vaccine, he said.

The rollout of the vaccines is expected to be gradual and could take well into spring or summer 2021 to complete for all residents, he said.

The vaccines can’t come soon enough, as the county is in the midst of a COVID-19 surge that eclipses the initial outbreak. On Wednesday, the seven-day rolling average of new daily cases was 683, up from 510 one week prior. Hospitalized COVID-19 patients numbered 414, an increase of 118 from the week prior, and only 14% of the county’s ICU beds — or 45 beds — remained available.

County fines hospitals over testing

Santa Clara County has issued more than $40,000 in fines to pri-vate health systems for failing to comply with its coronavirus test-ing order, according to reporting by San Jose Spotlight.

County Counsel James Williams announced in September the health care providers would need to pro-vide adequate access to COVID-19 tests — or else.

“Private providers are still lag-ging significantly behind the county in the COVID-19 testing that they are providing to patients,” county officials said. “Private health care systems are required under the Revised Testing Order to educate patients about their rights to COVID-19 testing.”

According to the county, pri-vate hospitals can accomplish this through their website, promotional materials and notices posted at physical locations.

“Once patients know their rights and providers are consis-tently offering tests to all cat-egories of patients covered by the Revised Testing Order, we would expect to see a substantial increase in testing by providers,” county officials said.

Among those issued fines for not posting enough signs at fa-cilities notifying patients of their right to a COVID-19 test was Palo Alto Medical Foundation, whose Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and San Jose centers were found to be giving inadequate notice to patients. The county issued an $8,250 fine.

Palo Alto Medical Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.

Santa Clara County’s public hospitals have conducted vastly more COVID-19 tests than those of private health systems, accord-ing to a report the county’s public health department presented to the Board of Supervisors Nov. 10.

Between Nov. 2 and Nov. 8, the county conducted 18,402 tests, while Kaiser Permanente of Northern California conducted 9,370 tests.

Stanford Health Care Hospi-tal conducted 5,416 tests, Sutter Health and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation conducted 1,928 tests and El Camino Health conducted 1,245 tests.

Dr. Christina Kong, medical director of pathology at Stanford Medicine, said the health care provider has not received any mes-sages from the county that it needs to increase its COVID-19 testing.

Kong said Stanford Health is currently waiting on FDA approv-al to issue at-home self-collection kits that will be tested at their clinical virology laboratory.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, ex-ecutive director of the American Public Health Association, said widespread testing is critical to informing public health officials on how the virus is spreading so they can advise on best practices and issue adequate health orders.

“We use testing in a variety of ways,” Benjamin said. “If we’re doing random testing, and we see a large number of people in the community who have a particular disease, we can advise those peo-ple to get tested and avoid risky activities.”

State unveils COVID-19 notification app

California will make a mobile app available to the public this week that will notify users when they encounter someone who has tested positive for the coronavi-rus, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday.

The CA Notify app, developed by Apple and Google, uses Blue-tooth technology to notify users who are near someone who has tested positive for the virus.

People who test positive for the virus will receive a verification code to enter into the app. Other app users will then be anony-mously notified if they have been within 6 feet of the infected user for at least 15 minutes.

App users must voluntarily ac-tivate the app, according to the California Department of Public Health, and it does not show the coronavirus-positive user’s iden-tity or exact location, nor does it collect, store or transmit identify-ing user information.

“This is not contact tracing; this is notification technology,” Newsom said Monday during a briefing on the pandemic. “You can choose to participate in le-veraging this technology to allow people that you have been in con-tact with or have been in contact with you to be notified of poten-tial exposure.”

CA Notify is available on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. It was piloted for sev-eral months at seven University of California campuses by some 250,000 students, faculty and staff.

The app technology was also tested at universities in Colorado,

Nevada, Washington and Oregon.According to Newsom, more

than 60 positive test verification codes were issued to people at the universities over the last eight weeks.

“The more people that partici-pate in it, the more that opt-in, the more effective this program can be,” Newsom said. “Another tool in our toolkit in terms of impact-ing the spread and transmission rate of this virus.”

Newsom said he did not expect millions of state residents to opt into using the app, noting that he’s cognizant of the paltry participa-tion rates in other states’ exposure apps.

Other countries, like New Zealand, launched similar app technology months ago, which has helped them curb the virus’ spread.

“This is only as good as people’s adaptation and utilization,” he said.

Stanford seeks testing volunteers

Taking a coronavirus test could be easy as spit if an at-thome test by Stanford Medicine pans out. The test, which could cost as little as $5, involves boiling some wa-ter, reading the instructions and spitting into a funnel, according to an announcement by Stanford Medicine.

The test takes no more than 10 minutes to self-administer, and results will show in 30 minutes.Stanford Medicine is seeking volunteers for a study of the test, which can detect the presence of the coronvirus within 30 minutes. Its accuracy rate is similar to clin-ical nasal-swab tests performed in hospitals. The test was invented by Manu Prakash, associate pro-fessor of bioengineering, and his group with support from the Stan-ford Medicine Catalyst Program.

The test is also designed for easy, large-scale manu-facture, Prakash said in the announcement.

“The world needs rapid-screen-ing kits now, and at a very large scale. If the study is successful, our goal will be to manufacture tens of millions of them per day. We’re already building industrial partnerships to generate that ca-pacity,” he said.

The research team is assem-bling nearly 10,000 test kits for the study. The pilot study seeks to determine whether the test can achieve clinical-grade detection results. It began on Dec. 2 and should be completed in December.

“Our hope is to prove this works in the real world and then scale to hundreds of millions of tests to help open schools, universities and businesses as we wait for the vac-cines now in development to come online,” said Euan Ashley, associ-ate dean in the School of Medi-cine who co-directs the Catalyst Program.

For information about partici-pating in the study can be found at snapdx.org.


COVID(continued from page 5)

A Downtown Streets Team member works along Emerson Street on Nov. 21, 2019.

Sa

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y Da

llal

CITY COUNCIL ... The council plans to meet in a closed session to discuss the existing litigation, Miriam Green v. City of Palo Alto pertaining to utilities fees. The council will then consider changes to the zoning code pertaining to retail and consider a colleagues memo about safe firearms storage. The closed session will begin at 6 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 14. The rest of the virtual meeting will take place immediately after the closed session. Those wishing to participate by Zoom can do so by dialing 669-900-6833 and using Meeting ID: 362 027 238.

BOARD OF EDUCATION ... The school board will hear updates on reopening schools, special education, budget assumptions and an absenteeism report, among other items. The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 15. The meeting will be broadcast on Cable TV Channel 28 and midpenmedia.org. Those wishing to participate by Zoom can do so by going to pausd.zoom.us/j/97888498129 or dialing 669-900-6833 and using Meeting ID: 949 9734 6242.

COUNCIL FINANCE COMMITTEE ... The committee plan to discuss the Fire Departmentís ambulance subscription program, consider updates to impact fees for the Park, Community Center and Library Development Fee program; review the financial forecast for the fiscal year 2022 general fund. The virtual meeting will begin at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 15. Those wishing to participate by Zoom can do so by dialing 669-900-6833 and using Meeting ID: 992 2730 7235.

PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION ... The commission plans to approve a park improvement ordinance for Ramos Park and consider a dog off-leash area at Ramos Park. The commission also plans to discuss best practices for outreach. The virtual meeting will begin at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 15. Those wishing to participate by Zoom can do so by dialing 669-900-6833 and using Meeting ID: 999 3789 9745.

ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD ... The board plans to hold a public hearing to review the proposed replacement of the Pope-Chaucer Bridge. The board also plans to elect a chair and vice chair and discuss its policy on ex parte communications involving board members, applicants, developers and other individuals. The virtual meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 17. Those wishing to participate by Zoom can do so by dialing 669-900-6833 and using Meeting ID: 964 1982 2906

CITY/SCHOOL LIAISON COMMITTEE ... The committee is scheduled to review recent City Council and school board meetings; discuss COVID-19 coordination; and hear updates on Project Safety Net, grade separation planning and other ongoing matters. The virtual meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 17. Those wishing to participate by Zoom can do so by dialing 669-900-6833 and using Meeting ID: 739 622 589.

HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION ... The commission plans to discuss its response to receipt incidents of hate in Palo Alto; hear a presentation from an ad hoc committee on a report on the history of Black and brown communities in Palo Alto; and discuss the commission’s retreat. Those wishing to participate by Zoom can do so by dialing 669-900-6833 and using Meeting ID: 919 9454 8701.

Public AgendaA preview of Palo Alto government meetings next week


Support our Kidswith a gift to the Holiday Fund

Give to the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund and your donation is doubled. You give to non-profit groups that work right here in our community. It’s a great way to ensure that your charitable

donations are working at home.

As of December 8, 194 donors have contributed $137,551 to the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund.

15 Anonymous ................................................ 4,445

New Donors

Mike & Cathie Foster .....................................1,000Lawrence Yang & Jennifer Kuan ..................10,000Richard Johnsson ...........................................5,000Chris & Anna Saccheri ...........................................*Judith & Hans Steiner ....................................... 100Carolyn Caddes ................................................ 200Merrill & Lee Newman ...................................... 250Anne Williams .................................................. 200Jim & Valerie Stinger ......................................... 100Art & Peggy Stauffer ......................................... 500Stuart & Carol Hansen ...........................................*Nancy & Jim Baer ...................................................*Marilyn, Dale, Rick & Mei Simbeck ........................*Betty W. Gerard .................................................. 50Tom & Nancy Fiene ........................................... 150Diane Finkelstein ............................................... 200Beth & Peter Rosenthal ..................................... 500Susan Benton ........................................................*Carol & Hal Louchheim..........................................*Christina Kenrick ...........................................2,500Fruchterman Family .......................................... 250

Harriet Roeder ...............................................1,000Carol Hubenthal ............................................... 300Dr. Fatima Malik, MBA ..........................................*Roger Warnke .................................................. 300Dena Hill ........................................................... 500Keith Clarke ...........................................................*Jeanette Kennedy ..........................................1,000Susie Richardson & Hal Luft ...................................*Peter Danner ..................................................... 200Chantal Akerib ................................................. 500Alice Fischgrund ............................................... 100Carli Scott ......................................................... 100Thomas Rindfleisch ................................................*Jeff Dean ........................................................... 345Sallie & Jay Whaley ................................................*Hoda Epstein .................................................... 250

In Memory OfLeslie Smith ............................................................*August L. King .......................................................*Duncan L. Matteson ......................................1,000Thomas W. & Louise L. Phinney .............................*Leo & Sylvia Breidenbach .......................................*Emmett Lorey ........................................................*Chet Brown ...........................................................*

Each year the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund raises money to support programs serving families

and children in the Palo Alto area.

Since the Weekly and the Silicon Valley

Community Foundation cover all the

administrative costs, every dollar raised

goes directly to support community

programs through grants to non-profit

organizations.

And with the generous support of

matching grants from local foundations,

including the Packard, Hewlett, Peery

and Arrillaga foundations, your tax-

deductible gift will be doubled in size.

A donation of $100 turns into $200

with the foundation matching gifts.

Whether as an individual, a business

or in honor of someone else, help us

reach our goal of $400,000 by making

a generous contribution to the Holiday

Fund.

With your generosity, we can give

a major boost to the programs in our

community helping kids and families.

Please consider donating online, which enables your gift to be processed immediately. The secure website is:

silconvalleycf.org/paw-holiday-fund

Enclosed is a check for $_______________

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I wish to designate my contribution as follows: (select one)

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All donors and their gift amounts will be published in the Palo Alto Weekly unless the boxes below are checked.

I wish to contribute anonymously.

Please withhold the amount of my contribution.

