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Local news, information and analysis
Palo Alto fires back against union’s complaint City claims firefighters’ effort to keep labor reform off ballot is ‘neither just nor proper’ by Gennady Sheyner alo Alto’s heated standoff with the city’s firefighters union spilled over from the negotiating table to the court system this week, with the city firing back against the union’s effort to keep labor reform off the November ballot. The firefighters union, Interna-
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tional Association of Fire Fighters, Local 1319, last week filed an “unfair practice charge” with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), claiming that the City Council acted illegally by not consulting the union before placing a repeal of the bindingarbitration provision in the City Char-
ter on this November’s ballot. The city fired back Tuesday by asking the court to toss out the firefighters’ request and accusing the union of attempting “to rush through an order blocking the Council’s Constitutional prerogative and stripping franchise rights from 60,000 Palo Alto citizens.” At stake in this dispute is a ballot measure that, if passed by the voters, would repeal a provision in the City Charter that empowers a three-member panel to settle stalemated labor
disputes between city management and public-safety unions. After more than a year of discussion and analysis, the council voted 5-4 on July 18 to place the repeal measure on the Nov. 8 ballot. The council’s previous effort failed 4-5 in August 2010. The firefighters filed a complaint with the labor-relations board on July 28 accusing the city of failing and refusing to provide unions with “reasonable time and opportunity to meet and discuss the aforesaid ballot measure”
and to consider alternative proposals from the unions. The firefighters’ complaint seeks an injunction that would keep the binding-arbitration repeal off the ballot. In her opposition brief, City Attorney Molly Stump cited several cases in which the courts found that cities are not required to meet and confer with unions on issues of binding arbitration. She also pointed out that (continued on page 10)
EDUCATION
Orthodox Jewish girls school opens in Palo Alto Inaugural ninth-grade class will study Jewish texts along with math, science, humanities by Chris Kenrick he opening of a small high school for Orthodox Jewish girls in Palo Alto this fall reflects the growth of the Orthodox community in Silicon Valley, school founders say. Meira Academy — named for the Hebrew word “light” — will open its doors on Middlefield Road with eight ninth-graders later this month. Dressed in navy pleated skirts and blue, white or blue and white striped blouses, girls will spend mornings studying Jewish texts, Hebrew, Jewish history, ethics and the role of women in Judaism. Afternoons — stretching until 5:30 p.m. — will bring classes in math, science, history, language arts, computer science, visual and performing arts and gym. The new school aims to produce graduates qualified for admission to any U.S. college or for postsecondary Jewish education, typically in Israel, said Principal Penina Noy, herself the product of an Israeli education. The school has no formal link to any local synagogue, but caters to families seeking a “rigorous Jewish education” for their daughters, said Rabbi Joey Felsen, president of the school’s board and executive director of the Palo Alto-based Jewish Study Network. Until now, such families would have to move, or send their daughters away to board at small schools in places like Los Angeles or Denver, said Felsen, whose oldest daughter boards at a girls school in Denver.
T Veronica Weber
Enjoying the lazy days of summer Scott Robinson, a cancer patient at the Palo Alto Veterans Health Administration hospital, relaxes beside Boronda Lake while working on a crossword puzzle. Robinson commutes for treatment from Dorrington, Calif., in the western Sierras, and can be found at the lake a few days a week.
ECONOMY
Valley entrepreneurs share job-creation ideas Welcome entrepreneurial immigrants, transform schools, get more engineers, panelists say by Chris Kenrick o create jobs America must welcome entrepreneurial immigrants, transform education and get more students to choose engineering, leading Silicon Valley entrepreneurs said Tuesday (Aug. 2). AOL co-founder and former CEO Steve Case, venture capitalist John Doerr, Netflix founder and chair-
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man Reed Hastings and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg shared their job-creation ideas at a “listening and action session” convened in Palo Alto by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The session drew about 150 local business people to the Stanford
Research Park campus of VMware, a virtualization software company that has quadrupled its local workforce in the past four years. Panelists stressed the job-creating potential of educated immigrants and the job-multiplying effects of companies they launch. A quarter of venture-backed startups between 1995 and 2005 had at least one immigrant among its founders — accounting for billions in capital valuation and tens or hundreds of thousands of jobs, said White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, also a member of the panel. Panelists said they welcomed reforms announced by the Obama administration Tuesday to clear visa red tape for so-called “immigrant
founders” as well as for “immigrant investors” — people willing to invest at least $1 million and create at least 10 new jobs. In the “global war for talent,” America can’t afford to wait for comprehensive immigration reform but must hasten “entrepreneurship reform” to slash barriers for immigrants who will create jobs now, Case said. Allowing the right immigrants to work here creates jobs, rather than taking them away, said Sandberg, telling of a Spanish-born Facebook executive who has led the firm’s internationalization initiatives. Had the employee not recently “won the lottery” for an H1B visa (continued on page 10)
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