Upfront QUOTE OF THE WEEK
450 Cambridge Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94306 (650) 326-8210
EDITORIAL Editor Jocelyn Dong (223-6514) Associate Editor Carol Blitzer (223-6511) Sports Editor Keith Peters (223-6516) Express & Online Editor Eric Van Susteren (223-6515) Arts & Entertainment Editor Rebecca Wallace (223-6517) Assistant Sports Editor Rick Eymer (223-6521) Spectrum Editor Tom Gibboney (223-6507) Staff Writers Sue Dremann (223-6518), Chris Kenrick (223-6512), Gennady Sheyner (223-6513) Editorial Assistant/Intern Coordinator Elena Kadvany (223-6519) Staff Photographer Veronica Weber (223-6520) Contributors Andrew Preimesberger, Dale F. Bentson, Peter Canavese, Kit Davey, Tyler Hanley, Iris Harrell, Sheila Himmel, Chad Jones, Karla Kane, Kevin Kirby, Terri Lobdell, Jack McKinnon, Jeanie K. Smith, Susan Tavernetti Editorial Intern Christophe Haubursin
Help patients like Taylor. Give blood for life! bloodcenter.stanford.edu | 888-723-7831 Part of Stanford University School of Medicine. Palo Alto Center 3373 Hillview Avenue
Movie Tickets for Blood Donors Donate blood at one of our centers Sept. 3-7 and pick up an AMC movie ticket. Mobile blood drives excluded.
Mountain View Center 515 South Drive, Suite 20 Menlo Park Center 445 Burgess Drive
ADVERTISING Vice President Sales & Advertising Tom Zahiralis (223-6570) Multimedia Advertising Sales Christine Afsahi (223-8582), Adam Carter (2236573), Elaine Clark (223-6572), Connie Jo Cotton (223-6571), Janice Hoogner (223-6576), Wendy Suzuki 223-6569), Brent Triantos (223-6577), Real Estate Advertising Sales Neal Fine (223-6583), Carolyn Oliver (223-6581), Rosemary Lewkowitz (223-6585) Inside Advertising Sales David Cirner (223-6579), Irene Schwartz (223-6580) Real Estate Advertising Assistant Diane Martin (223-6584) Legal Advertising Alicia Santillan (223-6578) ADVERTISING SERVICES Advertising Services Manager Jennifer Lindberg (223-6595) Sales & Production Coordinators Dorothy Hassett (223-6597), Blanca Yoc (223-6596) DESIGN Design Director Shannon Corey (223-6560) Assistant Design Director Lili Cao (223-6562) Senior Designers Linda Atilano, Paul Llewellyn, Scott Peterson Designers Rosanna Leung, Kameron Sawyer EXPRESS, ONLINE AND VIDEO SERVICES Online Operations Coordinator Ashley Finden (223-6508) BUSINESS Payroll & Benefits Susie Ochoa (223-6544) Business Associates Elena Dineva (223-6542), Mary McDonald (223-6543), Cathy Stringari (223-6541) ADMINISTRATION Assistant to the Publisher Miranda Chatfield (223-6559) Receptionist Doris Taylor Courier Ruben Espinoza
Located within walking distance to top neighborhood schools, family-friendly parks, ”‡…”‡ƒ–‹‘Â?ÇĄ Ď?‹Â?‡nj†‹Â?‹Â?‰ǥ ƒÂ?† •Š‘’’‹Â?‰Ǥ The Hampton, our largest model, is one of Laurel Mews’ „‡ƒ—–‹ˆ—ŽŽ› †‡•‹‰Â?‡† …”ƒˆ–•Â?ƒÂ?nj•–›Ž‡ Š‘Â?‡•Ǥ Íś „‡†”‘‘Â?•ǥ ͜Ǥ͡ „ƒ–Š”‘‘Â?• Large basement for entertaining Čˆ ;ǥ͜ͺ͡ •“—ƒ”‡ ˆ‡‡– Čˆ From $2 millions Čˆ Čˆ
EMBARCADERO MEDIA President William S. Johnson (223-6505) Vice President & CFO Michael I. Naar (223-6540) Vice President Sales & Advertising Tom Zahiralis (223-6570) Director, Information Technology & Webmaster Frank A. Bravo (223-6551) Major Accounts Sales Manager Connie Jo Cotton (223-6571) Director, Circulation & Mailing Services Bob Lampkin (223-6557) Circulation Assistant Alicia Santillan Computer System Associates Chris Planessi, Chip Poedjosoedarmo
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 free 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. If you are not currently receiving the paper, you may request free delivery by calling 3268210. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Palo Alto Weekly, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302. Š2013 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 Our email addresses are: editor@paweekly.com, letters@paweekly.com, digitalads@paweekly.com, ads@paweekly.com Missed delivery or start/stop your paper? Call 650 223-6557, or email circulation@paweekly.com. You may also subscribe online at www.PaloAltoOnline.com. Subscriptions are $60/yr.