Please make checks payable to: Silicon Valley Community Foundation

Send coupon and check to:

01 – Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund c/o Silicon Valley Community Foundation P.O. Box 45389 San Francisco, CA 94145

The Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund is a donor advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a 501 (c) (3) charitable organization. A contribution to this fund allows your donation to be tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

Non-profits: Grant application & guidelines at PaloAltoOnline.com/holiday_fund

Application deadline: January 11, 2021

Last Year’s Grant Recipients49ers Academy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$20,000Able Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Acknowledge Alliance (Cleo Eulau) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Ada’s Café . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Adolescent Counseling Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500All Students Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15,000Art in Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Art of Yoga. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Bayshore Christian Ministries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Big Brothers Big Sisters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Buena Vista Homework Club (Caritas). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000CASA of San Mateo County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000CASSY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000DreamCatchers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$20,000East Palo Alto Academy Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500East Palo Alto Kids Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000East Palo Alto Library (formerly Quest) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000East Palo Alto Tennis & Tutoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000Ecumenical Hunger Progam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000Environmental Volunteers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Family Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Fit Kids Foundation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Foundation for a College Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500Friends of Junior Musuem & Zoo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Health Connected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Heart and Home Collaborative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15,000Hidden Villa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Jasper Ridge Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Kara. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500Live in Peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Marine Science Institute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Music in the Schools Foundation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Musikiwest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000New Voices for Youth (Social Good Fund) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$3,000Nuestra Casa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500Palo Alto Art Center Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Palo Alto Housing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Palo Alto Music Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Peninsula Bridge Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Peninsula College Fund . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Peninsula Volunteers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Ravenswood Education Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7,500Rich May Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Rise Together Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000Robotics for All. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$3,600Silicon Valley Bicycle Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Silicon Valley Urban Debate League . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000St. Francis of Assisi Youth Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000TheatreWorks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Vista Center for Blind & Visually Impaired . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000WeHOPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15,000YMCA - EPA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000YMCA - PA Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Youth Community Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$20,000Youth Speaks Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000

Child Care Facility Improvement GrantsGatepath (Abilities United) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000All Five. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000Grace Lutheran Preschool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000The Learning Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000Palo Alto Community Child Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000Palo Alto Friends Nursery School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$6,000Parents Nursery School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5,000

High school scholarships. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$8,000


Upfront

realization that without outdoor dining, he’ll have to cut his staff of 18 employees to about six. He’s also bracing for the stay-at-home order to last beyond early January.

“It’s a challenge to have to in-definitely let most of our people go,” he said. “I don’t think realis-tically that we’re going to bounce back and this is going to be over on Jan. 4. I wonder how many of my business comrades are going to make it through this period.”

On Dec. 6, Palo Alto wine bar Vino Locale launched a GoFund-Me campaign to raise money for employees whose hours would be cut or who would potentially be laid off due to the shutdown.

Judy Kleinberg, CEO of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce, predicted there will be a spike in unemployment applications in the wake of the new stay-at-home order.

“Because it’s only takeout, all those waiters and bus boys and girls are going to be laid off,” she said. “The economic downstream damage is not just to the restau-rant. It’s the workforce that really takes the brunt of this.”

She’s been advocating at the

county level for relief for small businesses. This week, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervi-sors approved a small-business loan program as well as teed up a cap on the delivery fees third party platforms can charge res-taurants, which they will vote on next week.

San Mateo County is not partic-ipating in the stay-at-home order, but at least one restaurant — Flea St. Cafe Menlo Park — decided to shut down outdoor dining anyway and others started preparing to do so. Camper in Menlo Park posted on Instagram that it’s “clearing house of some delectables,” ad-vertising deals on porterhouse and ribeye steaks and mussels.

Across the Peninsula, local res-taurateurs’ minds were quickly turning to ideas for boosting business, from social media posts advertising the final two days of outdoor dining last weekend to new takeout menus. Pavel Sirotin of Bevri in Palo Alto said he plans to revive a ghost kitchen concept he tested out a few months ago and is exploring other partner-ships to stay afloat.

Several owners expressed a sadly common refrain in the in-dustry: Without another federal support package, many indepen-dent restaurants will not make it

through another shutdown.“We’re getting mostly restric-

tions and closures without any help to survive,” Sirotin said.

Sirotin urged people to con-tinue ordering takeout from lo-cally owned restaurants, which he recently heard described as a “citizen’s responsibility.”

“It’s really true. If we want to keep eating good and interesting food ... we need to get together and help independent restau-rants,” he said.

According to a National Res-taurant Association survey con-ducted in November, 17% of res-taurants — more than 110,000 establishments — have closed permanently or long-term. The vast majority of restaurants that have closed for good were “well-established businesses, and fix-tures in their communities” that on average had been in business for 16 years, and 16% had been open for at least 30 years, the National Restaurant Association stated.

Fifty-eight percent of chain and independent full-service restau-rants expect continued furloughs and layoffs for at least the next three months, the survey found.

Staff Writer Elena Kadvany can be emailed at [email protected].

Restaurants(continued from page 8)

members could pass by and have contactless visits, he said.

Kara has also begun to see service calls specifically related to COVID-19 deaths throughout the past eight months, including among its Spanish-speaking cli-ents, Santucci said. The pandemic has stretched the agency’s overall capacity, as volunteers have had to care for children and loved ones due to school and child care closures.

Kara isn’t slowing down its commitment to the community, however. Santucci said the or-ganization has a vision for 2021: to expand its services through a telehealth model during the pan-demic and through in-person sup-port afterward. They plan to hire a half-time Spanish service asso-ciate, add to the Spanish Services Volunteer Corps through an-nual training and offer additional workshops and education events.

The Spanish Services Pro-gram’s importance can perhaps best be gauged by the words of the volunteers, some of whom were previously clients.

“I joined Kara because someone had told me about an agency that was offering a training and I love to learn so I signed up to join,” El-via Torres, a volunteer who began in 2018, wrote in the 5-year an-niversary statement. “To my sur-prise, it was a training about grief. During that time, I was facing the battle with cancer of my mother and it was during the training that she passed away. I was not sure if I was going to be able to continue, but the words of comfort and the

way they welcomed my tears and gave me space was something that I will never forget.

“I have continued my volun-teering at Kara because being able to offer someone a shoulder to cry on is something beautiful. It is how I can offer our commu-nity a little bit of what Kara gave me. The volunteer group is full of wonderful people that have turned into a family for me. I am grateful for Kara and for the work that we do because there truly is nothing like it out in the community.”

The Holiday Fund campaign to raise $400,000 for local nonprofit agencies serving families, kids and individuals in need is now in full swing. Please see facing page for information, or to donate online to the campaign, go to siliconvalleycf.org/Paw-holiday-fund. More information about Kara is available at kara-grief.org.


Holiday Fund(continued from page 7)

City Council (Dec. 7)Economy: The council held a study session to discuss economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Action: NoneDowntown Streets Team: The council awarded a one-year, $107,748 contract to Downtown Streets Team for maintenance of downtown parking lots, alleyways and streets. Yes: DuBois, Filseth, Fine, Kniss, Kou, Tanaka Absent: Cormack

Board of Education (Dec. 8)Title IX: The board heard from students about Title IX policies and procedures and discussed possible improvements. Action: None Council Policy and Services Committee (Dec. 8)Lobbying: The committee heard an update from the city’s lobbyists in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento and voted to approve legislative guidelines for 2022. Yes: Filseth, Fine No: KouPriorities: The committee voted to refer to the next council a memo summarizing proposals for the council’s official priorities for 2022. Yes: Unanimous Planning and Transportation Commission (Dec. 9)Ventura: The commission discussed proposed alternatives for the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan and continued its discussion to Jan. 13. Action: None

CityViewA round-up of Palo Alto government action this week

LET’S DISCUSS: Read the latest local news headlines and talk about the issues at Town Square at PaloAltoOnline.com/square

Businesses & OrganizationsPalo Alto Business Park ............................. *

deLemos Properties .............................. 200

Previously Published

Janis Ulevich .......................................... 125

Tess & Eric Byler....................................... 75

Robyn H. Crumly ...................................... *

Stephanie Klein & Larry Baer .................... *

Sue Kemp ............................................. 250

Judy Kramer .......................................... 150

Barbara Klein ............................................ *

Tobye Kaye................................................ *

Michael Kieschnick ............................... 500

Bruce Campbell .................................... 250

Cathy Kroymann .................................. 250

Werner Graf ............................................. *

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Amy Crowe .......................................... 500

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Jim & Karen Lewis..................................... *

Judith Appleby ...................................... 250

Vic Befera ............................................. 100

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Brigid Barton ......................................5,000

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Kaaren & John Antoun ......................2,000

Harry Hartzell ........................................ 250

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Gerald & Donna Silverberg ................... 100

Jan & Freddy Gabus .............................. 250

Hal & Iris Korol .......................................... *

Sally Hewlett ......................................3,000

Arthur Keller ......................................... 500

Bruce & Jane Gee ................................. 250

Denise Savoie and Darrell Duffie .............. *

Loreto Ponce de Leon ........................... 100

Thomas Ehrlich ..................................... 500

Ron Wolf .............................................. 250

Andrea Smith........................................ 100

Bonnie Packer ....................................... 100

Michael & Gwen Havern ...................5,000

Jan and Scott Kilner .............................. 500

Daniel Cox ............................................ 200

Patrick Burt ........................................... 500

Jocelyn Dong ........................................ 100

Carolyn Brennan ....................................... *

Tom & Patricia Sanders ............................. *

Page & Ferrell Sanders .......................... 100

Debby Roth ........................................... 200

Diana Diamond .................................... 300

Dorothy Saxe ........................................ 100

Jeanne & Leonard Ware ....................... 500

Richard A. Baumgartner & Elizabeth M. Salzer ................................ *

Jerry & Bobbie Wagger ............................. *

Linda & Steve Boxer .................................. *

Nancy & Joe Huber ................................... *

Steven Feinberg .................................5,000

Jean Wu .............................................1,000

Marc Igler & Jennifer Cray .................... 200

Ann & Don Rothblatt............................ 500

Marcia & Michael Katz ......................... 200

Diane Moore............................................. *

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Pat & Penny Barrett............................... 100

Robert & Barbara Simpson ....................... *

John Galen ............................................... *

Julie & Jon Jerome .................................... *

Leif & Sharon Erickson .......................... 500

Edward Kanazawa ................................ 200

Scott Carlson & Katharine Miller .....10,000

Stephen & Nancy Levy .......................... 500

Mike & Jean Couch .............................. 250

Karen & Steve Ross ................................... *

Katherine & Dorsey Bass ....................... 500

Lani Freeman & Stephen Monismith ........ *

Harriet & Gerry Berner .......................... 350

Judy Palmer ............................................ 25

Teresa Roberts ....................................... 500

Carol Uyeno ............................................ 50

Mark Cairns & Amanda Martin ............ 100

Sally & Craig Nordlund ......................... 500

Christine Min Wotipka & Anthony Lising Antonio .................... 100

Kathleen Foley-Hughes & Tony Hughes ..................................1,000

Thayer Gershon ...................................... 50

Xiaofan Lin .............................................. 50

John Pavkovich ..................................... 400

Cynthia Costell ..................................... 100

Richard Zuanich .................................... 150

Neha Choksi ........................................... 40

Braff Family ........................................... 500

Jennie Savage ....................................1,000

Bill Johnson & Terri Lobdell ................1,000

Dawes Family ........................................ 250

Mary Lemmon .................................20,000

Shirley Ely ...........................................1,000

Jennifer DiBrienza & Jesse Doroguske .............................1,000

In Memory OfRay Bacchetti ........................................ 200

Norman L. Frazee ..................................... *

Sandy Sloan .......................................... 100

Lee Domenik ............................................ *

Millie Fuchs ............................................... *

David W. Mitchell ..................................... *

Rudy Schubert ........................................ 50

Marie & Don Snow ............................... 200

The Zschokke Family ............................. 100

Alissa Riper Picker ................................. 250

Bertha Kalson ........................................... *

Er-Ying and Yen-Chen Yen ................... 250

Mrs. Elsie Yang...................................... 200

Ernest J. Moore ......................................... *

Tracy & Alan .............................................. *

Pam Grady ............................................ 500

Lily & Philip Gottheiner ............................. *

Bob Kirkwood ....................................2,500

Our Loving Parents Albert & Beverly Pellizzari..................................... *

Boyd Paulson Jr ..................................3,000

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Businesses & OrganizationsAlta Mesa Cemetery &

Funeral Home .................................2,000

Delores Eberhart, DDS .............................. *

Hayes Group Architects .....................5,000

Sponsors of Moonlight Run:

Stanford Health Care ....................10,000 Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Foundation .....................................5,000 Sutter Health/Palo Alto Medical

Foundation .....................................5,000 Palantir ............................................5,000 Facebook ........................................5,000 Wealth Architects ...........................5,000 Chan Zuckerberg Initiative ..............5,000 Bank of the West ............................1,500 A Runner’s Mind .............................1,000

Donate online at siliconvalleycf.org/paw-holiday-fund

CLICK AND GIVE

* Donor did not want to publish the amount of the gift.

