Palo Alto Weekly 05.28.2010 - Section 1 by Palo Alto Weekly

Palo Alto

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City weighs fire budget vs. safety Page 3

w w w.PaloA ltoOnline.com

Women entrepreneurs claim high-tech turf page 14 1ST PLACE

GENERAL EXCELLENCE

California Newspaper Publishers Association

Spectrum 12

Movies 23

WHAT CEILING?

Eating Out 26 N Arts

Puzzles 49

TheatreWorks’ ‘Opus’ — a work of art N Sports Menlo in CCS baseball ﬁnal N Home Olmsted Terrace eases Stanford housing

Page 19 Page 28 Page 33

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Upfront

1ST PLACE

BEST LOCAL NEWS COVERAGE

California Newspaper Publishers Association

Local news, information and analysis

Tempers rise as Palo Alto, fire union begin talks Firefighters’ ‘minimum staffing’ provision likely to emerge as a hot topic in negotiations by Gennady Sheyner epending on who the speaker is, the Palo Alto Fire Department is either a bare-bones outfit fighting to retain its staff after years of draconian cuts or a bloated, overstaffed silo whose rising costs are forcing other city departments to lay off workers and cut programs. Both views have been voiced eloquently in recent months and are sure to re-emerge, perhaps more diplomatically, during Palo Alto’s

contract talks with its firefighters’ union, Palo Alto Professional Firefighters, Local 1319. The negotiations formally kicked off Wednesday — at a time of heightened tensions between the council and firefighters, whose current contract expires June 30. On May 18, members of the council’s Finance Committee repeatedly accused the Fire Department of not “stepping up to the plate” by helping trim the department’s proposed budget for 2011. The

budget would raise net expenditures by $1.8 million as other departments brace for sharp cuts and layoffs. The union countered that all non-essential positions in the department have already been axed. Tensions are exacerbated by the union local spearheading a ballot measure that would change the City Charter to require Palo Alto to hold an election before making any Fire Department layoffs or closing of fire stations. Tony Spitaleri, president of the 108-member union, said the firefighters’ initiative petition already has close to 7,000 signatures, more than enough to qualify for the November ballot.

The department has an annual budget of about $25 million budget, though it also brings the city about $11 million in revenues every year, chiefly from contracting fire-protection and paramedic services to Stanford University and providing medical transport as part of the department paramedics program. Both sides told the Weekly this week that while they remain somewhat optimistic they don’t expect any quick resolutions to the ongoing areas of dispute. Perhaps the most contentious issue is the “minimum staffing” provision in the union’s contract — an agreement that was (continued on page 5)

CRIME

Suspect arrested for kidnap, rape, attempted murder Lionel Blanks, 36, of Santa Clara arrested near his home late Wednesday afternoon by Sue Dremann

Kimihiro Hoshino

Celebrating international diversity Korean girls perform a traditional Korean dance last Friday during Nixon Elementary School’s International Night, a celebration of students’ varied national and ethnic heritage. Parents and students sampled games, dances and food from many countries, including Mexico, Australia, Japan and Canada.

LAND USE

Palo Alto seeks ‘revenue guarantee’ from hospitals Consultants disagree on whether projects would cost city $1.1 million a year or generate $7.6 million in extra funds by Gennady Sheyner

alo Alto could require Stanford University to provide an explicit guarantee that Stanford’s proposed expansions of its hospital facilities would not burden the cash-strapped city with any ongoing costs, members of the City Council said Monday night.

The city and the university are in the midst of negotiations over a development agreement that would allow Stanford to rebuild Stanford Hospital and Clinics and the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, bringing 1.3 million square feet of new development to Palo Alto. The project hit a milestone last week when

the city released a Draft Environmental Impact Report for the project, which lists how the project would affect traffic, housing, pollution and numerous other quality-of-life factors. It also recommends how those consequences could be limited or prevented. But as Monday’s discussion of “Project Renewal” indicated, the two sides still don’t see eye-to-eye on the expansions’ potential impacts, including fiscal impacts. An analysis by the city’s consultant, Applied Development Economics, found that the project would cost the city about $1.1 million in annual ongoing expenses. Stanford’s consultant, CBRE Consulting, concluded that the taxes and fees generated by the project would exceed the costs of municipal services by about $7.6 million. Council members Greg Schmid and Nancy Shepherd both said making sure the project is (continued on page 8)

olice arrested a suspect Wednesday afternoon in connection with the kidnap, rape and attempted murder of a Palo Alto woman early Saturday morning. Lionel Blanks, 36, of Santa Clara was arrested near his home at 5 p.m. Wednesday by Santa Clara police detectives, according to Palo Alto police spokeswoman Lt. Sandra Brown. Blanks allegedly brutally attacked a woman after climbing into her 2001 black Mercedes Benz SUV in the 1600 block of El Camino Real in Palo Alto. She was beaten, abducted and taken to the 400 block of Saratoga Avenue in Santa Clara, where she was sexually assaulted and raped, police reported. She flagged down a passing motorist and called Santa Clara police at 5:24 a.m. After Lionel Blanks an initial investigation they referred the case to Palo Alto police, according to Brown. Blanks is initially being charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery and attempted murder. Official charges will be determined by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office. Blanks’ arraignment date has not yet been set, Brown said. Brown said there was “excellent teamwork” by Palo Alto and Santa Clara police departments, the Stanford Department of Public Safety, the Santa Clara County Crime Lab, and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. “We also want to particularly note the cooperation of the news media and to thank the citizens who have called in with information about this case.” N *> Ê Ì Ê7ii ÞÊUÊ >ÞÊÓn]ÊÓä£äÊU Page 3

Upfront

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The Palo Alto Weekly (ISSN 0199-1159) is published every Friday by Embarcadero Publishing Co., 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 326-8210. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Palo Alto Weekly, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302. Copyright ©2010 by Embarcadero Publishing Co. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited. Printed by SFOP, Redwood City. The Palo Alto Weekly is available on the Internet via Palo Alto Online at: www.PaloAltoOnline.com Our e-mail addresses are: editor@paweekly.com, letters@paweekly.com, ads@paweekly.com. Missed delivery or start/stop your paper? Call 650 326-8210, or e-mail circulation@paweekly. com. You may also subscribe online at www.PaloAltoOnline.com. Subscriptions are $60/yr.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

‘‘

450 CAMBRIDGE AVE, PALO ALTO, CA 94306 (650) 326-8210

We’re losing ground. —Martha Kanter, U.S. undersecretary of education, on the fact that the U.S. ranks toward the bottom in math literacy and science compared with other developed nations. See story on page 5.

Around Town SIDEWALK BLUES ... Palo Alto homeowners will almost certainly be asked to shoulder some, if not all, of the costs to replace crumbling sidewalks in front of their properties. The biggest unresolved question now is whether the city will completely eliminate its sidewalkreplacement program, as staff has recommended, or split the costs with residents 50-50. The City Council’s Finance Committee deadlocked Tuesday on which unpopular option to adopt. Councilman Greg Scharff proposed shifting 100 percent of the cost of sidewalk repairs to residents, an idea also supported by Vice Mayor Sid Espinosa. Scharff called the cost of sidewalk repairs a “modest burden” for homeowners and noted that many cities already use this model. The shift would save Palo Alto about $500,000 in the 2011 budget. But Councilman Larry Klein called the proposal a “bridge too far” and argued the city should share the costs. Neither Klein nor Scharff could muster the support of the rest of the committee. The full council will finalize and adopt the 2011 budget in late June. CHASING THE BARD ... Palo Alto resident Joanne Wetzel recently achieved her goal of seeing all 36 canonical William Shakespeare plays (known as First Folio) performed on stage. It only took 30 years. First inspired by the local outdoor productions of TheatreWorks, Wetzel’s quest took her from the Bay Area to The Bard’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, where she caught performances of some of the more obscure history plays, to San Diego two weeks ago, where she saw her last remaining production: “King John.” But, her pursuit of completeness may continue for some time to come, as in recent months she has become aware of at least three additional plays now considered to have been authored by Shakespeare, including “Cardenio” and “Two Noble Kinsmen.” “I am hoping to go to England to see ‘Cardenio,’” she said, “but I think TheatreWorks has an obligation to do ‘Two Noble Kinsmen’,” she added, laughing. “I think they

owe me that.” CELEBRATION TIME ... Palo Alto’s busiest library will close its doors on June 5. When it reopens in the summer of 2012, the Mitchell Park Library (and the adjacent Mitchell Park Community Center) will become the first new city building constructed in almost 50 years and, quite possibly, the greenest public facility in town. The new Mitchell Park Library and Community Center will include a program room, an event room, a basketball halfcourt and a café. In the mean time, most of the library’s collection and many of its computers will be housed at a temporary library at the nearby Cubberley Community Center Auditorium, 4050 Middlefield Road. To commemorate the library’s closing, Mayor Pat Burt and other city officials plan to hold a groundbreaking ceremony featuring ice cream, games for children and displays showing what the new building will look like. The event will be held Saturday, June 12, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the library, 3700 Middlefield Road. ELECTIONS ... Before they dove into a deep discussion of Stanford Hospital’s proposed expansion and wrestled with proposed high-speed-rail legislation through Monday night and into Tuesday morning, members of the Palo Alto City Council took a quick and unequivocal stance on a less contentious issue: Proposition 15, also known as the “California Fair Election Act.” The proposition, which will be on the June 8 ballot, would allow candidates for Secretary of State to set spending limits on themselves and become eligible for public campaign financing, which would be raised through voluntary contributions fees on lobbyists. It would apply to the 2014 and 2018 elections. The council quickly passed a resolution drafted by Mayor Pat Burt and Councilman Larry Klein expressing official support for Proposition 15. The resolution states that the “current finance system burdens candidates with the incessant rigors of fundraising and thus decreases the time available to carry out their public responsibilities.” N

Upfront

Commitment To Excellence

EDUCATION

Original Ownership Since 1975

School board grapples with how to improve students’ emotional health Mothers lament bullying, ‘pressure-cooker atmosphere’ in Palo Alto schools by Chris Kenrick motions ran high Tuesday night as the Palo Alto school board grappled with a proposed policy to prevent suicide and improve students’ mental health in the aftermath of four suicide deaths at the Caltrain tracks from May to October 2009. Several tearful mothers spoke to their children’s struggles. In particularly dramatic comments, Janet Dickens, the mother of William Dickens, who died Oct. 19, said her son was described as happy and welladjusted by his lifelong pediatrician. But she said he was vulnerable because he felt he could not compete in Gunn High School’s “high-achieving, pressure-cooker atmosphere.” “Will did not have a diagnosed mental illness,” Dickens said in her written comments, read to the board by friend and fellow Gunn parent Janet Levine. “He was happy; he wanted to be liked and accepted. He was a star athlete, well-liked, from a strong, supportive and very involved religious family.

