Palo Alto Weekly 03.30.2012 - Section 1 by Palo Alto Weekly

Upfront

Lottery

BUSINESS

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Cash mob gives helping hand to Mountain View grocer Phenomenon aimed at supporting mom-and-pop businesses by Daniel DeBolt

he said after Saturday’s event. “It motivates me to keep going, really.” The event was organized by resident Marn-Yee Lee who read about the grocery store in the Mountain View Voice. Reflecting on the event, Lee said: “I found meeting other members of the community while shopping there on Saturday was a reward in itself. It makes Mountain View feel more like home, like a small, tight-knit community, a less anonymous place.” Since buying the store in October 2011, the Origels have found allies among neighborhood residents who have wanted a “neighborhood-serving” grocery store downtown for years and have seen several proposals to subsidize one with city funds fail. On Saturday many of them showed their support. “It’s super convenient, and Juan is a really nice guy,” downtown resident Jeff Segall said. “I hope the city does what it can to encourage it.”

Counsel

they will consult with staff members and return to the board in June with suggestions on how to proceed. Zhang said she felt “discomfort” about data from her report being used to advocate one high school’s system over the other’s. “The original intent of the report and study was expressly not to compare the two models or make recommendations about which is the right

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“I’m in no way saying we have to take a system from one school and dump it on another, but there are specific goals I’d like to see us do,” board member Barbara Klausner said. Gunn Principal Katya Villalobos and Superintendent Kevin Skelly said

CityView A round-up of

Palo Alto government action this week

City Council (March 26)

Animals: The council directed its Policy and Service Committee to evaluate the city’s options for outsourcing animal services to another agency. Yes: Unanimous Taxes: The council directed its Policy and Service Committee to consider a possible tax measure for the November ballot to pay for infrastructure repairs. Yes: Burt, Espinosa, Holman, Price, Scharff, Schmid, Shepherd, Yeh Absent: Klein

Board of Education (March 27)

Counseling: The board heard a consultant’s recommendations and public testimony on guidance-counseling programs at Gunn and Palo Alto high schools. Action: None Elementary mathematics: The board heard a report from the 28-member Math Task Force on increasing opportunities for elementary students to be challenged in math. Action: None Staff reductions: The board approved reductions of 3.75 staff positions in maintenance, data processing and human resources. Yes: Unanimous

Utilities Advisory Commission (March 27)

Water rates: The commission supported a staff recommendation to raise the city’s water rates but disagreed with staff’s proposed tier structure for the new rates. The commission recommended retaining existing “Tier 2” rates for water customers and to raise “Tier 1” rates as needed to make up the balance of the shortfall in the city’s Water Fund. Yes: Cook, Eglash, Foster, Keller, Melton No: Waldfogel Wastewater: The commission supported a staff proposal to raise wastewater collection rates by 5 percent on July 1, 2012. Yes: Unanimous

Planning and Transportation Commission (March 28)

Bicycle plan: The commission reviewed the Draft Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan and voted to support the recent revisions to the plan. Yes: Unanimous

Daniel DeBolt

va’s Downtown Market and Deli in Mountain View saw a spike in business last weekend when it was visited by an organized “Cash Mob” that socialized and spent money in the store. Owners Ann and Juan Origel say they saw a 20 percent increase in business on Saturday during “International Cash Mob Day,” a variation on the flash mob phenomenon designed to bring attention and revenue to deserving mom-and-pop businesses. The Castro Street store’s gradual transformation from a mostly Asian market has been hampered by a lack of funds to pay for many improvements, including a $300,000 refrigeration system and a deli counter to draw in lunchtime traffic. While the event didn’t bring in a tidal wave of money, Juan Origel said he hoped the event would help raise awareness about the store and its improvements. “What a phenomenal community,”

Carter Coleman chats with Angela Gonzalez at the “cash mob” at Ava’s Downtown Market and Deli on Saturday, March 24. “My husband and I really appreciate the convenience of the location,” downtown resident Deb Henigson said. “It’s within walking and biking distance for us. It’s a great resource for the neighborhood.” Explaining why they supported the market, many pointed to the availability of organic foods, including grass-fed beef, and locally produced foods — including Crunchfuls cereal, Whole Grain Connection pasta and Acme Bread. And the market sells Marianne’s ice cream from Santa Cruz, Henigson added.