Changes or corrections to listings may be made by contacting Kali Shiloh at [email protected].


Upfront

Mateo shrank by only 0.1%, while in Walnut Creek they went up by 1.3%, according to Adams.

“While you can look at state-wide numbers, each jurisdiction is its own entity and has its own trends,” Adams said during a Nov. 30 panel discussion on the impending economic recovery.

In Palo Alto, the trends are looking particularly grim. City staff are currently projecting a $34.6 million drop in tax rev-enues, with sales-tax receipts decreasing by $13.8 million from last year’s $34.3 million and hotel-tax revenues plunging by $14.4 million, from $29.3 million to $14.9 million, as hotels still re-port vacancies of about 80%.

With Stanford University of-fering remote classes, business travel virtually nonexistent and most major employers switching to telecommuting, the local de-mand for hotel rooms, restaurant meals and high-end apparel has shrunk. In fact, the city’s day-time population is now roughly half of what it was pre-COVID, City Manager Ed Shikada told the council in a Nov. 30 presentation on the city’s economic recovery strategies. Prior to the pandemic, the city saw about 130,000 people on the weekdays; now it’s down to about 70,000.

“What was previously almost a doubling of our population dur-ing the day is no longer working here in Palo Alto on a day-to-day basis,” Shikada said. “As such, the population and quite frankly the market that businesses here in town are serving has changed dra-matically in our shelter-in-place environment.”

While population loss is one factor in the economic recession, Palo Alto’s retail mix is another. The city draws nearly 59% of its revenues from its 25 larg-est tax producers, according to

Adams. The list includes numer-ous department stores (Macy’s, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus) as well as purveyors of luxury goods (Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Richemont), sectors that have seen significant losses during the sweatpants-friendly era of the pandemic. Palo Alto is also a res-taurant-heavy town, which makes it particularly vulnerable to health orders that ban dining in.

Because of the vagaries of state law, the decline of retail in Palo Alto also means that the city is re-ceiving less revenue from online sales. Under the existing “county pool” system, taxes from online sales get pooled from all juris-dictions in the county and then distributed to individual cities. The share each city gets depends on how well its brick-and-mortar retail is doing, Adams said. Palo Alto, which has historically re-ceived between 6% and 7% of the county pool, saw its share dwindle to 5% in the last two quarters, ac-cording to Adams.

In some ways, things have got-ten slightly less dismal in recent months. The city saw cash re-ceipts drop by 38% in the second quarter of this year, when com-pared to the same period of 2019. In the third quarter, the loss from the prior year was less severe: 24%, according to Adams’ report.

However, the most recent health orders, which further restrict busi-ness activity, are expected to fur-ther cut into local revenue.

“Efforts to contain COVID-19 are paramount to public health and will have corresponding im-pacts on revenue streams like sales tax as certain economic activities remain limited and

constrained by regulations,” a re-port from Avenu states.

A sudden recession

T he current recession is dis-tinct from prior ones in sev-eral ways, Adams said. Nor-

mally, recessions take between six to nine months to materialize; this one happened virtually overnight. And while most recessions have a big impact on major expendi-tures — including auto sales and construction projects — this one is hitting sectors that typically aren’t affected as much: namely, restaurants and retail.

“This pandemic recession is an artificially created recession due to constraints on regulation and consumer behavior relating to perception of safety and that sort of thing,” Adams said.

Adams said he expects the city’s economic recovery to take about four years, though the ex-act length will be determined by factors such as a potential fiscal stimulus, the success of the vac-cines and the policies of the Jo-seph Biden administration.

Jerry Nickelsburg, an economist and faculty director at the UCLA Anderson Forecast, suggested that while high-tech sectors with high-income jobs may recover sooner, the leisure and hospitality indus-try may not get back to its pre-COVID levels until 2024 or later. Sectors with halting recoveries will likely include tourism, res-taurant, bars, live events, accom-modations and retail, Nickelsburg

told the council during the Nov. 30 discussion.

“We’re expecting California to outperform the U.S. because of its technology industry. It will be generating high-income jobs, all in construction and in advanced manufacturing. But it’s going to lag in low-income jobs of leisure, hospitality and retail. So the issue of inequality is only going to get worse in California, absent policy intervention.”

Nickelsburg also rejected the notion that stay-at-home orders stand in the way of economic recovery. He cited a June 2020 paper by Sergio Correia, Stephan Luck and Emil Verner, which evaluated how different cities responded to the 1918 pandemic. The researchers found that “non-pharmaceutical interventions” (NPI) such as shelter-in-place orders were associated with bet-ter economic outcomes after the pandemic, not worse.

“If anything, cities with stricter NPIs during the pandemic per-form better in the year after the pandemic,” the three researchers wrote in their paper, “Pandem-ics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: Evi-dence from the 1918 Flu.”

“There’s a lot of discussion about, ‘Are we trading off the economy for health outcomes?’” Nickelsubrg said. “All of the evi-dence from 1918-1919 suggests that that’s not a tradeoff. That if you get better health outcomes, you also get better economic outcomes.”

Nicholas Bloom, a professor at Stanford University who conducts monthly surveys with 2,500 em-ployees across the nation, suggest-ed that some of the existing work trends will outlive the pandemic. His surveys show that the majority of employees — and employers — in industries that currently accom-modate remote work favor a post-pandemic model that entails three days of coming to the office and two days of working from home.

“When you ask firms what they plan, there is a very strong con-sensus that post-pandemic these folks are going to come back to work in the office something like three days a week,” Bloom told the council.

The lingering telecommuting trend need not necessarily spell doom for Palo Alto’s economy.

According to Bloom, the city will continue to see demand for of-fice space, particularly in smaller, low-rise office buildings where workers do not need to crowd into elevators or sit in tight cubicles. He also noted that some of tele-commuters live in Palo Alto and, as such, could support local busi-nesses by eating out.

But while restaurants and re-tailers may see some signs of re-covery next year, sectors such as gyms, entertainment venues, lei-sure and travel, may see perma-nent reductions, Bloom said.

“For planning, things like al-lowing gyms, cinemas and things like that to be repurposed to be of-fice space or something else may be something that is going to be important,” Bloom said. “Some of these things are seeing permanent demand shifts.”

What’s a city to do?

L ike other cities in the Bay Area and across the na-tion, Palo Alto is striving to

respond to — and shape — the new normal. Last week, Shikada unveiled the city’s Economic Re-covery Strategy, a broad frame-work that combines short-term measures for managing the pan-demic (virus testing, contact trac-ing and vaccine distribution) and long-term projects to help sustain — and in some cases, transform — the business sector.

The recovery effort could sig-nificantly alter the city’s zoning code, its business climate and the look and feel of its primary commercial districts, which have already seen a remarkable trans-formation since the shelter-in-place orders first took effect in March. This week, in response to the county’s latest health order, the council suspended the most popular program of the pandemic era: the closures of University and California avenues to cars. While the council had intended to keep the streets car-free at least until Memorial Day, Shikada moved to temporarily reopen them because the latest public health order bans all forms of onsite restaurant din-ing, including eating outdoors, at least until early January.

The City Council expects the recovery effort to dominate its agenda for the next year, and likely longer. Most members have

Economy(continued from page 5)

Prior to the pandemic, Palo Alto saw a weekday population of about 130,000; now it’s down to about 70,000.

‘There’s a lot of discussion about, “Are we trading off the economy for health outcomes?” All of the evidence from 1918-1919 suggests that that’s not a tradeoff, that if you get better health outcomes, you also get better economic outcomes.’

—Jerry Nickelsburg, economist and faculty director,

UCLA Anderson Forecast

-25%

-20%

-15%

-10%

-5%

0%

5%

Walnut CreekSan MateoRedwood City Palo AltoMountain View

Cities’ sales tax revenuesThird quarter 2020 compared with third quarter 2019

Source: Avenu Insights and Analytics

-24.2%-23.2%

-0.1% -0.1%

+1.3%

A car drives by the Stanford Theatre in downtown Palo Alto on May 14.

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The city’s hotel industry is experiencing vacancy rates above 80%.

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Upfront

proposed including it as an offi-cial priority for 2021. Shikada, for his part, has been holding regular meetings with downtown business owners as part of the city’s ongo-ing initiative, Uplift Local.

“We did have a discussion this afternoon with a few downtown businesses, based on the really devastating situation that they’re now confronting in additional restrictions relating to the pan-demic,” Shikada told the council on Dec. 7. “One comment that resonated was that this is the time for us to start thinking long-term and to be able to — while work-ing through today’s emergency — start to really focus our attention on what the long-term strategy is for continued vacancy both down-town, Cal Ave and citywide.”

In some areas, the recovery ef-fort may spur the city to achieve things that council members have intermittently discussed for de-cades but that invariably failed to advance beyond the wishful-musings stage (the closure of University Avenue falls into this category). Council members and city staff agreed this week, for

example, that the time is ripe to take another look at Fiber to the Home, an effort to bring high-speed Internet access to every household through the municipal dark-fiber-optic network. After three decades of exploring — and ultimately discarding — the idea, there is general consensus now that this may be the right time to finally turn this vision into reality. Vice Mayor Tom Du-Bois and council members Greg Tanaka and Lydia Kou all spoke in favor of advancing the Fiber to the Home program during recent meetings on the economic recov-ery. Shikada also listed expand-ing community outreach on Fiber to the Home as one of the city’s “priority initiatives.”

“We really need high-speed, reliable, affordable Internet, I think, for everyone,” Tanaka said. “Especially if work-from-home is going to be more standard, which I think it is. I think it’s going to be around here longer.”

Cracking the code

I n considering the troubling re-tail trends, Palo Alto’s elected leaders have largely acknowl-

edged that “business as usual”

is no longer a viable option. As such, the council’s recovery plan will almost certainly include changes to the zoning code, some of which are already in the works.

On Dec. 14, its final meeting of the year, the council is expected to make it easier for commercial rec-reation businesses such as gyms and yoga studios to set up shop downtown by removing the exist-ing requirement for conditional-use permits and by relaxing park-ing standards. The new rule would apply only to businesses with up to 5,000 square feet of gross floor area (effectively treating them like boutique “personal service” stu-dios), and it would exclude parcels that front on University Avenue.

The proposed ordinance would also remove existing condition-al-use permit requirements for barber shops and salons in the California Avenue business dis-trict. In addition, medical offices with less than 5,000 square feet in floor area would no longer require a conditional-use permit to open in commercially zoned districts (currently, the threshold is 2,500 square feet).

While these changes are rela-tively minor, the council had re-cently signaled its intent to con-sider more significant — and contentious — zoning revisions in the near future. The most con-troversial of these is a proposal to allow banks, law firms, architec-ture firms and other types of of-fice spaces to fill downtown sites currently reserved for retail and restaurants. The city’s Planning and Transportation Commission will be considering the proposal in the coming months. The com-mission will also weigh a proposal to scrap the citywide requirement to reserve ground-floor spaces in commercial zones for retailers. While four council members sup-port removing the requirement in most areas of the city (while keeping it along University and California avenues), the proposal is unlikely to advance under next year’s council: Newly elected council members Pat Burt and Greer Stone have been far less enthusiastic about removing retail protections than outgoing mem-bers Adrian Fine and Liz Kniss.

Meanwhile, council member Tanaka suggested at a recent meeting that the city consider

removing its longstanding pro-hibition on big-box retail stores. He noted during a November hearing that businesses such as Costco, Walmart and Home De-pot have actually thrived during the pandemic, while small, spe-ciality stores that Palo Alto has generally supported continue to get hammered.

Other council members did not support this plan, but they gener-ally agreed that it would be appro-priate to take a fresh look at the city’s retail laws and adjust them to accommodate the new reality.

“We really are at an inflection point and our businesses will be transitioning and transforming,” council member Alison Cormack said on Nov. 30. “And while we’re supporting our existing business-es, I want us to think long and hard about what it will look like in the future.”

Meeting business and community needs

W hile the zoning changes could take months — or years — to make a dif-

ference, other proposed measures would have a more immediate impact. These include further changes to California and Uni-versity, which had been closed to traffic since June and July, respectively.