“He wanted to be accepted by his peers but was often seen in the background. He was vulnerable because he had a ... learning disability. “He was vulnerable in a school where achievement and success were valued over and above creating a safe and caring environment.” Another parent spoke of her teen’s debilitating struggle with severe depression. She said while some teachers were sympathetic others threatened to fail the girl because of her absences. “In some ways I can’t really blame them — adolescent depression isn’t pretty,” the mother said. But she recommended schools be more flexible and allow students to take an incomplete in a class if they dealing with depression. Tuesday night’s discussion highlighted the challenge schools face in effectively addressing social and emotional needs of teens while maintaining top-ranked academic programs. While clearly sympathetic to the outpouring of grief and intensive community response to the suicides,

school board members struggled to define a focused, feasible and measurable role for the school district. “Social and emotional health spans the whole of human existence. There are no boundaries,” school board member Dana Tom said. “It’s not like talking about learning about math, or learning about writing.” “We need to pick a couple of things and actually get them done so we can see some progress, because we’re a school district and we have a lot of things we do,” board member Melissa Baten Caswell said. Several parents advocated a strong curriculum covering social and emotional health. Emotional well-being is critical to other forms of success in life, Gunn parent Anat Admati said. “We need a point person in every school to carry this forward. Don’t let fear and being overwhelmed with this deter you from doing this, please,” Admati said.

Fire budget

told the Weekly. “You can’t even have a discussion about different ways of staffing in the department.” The city recently commissioned a study to analyze department staffing levels and make recommendations. The $60,000 study is scheduled to be completed in mid-summer. Regardless of what the study recommends, both Keene and the council have indicated they would be seeking concessions from the union, much as they have from other labor groups. Last year, both the Service Employ-

ees International Union and the city’s Professional and Management group saw their benefits rolled back through a two-tiered system, where future hires get lower benefits, in addition to reductions in health coverage. “We’ve made no secret that we think that as we get into our negotiations with the public-safety unions we’ll be seeking similar significant ongoing savings for the city,” Keene said. “The city needs to have every em-

(continued from page 3)

adopted in the late 1970s, shortly after the Palo Alto’s department merged with Stanford University’s. The provision requires the city to staff at least 29 firefighters per shift, making it virtually impossible for the city to reduce non-administrative staff in the department. City Manager James Keene’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2011 recommends eliminating 75 full-timeequivalent positions in the city but only one in the Fire Department — a hazardous-materials specialist. Spitaleri told the Weekly that the union had already made two informal offers to the city, which he said would have saved the city $1.1 million. Spitaleri said the city “turned a deaf ear” to the offer. He said he is convinced the city will try to remove the minimum-staffing provision during negotiations — a move the union strongly resists. “If minimum staffing goes away, we feel very confident that what they will do is close stations, which will have an impact on the community when it comes to response time,” Spitaleri said. Keene said the minimum-staffing provision is “worth talking about,” particularly in light of the recent compensation reductions other labor groups agreed (or were forced) to take over the past year. Keene said neither his staff nor the City Council have proposed laying off any firefighters or closing any stations. But the city should have flexibility in discussing Fire Department staffing levels, he said. “The minimum-staffing requirement in the contract really precludes reduction in the department,” Keene

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Sports Camps Spring Down Camp Equestrian Center Portola Valley Spring Down camp teaches basic to advanced horsemanship skills. All ages welcome. Daily informative lecture, riding lesson, supervised hands-on skill practice, tacking/untacking of own camp horse, and fun horse arts and crafts. www.springdown.com 650-851-1114 Stanford Water Polo Camps Stanford Morning and/or afternoon water polo sessions at Avery Aquatic Center. June 14-17 for ages 8-14. Beginners welcome. Fun water skill instruction, activities and games. Camps for more advanced players available too. www.gostanford.com/camps/waterpolo-camp.html 650-725-9016 Glenoaks Stables’ Horse Camp Portola Valley Giddy up your summer at Glenoaks Stables’ horse camp. A full day of equestrian fun includes supervised riding, horsemanship, vaulting, pony games and arts & crafts. 5 one-week sessions. All skill levels welcome, ages 6+. www.glenoaksequestrian.com/summercamps.htm 650 854 4955

Academic Camps iD Tech Camps and iD Teen Academies Stanford Experience North America’s #1 Tech Camp — 4 Bay Area Locations! Ages 7-18 create video games, websites, movies, iPhone® & Facebook® apps, robots and more during this weeklong, day and overnight summer tech program. Teen Programs also available at Stanford. Save w/code CAU22. www.iDTechCamps.com 1-888-709-TECH (8324) Stratford School - Camp Socrates Bay Area Academic enrichment infused with traditional summer camp fun—that’s what your child will experience at Camp Socrates. Sessions begin on June 28 and end on August 13 with the option for students to attend for all seven weeks or the first four weeks (June 28-July 23). Full or half-time morning or afternoon program are available to fit your schedule. 12 locations. www. stratfordschools.com 650-493-1151 TechKnowHow Computer & LEGO® Camps Peninsula Fun and enriching technology classes for students, ages 6-14! Courses include LEGO and K’NEX Projects with Motors, Robotics, and Game Design. Many locations, including Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Sunnyvale. Half and all day options. www.techknowhowkids.com 650-474-0400 ISTP Language Immersion Palo Alto International School of the Peninsula camps offered in French, Chinese, Spanish or ESL for students in Nursery through Middle School. Three 2-week sessions, each with different theme. Students are grouped according to both grade level and language proficiency. www.istp.org 650-251-8519 Conversation Hindi Camps Bay Area The camps provide a creative, fun and interactive environment and focus on developing conversational Hindi skills. A natural and nurturing environment gives numerous conversation opportunities through theatre, role playing, games, arts & crafts and multimedia. www.eduhindi.com 650-493-1566 Summer Program @ Mid-Peninsula High School Menlo Park Mid-Peninsula High School Summer Program is open to students entering grades 9-12 and is proud to offer a variety of academic and enrichment courses in an individualized and caring environment. www.mid-pen.com 650-321-1991 x110 Earth Care Science Camp Los Altos Conservation and Preservation of God’s Creation. Hands-on learning environment featuring experiments, arts and crafts, games, field experts and more. For age 3 to Grade 5. August 2 to 6, 9am to 12pm. Held at First Baptist Church. www.fbcla.org/childrens 650-948-5698

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Upfront

Public Agenda A preview of Palo Alto government meetings next week

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CITY COUNCIL ... The City Council has no meetings scheduled for this week. POLICY AND SERVICES COMMITTEE ... The committee plans to discuss the City Council priority work plan and the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s policy on social media. The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 1, in the Council Conference Room at City Hall (250 Hamilton Ave.). PLANNING AND TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION ... The commission plans to begin its review of the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Stanford University Medical Center expansion project. The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Wednesday, June 2, in the Council Chambers at City Hall (250 Hamilton Ave.). UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION ... The commission plans to discuss the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Long-term Electricity Acquisition Plan and the Gas Utility Long-term Plan. The commission will also consider using the Calaveras Reserve to fund the feasibility study for a new composting facility. The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, June 2, in the Council Conference Room at City Hall (250 Hamilton Ave.). HIGH-SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE ... The committee plans to discuss Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proposed high-speed rail project; legislation relating to high-speed rail; and the core message of the Peninsula Cities Consortium, to which the city belongs. The meeting is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 3, in the Council Conference Room at City Hall (250 Hamilton Ave.). ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD ... The board plans to review the proposed design for Hoover Pavilion, which is part of the Stanford University Medical Center expansion project. The board will also consider landscape and wall improvements for the Palo Alto Arts Center. The meeting is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 3, in the Council Chambers at City Hall (250 Hamilton Ave.).

CityView A round-up of

Palo Alto government action this week

City Council (May 24)

Stanford Hospital: The council held a study session on the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Stanford University Medical Center expansion project. The council also discussed the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pending negotiations with Stanford over the development agreement and voted to support staffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proposed counteroffer to Stanford. Yes: Espinosa, Yeh, Holman, Price, Shepherd, Schmid, Scharff Abstained: Klein Absent: Burt High-speed rail: The council voted to support Caltrainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proposed amendments to Senate Bill 965, which would make Caltrainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s electrification project eligible for federal-stimulus funding. Yes: Espinosa, Yeh, Klein, Price, Shepherd, Scharff, Holman No: Schmid Absent: Burt

Board of Education (May 25)

Student mental health: The board heard public testimony on, and discussed, a proposed policy on suicide prevention and mental health promotion. Action: None

City Council Finance Committee (May 25)

Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Theatre: The committee voted to institute a fee for participants in the Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Theatre. The fee would range from $50 to $300, depending on the production. Yes: Unanimous Public works: The committee voted to accept most of the staff-recommended cuts, but split on whether the city should completely eliminate its sidewalk-replacement program or split the costs of sidewalk replacement with property owners. Yes: Unanimous

Planning & Transportation Commission (May 26) Comprehensive Plan: The commission discussed the Policies and Programs of Governance Chapter in the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Comprehensive Plan. The discussion is part of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s effort to upgrade the Comprehensive Plan. Action: None

Fire budget (continued from page 5)

ployee group making actual ongoing cost savings.â&#x20AC;? The Finance Committee took a similar stance on May 18 when it rejected Fire Chief Nick Marinaroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proposed budget for 2011. The budget includes an increase of more than $1 million to salaries and benefits. Marinaro told the committee that because of the minimum-staffing provision the department wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t save any money by cutting the number of firefighters. Instead, some more experienced (and higher paid) firefighters would have to fill the vacated positions, sending overtime costs spiking. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s essentially a wash,â&#x20AC;? Marinaro said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;One of the reasons we stayed at full staffing is that it actually saves a little bit of money â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we pay entry-level firefighters a lower rate than if we paid captains overtime to work.â&#x20AC;? In lieu of staff reductions, Marinaro has identified other potential cost-saving measures, some of which he called â&#x20AC;&#x153;draconian.â&#x20AC;? One proposal would eliminate the fire chief position after Marinaro retires in June and create a â&#x20AC;&#x153;public safety directorâ&#x20AC;? position that oversees both the police and fire departments. Other ideas include removing the Office of Emergency Services from the Fire Department; reorganizing the Fire Prevention Bureau, which handles environmental and safety management, including permits for fire-alarm systems; and scrapping the departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paramedics service. Marinaro also told the Weekly that closing Station 8 at Foothills Park remains an option, albeit a politically difficult one that neither he nor Keene recommends. According to the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2009 Service Efforts and Accomplishments Report, the station received just four service calls in fiscal year 2009 (compared to 2,605 calls at Station 1 on Alma Street and the roughly 1,000 calls at each of the departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s other Palo Alto stations). But any move to close the station would likely face resistance from residents in the sparsely populated, open-space district â&#x20AC;&#x201D; particularly those who remember the 1985 fire near the foothills that destroyed 150 acres and destroyed four houses in Palo Alto and 11 in Los Altos Hills. Even if the council were to accept one or more of these proposals, the city is expected to take a tough stance on firefighter compensations during the negotiations. The Finance Committee directed Marinaro on May 18 to assume a 4 percent reduction in salaries and benefits. Vice Mayor Sid Espinosa, the only committee member to dissent, argued the council shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t â&#x20AC;&#x153;build budgets based on contracts that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exist.â&#x20AC;? Despite the recent tension, Keene told the Weekly he is confident both sides will be able to reach a mutually beneficial agreement, however long that takes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I know the city is completely committed to achieving a contract with the firefightersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; union that would work in the interests of both the firefighters and the city,â&#x20AC;? Keene said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m optimistic now, but the negotiations may take some time.â&#x20AC;? N

