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Palo Alto man dies after backward fall from skateboard Services to be held this weekend for Tim Sullivan, 20, a Gunn graduate and student in Santa Cruz by Chris Kenrick
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ervices will be held this weekend for 20-year-old Timothy Sullivan, a lifelong Palo Altan, who was pronounced brain dead Monday after he sustained head injuries in a skateboarding accident in Capitola early Sunday. “For us as parents, it’s the middle-of-the-night call we all dread,” his mother, Sherry Cassedy said of the predawn phone call that notified them of the accident, involving a backward fall off a skateboard while Sullivan was returning from a party. Sullivan, a sophomore at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a 2008 graduate of Gunn High School, remained on life support at Valley Medical Center in San Jose until Wednesday night, when doctors removed his healthy organs for waiting recipients. “He’s a young, vibrant healthy body from the neck down and, hopefully, his healthy body will allow others to sustain their lives and he will live on in those people,” Cassedy said Monday. Cassedy and Sullivan’s father, Matt Sullivan, spoke in an interview in the back yard of their Maureen Avenue home, where Tim grew up and attended Fairmeadow Elementary, Jordan Middle and Gunn High schools. Sullivan was taking upper-level math and German courses at Santa Cruz and had just learned he had been accepted to study at the Free University of Berlin next fall, his mother said. “He was so excited about it. He was trying to get his German to the level where he could study and take classes in German in Berlin.” Sullivan was an athlete, having played soccer and baseball at Gunn. He loved skateboarding, Hacky Sack, surfing and “just playing, just
being out in the world,” his mother said. “He was just a very fun-loving, open-hearted person.” Cassedy and Sullivan had visited with Tim, the youngest of their three children, Saturday evening at his home in Santa Cruz. “We spend some time in Santa Cruz since he’s been Timothy Sullivan there, and we stopped by their little house to say hi and chatted for a few minutes,” Cassedy said. “We went off to the movies, and they went off to a party later on. “I think we’ve really instilled the message that you don’t drink and drive, so if you’re going to a party you don’t drive,” she said. Sullivan’s roommate was on a bicycle and Sullivan on his skateboard, without a helmet, when the accident occurred around 3 a.m. Sunday, she said. “He had just come down a hill in Capitola and was moving pretty fast when the board came out from under him. He fell backwards and hit hard on the back of his head,” Cassedy said. He was airlifted to Valley Medical Center. His roommate called Cassedy and Sullivan, who drove to the medical center, arriving at about the same time as their son. “From the first consultation we had with the emergency doctor, the trauma doctor, he was not optimistic about Timmy’s survival at all,” Cassedy said. Sullivan never regained consciousness, his mother said.
“You dodge so many bullets during your parenting years where they survive a near miss,” said Cassedy, a longtime family lawyer and mediator in Palo Alto. “I think we just feel really blessed to have had 20 years with him, and that’s what we want to really hold onto and focus on. “Sometimes you can sit and talk about it rationally, and then that all goes out the window and you’re hanging on by your fingernails and it shifts again. “We’re just putting one foot in front of another until we can move into a future that until now seemed unimaginable.” Cassedy and Sullivan said they hope to meet the recipients of their son’s organs. The donation process is anonymous unless both recipients and donor families choose to meet. The family plans a memorial mass today, Friday, at 7 p.m. at Our Lady of the Rosary Church, 3233 Cowper St. A celebration of life will be held Saturday at the amphitheater at Gunn High School, 780 Arastradero Road. Family and friends are invited to gather at 2:30 p.m., with eulogies beginning about 3:30 p.m. and ending by 6 p.m. In addition to his parents, Sullivan is survived by his brother, Tyler, of Santa Cruz; his sister, Cassedy, of Portland; his grandmothers, Alma Sullivan of Woodside and Paddy Cassedy of San Jose; and many aunts, uncles and cousins. Rather than flowers, the Sullivan family asks that memorial contributions be made to the Timothy Sullivan Legacy Fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, 2440 West El Camino Real, Suite 300, Mountain View, CA 94040. N Staff Writer Chris Kenrick can be e-mailed at ckenrick@paweekly.com.