One idea that was proposed by John Shenk, CEO of the real-es-tate firm Thoits Brothers, calls for installing bollards on University Avenue. The city would be able to raise them when needed to close the avenue to traffic and lower them to make University open to cars. At the Dec. 7 meeting, both Tanaka and Shikada spoke in sup-port of the idea,

“We really see a great opportu-nity there,” Shikada said. “There’s clearly multiple needs along Uni-versity. As such, a concept like that could be really helpful for us to be able to adapt to a variety of needs in different times of day and week.”

City officials are also consid-ering other ways to boost com-munity morale — and business activity — despite pandemic-era restrictions. Kou recommended launching a business program in which customers can obtain gift certificates that can be used at various local businesses.

DuBois noted that other cities

are holding car-based events (Red-wood City, for example, holds regular drive-in movie nights at its port as part of its “Motor Mov-ies” series) and recommended that Palo Alto find new and creative ways to host community gather-ings in a safe manner. He also suggested that the city restore its recently abandoned grant pro-gram to neighborhoods, which were used in the past to fund neighborhood activities.

Kou also supported holding drive-in events, potentially at the Palo Alto Airport. She and Cor-mack also recommended that the council re-engage with neigh-borhood associations and other community leaders to discuss the future of retail. In addition, Kou has supported hiring an economic development manager, a position Palo Alto once had, to guide the city’s recovery effort and help bring in a viable mix of new retailers.

“I just want to make sure that as we’re coming out of it, we don’t go back to ‘as is’ — to what we had pre-COVID,” Kou said during the Nov. 30 discussion. “I’d like to see it become more robust and have more diversity in the businesses that we have in town and not just have plenty of just a few things.”

Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be emailed at [email protected].

‘I just want to make sure that as we’re coming out of it, we don’t go back to “as is” — to what we had pre-COVID. I’d like to see it become more robust and have more diversity in the businesses that we have in town.’— Lydia Kou, council member,

city of Palo Alto

The city’s economic recovery will take about four years, though the exact length will be determined by factors such as a potential fiscal stimulus, the success of the vaccines and the policies of the Joseph Biden administration, according to Thomas Adams of Avenu, the city’s sales-tax consulting firm.

Tables are stacked and chairs are covered inside Ettan in downtown Palo Alto while it remains closed during the shelter-in-place order.

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Like many restaurants, Osteria Cucina Toscana in downtown Palo Alto pivoted to providing takeout in March, after the county’s first stay-at-home order was imposed.

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Sam’s Barber Styling Shop in downtown Palo Alto, which has been variously open or closed this year as public-health directives have changed, is closed again.

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About the cover: Palo Alto prepares for a long economic recovery. Illustration by Douglas Young. Photos by Magali Gauthier and Sammy Dallal.


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Upfront

2421

Holiday Waste Service Schedule

SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY

DECEMBERTHURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY

20 22 23 25 26

GreenWaste of Palo Alto is closed on Christmas (December 25) and New Year’s Day (January 1). If your regular collection day falls on or after one of these holidays, your collection day will be moved to the next day for the rest of the week. Regular collection schedules will resume the following week.

Questions? Contact GreenWaste of Palo Alto at (650) 493-4894 • [email protected]

3128SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY

DECEMBER/JANUARYTHURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY

27 29 30 1 [email protected]

AY FRIDAY SAT

AY FRIDAY SAT

District for bid package:

The work includes, but is not limited to: Excavation and removal of existing asphalt and concrete pavement, landscaping and underground Hot Water and Chilled Water (HW-CW) pipes and control valves to be replaced with new pipes, materials, surfaces, and

There will be a pre-bid conference and site visit at and at the

Proper PPE attire required, including Masks and Gloves.

Please register and respond with your date preference via e-mail to [email protected]

California contractors’ license(s): In addition, the Bidder is required to be registered as a public works contractor with the Department of Industrial Relations pursuant to the

Moreover, any bid listing subcontractors holding C-7, C-10, C-16, C-20, C-36, C-38, or C-43

Bonding required for this project is as follows:Bid Bond 10% of the total bid, Performance Bond to be 100%, Payment Bond is to be 100%.

The Architectural Firm for this project is:

The successful Bidder and all subcontractors shall pay all workers for all Work performed pursuant to this Contract not less than the general prevailing rate of per diem wages and the general prevailing rate for holiday and overtime work as determined by the Director

the locality in which the work is to be performed within the boundaries of the District, pursuant to section 1770 et seq. of the California Labor Code.Prevailing wage rates are also available on the Internet at: http://www.dir.ca.gov. This Project is subject to labor compliance monitoring and enforcement by the Department of Industrial Relations pursuant to Labor Code section 1771.4 and subject to the requirements of Title 8 of the California Code of Regulations.The Contractor and

to the Labor Commissioner weekly and within ten (10) days of any request by the District or the Labor Commissioner.The successful Bidder shall comply with all requirements of Division 2, Part 7, Chapter 1, Articles 1-5 of the Labor Code.

Bidders may examine Bidding Documents on line at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14yG_

The District shall award the Contract, if it awards it at all, to the lowest responsive responsible bidder based on the base bid amount only.

The Board reserves the right to reject any and all bids and/or waive any irregularity in any bid received.If the District awards the Contract, the security of unsuccessful bidder(s) shall be returned within sixty (60) days from the time the award is made.Unless otherwise required by law, no bidder may withdraw its bid for ninety (90) days after the date of the bid opening.

25 Churchill Avenue, Building D, Palo Alto, CA94306-1099

Fax: (650) 327-3588, Phone: (650) 808-7946 [email protected]

No consensus on Ventura’s futureSince Palo Alto began its quest in 2017 to come up with a new

plan for a 60-acre parcel in the Ventura neighborhood, the city’s goal was to develop a vision that would bring affordable housing and a host of community ideas to a site that has long been eyed as prime for redevelopment.

But as the city is nearing the finish line, the plan appears to be in serious jeopardy, with resident stakeholders splitting over different alternatives and the largest property owner, The Sobrato Organiza-tion, proposing its own development proposal for the former Fry’s Electronics site at 340 Portage Ave.

The schisms and challenges that now characterize the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan were highlighted on Wednesday night, during the Planning and Transportation Commission’s first discussion of the three alternatives developed by the 14-member working group that the council charged with the complex task. They generally agreed that dense housing should largely be con-centrated on the periphery of the site, along El Camino Real and Page Mill Road, while the interior would include retail, some of-fice space and lower density residential development.

Alternative 1 would retain both the former Fry’s building and the office building at 395 Page Mill Road, which serves as head-quarters for Cloudera. Alternative 2 would demolish major por-tions of the Fry’s building and convert parts of both this building and the Cloudera site to multifamily housing. Alternative 3 would do the same, while allowing higher density for housing develop-ment as well as additional office development.

The commission didn’t take any action on the three proposals, which it will continue discussing on Jan. 13.

— Gennady Sheyner

Palo Alto resident indicted for mail theftA federal grand jury in San Francisco has indicted six people,

including a 34-year-old Palo Alto resident, on charges related to a long-running conspiracy to steal mail and commit identity fraud, U.S. Attorney David L. Anderson and Postal Inspection Service Inspector in Charge Rafael NuÒez announced Wednesday.

The 18-count indictment, which was filed on Nov. 17 and un-sealed Dec. 9, is against Ashley Overton, 34, of Palo Alto, and five San Jose residents: Mark Guardado Jr., 38; Juan Dagio, 40; Brian Clapp, 37; Andrew Perez, 30; and Jaime Valencia-Arias, 23. Beginning in January 2018 and extending through August 2019, the defendants allegedly conspired to steal U.S. mail by using real or counterfeit postal keys to access mailboxes in apartment build-ings. They allegedly raided mailboxes in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and San Jose, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

They allegedly exchanged text messages about using the postal keys, some of which Guardado prosecutors said he claimed to have made, to go out on “missions,” during which they stole the mail in bulk. The group allegedly took personal identifying information, such as names, addresses, telephone numbers and dates of birth, from the stolen mail and other sources. They used the information to create counterfeit California state driver’s licenses in the vic-tims’ names but with the defendants’ photographs on the licenses, according to federal prosecutors.

Overton is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail theft and to commit fraud in connection with identification documents; one count of fraud in connection with identification documents and possession of five or more of the documents and two counts of possession of stolen mail. Each count is punishable by up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.

—Sue Dremann

Police roll out new online reporting systemA new online system for the public to report a wide array of

low-level crimes and traffic collisions without injuries to Palo Alto police debuted on Monday, the department announced.

Residents and visitors can report crimes without suspect infor-mation that occur in the city, including auto burglary or thefts from vehicles; minor traffic collisions resulting in property damage and no injuries; bicycle thefts; vehicle-part thefts; identity theft involv-ing credit card fraud; phone scams; child custody-order violations; and traffic complaints.

The system, which is operated by LexisNexis Risk Solutions, is accessible by any internet-enabled device. The website is acces-sible at cityofpaloalto.org/onlinereports. The public can also call 833-290-3185 and enter a phone number to receive a link by text to begin an online report directly on their mobile device.

—Sue Dremann

News Digest

LET’S DISCUSS: Read the latest local news headlines and talk about the issues at Town Square at PaloAltoOnline.com/square


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neighbors’ doors. Many people were enthusiastic about creat-ing a holiday lane of their own, Nichols said.

“The first year we knocked on doors, one of the neighbors was taken aback. He looked at us and said, ‘Wow. I’ve lived here 27 years, and I’ve never talked to my neighbors,’” she recalled. He said he loved Christmas lights and was from the Midwest, where neighborhoods were lit up during the holidays.

This year, the Old Palo Alto “lane” has grown to more than 200 trees, Nichols estimated.

Midtown West resident Linda Stebbins Jensen said the concept spread to her neighborhood three years ago.

“At our block party on Ramo-na Street, my neighbor Hal Plot-kin and I were talking about how much we liked seeing Christmas Tree Lane as kids growing up in Palo Alto. My husband, Eric, and I have always been fans of decorating our home for holi-days. I am also executive direc-tor at Winter Lodge, where we enjoy putting up holiday light

displays as well. “So, Hal had pointed out how

much he liked seeing all of our lights, and we thought it might be fun to get other neighbors in-spired to put some kind of lights or lighted trees out like we had started seeing in other neighbor-hoods around town,” she said.

Jensen, who knows Margaret Lawrence, asked her about the lit-tle trees and how they organized their block. Lawrence referred her to Nichols.

“I put together some flyers with the information that Deb-bie had given me, and my twin daughters and I handed them out in the neighborhood. We order some trees with the Old Palo Alto group for those who want them and others just get the trees on their own. Our little Midtown West neighborhood (bounded by Bryant, Colorado and Ramona streets) has been lit up for the last three years, and it is fun to see more trees every year. It started with only about 10 trees,” she said. “We have some

generous neighbors who sponsor and set up trees for older resi-dents who might not otherwise get to participate.”

Jensen said she’s seen the Christmas trees on various streets all over town. In some ar-eas, she’s seen a little tree even in front of a single home. And the cheer is spreading.

“I had someone contact me just today (Tuesday) asking how to be part of the holiday street tree tra-dition. I basically told them, ‘Go get a tree and put it out.’ It’s really that simple and so much fun for everyone to see.”

In Nichols’ neighborhood, the festive trees are now twinkling along parts of Homer Avenue, Tasso Street between Santa Rita and Seale avenues, Waverley and Bryant streets and Santa Rita Av-enue between Bryant and Cowper streets.

“It’s one thing the coronavirus couldn’t take away from us this year. People say, ‘I need this more than ever,’” Nichols said.

Nichols also receives calls

from people who are interested in setting up similar festive, tree-lined streets in their neigh-borhoods, she said. She’s happy to tell people how they can do it themselves, she said, but she hasn’t kept track of whether they’ve followed through. It’s enough work trying to order and deliver 200-plus trees, which ar-rive the Saturday after Thanks-giving, she said. The next day, people get together for the dis-tribution. It’s a neighborhood affair.

“We get together and deliver them in wheelbarrows and carts with Christmas bells on them,” she said. In years prior to the CO-VID-19 epidemic, there would be a brunch for people who helped deliver the trees, she said.

The trees require wooden stands, which are nailed into the base so they can stand up; many places don’t offer the old-fashioned stands anymore, which limits where they can be found, she said. Each tree, including the wooden stand, tax and delivery, costs $47 to $55. Some years they purchased the trees from Palo Alto High School, which helps fund the booster club; oth-er years they purchase the trees directly from tree lots in Oregon, she said.