Upfront

Neighborhoods A roundup of neighborhood news edited by Sue Dremann

CPI SOLD ... A hazardous-chemicals facility that has long plagued Barron Park residents with repeated chemical leaks has been sold. Communications and Power Industries (CPI) announced its sale to Comtech Telecommunications Corp. on May 10 for $472.3 million in cash and stock. Residents hoping that the sale will trigger closing of the plating plant and chemical facility could be disappointed. Michael D. Porcelain, Comtech senior vice president and chief financial officer, told the Weekly that the plating facility is crucial to the company’s manufacture of defense systems and medical equipment. “We have no plans to move this facility today. However, any decisions we may make in the future about the facility will balance the interests of all the communities in which we participate and serve, including our neighbors in Palo Alto, our armed forces and the nation’s healthcare providers,” he said. Comtech will meet with residents to hear their concerns, he added. FEELING DUMPED ON ... Officials at Henry M. Gunn High School sent surrounding residents an e-mail on May 24 asking for information about illegal dumping of dirt and asphalt in the field beyond the athletic fields. Palo Alto Unified School District construction crews are under strict orders not to use the field for dumping. The debris did not come from Gunn, according to Assistant Principal Tom Jacoubowsky. The incident is believed to have happened sometime between May 19 and May 23 and there were fresh tire trucks left at the scene, he said. Residents with information are asked to call Jacoubowsky at 650-354-8290 or e-mail tjacoubowsky@pausd.org. GREENING BARRON PARK ... The Barron Park Association’s Green Tour was so successful last year the Barron Park Green Team has decided to organize a tour this year. Fifteen homeowners will show off their energy-efficiency systems, such as photovoltaic panels and solar hot water and organic and drought-tolerant gardens. Special events include talks on compost, vegetables, native plants and chickens. The event takes place Sunday, June 27 from 1 to 5 p.m. and starts at Bol Park, where solar vendors and nonprofit organizations working to reduce the carbon footprint will be stationed. LIBRARY CLOSURE ... The Palo Alto Main Library will be closed May 28 through 30 for fumigation to eliminate a major termite infestation. The library will reopen June 1. Book drops, including the parking-lot book drop, will be closed. AND THEN THERE WERE THREE ... At least three eucalyptus trees scheduled for removal at Eleanor Pardee Park in the Crescent Park neighborhood will get a temporary reprieve pending further assessment, according to Greg Betts, director of City of Palo Alto Community Services. Six trees were originally recommended for removal as safety hazards. Three trees will be removed in June. N

Send announcements of neighborhood events, meetings and news to Sue Dremann, Neighborhoods editor, at sdremann@paweekly. com. Or talk about your neighborhood news on Town Square at www.PaloAltoOnline.com.

Kimihiro Hoshino

AROUND THE BLOCK

Sarah Wallis Park on Ash Street is the first pesticide-free park in Palo Alto.

Too many pests? Palo Alto parks try traps and ‘bee tunnels’ City’s pest-control programs significantly reduce use of chemical sprays by Sue Dremann

hen sun-seekers lie on the lawn at the tiny Sarah Wallis Park near California Avenue these days, they can rest assured they are not brushing up against toxic pesticides. That’s because the 0.3-acre pocket park near the Oregon Expressway overpass recently became Palo Alto’s first chemicalfree park, according to city officials. To control weeds, park employees use extensive mulching and string trimmers rather than pesticides, according to Robert Ward, parks division manager. Ward said the city is targeting small urban parks such as Sarah Wallis and Scott Park on Channing Avenue for its program to reduce harmful pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, with the hope of applying lessons learned to other parks and open spaces. The city applied 252 pounds of pesticides to control fungus, rodents, weeds and insects last year, according to a February report that examined alternatives such as using goats, mulches and beneficial insects. (Only active ingredients were measured, many of which are diluted.) In 2005, the city used 449 pounds of chemicals. Sarah Wallis Park was chosen because it is close to neighborhoods, said Greg Betts, the city’s director of community services. The park is popular for afternoon reading and sunning, he said. “We’re trying to reduce or eliminate pesticides where people are very close to the landscape,” Betts said. The city is using other pest-control techniques elsewhere. Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course implemented a gopher-trapping program that has proven better at controlling gopher populations than chemical controls and is less expensive, according to staff.

The city also piloted using “bee tunnels” to reroute bees flying to their hives in parks and other public spaces. Bee tunnels reduce the need to kill the beneficial insects, city staff said. The parks department is hoping to make one or two parks per year pesticide-free. Scott Park and perhaps also Monroe Park could be added this year, Ward said. City green belts such as areas around El Palo Alto and Hopkins Creekside Park are also pesticide free, he said. “No pesticides are used at all at Palo Alto Unified School District athletic fields for 13 elementary and three middle schools,” he added. The city’s pest-management program, which it launched formally in 2001 due to state storm-water regulations, combines non-poisonous techniques such as using pest barriers, native plants and biological pest controls with other “organic” methods. In 2009, the city reduced by 43 percent the so-called “ecotoxic” pesticides, which are harmful to wildlife, staff noted. Many of the chemicals can also affect human health, city staff said. The city was the first public agency or business to require its pest-control operators to be EcoWise certified in 2007, which required rigorous training in less-toxic techniques and was developed by pest-control and water-quality professionals and the National Resources Defense Council, according to the report. Developing less-toxic techniques could gain increasing relevance in the coming years. A May 17 federal court injunction prohibited the use of 75 pesticides where 11 endangered or threatened animal species live in eight Bay Area counties, including Santa

Clara County. The chemicals cannot be used in or near the wildlife habitat areas at least until a 5-year study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is completed. In Palo Alto, some pesticide-free techniques have been applied to larger parks and open space areas, but Ward conceded it might not be possible to completely eliminate chemical use in larger spaces because of manual-labor costs. Betts said Palo Alto has tried every alternative from steaming weeds to spraying clove oil. Volunteers do manual weeding and string trimming in Arastradero Preserve and Foothills Park, Betts said. Areas such as sports fields create more challenges, Ward said. Turf grasses are difficult to maintain without fungicides and pesticides. The city is looking to choose less vulnerable turf grasses, however. Bent grass at Palo Alto Lawn Bowls on Embarcadero Road was susceptible to fungus; the city sprayed the grass every three weeks with fungicide, he said. By switching to Bermuda grass the city was able to reduce its spray regimen to once or twice per year, he said. Increased labor costs present the biggest challenge to widely using non-toxic methods, Ward said. A change in public attitude is also helping the program, though, he said. “The expectation is changing. People are OK with weeds in areas where it was not OK before,” he said. A copy of the staff report on the lesstoxic pest-control program can be viewed at www.cityofpaloalto.org/civica/filebank/ blobdload.asp?BlobID=19751. N Staff Writer Sue Dremann can be emailed at sdremann@paweekly.com. *> Ê Ì Ê7ii ÞÊUÊ >ÞÊÓn]ÊÓä£äÊU Page 7

Upfront

Hospital revenues (continued from page 3)

“revenue neutral” should be a major focus of the ongoing negotiations. The city is facing a projected deficit of $7.3 million in fiscal year 2011 and is in the midst of cutting programs and renegotiating employee contracts. “My top priority is to make sure we don’t end up subsidizing the project over time,” Schmid said Monday night. The two sides took a major step toward a development agreement in June, when Stanford offered a menu of “community benefits” to Palo Alto, including a $23.1 million payment to the city’s housing fund, subsidized health-care programs for low-income residents and Caltrain Go Passes for all hospital employees. On Monday night, Vice Mayor Sid Espinosa said the city has “really turned a corner in having entered into a much more collaborative process with Stanford.” But some council members ar-

gued the city should demand more benefits from Stanford. Councilwoman Karen Holman said the city should ask Stanford to allow the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority to build a detention basin on Stanford land. Len Materman, executive director of the creek authority, said a detention basin west of Highway 280 would protect about 3,200 Palo Alto homes from floods and save millions of dollars in flood insurance. The authority is charged with protecting Palo Alto and neighboring communities from the flood-prone San Francisquito Creek. Norman Beamer, president of the Crescent Park Neighborhood Association, agreed. “It doesn’t cost Stanford any money,” Beamer said. “It seems to me to be a natural candidate for offsetting the costs of the tremendously large developments in a way that doesn’t hurt either side and would greatly benefit Palo Alto.” The university had consistently maintained that the medical facilities are themselves a major community benefit and has opposed

benefits that don’t relate to the hospitals. In the next two months, the council and the Planning and Transportation Commission plan to delve into each chapter of the massive Draft Environmental Impact report over a series of 11 meetings. One impact that the report states cannot be mitigated is increased traffic at three Menlo Park intersections: Middlefield and Willow roads; Bayfront Expressway and Willow; and University Avenue and Bayfront. Menlo Park City Councilman Heyward Robinson told the Palo Alto council Monday that he hopes Stanford’s mitigation measures would include “very, very aggressive trip reductions.” “We certainly recognize benefits of having a world-class medical facility in our midst and having it expand and be even better than it is, but we have to figure out how to manage this flow of folks,” Robinson said. N Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be e-mailed at gsheyner@ paweekly.com.