Principals
included developing and monitor ing the school budget, coo r d i n a t i ng campus supervisors, d is c ipl i ne, field trips, special testing arrangeKatya Villalobos ments, supervising substitute teachers, monitoring attendance and tracking textbooks. Thursday’s announcement takes Skelly a step further in replacing top leadership that have announced departures from the financially stressed school district. The school board earlier this week confirmed the appointments of Anne Brown and Katherine Baker,
who replace retiring principals Lupe Garcia of Palo Verde Elementary School and Ca r men Giedt of Terman Middle School, respectively. Phil Winston Also departing in June are Assistant Superintendent Linda Common, Director of Student Services Carol Zepecki, Secondary Education Director Burton Cohen, Curriculum Services Coordinator Barbara Lancon and Paly Assistant Principal Todd Feinberg. N Staff Writer Chris Kenrick can be e-mailed at ckenrick@paweekly.com.
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“I’d say my dad was my first history teacher. We were always playing games and having conversations relating to history. History is part of me — it’s who I am.” Winston began his teaching career in the Milpitas Unified School District where he taught for six years. In 2005 he joined the Palo Alto district as a teacher at JLS Middle School. In 2006 he was named dean of students at Gunn, becoming an assistant principal in 2007. Winston received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from California State University, Hayward, and a master’s in special education and a master’s in educational administration from Santa Clara University. Winston’s duties at Gunn have
ity, according to Glenn Roberts, the city’s public works director. How much responsibility, financially or legally, that a homeowner would take on is still uncertain, Roberts said. “Some cities do 50-50; some do 100 percent,” he said. If Palo Alto requires a property owner to cover 100 percent of costs, the owner could receive a notice directing them to hire a contractor. In a 50-50 agreement, the city might bill the owner for half the costs, he said. Roberts said the city pays $3 per square foot on average for sidewalk repair. A typical replacement area is 40 to 50 square feet, he said. But he cautioned the $3 price is a discounted rate to the city as part of a large contract. The average consumer price to replace a segment of the sidewalk, excluding permit costs, is $1,250, according to Dennis Turchet, owner of Peninsula Concrete Contractors, Inc. in Redwood City. Additional permit fees vary from about $250 to $350, according to Palo Alto concrete contractor Mick Pellizzari of A. Pellizzari & Co. Inc. Sidewalk liability could also be a sticking point for many property owners, although homeowners’ insurance usually covers it, Roberts said. In January, the city paid $24,000 to resident Paula Goldberg after she tripped over a buckling slab of concrete on Waverley Street in 2006 and tore a ligament in her thumb. City Attorney Gary Baum said the city has paid $50,000 to $350,000 a year for sidewalk-related injuries in the last six years.
The budget proposal does not include a transfer of liability to property owners, but that could change. A possible transfer has been discussed internally by city staff, Baum said. Some residents said transferring sidewalk maintenance to homeowners is a bad idea. Kay Schauer said the majority of sidewalk damage she and her husband encounter during their daily walks is caused by roots from city trees. Schauer said it would be unfair to have to pay for the city-caused damage if the crack washes out and breaks up the pavement. But cosmetic repairs are another matter. When someone wants to match the color of the rest of the sidewalk or to raise the pavement to the level of their driveway, the city should not be responsible, she said. “Years ago City Council adopted a wonderful goal for a very high percentage of 50 percent shade on roads and parking areas ... and committed the resources to achieve that goal,” said Trish Mulvey, a former steering committee member for the San Francisquito Creek Watershed Council. “The proposal that sidewalk repair costs be shifted to residents will inevitably lead to a loss of our urban forest as individual property owners opt to remove trees in lieu of maintenance costs — our own short-sighted ‘tragedy of the commons,’” she said. The City of Palo Alto will hold a community meeting on proposed budget cuts on May 15 at 9:30 a .m. at Lucie Stern Community Center, 1305 Middlefield Road.N Staff Writer Sue Dremann can be e-mailed at sdremann@ paweekly.com.
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