Ace Hardware also stocks many of the big, old-fashioned lights Nichols recalls from her childhood. She purchases the lights, which neighbors buy from her. She has backup lights if any-one needs them. The colorful display gets turned on at 5 p.m. and off at 11 p.m. with automatic timers.

The trees on the streets aren’t all that glow, however. Neighbors put out festive decorations at their homes.

“Santa Rita between Bryant and Cowper is the best, with beauti-ful decorations,” she said. They also do a “fantastic job” on Tasso Street, she added.

The Christmas trees have helped bring the neighborhood together in the ways Nichols had hoped.

“There is more of a sense of community. We have block par-ties now. It’s become a very friendly neighborhood,” she said.

Jensen said she hopes that shar-ing the story of the spreading Christmas Tree Lane idea will bring “this fun little tradition to light.”

“(People) don’t need to be in-vited or live in any certain neigh-borhood to participate. All they need to do is have a little extra holiday spirit that they are will-ing to share with their neighbors by placing 3-to-4-foot noble fir trees out in the planting strip or the front of their yard and put two strands of the old fashioned, C-9 incandescent colored lights on the tree with a white one on top. And, now you are part of the tradition of the joy of lighting up the town!”


Patricia (“Pat”) Birkel passed away on November 28th with her five children surrounding her with love: Julie Birkel, Linda Birkel, Laurie Birkel McCaskill, Pam Birkel and Doug Birkel. All her grandchildren were also grateful and blessed to have spent special time with her during the last few weeks of her life: Jack McCaskill, Sam McCaskill, AJ Chaikovsky, JJ Chaikovsky, Bruce Birkel, and Eloise Birkel. She was an amazing and loved mother-in-law to Tim Chaikovsky, Bryan McCaskill, John Borowczak, and Nikia Clarke. Pat’s home was full of love, and music and joy in the end as it was throughout her life.

Pat was born on September 16, 1931 in Portland, grew up there and in Molalla, Oregon, attended Oregon State University, and then made Palo Alto her home after she transferred to Stanford University. She met the love of her life there, William (“Bill”) Birkel, who died in 1997. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree and then a Masters in Education at Stanford. After a stint teaching high school Speech and Debate, Pat poured her love, intellect, joy of learning, integrity, grace, and wonderful laughter into raising her children, while contributing in numerous ways to the Palo Alto Unified School District. She never stopped exploring new passions, later earning a Masters Degree in Linguistics from San Jose State, teaching English as a Second Language there, taking gourmet cooking classes, learning French in her later years and traveling to France to speak as much as she could.

Children were the centerpiece of her life, and it was all about her kids (4 girls and a boy), grandkids (5 boys and a girl), their friends, and anyone who could use a loving boost. Her house was full of the music of her joyful piano playing, and renowned for after-school snacks of multiple fl avors of ic e cr eam an d homemade chocolate chip cookies. Providing a home to pets, including dogs, cats, Pokey the Tortoise, parakeets, fish, pollywogs, guinea pigs, rats, lizards, and frogs, she would crawl under the house or reach into dark holes to rescue pet mice and hamsters. She nurtured a love of learning, reading, playing games and solving mind puzzles. Having grown up as a “soda jerk” in her father’s Molalla pharmacy, Orcutt Drug Company Store, she mischievously helped her grandchildren make ice cream sundaes for breakfast.

Palo Alto was Pat’s home for 45 years and she was laid to rest by her family on December 4, 2020 next to her husband Bill Birkel at Alta Mesa Cemetery. Her family is comforted knowing they are now sailing and skittering in the heavens together.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to CASA of Lane County, Court Appointed Special Advocates who provide a powerful voice for abused and neglected children.

https://www.casa-lane.org/donate/

P A I D O B I T U A R Y

Patricia BirkelSeptember 16, 1931 – November 28, 2020

Dr. Ernest William (Bill) Hancock was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. He graduated from the University of Nebraska and Harvard Medical School before joining the Cardiology faculty at Stanford Medical School in 1960. Bill married Joan Egeberg in 1963 and had three sons, William, Nelson and Adam. They regularly spent time at the Egeberg Ranch on the California Coast near San Simeon, where he built a cabin. A lifelong pianist, Bill presented an annual two-piano recital with his colleague Arthur Seltzer, and he anchored countless Christmas caroling parties including one last year at the age of 92. When his kids were young, a highlight of Fall Saturdays was biking to Stanford Football games with the boys.

In the 1960s, Bill made notable contributions to understanding mitral valve prolapse, pericardial disease, and heart disease caused by cancer radiation treatments. He was also involved in the nascent heart transplant program at Stanford, led by Norm Shumway. Bill was generally recognized as one of the first to describe a condition known as effusive-constrictive pericarditis. In the 1980s, he served as Chairman of the Cardiovascular Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine, which bestows the title ‘’board certified” to practicing cardiologists. In his later career he was best known for his work in codifying best practices for electrocardiogram interpretation. Bill retired from the full-time faculty at Stanford in 1994, but continued teaching electrocardiography and consulting on computer-based EKG analysis. In 1997, he received the Albion Walter Hewlett Award honoring his lifelong contributions to research and teaching at Stanford.

In his later years, Bill and Joan spent time at the ranch, and traveling. He enjoyed following the Bay Area sports teams, especially the Giants. He had season tickets to the symphony and opera for four decades and in retirement embarked on a study of Wagner and Mahler. Bill passed away on December 1st at age 93, following a brief illness. He is survived by his wife Joan; his three sons Will Hancock and Kim Mitchell of State College, PA; Nelson Hancock and Liz Bernbach of Brooklyn, NY; and Adam and Shannon Hancock of Amsterdam, NL. He is also survived by six grandchildren: Freddy, Eliza, Lila, Sam, Leilani and Hendrix.


Ernest William HancockApril 6, 1927 – December 1, 2020

Christmas trees(continued from page 5)


Bill was born at Mills Memorial Hospital at San Mateo, California on June 13, 1952 to Bob and Lois Morgan of Palo Alto, California. He was raised in Palo Alto, attended local schools, excelled in wrestling, swimming, water polo and was a member of the fun-loving Fuzz Burgers Basketball Team. After graduation from Palo Alto High School he went to college at University of California, Davis where he achieved a B.S. in Agricultural Economics. After Davis, Bill married his college sweetheart, Caren Hovden. Bill stepped into the family business at Crown Industrial in South San Francisco. Here, he learned electrical engineering and worked to expand the business including system design and engineering, wholesale hardware, industrial door and gate manufacturing and installation with electric operators. Bill’s creativity meant there was never a problem too hard for him to solve. He did not give up on a challenge. Bill cherished working with family and friends at the business. His parents, sister, son, and two cousins were part of the team.

Bill’s love for life was an inspiration to all those around him. He tackled every day with a smile on his face. He was best known for his total undeniable love for fun, adventure, work and his devotion to family. Sailboat racing, mountain biking, snowmobiling, snow skiing, waterskiing, playing tennis and dancing filled his weekends and vacations with pleasure. Bill, Billy, Wild Billski, BABS, Poppa, Pop Pop, Mr. Social, or Life of the Party Bill, as some would call him, would go to the ends of the Earth for his family and friends with generosity and a sense of humor that will be greatly missed by all but never forgotten. Friendship to Bill was everlasting and across all ages.

Bill passed away peacefully surrounded by his family the morning of October 6, 2020 at the age of 68. He showed immeasurable strength and bravery fighting A.L.S. (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) which took his life 20 months after his diagnosis. Bill is survived by his wife of 45 years, Dr. Caren Hovden Morgan, his son, Brian Morgan and wife, Christina Morgan, his daughter, Dr. Kristen Morgan Sheaff and husband, Justin Sheaff, his parents, Bob and Lois Morgan, his three grandchildren, Charles Morgan, Julia Morgan, and Kaylee Sheaff, his sister, Beverly Morgan Kiehl and husband, Dick Kiehl, his brother-in-law, Dr. Kenneth Hovden and wife, Laura Hovden, his niece and nephew, Taira and Chase Hovden and his father-in-law, Dr. Charles Hovden. He is predeceased by his mother-in-law, Dr. Marion Motzer Hovden, grandparents, Albert H. Morgan and Florence Trowbridge Morgan, Russel Payne and Florence Jenkins Payne. Bill was a 5th generation California native dating from 1849.

At Bill’s request no services will be held at this time. We hope to hold a celebration of his life when circumstances permit. Contributions in Bill’s honor can be made to the CPMC Neuroscience program at Forbes/Norris ALS/MDA clinic in San Francisco, or Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry the Hovden Family Endowment, or a charity of your choice.


William Robert MorganJune 13, 1952 – October 6, 2020


Robert Graeme CormackOctober 19, 1941 – December 5, 2020

Rob Cormack, who was born in Madurai, India, passed away on the morning of December 5th in Palo Alto, with his daughters holding his hands. The cause was advanced prostate cancer. He was predeceased by his wife Ann Miller Cormack in 2016 and is survived by his daughters Alison (Tom Kuhnle) and Sara Cherry (Brian), grandchildren Megan, Scott, and Alex, and his brother Captain James P. (Pete) Cormack.

Rob attended Stanford as an Alfred P. Sloan scholar and graduated in 1964 with a five-year degree in architecture. He won a Fulbright scholarship to research architecture in India and received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1971. While his early career was as an architect, he soon found that he was better at the business side of that work and spent the rest of his career in real estate management, first on the East Coast and eventually retiring from GBA in San Francisco.

Rob and Ann enjoyed traveling to Italy where they met, to Africa on safari with friends, throughout New Zealand and Australia to hike, and on special trips with their older grandchildren to see whales in Mexico and to watch the Women’s World Cup in Germany.

Rob cared deeply about his family and was a loving and caring husband, father and grandfather. Rob created many pieces of wooden furniture for the family, starting with a crib and a rocking horse for his baby daughters and ending with a treehouse for his grandchildren. His love for architecture and wood were combined in the house he and Ann built at Sea Ranch, which hosted many happy times with friends and family.

Rob had a wry sense of humor and appreciated a good trick, especially the annual Big Game hijinks that he engaged in with neighbors who were Berkeley fans. One of Rob’s other great qualities was a willingness to uncomplainingly wash however many dishes there were in the kitchen after one of Ann’s elaborate meals. He was also an avid runner and skier for much of his life.

The family wishes to thank the Palo Alto Commons for the caring environment they provided during Rob’s last two years and Mission Hospice and Harmony Home Health Care for their kind assistance during Rob’s last two months.

At Rob’s request, there will be no service. The Yosemite Conservancy supports one of his favorite places in the world. We invite you to remember Rob when you take a hike, pet a kitty cat, or admire a fine piece of woodwork.

PUBLIC NOTICE - In accordance with Sec.106 of the Programmatic Agreement, T-Mobile West, LLC plans to upgrade an existing telecommunications facility at 2415 University Avenue East Palo Alto, CA 94303. Please direct comments to Gavin L. at 818-898-4866 regarding site SF70319M.

12/11, 12/18/20CNS-3421323#

PALO ALTO WEEKLY

POLICE CALLS

Palo AltoDec. 3-Dec. 9Violence related Matadero Avenue, 10/22, 3:53 p.m.; physical child abuse.Cowper Street, 11/25, 10:23 a.m.; sexual assault/oral copulation.El Camino Real, 11/30, 9:36 p.m.; sexual assault/rape.El Camino Real, 12/2, 7 p.m.; strong arm robbery.Edgewood Drive, 12/7, 6:01 a.m.; assault w/deadly weapon.California Avenue, 12/7, 8:47 a.m.; strong arm robbery.