News Digest Two young men detained after Gunn lockdown Two 18-year-old Gunn High School students were arrested Thursday for bringing a weapon to school. The males were taken into custody shortly before 3 p.m., following a campus lockdown that was called just as the school day was ending around 2 p.m. and that lasted about 45 minutes. Names of the arrested students were not available before the Weekly’s press deadline. No one was hurt in the incident. Police said the weapon was an Airsoft rifle, which shoots BB-sized plastic pellets. As of 3:30 p.m., the two students’ parents were at the school talking to police and school officials, police said. Gunn students were confined to classrooms during the lockdown while police searched for two reported juveniles who arrived at campus with a realistic-looking air rifle, according to initial police reports. After the lockdown ended, several students said they had not been informed about what was happening. But police and school officials were themselves scrambling to determine what was occurring, according to reports. Police Lt. Sandra Brown said officers arriving at the scene found an unoccupied vehicle and decided to “take no chances” and ordered classrooms locked. A police SWAT team also arrived on campus. Students reported that they were only told it was a “Code Red” alert. Parents arriving to pick up their teens were diverted to Alta Mesa Cemetery across Arastradero Road from Gunn while police and school officials concentrated on room V9 in the portables section of the school. Other parents waited in cars along Miranda Avenue and on Arastradero Road until cones barricading the campus entrance were removed. Many were on cell phones attempting to contact their children inside the school. One student reported desks had been pushed up against the inside of the door of the classroom. The campus still swarmed with police following the lockdown as students poured out of Gunn. Students said even then that they didn’t know the cause of the disturbance or whether those detained were Gunn students or outsiders. N —Jay Thorwaldson, Tyler Hanley, Chris Kenrick

Palo Alto eyes bond to fix aged infrastructure Two engineers, three finance specialists, four local commissioners and six volunteers-at-large will soon tackle one of Palo Alto’s most talked about and least understood problems — an infrastructure backlog that city officials say has risen to more than half a billion dollars. The mission of the new Infrastructure Blue Ribbon Task Force will be both broad and technical: to identify the most critical items on the city’s long laundry list of crumbling roads and obsolete buildings and to possibly pave the way for a bond measure that would go to the voters as early as November 2011. The City Council will appoint the 15-member group in the next two months and will expect a report back in about a year. What to do about the swelling infrastructure backlog has baffled city officials for years and has become a hotter topic now that Palo Alto is facing a string of budget deficits and program cuts. The city’s proposed capital budget for 2011, which City Manager James Keene unveiled in April, estimates that the gap between how much the city needs to spend on infrastructure over the next 20 years and how much it plans to spend is currently about $510 million. One question the committee will wrestle with is whether the long list of maintenance projects should be considered for a possible bond. The hodgepodge of projects described as “maintenance” account for $302 million in the backlog and include refurbishment of local streets, sidewalks, bridges, parks and some buildings. The other $208 million includes a few big-ticket items such as a new Municipal Service Center ($93 million), the much discussed police headquarters (about $60 million); and an assortment of smaller projects (two fire stations, a new animal shelter and major improvements to Charleston and Arastradero road corridors). N — Gennady Sheyner

Elementary Mandarin popular in Palo Alto Palo Alto’s elementary Mandarin Immersion Program is wildly popular among local families, with 69 students applying for 22 kindergarten spots this fall. However, school officials say it’s unclear whether there’s enough interest in high school Mandarin to sustain the current offerings of Chinese I through Advanced Placement. These are among the conclusions in an annual update on the school district’s Mandarin program to be presented to the Board of Education Tuesday. At the elementary level, a Mandarin Immersion Program at Ohlone School is finishing the second year of a three-year pilot. This fall, the program will serve 88 students in grades K-3, with two K-1 classes and two 2-3 classes. Parent interest in the program remains strong, with 43 English-speaking students applying for 14 available seats this year, and 26 Mandarinspeaking students applying for eight seats. N — Chris Kenrick Page 8ÊUÊ >ÞÊÓn]ÊÓä£äÊUÊ*> Ê Ì Ê7ii Þ

(continued from page 5)

Kathleen Blanchard, mother of Jean Paul Blanchard, who died May 5, 2009, also endorsed a policy to address student social-emotional health. “Key to success is identification of a person who will lead this effort and be accountable for making board resolution a reality,” said Blanchard, who has two other children in the school district. Most if not all of the school district’s 17 campuses already have some form of social-emotional or character-education curriculum, including a mandatory “Living Skills” semester in the high schools, the “Steps to Respect” program in elementary schools and several antibullying efforts. School officials this week proposed a new program, known as Project Cornerstone Developmental Assets, as a framework for youth support that could be used by schools as well as by the city and various community agencies. That program already is in use by Los Gatos, Morgan Hill, the City of San Jose and various YMCAs, officials said. “Developmental assets” themes include: support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, constructive use of time, commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies and positive identity. The idea would be for multiple community agencies to reinforce the themes, leading to an atmosphere of greater support for teens, district Director of Student Services Carol Zepecki told the board. Zepecki, who co-chaired a suicide-response task force along with city recreation official Rob DeGeus, presented a long list of ways the school and community is responding to the suicides. The school district plans to train all teachers and staff in a suicide-prevention method known as QPR (question, persuade and refer), school psychologist Wes Cedros said. QPR teaches people to “recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade and refer someone to help,” according to its website. With some reservations, school board members endorsed the Project Cornerstone Developmental Assets program but continued to discuss how to implement this and other emotional-health programs for students and staff. Parents and school board members applauded the volunteer efforts of Track Watch, a group parents and others who have organized to maintain a physical presence at the Caltrain tracks in hopes of discouraging future suicide attempts. “It’s not a coincidence that we’ve not had a suicide since the Track Watch folks have been there doing their work,” Superintendent Kevin Skelly said. “They deserve a lot of credit for that. It makes a big difference in a tangible way.” Skelly said he will work to refine some of the ideas presented Tuesday, particularly those concerning the Developmental Assets, and return to the board with more on the topic at its June 22 meeting. N Staff Writer Chris Kenrick can be e-mailed at ckenrick@paweekly.com.

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Upfront

Online This Week

These and other news stories were posted on Palo Alto Online throughout the week. For longer versions, go to www.PaloAltoOnline.com/news or click on “News” in the left, green column.

Fire, protest snarl University Avenue traffic A house fire and a protest march against education-budget cuts combined to snarl traffic on University Avenue in East Palo Alto around rush hour Wednesday. (Posted May 26 at 4:38 p.m.)

New fees ahead for Palo Alto Children’s Theatre? Palo Alto’s young actors could soon face fees ranging from $50 to $300 to participate in plays at the Children’s Theatre — a budgetbalancing proposal that critics say will reduce diversity among participants and create a new access barrier for low-income residents. (Posted May 26 at 3:11 p.m.)

Simitian to host Palo Alto ‘sidewalk office hours’

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND SALE

State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) has announced he will hold “sidewalk office hours” in Palo Alto and Menlo Park on June 5 and 6. Community members will be able to talk with Simitian without setting an appointment. (Posted May 26 at 2:38 p.m.)

Reward offered in Mountain View cat shooting The Palo Alto Humane Society is offering a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person who shot a cat in Mountain View earlier this month. (Posted May 26 at 11:17 a.m.)

King Institute to host major peace conference

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Clayborne Carson, director of the King Institute at Stanford University, has announced a major international conference on world peace and social movements to reduce the underlying causes of war. (Posted May 26 at 10:17 a.m.)

James Flood school vandalized, ransacked Police are investigating an apparent vandalism early Tuesday morning at the James Flood Magnet School in East Palo Alto in which classrooms were ransacked but little if anything taken. (Posted May 25 at 11:26 p.m.)

Pension reform to go on ballot in Menlo Park A Menlo Park initiative effort to reduce city-employee pension costs will go on the November ballot, the City Council agreed last week. The initiative if approved would cut pension benefits to future nonpolice city employees and require voter approval for any future benefit increases. (Posted May 25 at 1:54 p.m.)

PRESIDIO BANK MID-PENINSULA

3-year-old East Palo Alto girl is safe back home A 3-year-old girl is safe with her mother after allegedly being abducted by her father from her East Palo Alto home late Sunday, police said. (Posted May 25 at 7:32 a.m.)

Steve Heitel, President & CEO Sarah Lewis, SVP/Relationship Manager

HP gets contract to speed immigration checks

Luke Farley, VP/Relationship Manager Brenda Phillips, VP/Relationship Service Manager Kevin Hutchison, AVP/Relationship Service Manager

ADVISORY BOARD Annette Bialson, Partner, Bialson, Bergen & Schwab Terry Conner, Partner, Thoits Love Hershbenger & McLean Bill Hurwick, Partner and Senior Vice President, Cassidy Turley/BT Commercial David Kalkbrenner, Principal, Kalkbrenner Consulting Ronnie Lott, Managing Member, Lott Auto Ventures Al Pace, President & CEO, Urban Housing Group

PRESIDIO BANK

Presidio Bank announces the opening of its Mid-Peninsula Regional Office 325 Lytton Avenue Suite 100 Palo Alto 650.321.0500

Seat-belt crackdown begins — with bigger fines A “no warnings” crackdown on motorists who flout the seat-belt law began Monday (May 24) with violators facing increased fines, according to Palo Alto police. (Posted May 22 at 7:07 a.m.)

Palo Alto fires back at fire union president A heated dispute between the City of Palo Alto and its firefighters’ union — even before the two sides sit down to negotiate a contract — went up several degrees Friday during a press conference outside City Hall. (Posted May 22 at 6:57 a.m.) Want to get news briefs e-mailed to you every weekday? Sign up for Express, our new daily e-edition. Go to www.PaloAltoOnline.com to sign up.

Looking for something to do? Check out the Weekly’s Community Calendar for the Midpeninsula.

David Sacarelos, Partner & CPA Seiler LLP

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A $41.6 million contract to help speed up immigration-status checks has been awarded to HP Enterprise Services, the Palo Alto-based firm announced Monday. (Posted May 24 at 9:46 a.m.)

Instantly ﬁnd out what events are going on in your city!

Go to www.PaloAltoOnline.com/calendar

Transitions

0%42! 3 -#'),,)62!9

Births, marriages and deaths

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*!.5!29 ÂŻ !02), Our mother passed away peacefully at home, April 4, 2010, following an Easter celebration and dinner. She was 93. Mary was born in Horton, Kansas to Edward Ray and Mary O. Woolsey. Although she spent the last 53 years in Palo Alto, CA, her birthplace, Horton always carried a special place in her heart. Her ashes will be laid to rest in the cemetery where her parents, husband and brother are buried in the small town where she grew up. Mary was preceded in death by her husband, of 49 years, Robert E. Lewis who she met at the International House at the University of Chicago. She is survived by three sons, Don of Palo Alto, Randy of North Carolina and Steven of Hawaii. She had one daughter-in-law, Susan, wife of Steven and their son,Jai, her beloved grandson.