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PUBLISHER William S. Johnson (223-6505)
I’ve even seen bacon down there. — Deirdre Crommie, Parks and Recreation commissioner, on the food people have offered to ducks at the Palo Alto Baylands. See story on page 3.
Around Town INTERACTIVE DREAM ... Anyone who was inspired by Monday’s Let Freedom Ring! salute in Palo Alto to the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream� speech can now learn more about the speech through the website of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu. The link to Freedom’s Ring lets viewers compare the written and spoken speech, explore multimedia images and listen to activists through an animation. The new interactive feature was unveiled at a dinner at the Garden Court Hotel in Palo Alto to commemorate King’s legacy and raise funds for the Institute. The King Institute houses the largest source of information on Martin Luther King Jr. in the world. HE KNEW HIM WHEN ... Palo Alto developer Jim Baer said he was inspired to help organize Monday night’s “I Have a Dream� commemoration in front of City Hall because of his lifelong friendship with the brother of Andrew Goodman, one of three young civil-rights workers murdered in Mississippi on June 21, 1964. Baer said he had roomed with Goodman’s brother at Stanford and — though personally not an activist in the civil-rights movement — felt it was important to hold the Palo Alto commemoration, which highlighted the work of Stanford University Professor Clayborne Carson, editor of the papers of Martin Luther King Jr. WHICH WAS MORE EXCITING? ... Palo Alto High School’s new assistant principal, Victoria Kim, told the Board of Education that her new job is a dream come true. Kim, a former English and journalism teacher who was an assistant principal in San Jose before joining the Palo Alto district this week, is also a newlywed of four months. She told board members her husband sometimes wonders whether she was happier on her wedding day or the day she was hired for her new job. BUBBLY, ANYONE? ... As the hellish maw of the massive Rim Fire in the Sierras continues to burn closer and closer to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir — the source of 100 percent of Palo Alto’s drinking water — it’s fair to question whether tomorrow’s tap water will be ash-flavored. The
blaze, which started Aug. 17 and has charred more than 187,000 acres, reached the area around the reservoir last week. Luckily, Palo Altans will be able to keep deep, smokey flavors in their whiskey, and out of their water. Although the reservoir, which supplies 2.6 million customers across the Bay Area, has water that is so crystal clear that it (usually) doesn’t require filtering, the agency in charge of managing Bay Area water supplies has back-up plans in the event that the reservoir gets tainted by some of the less lucky, or maybe just less flame-retardant, trees in the Yosemite area. Closer, less romantic, reservoirs can be used to provide four or five months of water, using two local treatment plants, Sunol and Harry Tracy, along with added supplies from agreements with other water districts. But it might not even come to that. The water in Hetch Hetchy has maintained the same turbidity, a fancy word for cloudiness, as it had before the fire. The fact that the water is drawn from 260 feet underground further decreases the likelihood of Palo Altans finding ash in their Nalgenes. If the water’s turbidity does increase, the water quality from the back-up supplies may be similar to what Palo Altans experience during the annual Hetch Hetchy winter maintenance shutdowns — namely, some bubbles in their drinking water. That doesn’t mean water purists are out of the woods yet. The fire might cause erosion problems into the reservoir that could be exacerbated by annual winter or spring runoff. SCHOOL-LIST SHAKEUP ... The “best colleges� list is in, and Stanford did not make the top five. That’s right, Stanford University — a perennial favorite in the U.S. News & World Report rankings — trailed UC San Diego, UC Riverside, UC Berkeley, Texas A&M and Case Western Reserve in the 2013 national universities rankings issued by the Washington Monthly. The Monthly ranks schools in their “contribution to the public good� in three categories: social mobility, research and service. Though not at the tippy-top where it’s typically found, Stanford’s performance still wasn’t too shabby. It came in sixth out of 284 universities rated. N