Downtown resident Carter Coleman said he hoped that Ava’s could become like San Francisco’s popular Bi-Rite market, which markets itself as “a neighborhood market feeding our community with love, passion and integrity.” “We’re just as cool as they are, right?” Coleman said of Bi-Rite’s customers. N Staff Writer Daniel DeBolt can be emailed at ddebolt@mv-voice. com. The Voice is the Weekly’s sister paper.

part of the $250 Million Cash Spectacular sweepstakes. The odds of winning were one in 1.2 million. Leach said at the time she would use her windfall to pay off medical bills. Two years earlier she had woken up from a tumor-induced coma, and she still was battling a tumor in January. As of Wednesday, whoever has the disputed winning ticket hadn’t come forward to claim the prize. The California Lottery Commission is conducting an investigation into Leach’s allegation and is reviewing security footage from the store, lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said. “Ultimately, (investigators) will not be the ones who decide who the ticket belongs to. It might be sorted out through a legal process,” Traverso said. If that’s the case, lottery officials will withhold the prize money until a court decides who owns the ticket, he said. Traverso said he can’t think of any other incidents similar to the remarkable circumstances in Mountain View. “You don’t really see someone who has that level of luck, someone who wins $1 million and then wins a quarter of a million dollars,” he said. N — Bay City News and Embarcadero Media staff

Survey of Gunn and Palo Alto high school students (Percent who agree or strongly agree)

Statement

Gunn

Paly

“My guidance counselor is an important resource for me.”

49%

67%

“I ﬁnd it easy to talk to my guidance counselor.”

63%

73%

“I believe my guidance counselor can help me with personal issues.”

42%

55%

53%

72%

“I am satisﬁed with the level of support from my counselor/adviser.”

Source: Palo Alto Uniﬁed School District

model,” Zhang told the board. Among Zhang’s findings was that Paly spends more than Gunn on its guidance counseling program — about $1,522,536 compared to Gunn’s $1,213,086 — when total salaries, benefits and stipends are considered. Board members recalled that Gunn had elected instead to invest in smaller class sizes in English. Skelly suggested it would be difficult and time-consuming for Gunn to fundamentally alter its model. “These are not trivial changes. I’m not happy with the (survey) results at Gunn, and I’d like them to be as high or higher than Paly’s are, but these are part of a larger ecosystem at those schools. “We know we need to add resources at Gunn or experiment with different things,” he said. But board members and others kept returning to the surveys, with high response rates at both schools, reporting consistently higher levels of satisfaction with counseling at Paly. “We can’t have different investments at the two schools in something as important as this,” board member Melissa Baten Caswell said. “I’m OK with small differences,

TALK ABOUT IT

www.PaloAltoOnline.com Do you favor changing Gunn High School’s guidance system to more closely resemble the one at Palo Alto High? Talk about the issue on Town Square, the community discussion forum on Palo Alto Online.

but this just seems like we have major differences, and I don’t understand it in a community with only two high schools. “I’d like to know what’s going to be different next year as a result of this,” Caswell said. Klausner cited a comparison chart prepared by the community group We Can Do Better Palo Alto, which reformatted data from Zhang’s student survey into a direct comparison of satisfaction levels at the two schools. “Given that Paly’s numbers ... are higher, I’d like to look at those and figure out if there’s something to be adapted,” Klausner said. “There’s something our students at Gunn are not getting.” We Can Do Better, which advocates for policies to reduce academic stress, has pushed aggressively for the past year for Gunn to adopt Paly’s teacher-adviser model.

The group assembled seven parents Tuesday who spoke in favor of Gunn adopting Paly’s model. “A year ago we brought forward evidence of student and parent satisfaction levels at Paly much higher than those at Gunn, and a year later we have more evidence of exactly the same thing,” We Can Do Better co-founder Ken Dauber said. “There really isn’t any further reason for delay. “I know the district instructed our consultant not to compare these two schools. I don’t know why that was. I’d like to hear that because it seems like a real missed opportunity. “We have a lot of analytic ability here that has not been fully made use of,” Dauber said. “It’s really time to stop wondering what’s going on or looking for the underlying reasons and to give to Gunn parents and students what you’re giving to Paly parents and students. It’s a simple matter of equity and fairness,” he said. N