A graduate of the University of Chicago, Mary was actively involved in many organizations. She worked as an educational director in an urban co-op, taught school and was instrumental in the creation and coordination of volunteer programs in secondary schools. Mary was a published author of three books on this subject. As past president of the American Assciation of University Women, she received two name grants. As past president of many PTA organizations, she was given an honorary life membership. Her life long hobby was her study of parliamentary procedure which she focused on until her passing. She was the founder and ďŹ rst president of The Alpha Delta Unit of the National Association of Parliamentarians. She was a member of the DAR, The Daughters of the American Revolution. A celebration of Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life will be held at 2pm on Saturday, June 5 at the ďŹ rst Baptist Church of Palo Alto, 305 North California Ave. where she was a member for over ďŹ fty years. In lieu of ďŹ&#x201A;owers, please make a donation or gift to your favorite charity. PA I D

O B I T UA RY

*/(. Âą*!#+Â˛ (!24 0)#+!24 John "Jack" Hart Pickart, a resident of Atherton for 40 years, died at his home on May 14th surrounded by his loving wife, children and grandchildren. He was 79. Jack Pickart was born on July 25th, 1930, in Sacramento, California where he attended Christian Brothers high school and lettered in baseball and basketball. A gifted athlete, Jack also played baseball and basketball for St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College in Moraga, CA. In 1952, he was drafted into the army during the Korean War. Jack credits baseball with saving his life; he was detained in the States to play baseball for the Army while the remainder of the 6th Infantry Division went to Korea. Most did not return. From 1951 to 1956, Jack played professional baseball, pitching for the Sacramento Solons and then, brieďŹ&#x201A;y, for the Chicago White Sox. He hung up his mitt to work for IBM in Sacramento where he ultimately became the regional sales manager for the western United States. After sixteen years, Jack retired from IBM and went to work for Itel followed by Formost McKesson. His love of the real estate industry lead him to join Cornish & Carey in Palo Alto before co-founding Bayside Capital in Foster City, California.

While in the service, Jack married E. Lynn Barry in 1953. They moved to Atherton in 1970 and raised three children. Jack loved to play tennis with his friends and grandchildren at the Menlo Circus Club. An avid golfer, he frequented local and international golf courses to play the game he loved so dearly. He and Lynn loved to travel the world and entertain friends. After retirement, Jack enjoyed bridge, brisk walks, and attending the sporting events of his grandchildren. He also enjoyed volunteering at the Palo Alto Medical Clinic and for eight years he was the ďŹ rst person one would see upon entering the clinic on Monday mornings. His signature booming voice, infectious laugh and ruddy cheeks will be missed by all those lucky enough to have known him. Jack Pickart is survived by his wife of 56 years, Lynn; his children Kristin Spindt and sonin-law Chris Spindt of Menlo Park, Rebecca Pickart of Menlo Park, and John Adam Pickart and daughter-in-law Elizabeth Eaton Pickart of Gonzalez; his sister Mary Louise Sekul and her husband Tom; and four grandchildren: Alison, Ben and Emma Spindt and Corinne Pickart. A small, private family memorial was held on May 22, 2010. The family suggests that memorial donations be made in Jackâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name to The Palo Alto Medical Foundation, 795 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94301. There will be a bench dedicated to Jack in the outdoor courtyard behind the reception area. PA I D

O B I T UA RY

Petra S. McGillivray passed away on May 22nd, 2010 in Stanford. Petra was a longtime resident of Palo Alto and widow of well known Bay Area General Contractor, the late William M. McGillivray. An avid gardener and accomplished seamstress, she was affectionately called â&#x20AC;&#x153;detective McGillivrayâ&#x20AC;? by her loving family. A longtime member of St. Thomas Aquinas Church Guild, she is survived by sons Richard R. and William J. McGillivray; daughter, Patricia A. Douglas; sister, Mary Ryland and a brother, Frank Sanchez; 11 grandchildren, 9 great-grandchildren, and 5 great-greatgrandchildren. She was preceded in death by a son, Ronald Toro. Friends are invited to attend funeral services at 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at Roller Hapgood and Tinney Funeral Home, 980 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, followed by committal in Alta Mesa Memorial Park, Palo Alto. She is loved and will be missed by her entire family. Aloha! Services entrusted to Roller Hapgood & Tinney Funeral Home. www.rollerhapgoodtinney.com. PA I D

O B I T UA RY

). -%-/2)!- *%!..% $ 7/(,%23 !PRIL -AY Jeanne, a long-time resident of Woodside, succumbed to ovarian cancer after battling the disease with extraordinary bravery for three and a half years. She gave joy to her husband and to her family and many friends until the very end. Born in Maplewood, New Jersey to Karl and Doris Wohlers, Jeanne graduated from Skidmore College in 1967 and from Columbia University School of Business in 1968. Following early jobs in consulting, ďŹ nance and venture capital in New York City and Chicago, Jeanne moved to the Bay Area in 1978 to join Tandem Computers as V.P. and Treasurer and later as Controller. Thereafter, she served as C.F.O. of Sybase from 1988 until 1992. Jeanne has been an Independent Director/Trustee of a family of mutual funds managed by American Century Investments since 1982, as well as a Director of various public and private technology companies. She left a lasting mark on each of these organizations and maintained friendships with many of her colleagues for years after her service. Jeanneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s activities and contributions extended into the non-proďŹ t world as well. She served as a Board member and Board Chair of Avenidas, a community agency serving seniors and care-givers in the Palo Alto area. Jeanne also served on the Board of Montalvo Arts Center. Beyond all of these engagements and accomplishments, Jeanne was a wonderful and inspiring human being. Understated and modest in all that she did, she left an indelible impression on everyone with whom she interacted. Jeanne was a loving and fully-engaged step-mother and a role-model to her step-daughters Amy and Jill Herzig, both of Brooklyn, NY. She was loved and admired by her nephews, Peter and Michael Herzig, both of New York City, by her grandchildren, Julia, Eve and Tirha, and by her sister and brotherin-law, Anne and David Toombs of Southport, CT. To her husband of 30 years, Alan Herzig, Jeanne was the perfect wife, partner and friend in every aspect of an extraordinarily happy and fulďŹ lling life. We will all miss her terribly. Contributions in memory of Jeanne may be made to Avenidas, 450 Bryant Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301 PA I D

O B I T UA RY

*>Â?Â&#x153;Ă&#x160; Â?Ă&#x152;Â&#x153;Ă&#x160;7iiÂ&#x17D;Â?Ă&#x17E;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160; >Ă&#x17E;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x201C;n]Ă&#x160;Ă&#x201C;Ă¤ÂŁĂ¤Ă&#x160;U Page 11

Editorial

Voters face important propositions

alifornia voters face five propositions on this primary election, including two — Proposition 16 and Proposition 17 — that are largely financed and promoted by special interests that will reap great benefits if they pass.

Here are the Weekly’s recommendations: Proposition 13: This is primarily a housekeeping measure to allow owners of buildings being seismically retrofitted avoid a reassessment for tax purposes. We urge a YES vote on Proposition 13. Proposition 14: This measure would create an open-primary system so all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, would appear on the same primary-election ballot, with a runoff for the two top vote-getters in the November elections. While its effect has yet to be tested, we believe it has the potential of being a moderating influence on the California’s crisis of political polarization — a paralysis that affects all levels of government, cripples the state’s ability to respond rationally or effectively to urgent issues, and discourages able candidates from seeking state office. Vote YES on Proposition 14. Proposition 15: Dubbed the “California Fair Elections Act,” this proposition lifts a ban on public funding of political campaigns and would test public funding in races for Secretary of State in 2014 and 2018. The funds used would be raised primarily from fees assessed on the approximately 4,300 registered lobbyists in California from an annual $25 fee to $700 every two years, with inflation adjustments to follow. The fees would raise an estimated $6 million per four-year election cycle, according to the state Legislative Analyst’s Office. It is time to test public funding of campaigns. We urge voters to vote YES on Proposition 15, which will provide a good test of this process. Proposition 16: Pacific Gas & Electric has bankrolled this initiative amendment to the California Constitution. If approved it would force a public agency to obtain a two-thirds voter approval before the agency could enter the retail-power business. Without such approval, cities could not create municipal utilities or community-wide clean-electricity districts called “community choice aggregators,” used to sell energy generated by wind or solar systems. Palo Alto has its own municipal electric utility, dating back about a century — a service that generally has kept rates well below PG&E rates while transferring many millions of dollars to the city’s general fund. Santa Clara also owns its electrical utility. Yet municipalities that wish to buy and sell “clean” renewable energy should not be hindered by an initiative measure that so blatantly blocks their chances of doing so.

Small cities that might go into the power business are hardly a threat to PG&E. But, the giant utility has spent millions on seriously misleading advertising to promote its passage, deceptively calling it a “right to vote” measure when in fact it would abandon the majority-rules tradition in a democracy in favor of a two-thirdsapproval requirement (giving one-third-plus-one of voters veto power) for any new municipal system. Plus, since cities may not legally spend money to campaign for ballot measures, PG&E could use its virtually unlimited funds to beat back such measures under present majoritydecides voting. We urge voters to defeat this special-interest power grab. It would preclude lower-priced or greener energy for consumers while giving PG&E an even greater monopoly than it already enjoys. Vote NO on Proposition 16. Proposition 17: A vote for this proposition is a vote for Mercury Insurance. The giant company has spent more than $10 million to skirt a provision of Proposition 103, the landmark 1988 consumer initiative that rolled back California insurance rates and set strict guidelines on setting auto-insurance rates. Under current law, an insurance company can offer longtime policyholders a “persistency discount” to existing customers. But under Proposition 103 insurers cannot offer such discounts to new customers even if they had continuous coverage from a different insurance company. Proposition 17 would give insurance companies the right to offer such discounts to customers of other insurers who have not let their policies lapse for more than 90 days in five years. But opponents of the measure fear that the roughly 20 percent of drivers in the state who do not qualify for persistency discounts — those who have been out of the market or who temporarily lost coverage — will be forced to pay substantial surcharges when they re-enter the market. This measure’s prime sponsor, Mercury Insurance, is no favorite of state regulators. As reported by USNewswire on April 12, the California Department of Insurance said Mercury Insurance “has overcharged and discriminated against California customers for over 15 years, including failing to deliver discounts required by state law and imposing unlawful surcharges.” That’s enough for us. We believe consumers are well-served by Proposition 103, which should not be confused or undermined by changes proposed by Mercury or other insurance companies. Vote NO on Proposition 17.

Gordon for Assembly, Rosen for DA

s we outlined in two full-length editorials (May 7 and May 14, www.PaloAltoOnline.com), the Weekly supports Rich Gordon in the June 8 election race for state Assembly and Jeff Rosen for Santa Clara County’s next District Attorney.

Rosen is challenging incumbent D.A. Dolores Carr, who we feel has failed to provide the promised “reform” leadership in her first term and who instead has made several poor judgment calls — including an unprecedented “black-balling” of a Superior Court judge. Those lapses are showing up in the overwhelming endorsement support that Rosen’s campaign has elicited, including from former D.A. George Kennedy, the county Bar Association and several law-enforcement organizations. Despite his lack of management experience, we believe Rosen’s 15 years in the D.A.’s office prosecuting complex felonies will enable him to lead the department effectively and institute Page 12ÊUÊ >ÞÊÓn]ÊÓä£äÊUÊ*> Ê Ì Ê7ii Þ

needed reforms. In the Assembly race for the Democratic nomination, Gordon, a longtime San Mateo County supervisor with statewide leadership experience as president of the supervisors’ association, has a clear experience edge on former Palo Alto City Council member Yoriko Kishimoto and “green energy entrepreneur” and activist Josh Becker. All three are intelligent, energetic, well educated and committed to pushing for a better state and environment. But political experience counts. Gordon has demonstrated his independence and breadth of support, picking up endorsements even from supervisors from conservative counties in the outback regions of California. We believe he is the best bet to help heal the disastrous political polarization that has afflicted California for too many years.