Theft relatedCommercial burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Embezzlement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Grand theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Identity theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Petty theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Prowler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Residential burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Shoplifting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Vehicle relatedAbandoned bicycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Auto recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Auto theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Bicycle theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Hit and run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Lost/stolen plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Misc. traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Stolen catalytic converter . . . . . . . . . . 2Stolen catalytic converter attempt . . . . 1Theft from auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Theft from auto attempt . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Vehicle accident/minor injury . . . . . . . . 3Vehicle accident/prop damage . . . . . . 3Vehicle impound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Vehicle tow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Alcohol or drug relatedDriving under influence . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Drunk in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Possession of drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Possession of paraphernalia . . . . . . . . 2Sale of drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Under influence of drugs . . . . . . . . . . . 2MiscellaneousFound property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Misc. penal code violation . . . . . . . . . . 4Outside investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Psychiatric subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Suspicious circumstances . . . . . . . . . 2Trespassing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Vandalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Warrant/other agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Menlo ParkDec. 2-Dec. 8Violence related800 block Willow Road, 12/8, 11:32 a.m.; robbery.Theft relatedFraud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Petty theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Residential burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Vehicle relatedAuto recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Auto theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Bicycle theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Driving w/ suspended license . . . . . . . 1Hit and run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Parking/driving violation . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Stolen catalytic converter . . . . . . . . . . 1Theft from auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Vehicle accident/minor injury . . . . . . . . 1Vehicle accident/no injury . . . . . . . . . . 1Vehicle tow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Alcohol or drug relatedDrunk in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Possession of drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Possession of paraphernalia . . . . . . . . 2MiscellaneousCourt order violation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Found property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Info. case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Mental evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Other/misc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Suspicious circumstances . . . . . . . . . . 1Vandalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Warrant arrest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

PulseA weekly compendium of vital statistics

A list of local residents who died recently:Ernest William Hancock, 93, a former faculty member of

Stanford University School of Medicine and a Palo Alto resident, died on Dec. 1. Robert Graeme Cormack, 79, a Palo Alto resident, died on Dec. 5.

To read full obituaries, leave remembrances and post photos, go to Lasting Memories at PaloAltoOnline.com/obituaries.

OBITUARIES

Lasting MemoriesAn online directory of obituaries and remembrances.Search obituaries, submit a memorial, share a photo.

Go to: www.PaloAltoOnline.com/obituaries

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I n the midst of COVID-19, our national turmoil and the positive Black Lives Matter

movement, Palo Alto has become embroiled in the issue of access to our beloved Foothills Park. As two City Council members who have been immersed in the details, we wanted to share what we’ve learned on the issue so that people are informed about what is actu-ally at stake when asked to sign the petition that is now circulating for a referendum.

Some view Foothills Park through a racial lens, and indeed some of Palo Alto’s history is similar to that of cities around us and across the country with the unconscionable race-based dis-crimination of those times. But in other important ways Palo Alto has been racially progressive over the decades, including being one of the very few Bay Area cities to oppose the rent discrimination of CA 1964 Prop 14; forming Midpen Citizens for Fair Housing, the first fair housing agency in the coun-try; and honoring Joseph Eichler, who required explicit inclusionary agreements at a time when few others did.

Yet while the historical perspec-tive is important, the legal argu-ments raised with Foothills Park in a lawsuit brought by ACLU and NAACP are based not on racial eq-uity, but instead on the U.S. Consti-tution’s First Amendment.

The decision of the ACLU and NAACP to emphasize a racial sto-ryline, which obscures the actual substance of their suit, has trig-gered two unfortunate reactions:

• First, while it rallied their sup-porters, the campaign also rallied many other people who simply don’t see Foothills Park as a segre-gationist issue and who feel insult-ed at being told they are racist. As we’ve seen across our nation, this kind of it-rallies-both-sides polar-ization hurts our capacity for prin-cipled and thoughtful discourse, even among reasonable people.

• Second, the Palo Alto commu-nity — among the most educated in the nation — is astute enough to doubt that a race-based legal case for Foothills Park admission would stick. Because the plaintiffs aggressively marketed their case on this basis, and not on the more substantial First Amendment con-stitutional aspect, many Palo Al-tans wrongly view the lawsuit as frivolous.

Both these things have helped spur the petition.

Let us therefore try to clarify the substance of the lawsuit.

The legal claim is that Foothills Park is subject to our federal First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly, overriding any Palo Alto ordinance. The argument is that even though the city owns the land, public parks, like public side-walks, are special common areas; and unlike private citizens’ prop-erty or even many other public fa-cilities, we can’t ban nonresidents from gathering there.

Although we have the right to manage the park, limit the number of visitors, charge fees and so forth, the suit asserts we can not discrim-inate on the basis of residence in allowing access. So while each case is unique, this issue would be the deciding factor; not race or other social-justice concerns.

The council discusses the de-tails of lawsuits in closed session with legal counsel, including out-side specialist counsel, in order to protect our ability to litigate without disclosing strategy to the opposing side. This is an impor-tant protection for residents, but is understandably frustrating to all involved.

We both initially voted for the pilot program and for placing the long-term question on the 2022 ballot for voters to decide. After we understood the First Amend-ment nature of the lawsuit, we both changed our view and voted

for the settlement.If the petition organizers collect

the 2,581 signatures needed, the settlement will be voided and the lawsuit proceeds. If the city wins the litigation, then we can do what we want.

If the city loses the litigation, then Palo Alto’s “residents-only” policy, including the pilot project, is struck down. A referendum be-comes meaningless; the park will be opened on terms determined in a federal court. The current settle-ment, which waives us paying the ACLU’s legal fees and allows a few things like residents’ prior-ity access to facilities like camp-grounds, would not apply.

In this outcome, the city may also be required to pay high plaintiffs’ attorneys’ costs. The ACLU and its private firm part-ner are currently working pro bono, but if they win the lawsuit, they will seek to recover their full legal expenses from Palo Alto. Those expenses would divert funds from already pandemic-challenged programs like the Children’s Theater, Youth Com-munity Services, public safety, and ironically, parks.

Those considering signing the petition should consider two im-portant factors:

• First, the petition does NOT actually give residents control over Foothills Park access via a referendum; instead it revives the

First Amendment lawsuit, which the city must first win before any referendum means anything. The petition is a high-stakes bet on that lawsuit, whose odds depend not on social justice or transparency, but on details of Constitutional First Amendment law.

• Second, the decision to place this bet will be made not by major-ity vote but by the 4% of residents (2,500 out of 67,000) who sign the petition. Those 4% will irrevers-ibly commit the other 96% of Palo Altans to this course. This places a significant responsibility on the 4%, and signers should understand the financial risk here.

The city has posted a sizable FAQ on its web site with answers to a number of questions, and the full terms of the settlement agree-ment are here.

Finally, let us end with a plea on a different but urgent matter. The COVID-19 situation is at a critical juncture. While we’ve all grown weary of it, we must renew our efforts to isolate in order to slow the transmission rate. Our health care system is at risk of being over-whelmed. Please do all you can to support the county and state direc-tives now in effect.

Tom DuBois and Eric Filseth are Palo Alto City Council members; DuBois also serves as vice mayor. They can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].

Palo Alto’s spirit of exclusionEditor,

We purchased our first home in Palo Alto in 1970. Up until 1965, that house and many oth-ers in the city had covenants for-bidding Asians to live there, and they had a hard time finding a place to live in Palo Alto at that time. Such was the era and spirit under which Foothills Park was made exclusionary. Now it is the only public park in California that excludes nonresidents. We used to RV around the U.S., and I can tell you that we never came across anything like that anywhere.

The Baylands and Arastradero parks are open to all and not trashed. Other local, regional, state and national parks are open to all. We do not need a “pilot program.” Palo Alto’s policy has been an

embarrassment to me personally and I suspect others, too.

I really appreciate the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP and individuals who took on this ugly remnant from the past. Thank you to the City Council for having the guts to do the right thing.

Leona McCabeDeSoto Drive, Palo Alto

Let’s turn the page on Foothills ParkEditor,

To settle a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP, Palo Alto advanced its plan last month to open Foothills Park to the general public. Now a petition is circulat-ing to reverse the 5-2 City Council vote. While I have long supported a more neighborly approach than the”residents only” restriction, I did not support this lawsuit. But

that lawsuit happened. Palo Alto was pilloried in the press over it with more than 25 local and na-tional news stories about this issue since June. The city had no choice but to respond to the lawsuit.

Now, a referendum petition drive asks residents to reverse the council vote and put it on the 2022 ballot. This will very likely force the litigation to proceed. As a for-mer mayor, previously tasked with balancing the interests of the city when faced with significant litiga-tion, I strongly believe the coun-cil’s action is sensible.

Signing a petition will plunge the city into costly litigation that it is likely to lose.

As the city attorney has ac-knowledged, no other municipal-ity in California “limits access to park land to residents and their guests.” Similar “resident-only” ordinances around the country have been successfully challenged as violations of First Amendment

rights to freely assembleLosing will probably cost the

city millions of dollars in plain-tiffs’ legal fees, plus our own costs of defense.

And, the city will lose the ben-efits of this compromise. The settlement ensures the city may give priority to residents for reser-vations and any future entry fees. It also preserves Palo Alto’s right to manage the park as we see fit.

Litigating against the NAACP and ACLU will be a public rela-tions nightmare. Every filing will be followed by regional and na-tional media, with an unfortunate glare placed on Palo Alto. Our reputation for inclusion and en-vironmental stewardship may be irreparably tarnished.

Let’s turn the page on this issue, take control of the narrative and move forward with as much local control as possible.

Leland LevyGreer Road, Palo Alto

SpectrumEditorials, letters and opinions

Guest Opinion

Letters

What you need to know about the Foothills Park referendumby Eric Filseth and Tom DuBois

Eric Filseth Tom DuBois

The Palo Alto Weekly encourages comments on our coverage or on issues of local interest. Submit letters to the editor of up to 300 words to [email protected]. Submit guest opinions of 950 words to [email protected]. Include your name, address and daytime phone number so we can reach you. We reserve the right to edit contributions for length, objectionable content, libel and factual errors known to us. Anonymous letters will generally not be accepted. Submitting a letter to the editor or guest opinion constitutes a granting of permission to the Palo Alto Weekly and Embarcadero Media to also publish it online, including in our online archives and as a post on Town Square. For more information, contact Editorial Assistant Lloyd Lee at [email protected] or 650-223-6526 or Editor Jocelyn Dong at [email protected].

WHAT DO YOU THINK?


or the past two decades, The Fabulous JewelTones have been crooning the hits of

yesteryear in multipart harmony, tickling pink Bay Area audiences big and small, sporting snazzy out-fits and helping to mark milestones with humor and heart.

“Because these are such great old songs, everyone’s smiling back at us, so it’s rewarding for both the singers and the audience,” said co-founder and Los Altos resi-dent Betsy Landergren. And while COVID-19 has put a stop to the group’s live shows, it can’t cramp its irrepressible style.

The Fabulous JewelTones were formed as a spinoff of sorts of Peninsula Women’s Chorus, out of a desire to get together and sing barbershop-quartet-style harmo-nies on a casual basis. In late 1999, they were surprised by a request from a Palo Alto preschool to per-form at a picnic.

“We discovered all the horrible things about singing outside, on a busy street corner, with little chil-dren — nobody heard us and it was probably just as well,” Landergren said with a laugh. Nevertheless, the group enjoyed the gig and over the next year officially became The Fabulous JewelTones, specializing in jazz and pop classics from the 1920s through the ‘50s. They could not have predicted then that they’d be going strong 20 years later.

A Fabulous JewelTones show isn’t just about the music, either. Landergren tailors each perfor-mance to the audience’s interests and creates individual scripts to fit the setting.

“I will interview them and dig

out all the dirt I can and weave their unique story into our songs,” Landergren explained. “Deanne (Tucker, the group’s musical direc-tor, also a Los Altan) helps put it to-gether in order and how we should sing it, and the story falls in line.”

The rest of the group dresses for the occasion as well, with an array of vintage and replica cloth-ing sourced from thrift stores and attics by a particularly fashionable JewelTone.

While they’ve performed for big crowds and at corporate gigs, their favorites are the intimate shows for special events such as birthdays and anniversaries.

In a recent interview, Tucker and Landergren reminisced about some of their most memorable shows over the years, including a surprise proposal on Stowe Lake in San Francisco.

“We all got Hawaiian shirts and leis and ukuleles and got in these paddle boats and hid in the reeds until they sailed by,” Landergren recalled. “One gal got down on her knees in the boat and all their friends jumped out of the bushes.” The proposal was, she noted, a success.

Another involved a lovelorn fellow trying to win back his girlfriend.

“I had to counsel him. I told him how he should dress; that he should have a rose,” Landergren said. “We sang ‘I Don’t Know Why I Love You Like I Do’ and ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find.’” And the result?

“She cried,” Landergren said. “As far as I know, it worked.”

Because of the vintage of the songs in their repertoire, the group

members have had many gratify-ing encounters at senior centers and assisted-living facilities.

