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City Council’s recent decisions on development projects underscore need for green policy ■ The council has been inconsistent in setting “green” requirements for recent development projects. By Sean Howell Almanac Staff Writer
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wo recent approvals of development projects by Menlo Park’s City Council — and the headaches that ensued when council members tried to figure out how to craft green building
regulations from the dais — have made the city’s need for a “green” building code very clear. But setting climate change-related policy when it comes to new development projects won’t be easy. In approving an 110,000-square-foot development for 1300 El Camino Real at their Oct. 6 meeting, council members stipulated that the operation of the structures be “carbon neutral.” City staff members and the site developer say they’re still trying to figure out exactly
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what that means; Councilwoman Kelly Fergusson and the city attorney spent several minutes hashing out the exact wording at a subsequent council meeting. In approving a two-story, 10,100square foot office building for 1706 El Camino Real at its Oct. 20 meeting, the City Council opted not to impose the same requirement.
“These things are tough to do up here on the last, final approval,” Mayor Heyward Robinson said. “It was OK on 1300, that was a bigger project, but I want to keep this one fairly clean.” Ms. Fergusson dissented in the vote, in large part because she wanted the council to stipulate that the operation of the buildings be carbon-neutral. While current council members have repeatedly stated their commitment to See BUILD, page 8
Lew Southern of Menlo Park, left, and Lee Boucher of Portola Valley are among the area residents who participated in the World War II stories project. Photo by Shawn Fender
Stories of war and resistance By Renee Batti Almanac News Editor
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ew Southern and Lee Boucher no doubt have many good stories to tell of mutual experiences and adventures stemming from their 40-year friendship, begun when they first met at a Menlo Park Newcomers gathering. But the stories of their lives decades before they met — during the years of their early adulthood, when the world was wracked by
war — couldn’t have been more different. The lives of both men, now in their mid-80s, were profoundly disrupted by the advent of World War II. For Mr. Southern, now a Menlo Park resident, that meant shipping off for Italy and witnessing wrenching events that would never fade from memory. It was in the Italian mountainside that the 19-year-old Southern was seriously wounded; he would spend the next two
War stories project culminates in video presentation after nine-year effort
years in Army hospitals. Portola Valley resident Lee Boucher chose another route during the war years: He attained conscientious objector status, and spent more than three years in camps in this country, first in service camps designed to allow COs to perform tasks for the public good, then in a government camp that housed COs who refused to cooperate with the government in protest of war and conscription.
The two men are among 42 area residents who tell their wartime stories in the video presentation, “Remembering World War II: First-Person Accounts,” which will be premiered on Sunday, Nov. 1, at Foothill College. The program is the culmination of a nine-year effort, begun as a “life stories” writing course led by Sheila Dunec, a Foothill See WAR STORIES, page 10
October 28, 2009 N The Almanac N 5