Spectrum Editorials, letters and opinions

Kishimoto responds Editor, The South Bay Labor Council has spent over $70,000 to fund negative mailers that mislead the public about my transportation record — specifically stating that I fought against improved public transportation for Santa Clara County and have “obstructed” a mass transit system. The fact is that I opposed the BART extension into San Jose because it would siphon off virtually all funding for all other transit improvements in the county for the next 30 years. This flyer is yet another example of special interests trying to buy political influence in Sacramento. It is a sign that they know I cannot be bought and I consider it a badge of honor. This is exactly what’s wrong with our system and why I am running for Assembly. In my eight years in public service I have read the budgets and done my homework. I make decisions based on real analysis, balanced listening and what is in the best interest of the people. I also opposed Measure B in 2008, a 1/8-cent sales-tax increase to pay for BART operating costs when the extension begins operations. Such a tax is regressive and not the way to fund transit for the entire county. In addition, all transit is not equal, as we have learned with high-speed rail. We must pay attention to the details to design the transportation system right: integrated, modern and

efficient in travel time, energy and costs. Creating jobs is important but we need to create them by adding real value to the system. Yoriko Kishimoto Candidate for State Assembly

Stanford deception Editor, As a retired nurse from Stanford Hospital, I am disappointed to read about a possible strike by union nurses. The hospital administration has left the nurses in an untenable position. Their offer is mean spirited and unreasonable to dedicated and highly skilled nurses. Bedside nurses with decades of experience and skill face demotion and reduced incomes. The hospital is changing the way nurses seek and maintain advancement. The administration is demanding nurses be researchers on their own time, and present research papers for advancement. Administrators speak of the “new Professional Nurse Development Program” as the hospital’s way to “redefine nursing”. Writing research papers does not make a skilled bedside nurse. I hope the public discovers the truth in this matter. Please write, e-mail and phone the administration regarding this contemptible and deceptive proposal by Stanford hospitals. Margaret H. Carney Claremont Way, Menlo Park

YOUR TURN The Palo Alto Weekly encourages comments on our coverage or on issues of local interest.

What do you think? Do you feel changing fees to participate in Palo Alto Children’s Theatre productions is fair or will change the theatre? Submit letters to the editor of up to 250 words to letters@paweekly.com. Include your name, address and daytime phone number so we can reach you. We reserve the right to edit contributions for length, objectionable content, libel and factual errors known to us. Anonymous letters will generally not be accepted. You can also participate in our popular interactive online forum, Town Square, at our community website at www.PaloAltoOnline.com. Read blogs, discuss issues, ask questions or express opinions with you neighbors any time, day or night. Submitting a letter to the editor or guest opinion constitutes a granting of permission to the Palo Alto Weekly and Embarcadero Publishing Co. to also publish it online, including in our online archives and as a post on Town Square. For more information contact Editor Jay Thorwaldson or Online Editor Tyler Hanley at editor@paweekly.com or 650-326-8210.

Check out Town Square! Hundreds of local topics are being discussed by local residents on Town Square, a reader forum sponsored by the Weekly on our community website at www.PaloAltoOnline.com. Post your own comments, ask questions, read the Editor’s blog or just stay up on what people are talking about around town!

Guest Opinion Getting to 100 is a lot like running a marathon, one jog at a time by Walter Bortz II ast month I ran the Boston Marathon nearly 40 years after my first run there. This year, 40 consecutive annual marathons later, I crossed the finish line in Copley Square, Boston. What a difference. The first time it took me five hours and five minutes to finish. I finished in silence. This last time it took 7 1/2 hours, and I finished to the cheers of a thousand Patriot’s Day celebrants with flash bulbs popping, so to speak. The first time I hadn’t the slightest idea what the effort entailed, and I was in tears. This time I was a grizzled vet who knew that the back spasm I encountered at 24 miles was only a minor annoyance and nothing to halt the run. So I finished with a big smile. Not bad for an 80 year old. I was beaten by 30,000 other runners, including an 83-yearold woman. The winner, a Kenyan, broke the course record in two hours, five minutes. He could have lapped me twice. This year’s race also marks several decades of a particular interest of mine: healthy aging. For many years I was a practicing geriatrician with the Palo Alto Medical Clinic/Foundation and a member of the clinical faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine. For much of that time, I was practicing standard medicine for older persons: monitoring people’s vital signs and advising them on diet, avoiding bad habits and getting moderate exercise. Then one year I suffered a badly broken leg

in a skiing accident, and it had to be in a cast for many weeks. I was shocked when the cast came off and I looked down at a leg that didn’t belong to me but to a very old person — all spindly and frail. My other leg, despite relative inactivity, was far younger. I began reading up on everything I could find on the relationship between aging, frailty and physical activity, which culminated in my book, “We Live Too Short and Die Too Long ,” published in 1996. This mid-April week that I ran the most recent Boston Marathon my latest book, “The Roadmap to 100,” hit the bookstores — based on 30 years of research that shows that one’s lifestyle has major effects on healthy aging and longevity. “Lifestyle” includes physical exertion, social connections, even sex, and a personal and professional engagement in life. Both research and experience shows that we humans are not just end products of our genetics! So April was a big month for me. Back to the marathons: In my first run, in 1971, I was beaten by only 800 other runners, and I was only among the last runners. That run was done because my physician father, Edward, who was my alpha/ omega figure for 39 years, died abruptly that year. I was devastated. But I was smart enough to know that running is a fabulous treatment for depression. I’m a terrible runner. The iconic image of the runner is the fleet-of-foot whippet with wings on his shoes. My image is a slogger wearing Army boots. Yet being a Walter Mitty-type athlete, my father’s death quickly spurred entry into the only world-class athletic event to which an

ordinary Joe could aspire. Then the Boston Marathon organizers changed the rules and created qualifying times, which effectively excluded me. That would have ended my Boston Marathon streak, if one dared call it that, except that a group of physicians under Ron Lawrence’s leadership found an exemption for doctors — because of the support services we physicians provided for the qualified runners.

I’m a terrible runner. The iconic image of the runner is the fleet-of-foot whippet with wings on his shoes. My image is a slogger wearing Army boots.

Shamelessly, I accepted my entry number, color-coded to identify my outlier category, and I finished. At the end of the first run I swore I would never again submit to the tortures of this 26mile test. After all, the first marathoner, the Athenian runner Phidippidies, died from exhaustion in 490 B.C. after the run — most people don’t know he had just run 140 miles and back to seek Sparta’s aid against a Persian attack. But, as with childbirth, as soon as my first

Streetwise

Who is a good role model for women interested in technology?

marathon was done I searched for next year’s opportunity. And my search has led to runs in Athens (site of the original marathon), Dublin, New York, Australia, Beijing, Boston again (maybe 10 times) and Big Sur — my favorite. Despite its hills, its scenery is spectacular. So this marathon story is my highly personal odyssey of a life journey. It has virtually become my religion. Exploring it has many important derivative aspects. I’ve learned the thermodynamics of exercise, the anthropology of running — and mostly about its health benefits. As a geriatrician the insights provided by these decades of commitment have defined a new way of looking at growing older. Aging’s principal pathology is frailty, which is not a defined disease but is of immense importance to one’s quality of life. Its cause is principally lack of exercise. Physical activity of any type, from walking to marathon running or swimming, is both the preventive and treatment of frailty. It is cheap, safe and effective. What other remedy can make these claims? I’m already planning marathon 2011. Dare to be 100. N Walter Bortz II, M.D., a clinical associate professor of medicine at Stanford University, is nationally known as the author of earlier books on “robust aging” and longevity: “We Live Too Short and Die Too Long,” “Dare to Be 100,” “Living Longer for Dummies” and “Diabetes Danger.” He is past co-chairman of the American Medical Association’s Task Force on Aging, former President of The American Geriatrics Society and senior advisor to Healthy Silicon Valley, a community collaborative effort that addresses the soaring rate obesity and diabetes. He can be e-mailed drwbortz@aol.com.

Interviews by Siena Witte. Photographs by Kimihiro Hoshino. Asked on California

Avenue and at Town and Country shopping center.

Laura Albrecht

Yoga Instructor Santa Cruz “I can’t think of a woman at the forefront of technology. When I think of technology, I think of men. Most of the people who help me with my technology issues are male.”

Leslie Erganian

Artist Byron Street, Palo Alto “Madonna and Lady Gaga, if you think of her videos and how she incorporates lights and projections ... like the Beijing Olympics. There are no boundaries. I’m an artist so that’s what interests me.”

Neil Kran

Retired Sausalito “Someone who’s smart, capable, but most importantly confident. Decades ago women were prohibited because of superstitions so breaking that barrier is important.”

Lucia Heldt

Retired Pitman Street, Palo Alto “I was just looking through some physics textbooks and there were almost no women. I think it’s changed a lot, but I think young women are intimidated by the math and science courses that they need to take. Especially with technology, it’s always been dominated by men.”

Alisa Glenn

Student Channing Street, Palo Alto “I don’t really know. If they (women) haven’t made the next big thing they don’t get coverage.”

*> Ê Ì Ê7ii ÞÊUÊ >ÞÊÓn]ÊÓä£äÊU Page 13

Cover Story

What ceiling? Women carve out a place in Silicon Valley’s startup arena by Aimee Miles

n the summer of 2007, 22-year-old Ooshma Garg was in position to make a critical decision. Having recently graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s in biomechanical engineering, she had accepted an offer for a stint at a top-tier financial-services firm as an equities-trading analyst. But several weeks into her internship with the firm, Garg decided to do the unthinkable — she packed her bags and walked away, leaving behind a flabbergasted cohort of peers and advisers. Garg had spent the previous year laying the foundation for a startup that she had conceived her junior year in college, when she served as co-president of Stanford Women in Business, a pre-professional organization that offers networking and mentorship resources for undergraduates. Noticing that diversity recruiters in law and engineering sectors didn’t have a centralized place on the Internet to connect with groups like hers, Garg decided to create one. On her own time and dollar, she began researching her market, drawing up user interfaces and work-flow models for her website, and showing prototypes of her product to potential customers — all while keeping up with classes. Garg hired a web developer and marketing director, and by the time she graduated from

Stanford she had high hopes of securing three subscriptions from law firms who took a leap of faith and considered paying for a product that hadn’t launched yet. But she hadn’t yet received the funds, and, uncertain of whether her plans would really take off, she found an internship that would supply her with a steady income through the end of the summer. “I wasn’t sure if the checks would come in,” she said, “and I was encouraged to take a job that would set me up for a very stable and lucrative career. But a few weeks in when the revenue was confirmed and in my mailbox, I left my internship.” That move, as Garg puts it, “caused quite a stir.” She promptly caught a flight from New York to Stanford, sublet a graduate student’s apartment and began working out of coffee shops with a team of three. Behind her was a position at a prestigious firm that could have fast-tracked her corporate career; ahead were the murky, capricious waters of Silicon Valley’s startup space. “I’m leaving for what some people see as risky, but what I feel was my dream,” she recalls thinking. Garg launched Anapata in August 2008, and, two years later, the company is still afloat. Clients include law firms Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Fenwick & West, and WilmerHale and Dechert.