“This is the music of their era. It takes them back to happy times when they were young,” Tucker said. Among the most poignant experiences have been at memo-ry-care units, where the residents appear at first unresponsive to the outside world.

“When we start to sing a song that they remember, you can see their fingers starting to move, toes starting to tap,” Landergren said. “Oh man — that’s something to know they’re still there and we can do something for them that they can enjoy.”

With membership hovering pret-ty steadily at around 10 members (with current virtual conditions allowing some who’ve moved out of the Peninsula to stay involved, boosting the group’s numbers by a few), The Fabulous JewelTones function as a collaborative, with everyone having a say and each sharing their unique skills and talents.

Since being unable to sing to-gether in person, the JewelTones have celebrated their 20th anni-versary by releasing three music videos, including one that directly addresses the current situation.

“Bye Bye Corona Blues,” is

an original humorous ode to life during the pandemic, in which pajama-clad singers describe life stuck at home (and for those who want to sing along, the lyrics help-fully bounce along with the aid of an image of a coronavirus spore in lieu of the traditional bouncing ball). Landergren wrote the words and Tucker handled the arduous — but gratifying — task of blending everyone’s individual tracks.

“The process for making a vir-tual choir video, I really enjoy it because it involves both audio and video skills,” she said. She pre-pares a backing track, including singing all four to five harmony vocal parts as a guide, then layers in each member’s vocal tracks one by one, adjusting effects and vol-ume as she goes along.

“It’s up to the group to decide what the video will be. They have to put on their costume, get their lighting set up, play the audio and record themselves singing along with it, then I strip off the audio and match it and arrange them in the scene in order,” she explained.

For “Bye Bye Corona Blues,” one artistic member created a claymation scene, while the “token male” and piano player/arranger Terry Weissman also helped with computer animation and juggling — a multi-talented crew.

In fact, the members come from a diverse background. Tucker is a retired NASA engineer, while Landergren is a former flight at-tendant and book columnist.

“We’ve had a physician, a pre-school teacher, piano teachers, several computer nerds, molecu-lar biologist, pastry chef, potter. We have a little bit of everything,” Landergren said. “Many of us are retired. Our claim to fame now is we always come with a golden guarantee. No song that we sing is younger than half a cen-tury — much like the JewelTones themselves.”

The newest video is the Jewel-Tones’ take on Cole Porter’s 1943 tune “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To,” a wistful wish for bet-ter times to come, just released this week and featuring glimpses of beloved pets, yummy treats, local scenes and happy gatherings inter-spersed with the singers.

“Here we are stuck in our CO-VID jails. Wouldn’t it be nice for someone to come home for the holidays?” Landergren said. “Well, we can’t do it now but we can do it virtually.”

More information is available at jeweltones.org.

Email Arts & Entertainment Editor Karla Kane at [email protected]

A weekly guide to music, theater, art, culture, books and more, edited by Karla KaneArts & Entertainment

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Peninsula singing group The Fabulous JewelTones have been entertaining audiences for 20 years, specializing in classics from the 1920s through the ’50s.

Peninsula singing group offersThe Fabulous JewelTones mix 20 years

of retro style and harmony with oh-so-modern tech know-how

by Karla Kane

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The Fabulous JewelTones were formed as a spinoff of Peninsula Women’s Chorus.Page 24 • December 11, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com


Answers to this week’s puzzles, which can be found on page 31.


T his holiday season, it’s more essential than ever to take the shop local ethos serious-

ly. Local restaurants and business-es are looking down the barrel of a tough month — after eight already incredibly tough months — with the state’s new stay-at-home order temporarily banning outdoor din-ing and requiring residents to stay at home as much as possible.

Here are 17 ideas for locally made food-and-drink gifts, from handmade pasta and Filipino sweets to virtual cooking classes and a cocktail book authored by a local beverage director, proceeds of which will be donated to bar staff impacted by the shutdown. All of these gifts kill two birds with one stone: treat someone you care about while supporting a local business.

And if you’re at a loss, a gift card to your favorite restaurant, or a donation to the 86Fund for strug-gling Bay Area eateries at 86fund.org — or a subscription to your local newspaper, at almanacnews.com/user/subscribe/ — will always make for an excellent gift with meaningful impact.

The Midwife and the Baker panettone

Mountain View’s The Midwife and the Baker is making its own, naturally leavened version of pa-nettone, the Italian holiday staple. It’s flavored with orange zest, can-died orange and lemon peel, can-died lemon peel and raisins. Pre-order online by Dec. 19 for pickup Dec. 22-24, or look for panettone and other holiday specials at the bakery’s local farmers market stands throughout December. (Pa-nettone bonus: This one isn’t on the Peninsula, but you can get it deliv-ered here and it’s just too good to not share: a gelato-filled panettone from Gio Gelati in San Francisco.) Visit themidwifeandthebaker.com/.

El Merkat paella kitSend a loved one to Spain (sor-

ta) via a paella kit from Telefèric Barcelona’s next-door market, El Merkat, in Palo Alto. The kits come with a paella pan, extra vir-gin olive oil, Santo Tomas bomba

rice, homemade sofrito and paella seasoning. There are two sizes available, one for two people and another for four. While you’re at it, treat yourself with some imported Jamón ibérico, tinned fishes and anchovy-stuffed olives for a holi-day tapas platter. Order online at telefericbarcelona.square.site or visit El Market at 855 El Camino Real #130, Palo Alto. Open Mon-day-Friday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Prolific Oven cake kits

Palo Alto’s beloved The Prolific Oven has revived its cake kits for the holidays: all the ingredients to make the bakery’s popular choco-late cake, poppyseed cake and rum cream cheese frosting are available for local pickup and delivery. Order at the-prolific-oven.square.site.

Fenn CoffeeGive the gift of small-batch

roasted coffee beans, jarred cold brew or double espresso shots from Fenn Coffee, founded by Menlo Park triathlete and coffee obsessive Max Fennell. He sources beans from fair trade, and when possible, organic and women-owned, farms around the world. Order online or look for Fenn Coffee at local gro-cery stores including The Willows Market in Menlo Park, Bianchini’s Market in Portola Valley, Deluc-chi’s Market in Redwood City, The Market at Edgewood in Palo Alto, and Burlingame Market in Burlin-game. Online at fenncoffee.com.

BackAYard Caribbean Grill jerk sauces

BackAYard sells bottles of its jerk sauces, which come in origi-nal, hot mango, “hell fire” and sweet BBQ flavors. The sauces are available for purchase at BackAYard restaurants in Menlo Park, San Jose and Campbell; call your preferred location di-rectly to purchase. Their website is backayard.net.

Local honeyThere are numerous options

for locally made honey, includ-ing NFO Bee Co (nfobeeco.com).

and Allied Arts Apiaries in Menlo Park (on Instagram under the same name), State Street Honey in Redwood City (statestreethoney.com/rwc), Dave’s Backyard Bees in Palo Alto and Los Altos Hills (nextdoor.com/pages/daves-back-yard-bees-palo-alto-ca/photos/) and Bay Area Bees in San Mateo (pcfma.org/vendors/bay-area-bees-san-mateo).

Local wineLook to the Penin-

sula’s small, indepen-dent wineries for bottles, wine club subscriptions and virtual tastings as gifts. Find a list to get you started at winesofthesanta-cruzmountains.com/wineries. Or, support a local wine shop with a gift card — our favorites include Vin Vino Wine and Sal-vaje in Palo Alto, Vineyard Gate in Millbrae and Table Wine Mer-chant in Pacifica.

Vina Mercato fresh pasta and sauces

Vina Enoteca’s new Italian market, Vina Mercato, is stocked with edible gift possibilities, from imported olive oil to wine, but the fresh, handmade pastas and sauces — tortellini filled with prosciutto, parmigiana, mortadella and pork loin, any-one? — might be the most al-luring. You can also opt for pre-selected gift boxes filled with wine, Baiocchi cookies, Bomba calabrese spread and other Italian goodies. Order online at vinae-noteca.com or visit the market at 700 Welch Road #110, Palo Alto. Open Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

‘Cocktails for Home: Sheltered in Place’

Eusebio Pozos-Reyes, bever-age director at San Agus Cocina Urbana & Cocktails in Palo Alto, authored this book to guide the home mixologist with ideas and recipes. A portion of the proceeds will be donated back to local in-dustry bar staff impacted by the COVID-19 closures. “Cocktails

for Home” is available at local bookstores, including Books Inc and Kepler’s Books.

Donato Enoteca cooking class

If you give a friend or fam-ily member one of Redwood City Italian favorite Donato Enoteca’s virtual cooking classes, consider getting one for yourself so you can cook together, but apart. Learn how to make agnolotti del plin, pasta carbonara, cacio e pepe and zuppa di pesce in upcoming classes (which also happen to be on sale right now). Place order for pickup by the day before the class or for shipping by at least three days be-fore. To learn more visit donatoon-linestore.com/collections/cooking-wine-tasting-virtual-classes.

Local Lady LarderPeruse As Kneaded Bakery’s on-

line Local Lady Larder (asknead-edbakery.square.site/local-lady-larder) for gift ideas from local, women-owned food businesses, like truffles and milk tea brittle

from NeoCocoa in Belmont, slow-roasted honey-sesame cashews from Nuts+Nuts in San Mateo and raspberry meringues from Dé-lice Glacé in Redwood City. As Kneaded is run by Palo Alto na-tive Iliana Berkowitz; her bread is available at grocery stores throughout the Peninsula (find a list at askneadedbakery.com/wheretofindus) and would also make for a great edible gift.

Iacopi Farms heirloom beans

The local answer to cult-bean-favorite Rancho Gordo: Iacopi Farms. The Half Moon Bay farm makes some of the highest qual-ity heirloom legumes, from Ital-ian butter beans to Prim Man-teca, a variety from Chile. Order online at tinyurl.com/hmbbeans or pick up a couple bags of dried beans from Iacopi’s stands at local farmers markets (includ-ing Mountain View and Burlin-game on Sundays and College of

By Elena Kadvany

EEaating Outting OutGIFT GUIDE

THE PENINSULA’SULA’S

Above: El Merkat at Telefèric Barcelona’s gourmet paella kit serves four people and contains paella seasoning, sofrito mix, piquillo peppers, Bomba rice, paprika, Spanish virgin olive oil and a paella recipe. Top: Eusebio Pozos, San Agus Cocina Urbana & Cocktails beverage director, uses epazote syrup and Nixta Licor de Elote to recreate the smells of a Mexico City market in the Central de Abastos in Palo Alto. Photo by Magali Gauthier.


iaries in Menloam under theStreet Honey in atestreethoney.Backyard Bees Los Altos Hills es/daves-back-kklto-ay n /

n-pen-bottles, wine

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Give your parents a gift that helps them live better in their own home… A Gift

Membership in Avenidas Village!

An Avenidas Village membership provides peace of mind for you and a community of support and resources for your loved ones to help them stay independent and secure. They will enjoy joining a network of active seniors sharing resources for handling life’s transitions.Act now to support the independent path your parents

info or to purchase, visit www.AvenidasVillage.org/gift or call (650) 289-5405 today! Redeem by 12/31/20 to lock in lower 2020 rates.

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An inventory of 300,000 volumes spanning hundreds of years awaits you. With free giftwrap and local delivery, we make it easy for you. Call today!

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Noodle in a Haystack mala sauce

During the shutdown, Clint and Yoko Tan, the masterminds behind Daly City ramen pop-up Noodle in a Haystack, started selling their wonderfully spicy mala sauce, which they like to describe as a hybrid of chili oil and Chinese XO sauce that can be used like a hot sauce or for cooking. It’s a blend of several kinds of chile, Szechuan pepper, kelp, hemp, tamari smoked fish, garlic, scallion and sesame. The mala sauce, as well as their “vejigrette” (a vegan and gluten-free salad dressing made from carrots, sweet peppers, onions, olives, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar) are available through Fishmonger Don’s website, fishmongerdon.com. Do also follow Noodle in a Haystack on Instagram (instagram.com/noodleinhaystack), where the couple posts when they’re selling Yoko’s pillowy Japanese milk bread and other homemade goods.

