Upfront
Local news, information and analysis
Plan to revitalize Edgewood Plaza moves ahead Palo Alto’s planning commission approves proposal to rehabilitate three stores, build 10 homes at Eichler shopping center by Gennady Sheyner
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shopping plaza anchored by The Fresh Market grocery store and featuring a small park could soon take shape at Palo Alto’s Edgewood Plaza after the city’s planning commissioners agreed Wednesday night, Feb.
29, to approve a zone change that would enable the project. The proposal to redevelop Edgewood Plaza, the only local shopping plaza to be developed by iconic home-builder Joseph Eichler, has gone through several iterations throughout the years-long approval
process. Developer John Tze of Sand Hill Property Company had previously proposed building 24 homes on the plaza, a plan that was widely panned by residents in the adjacent neighborhoods. The new proposal, for which the Planning and Transportation Com-
mission approved a zone change by a 6-0 vote (Greg Tanaka was absent), includes 10 homes and renovations to the three original retail buildings on the plaza, which is bounded by Embarcadero Road, Channing Avenue and West Bayshore Road. The most critical component of
the new plaza will be a 20,000square-foot grocery store that would occupy the building once occupied by Albertsons (formerly Lucky Supermarket). Albertsons left Edgewood in 2006. (continued on page 12)
YOUTH
Surveys: Student emotional health improving Schools report on citywide initiatives to boost teen wellness after suicides
and captured images of crimes, which can most definitely be useful in some circumstances,” Watson said. Duveneck residents had also asked for the Public Works department to trim trees and improve lighting. Watson said the department is looking into those improvements. Joel Henner, a neighborhood leader who has worked on emergency preparation and reconstituting some form of neighborhood watch, said crews have been trimming the shrubs and trees this week, and it has made a difference. He has also noticed increased police patrols, he said.
by Chris Kenrick alo Alto students gained a bit of ground in their overall social-emotional well-being between 2007 and 2011, according to survey data presented Tuesday, Feb. 28, to the Board of Education. Results of the California Healthy Kids Survey as well as the Palo Alto Reality Check Survey showed improvement in areas of student “school connectedness” and relationships with adults. Tuesday’s presentation came in a school board review of initiatives to boost “student connectedness” — a much-discussed priority for schools following a devastating string of Palo Alto student suicides in 2009 and 2010. In response to the tragedies, the school district helped form a community-wide youth mental-health coalition, Project Safety Net, and hired a staff member to coordinate an array of efforts related to student social-emotional health. The schools, along with many community groups, also adopted a youth-wellness framework known as the Developmental Assets, a list of characteristics needed for healthy development that is now widely promoted across Palo Alto. Nearly three years after the first student died in what came to be labeled a “suicide cluster,” Tuesday’s progress report delivered by school Student Services Coordinator Amy Drolette was greeted with praise. “We asked you to stitch together this net at a time when people were raw — I think that’s the word,” Superintendent Kevin Skelly said of Project Safety Net. “It’s a sign of how this community is dedicated to kids, but we still have a lot of work to do.” The Healthy Kids survey, given in
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Veronica Weber
Checking out the modern drive-in Sabastian and Samay Jauregur adjust the steering wheel on their “car,” made out of a cardboard box, during the Box Car Drive-In event hosted by the Palo Alto Children’s Library on Wednesday, Feb. 29. The library provided building materials, license plates and driver’s licenses, and children got to watch cartoons while sitting in their new automobiles.
CRIME
Duveneck residents call for surveillance cameras After spate of burglaries, neighborhood wants licenseplate readers to combat burglaries, street robberies by Sue Dremann
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n armed street robbery on Feb. 15 and a rash of residential burglaries last week in Palo Alto has some residents calling for the city to install surveillance cameras and license-plate readers, and others ramping up efforts to com-
municate with their neighbors. Duveneck residents, who live near Embarcadero Road and U.S. Highway 101, asked Palo Alto police to consider adding cameras or plate readers at the neighborhood’s three access points after a man walking
his dog was held up at gunpoint. But Capt. Ron Watson told the residents in an email that he did not think it would be possible to blanket the area with cameras. “While I understand the concern for your neighborhood, it ... wouldn’t do anything if any future crime happened to occur in an area adjacent to your neighborhood,” he wrote. In addition, he said, the department proposed using grant money a few years ago to purchase a licenseplate reader to look for stolen vehicles and other criminal activity, but the City Council felt the idea leaned too far toward “Big Brother.” “Having said that, there are any number of citizens who have placed video cameras around their home
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