Sipping coffee at a café in downtown Palo Alto, Garg, who has an air of boundless enthusiasm, discussed possible plans to scale beyond her current customer base once Anapata has developed a proven revenue model. She still devotes 80 to 100 hours a week to the firm and does the majority of coding for Anapata.

of a next-generation gaming platform while pursuing her masters in entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon. Tellerman thought the concept might have potential beyond academic research, and after earning her degree in 2005, she stayed on at Carnegie as an employee and continued to refine the prototype.

‘I’m leaving for what some people see as risky, but what I feel was my dream.’

ilicon Valley is a beacon of hope to this breed of entrepreneur — young, energetic, tech-savvy, and brazenly ambitious. But with women-founded, venturebacked startups accounting for just 8 percent of the total, it’s clear that women in the valley’s high-tech sector who channel that potential into high-growth, scalable companies are statistically the exception, not the rule. That trend has recently begun to correct itself. The ranks of up-and-coming female founders who rival Garg’s promising arsenal of credentials, self-confidence and headstrong entrepreneurial ambition are slowly swelling — women-led or women-owned firms represent the fastest growing sector of new venture creation in the U.S. — and a host of emerging Silicon Valley startups with a stake in the tech industry have a woman at the helm. One is Wild Pockets, which streamlines the process of creating online games for developers. Shanna Tellerman began nursing the idea

Veronica Weber

Anapata founder Ooshma Garg, left, checks in with Social Media Coordinator Catherine Bonn in their Palo Alto office. Page 14ÊUÊ >ÞÊÓn]ÊÓä£äÊUÊ*> Ê Ì Ê7ii Þ

– Ooshma Garg, founder, Anapata A visiting investor took notice and told her the product might be commercially viable. Tellerman founded Wild Pockets (then Sim Ops Studios, Inc.) in Pittsburgh in 2006, without any funding or a business person on board. “I knew nothing about fundraising, and zero about startups in general,” Tellerman said. Six months later she and her teammate managed to secure $100,000 in early seed money from a state-funded seed capital group as the American economy began to spiral into a decline — a tuppence compared to the $2 million they had initially bargained for. At the time, that seemed like a setback, but Tellerman now thinks it gave her a unique opportunity. “It’s a lot better not to take on a lot of capital at the start and grow a little more organically and figure out your path,” she said. “It was smarter money.” The turning point didn’t happen until two years ago, when Tellerman attended separate events hosted by Wired Magazine and Tech Crunch, which “blew open the door,” she said. The venture capitalists she had encountered in Pittsburgh had been “a little more institutional in their thinking,” and Tellerman found the culture in Silicon Valley far more hospitable to a young female entrepreneur with lofty aspirations and limited business experience. After conferring with advisers who understood the industry, the company rebranded and widened the scope of its product, opening an additional office in San Francisco. Wild Pockets, now in the beta stage, offers a free web-based 3D design platform, game assets, file hosting and other services throughout the development process. Looking back on the past four years, Tellerman said there are quite a few things she would have done differently — but she had to learn them on her feet. She credits her willingness to make mistakes as one of the traits that helped her through the growing pains of launching and leading a startup. “There’s a hundred decisions you make at every moment,” Tellerman said. “You just have to move fast, be willing to try an idea, get it out fast, execute fast, get feedback fast ... even if (the product’s) not as polished as you want it to be.” “It helps being on the younger side and not

Cover Story

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Kimihiro Hoshino

Shaherose Charania is the co-founder of networking and business-advice company Women 2.0. knowing what you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do,â&#x20AC;? she said.

hat reckless pursuit of an improbable vision, negotiated on a steep learning curve at high risk â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the quintessential startup experience â&#x20AC;&#x201D; might very well have ended in failure for Tellerman or Garg, and could go that way yet. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a risk that Shaherose Charania, CEO of Silicon Valley-based networking organization Women 2.0, is encouraging more and more women to take. Charania, who studied business at the University of Western Ontario, co-founded Women 2.0 in 2006 after relocating to the Bay Area from Toronto, Canada. Her first glimpse of Silicon Valley came when she was vying for a job with Google. The company brought her to Mountain View for an interview but ultimately told her they wanted an engineer for the position. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was gutted,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But I had seen the Valley.â&#x20AC;? Charania decided to stay and worked for awhile in telecommunications before trying her hand at startups. Breaking into the tech arena without an engineering background was challenging, and she wondered why she wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t meeting more female role models who had already charted the territory. Women were certainly participating in the startup space, but there wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t much interaction between them, and they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a consolidated networking infrastructure to bring them together. Charania also saw that quite a few women engineers werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t considering startups for a number of reasons. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I kept meeting these really smart technical women who were working at big companies and werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t taking the chance because they were scared, or they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how, or they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a network,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was a boysâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; club, and guys were funding their friends. We said, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s make a girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; club.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? The founding team of four began a grassroots-style recruiting campaign, cold-calling venture capitalists (primarily women) to see if

they would be interested in attending meet-and-greets with potential female founders. They were. Over time, Women 2.0â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s casual networking events evolved into a structured program that now offers workshops, entrepreneurial instruction and annual pitch startup competitions. Charania has seen the pioneering startup ethic gain traction with a growing number of women as Women 2.0â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s membership has soared to more than 15,000. A number of contributing factors have been cited as reasons for womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s under-representation in the high-tech startup arena â&#x20AC;&#x201D; ranging from early-stage socialization to family obligations. A wealth of research in the past decade has probed the cultural, socioeconomic and psychological underpinnings of the disparity.

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;It was a boysâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; club, and guys were funding their friends. We said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s make a girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; club.â&#x20AC;?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Shahrose Charania, founder, Women 2.0 Whatever the reasons, Charaniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goal is to get more women to do tech startups â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which Women 2.0 defines as any company that has a technologist on the founding team. But statistically speaking, with the number of non-technical corporate women vastly outnumbering those with computer science experience (the National Science Foundation reports that women occupy only 27 percent of positions in all sectors of employment for science and engineering), finding a female cofounder who fits the bill is highly improbable. The majority of pitches at Women 2.0â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pitch startup competition are from male-female teams; seldom all-female and almost never female single founders. Charania names a lack of technical expertise as one of the major factors that keeps women from entering the startup space. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a common issue that would-be entrepreneurs bring up at Women 2.0 networking events â&#x20AC;&#x201D; many have business

experience but assume theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not qualified to lead a high-tech startup without an engineering background and have trouble finding a technically inclined co-founder who can fill that void. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The myth is you have to be an engineer to be a founder, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s simply not true,â&#x20AC;? said Cindy Padnos, a venture capitalist whose recent whitepaper on the contributions of female entrepreneurs in the hightech sector has been circulated internationally. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Every team building a company in the tech space has to have a great technologist as part of the team, but it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily have to be a CEO or a founder.â&#x20AC;? Padnos is founding managing director of Illuminate Ventures, a firm that invests in early-stage high-tech start-ups â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with a special interest in supporting teams that are inclusive of women. She estimates that out of the five women-led startups she recently invested in, only one had a female founder with a technical background. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a barrier that women impose on themselves and that investors may impose sometimes as well,â&#x20AC;? Padnos said. She points to a number of prominent businesswomen leading tech companies as counterexamples. Still, many entrepreneurially minded women donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t enter the startup space until later in life, when theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve amassed a corporate resumĂŠ that lends weight to their credentials, Padnos said. She was one of them. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I worked in the corporate world, in management consulting, and as an executive in a startup before I started my own,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I did feel that I needed to gain that level of experience and credibility. (But) it was still tough raising capital.â&#x20AC;? Anapata founder Garg, who had financial experience and a degree in biomechanical engineering but limited programming skills when she launched her own startup, said that her rudimentary knowledge of computer science didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t scare her away from pursuing a Web-based startup. But she found that teaching herself the programming languages PHP and CakePHP allowed her to (continued on next page)

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Veronica Weber

Cover Story

Cindy Padnos, managing director of Illuminate Ventures, worked in the corporate world before starting her own company. (continued from previous page)

direct product development with more precision than she could have done otherwise. “You need to understand the core components in the product space that you’re building,” she said. “Now I can anticipate how long it takes to fix something or add a feature, and I can review code.” Aihui Ong, a former software engineer who runs the female-focused consulting firm EdgiLabs, saw an opportunity to improve the odds for women who face the same challenges Garg had dealt with by offering targeted management and development solutions. Most of the women who find her service have already ascended the corporate ladder, she said, but many aren’t familiar with programming. Ong hadn’t originally planned to build a firm that concentrated on products for and by women, but after talking to female friends who were struggling in the startup space, she recognized a pattern of similar challenges that confronted them, which included pitching femaleoriented products to male VCs and finding good developers to implement their vision. Since EdgiLabs started in 2007, Ong has guided projects ranging from e-commerce sites to a social networking community for ex-pats, and directs Women 2.0’s startup pitch competition. Most of her clients are willing to invest their own money to build a prototype before applying for funding. “The pattern that I see is ... a lot of (female founders) know what they want, they have good savings already, they spend $100,000 of their own money before they pitch,” she said.

esearch by the Kauffman Foundation and the Women’s Business research center shows that women have traditionally had more difficulty accessing equity capital than their male counterparts, which may account for their willingness to spend their own savings or go into debt when financ-