Binka Bites bibingk

I’d gladly wake up to a box of Binka Bites’ bibingka on my doorstep any day. The South San Francisco bakery’s coconut and rice flour cupcakes are inspired by Filipino bibingka, a baked rice cake, and come in flavors like ube flan (topped with ube cream cheese frosting and leche flan) and mango cream (filled with mango and topped with vanilla whipped cream frosting and graham cracker crumbs). Order online at binkabites.com for pickup or delivery. For pickup, orders must be placed at least three days prior to your requested date.

Gourmet Haus Staudt imported German goods

Gourmet Haus Staudt’s Redwood City market is full of gift-friendly German and European goods, from Spätzle mixes, bratwurst and Milka chocolate bars to rum stollen. Plus, of course, an excellent imported and local beer selection. The store is at 2615 Broadway St., Redwood City. Open Monday noon to 6 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. Online at gourmethausstaudt.com.

Romolo’s cannoli kit

Romolo’s has been making stellar cannoli in San Mateo since 1968 using a secret fam-ily recipe. Sigona’s is partnering with the family-owned busi-ness to offer cannoli kits for the holidays. It comes with three plain and three chocolate can-noli shells, garnishes (chocolate chips, chopped pistachios and glazed cherries) and cream to fill the cannoli. The kit has about a two-week shelf life. You can send it to someone through Si-gona’s home delivery platform; order at sigonashome.com/shop/product/romolos-cannoli-kit/.

A local CSA box subscription

Give a friend the gift of fresh produce — and support a local farm — with a community supported agriculture (CSA) box subscription. Oya Organic Farm, which is based in Hollister but run by a Palo Alto resident, offers boxes with seven to nine different varieties of organic produce available for local pickup on a weekly or monthly basis. Or, gift your entire neighborhood by teaming up for a CSA box pickup — if you have at

least five people interested in picking up at your house or workplace, reach out to the farm.

Or, check out Luna Vez Farm, whose CSA boxes feature rotat-ing, seasonal produce from the Los Altos Hills farm as well as lesser known farms run by peo-ple of color. For the holidays, Luna Vez is also making chili wreaths and preserves baskets

with locally made jam, salsa, marinara, canned tomatoes and honey. Delivery is available for Los Altos and Los Altos Hills residents; others can pick up boxes at the farm on Wednes-days. People interested in pur-chasing the CSA boxes or other items can email [email protected].

Email Elena Kadvany at [email protected]

Edible gift guide(continued from page 26)

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Tarun Marya, owner of Luna Vez Farm in Los Altos Hills, pulls a Korean radish from a vegetable bed.


997 All Other LegalsORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA Case No.: 20CV372765 TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner: Aren Leon Zhang filed a petition with this court for a decree changing names as follows: Aren Leon Zhang to Aaron Steve Zhang. THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing. NOTICE OF HEARING: January 5, 2021, 8:45 a.m., Room: Probate of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, 191 N. First Street, San Jose, CA 95113. A copy of this ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE shall be published at least once each week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing on the petition in the following newspaper of general circulation, printed in this county: PALO ALTO WEEKLY. Date: November 10, 2020 Julie A. Emede JUDGE OF THE SUPERIOR COURT (PAW Nov. 27; Dec. 4, 11, 18, 2020)

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: RUNHSIANG YANG Case No.: 20PR188955 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of RUNHSIANG YANG. A Petition for Probate has been filed by: JUNEKANG YANG in the Superior Court of California, County of SANTA CLARA. The Petition for Probate requests that: JUNEKANG YANG be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A HEARING on the petition will be held on January 6, 2021 at 9:01 a.m. in Dept.: 13 of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, located at 191 N. First St., San Jose, CA, 95113. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58 (b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority

may affect your rights as a creditor. You

may want to consult with an attorney

knowledgeable in California law.

You may examine the file kept by the

court. If you are a person interested in

the estate, you may file with the court a

Request for Special Notice (form DE-154)

of the filing of an inventory and appraisal

of estate assets or of any petition or

account as provided in Probate Code

section 1250. A Request for Special Notice

form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner:

Shirley Tam

111 North Market Street, Ste. 300

San Jose, CA 95113

(408) 977-7766

(PAW Nov. 27; Dec. 4, 11, 2020)

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER

ESTATE OF:

PATRICIA K. KLEIN

Case No.: 20PR188709

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors,

contingent creditors, and persons who

may otherwise be interested in the will or

estate, or both, of PATRICIA K. KLEIN.

A Petition for Probate has been filed by:

CRAIG O. KLEIN in the Superior Court of

California, County of SANTA CLARA.

The Petition for Probate requests that:

CRAIG O. KLEIN be appointed as personal

representative to administer the estate of

the decedent.

The petition requests the decedent’s

will and codicils, if any, be admitted to

probate. The will and any codicils are

available for examination in the file kept

by the court.

The petition requests authority to

administer the estate under the

Independent Administration of Estates

Act. (This authority will allow the personal

representative to take many actions

without obtaining court approval. Before

taking certain very important actions,

however, the personal representative will

be required to give notice to interested

persons unless they have waived notice

or consented to the proposed action.) The

independent administration authority will

be granted unless an interested person

files an objection to the petition and

shows good cause why the court should

not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held on

January 14, 2021 at 9:01 a.m. in Dept.: 13

of the Superior Court of California, County

of Santa Clara, located at 191 N. First St.,

San Jose, CA, 95113.

If you object to the granting of the

petition, you should appear at the

hearing and state your objections or file

written objections with the court before

the hearing. Your appearance may be in

person or by your attorney.

If you are a creditor or a contingent

creditor of the decedent, you must file

your claim with the court and mail a copy

to the personal representative appointed

by the court within the later of either

(1) four months from the date of first

issuance of letters to a general personal

representative, as defined in section 58 (b)

of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60

days from the date of mailing or personal

delivery to you of a notice under section

9052 of the California Probate Code. Other

California statutes and legal authority

may affect your rights as a creditor. You

may want to consult with an attorney

knowledgeable in California law.

You may examine the file kept by the

court. If you are a person interested in

the estate, you may file with the court a

Request for Special Notice (form DE-154)

of the filing of an inventory and appraisal

of estate assets or of any petition or

account as provided in Probate Code

section 1250. A Request for Special Notice

form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner:

Katherine Efting

438 South Murphy Avenue

Sunnyvale, CA 94086-6114

(408) 732-3114

(PAW Dec. 11, 18, 25, 2020)

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Los Gatos Office663 Blossom Hill Rd

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Lic. #01917593

21 Willow Road Unit #44, Menlo ParkOffered at $1,225,000

Barbara Telesco Curley

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Lic. #01837664

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6 Friars Lane, WoodsideOffered at $4,800,000

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Carolyn Aarts KeddingtonRealtor®

650.946.8122 [email protected] 01490400

Compass is a real estate broker licensed by the State of California and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. License Number 01527235. All material presented herein is intended for informational purposes only and is compiled from sources deemed reliable

accuracy of any description. All measurements and square footage are approximate.

Experience. Integrity. Knowledge.

Home has never been more important.

Helping buyers and sellers navigate their real estate needs during these challenging times.

Across

1 “Breaking Bad” sidekick

6 Written test format

11 Some mainframe computers

15 Follow, as an impulse

16 Pleas

18 QUESTION, PART 1

20 Cry bitterly

21 Blows away

22 ___ St. Soul (U.K. R&B/soul group)

23 Controversial ride-sharing app

25 Fall back, as a tide

26 ASPCA part

29 QUESTION, PART 2

34 “Forrest Gump” actor Gary

35 “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for ___” (1985 best-seller)

36 “Laugh-In” comedian Johnson

37 Like many indie films

38 “Buon giorno,” in Brisbane

39 Go over the limit

40 Green Day, e.g.

41 “Sorry if ___ you down”

42 NBA team formerly from Minneapolis

43 QUESTION, PART 3

46 Charlemagne’s realm, for short

47 Device program

48 Cranberry sources

49 Greek letter after zeta

50 “Battlefield Earth” author Hubbard

52 Director Van Sant

55 ANSWER TO THE QUESTION

61 Closest to the ground, stature-wise

62 Otherworldly

63 Mgr.’s helper

64 Creator of Yertle the Turtle

65 Laundry cycle

Down

1 Movie score with a famous two-note motif

2 Bounce back

3 Aimless attempt

4 Imbiber

5 Grind to a halt

6 Milne’s mopey donkey

7 Flaky precipitation

8 Comedians Gilliam and Goldsmith, for two

9 Rainbow shape

10 “While that might be true ...”

11 “___ be here soon”

12 Took the bait

13 “I really don’t care”

14 157.5 degrees from N

17 It’s a likely story

19 “You ___ one”

23 Sleep aid brand

24 Like a shopping mall on Black Friday, ordinarily

25 Online selling site

26 Wall, for one

27 Playful aquatic animals

28 Dated term for college students

29 Site for reflection?

30 Prompt

31 Corvair investigator Ralph

32 “They went ___-way”

33 Actress Lauren of 2020’s “The Wrong Missy”

34 Louis Armstrong’s nickname

38 Unidentifiable cafeteria food

39 Did some karaoke

41 Repercussions

42 “Ghost Town” actress Tea

44 Irritate

45 Fastening bars shaped like letters

49 Louisiana, to Louis

50 In ___ of (replacing)

51 Monica Geller’s brother

52 Jack-o’-lantern look

53 College team from Salt Lake City

54 “Auld Lang ___”

55 “Don’t text and drive” ad, for short

56 Acuity measures that don’t really matter

57 Questionable, in “Among Us,” slangily

58 Hustle, quaintly

59 High-jump hurdle

60 Peyton’s sibling

©2020 Jonesin’ Crosswords ([email protected])

Answers on page 25.

“Shell Game”--maybe that’s why it’s green. By Matt Jones

9 7 5 14 7 9 53 8 4 7

7 5 6 38

3 9 7 45 4 9 39 3 4 6

4 2 8 9Answers on page 25. www.sudoku.name

This week’s SUDOKU

with a gift to the Palo Alto Weekly

Holiday Fund Drive.

Support our Kids

Donate online at PaloAltoOnline.com/holiday_fund


The property information herein is derived from various sources that may include, but not be limited to, county records and the Multiple Listing Service, and it may include approximations. Although the information is believed to be accurate, it is not warranted and you should not rely upon it without personal verifi cation. Real estate agents affi liated with Coldwell

Banker Realty and Coldwell Banker Devonshire are independent contractor sales associates, not employees. ©2020 Coldwell Banker. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker and the Coldwell Banker logos are trademarks of Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. The Coldwell Banker®

System is comprised of company owned offi ces which are owned by a subsidiary

of Realogy Brokerage Group LLC and franchised offi ces which are independently owned and operated. The Coldwell Banker System fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act.

ColdwellBankerHomes.com guiding you home since 1906

REDWOOD CITY | $2,200,000

3968 Lonesome Pine Rd is a 4br/3ba split-level w/expansive views of the Bay & Peninsula. Large windows bring the outdoors inside & provide an abundance of natural light. The renovated kitchen, master & hall baths feature

modern details & the fl exible downstairs offers a full bath, spacious bedroom & large family room. Enjoy a terraced yard w/rock-lined fl ower beds, stone paths, vegetable beds & fruit trees.

Michele Morhenn650.471.9066

[email protected]

CalRE #02006379

SUNNYVALE | $2,198,000

Quintessential California, mid-century modern Eichler home. Four bedrooms, two with en suite

baths, plus an offi ce, atrium and a pool.

Teri Woolworth650.996.1077

[email protected]

CalRE #01311430

SAN RAMON | Price Upon Request

4br/2ba updated ranch home on large corner lot. Formal dining room, wet bar, family room w/FP &

built-in shelving. Zen-like, landscaped backyard.

Michelle Lewis925.785.4358

[email protected]

CalRE #01997405

MOUNTAIN VIEW | $874,900

49ShowersA238.com. Meticulously maintained and upgraded 1br/1ba unit in the much-desired Old

Mill complex. Enjoy the updated kitchen & bath, balcony, FP & 2 pool areas.

Francis Rolland650.224.4817

[email protected]

CalRE #00896319

CITRUS HEIGHTS | Price Upon RequestRare home in a country setting in the city features grand

living spaces and good sized secondary bedrooms.

Julie Rees916.622.7337

[email protected]

CalRE #01335546

LOS ALTOS | $929,000Wonderful, updated, one level condo on a quiet, tree-lined

street in downtown Los Altos. Private deck.

Cindy Mattison650.279.7122

[email protected]

CalRE #01052018