Page 16ÊUÊ >ÞÊÓn]ÊÓä£äÊUÊ*> Ê Ì Ê7ii Þ

ing their startups — but the reasons behind the disparity are difficult to distill with absolute certainty. The numbers are less opaque — 4 percent of women who own firms worth $1 million or more gain equity funding compared to 11 percent of men who fit that category. That gap is especially apparent at the venture-capital level, where in 2006 less than 7 percent of VC-funded companies had women founders. Their representation in the IT sector was consistently lower until recently. Padnos points to a factor known as “pattern recognition” — a mental process that experienced VCs use to identify promising investments, both consciously and intuitively, based on their past successes. Pattern recognition is also built on the scaffolding of personal life experience, which varies according to a number of demographic factors, one being gender. Nazila Alasti saw that firsthand when she founded Jooners, a Palo Alto-based company that helps activities coordinators manage their volunteer base using online guides and templates, in 2006. Despite having technical knowledge and business expertise paired with an insider’s perspective of the venture-capital world (she’d spent a couple years working there), Alasti anticipated an uphill climb in securing funding for her business concept, which drew largely from her experience as a mother coordinating school activities. Her instincts were correct. None of the VCs she pitched to made an offer, “mainly because we had a hard time convincing (them) that this is a big enough market,” she said. “The subject matter and organizational complexity wasn’t something that too many VCs knew about.” Instead, Alasti made do with more modest funding from a core group of angel investors. She changed the business model for Jooners to a subscription-based service and retained 40 percent of her nationwide user base, largely composed of parents with elementary and middle schoolaged children. The willingness of a

relatively large proportion of users to pay $20 a year for a previously free service demonstrated the viability of Jooners as a business idea contrary to doubts, Alasti said. Padnos believes that the growing presence of female VCs and angel investors could change the funding prospects for women like Alasti. Research has shown that the rates at which female entrepreneurs receive equity funding is much higher with firms with women partners — either because women investors are more likely to understand female-oriented pitches, or because women investors and entrepreneurs are more likely to seek out and connect with one another (a principle known as homophily). Women angel investors, most of whom became independently wealthy through their own entrepreneurial endeavors, now account for more than 15 percent of the population of angel investors, according to the National Center for Research on Women. But women make up only 7 percent of investing partners in venture capital, where the investor turnover is much lower, and the cash flow is significantly higher. That could be a problematic factor, Padnos argues, given the unparalleled level of functional and financial expertise that VCs offer, and the substantial volume of research showing that venture-capital backed firms tend to outperform and grow up to three times faster than other companies. At the same time, research has shown that a lack of access to venture capital hasn’t hindered female founders from starting successful companies — in fact, they’re achieving similar or higher revenue performance in the early stages of their businesses while expending less capital. Experts and industry insiders seem uncertain as to why. “It’s a chicken-and-egg question,” Padnos said. “Are they more efficient because they can’t gain capital or more efficient because that’s their nature? I can’t tell you.” Katie Nittler, who serves as COO of Astia, a nonprofit committed to

Cover Story accelerating female leadership in high-growth businesses, argues itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the latter. It may have something to do with the fact that women are less likely to cede control if they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to, but other factors are involved. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a natural tendency in women to be more efficient ... theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not making such rash decisions on money,â&#x20AC;? Nittler said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Women tend to put themselves in debt in the beginning, which points to the fact that they arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t paying themselves as much as (men) are,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Men donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t spend their own money, they spend othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; money. And if they fail, they do it again.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;My philosophy is, you shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take funding unless you need it,â&#x20AC;? said Garg, who has been bootstrapping for three years. So far, sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brought in and spent the equivalent of an early angel round of funding. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The clients I work with already left the corporate world. They donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to give up control (by accepting VC funding),â&#x20AC;? said Ong of EdgiLabs. â&#x20AC;&#x153;People in this stage are like, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;If I want to give up control, why donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t I just go back to the corporate world?â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;?

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;If you ask me, would I have kids now, no, I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have time. ... Doing a startup is like having a kid, so I feel like I already have one.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Aihui Ong, CEO, EdgiLabs Not all women buy the idea that thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a gender bias in funding women in venture capital. Many female entrepreneurs find that being the only woman in the crowd works to their advantage by making them more memorable to investors: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think in many ways being female has opened doors,â&#x20AC;? Tellerman said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a little more memorable when you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t look like 90 percent of people who walk through the door.â&#x20AC;? Female investors have also dismissed venture capitalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exclusionary image as an antiquated stereotype that overlooks a strong tradition of meritocracy. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think people want to look for discrimination and I just donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see it that way. ... VC is very performance oriented,â&#x20AC;? said Sonja Hoel Perkins, a managing director at Menlo Ventures. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s funded a number of tech companies with women at the executive level, but not as many with women founders â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a fact she attributes to lifestyle choices women make that keep them away from the startup space, rather than discrimination at the investment level. One of those factors, Perkins said, may be related to family planning, which can deter women from aspiring to the upper echelons of venture capital (Perkins herself says itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very doable; she has a 2-year-old and knows other women VCs with larger families) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a trend that may be mirrored in the entrepreneurial arena. Ong has seen that trend manifested in the founders she routinely works with. Most of the women

sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s helped are married, but none have children. Although she said children and startups â&#x20AC;&#x153;shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be mutually exclusive,â&#x20AC;? she admits they arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t conducive to one another. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s now working on her second startup, an online foodie community called Lovewithfood. A startup, Ong said, is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;24/7 time commitment.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The first couple of years, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard not to think about it all the time,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If you ask me, would I have kids now, no, I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have time. ... Doing a startup is like having a kid, so I feel like I already have one.â&#x20AC;? For others like Alasti, the issue was reversed â&#x20AC;&#x201D; her decision wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t about whether to have kids while doing a startup; it was about whether to do a startup while raising kids. Alasti, who studied electrical engineering at Cornell and went on to get an MBA from Stanford, already had two young daughters by the time she founded her company. She had worked on two other startups prior to Jooners and had a sense of what was feasible given her time commitments. Having young children didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t dissuade her; in fact, it gave her the idea for her company in the first place. Having her daughters watch her build something from the ground up was a positive experience, she said. Alasti was also quick to adapt to a lean business model out of necessity when she founded Jooners, and found it to be a healthy exercise in financial management. Now four years into her business, she no longer has any immediate plans to raise venture capital. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll ever need it, frankly,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been fortunate enough to be in very well-funded start-ups and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen money wasted, and my goal was to be as frugal as possible and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve made our angel money last a very long time.â&#x20AC;? The ability to sustain an earlystage startup with limited spending power may prove a boon to founders of tech startups in the coming years, Women 2.0â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Charania said, as VC funding in the technology sector, which peaked at the height of the dot-com boom in the late â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;90s, has trickled off due to the economic downturn and the availability of cheaper development technologies. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need VC funding,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re small tech companies that can run independently once they get seed funding, but they can use angel funding.â&#x20AC;? Over time, she hopes Women 2.0 will uncover more scalable, VC-fundable companies, but the first step is getting women to meet the right contacts and try their hand at entrepreneurship with smaller projects. Many will fail, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s part of the game, she said. The important thing is to try again. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Launching a startup in general and trying to succeed against the odds and achieve the impossible â&#x20AC;&#x201D; thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s incredibly difficult whether youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a man or a woman,â&#x20AC;? said Garg. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about drive â&#x20AC;&#x201D; male or female, if you are gutsy or diligent, you can make it.â&#x20AC;? N Editorial Intern Aimee Miles can be e-mailed at amiles@paweekly. com.

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Arts & Entertainment A weekly guide to music, theater, art, movies and more, edited by Rebecca Wallace

heatreWorks’ new play, “Opus,” is set in the heights — the prestigious atmosphere of a string quartet preparing to perform at the White House. Written by classically trained violist Michael Hollinger, the play conjures up the string quartet’s world with the terms and tempi of chamber music. Still, Hollinger doesn’t describe “Opus” in rarefied language. “The play is really a workplace play. It’s like watching ‘ER’ or ‘L.A. Law’; it’s watching people trying to accomplish something together despite their personalities and failings,” he said. “’Opus’ means ‘work.’” There’s plenty of drama involved in doing this work, and not just in the Bartók. The pressure starts early in the play, as young violist Grace (played by Jennifer Le Blanc) auditions for the esteemed Lazara Quartet. She gets the job, replacing the ousted and explosive Dorian (Mark Anderson Phillips). Dorian also happens to be the former lover of Elliot (Richard Frederick), the first violinist. Meanwhile, the play also reflects the more everyday — but also emotion-laden — issues that come up in ensembles everywhere. Palo Alto cellist and conductor Kris Yenney, the production’s string-quartet advisor, has worked to help the actors understand their characters’

roles and hierarchy. For example, Yenney helped actor Jackson Davis, who plays second violinist Alan, with his character’s motivation by helping him understand Alan’s “second-violinist syndrome.” She said, “He’s hesitant to voice his opinion.” Musicians in the audience may recognize themselves on stage, but Yenney said she thinks the play holds appeal even for people who aren’t interested in classical music. She calls the characters “hilarious and irreverent,” adding, “It’s a finely drawn story.” This is the first Bay Area production of “Opus,” which premiered in Philadelphia in

2006. Hollinger has written several plays, musicals and screenplays set as far afield as medieval France, 1950s Boston and 1960s Paris. Needless to say, he found the research process for “Opus” less taxing. “This was basically here, basically now, and basically guys my age who make their living in the arts. I could get more quickly into the world of the play,” he said. “I didn’t have to figure out how people talk. That’s the water I swim in.” While Hollinger no longer performs as a violist, he holds a degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and has long seen a link between

writing and music. He said he finds his “Opus” dialogue particularly musical. “There are musical devices in the language,” he said. “What is a unison? What’s the equivalent of dissonance? ... A thought might be broken up among four characters as a melodic line might be broken up.” In “Opus,” he said, there are many places where the concept of “unison” is reflected in the script, with characters saying the same thing at the same time. In another moment, three people are trying to voice different opinions at once, and, he said, “We register it emotionally as conflict and register it

New TheatreWorks play introduces audiences — and actors — to the world of chamber music

aurally as dissonance.” Then there are two inter-cut monologues that “speak to each other,” when the characters of Dorian and Elliot recall how they met while being assigned to play a Bach piece together at music school, Hollinger said. “It’s a really ecstatic experience of discovering an almost sexual response to this music. ... It’s about how these two violin lines are rolling over each other; at one point you can’t tell which is which. The music is really exquisite that way,” he said. Along with his music history, Hollinger is also well versed in theater. When he was growing (continued on next page)

Composing a quartet

by Rebecca Wallace

Mark Kitaoka

From left, Richard Frederick, Jackson Davis, Kevin Rolston and Mark Anderson Phillips in “Opus.”

*> Ê Ì Ê7ii ÞÊUÊ >ÞÊÓn]ÊÓä£äÊU Page 19

Arts & Entertainment

Playwright Michael Hollinger.

‘Opus’

(continued from previous page)

STANFORD JAZZ

FESTIVAL June 25 – August 7, 2010 All events at Stanford University Group rates, festival subscriptions, 40% OFF student tickets and TAKE 5! $5 family discounts available

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! Box Ofﬁce: 650.725.ARTS (2787) www.stanfordjazz.org Information: 650.736.0324

39TH SEASON 06/16 Special Pre-Festival Performance An Evening with Dick Hyman 06/25 A Night of Brazilian Jazz! Luciana Souza: Brazilian duos featuring Romero Lubambo plus Harvey Wainapel’s Alegritude 06/26 A History of African Rhythms & Jazz 06/26 Randy Weston’s African Rhythms Trio 06/27 Freddy Cole Quartet 07/02 The Music of Billy Strayhorn 07/03 Early Bird Jazz for Kids: Jim Nadel & Friends 07/03 Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio 07/09 Fred Hersch: Jobim and More 07/10 Early Bird Latin Jazz for Kids: John Santos Sextet 07/10 Tuck & Patti 07/11 Ella Fitzgerald: America’s First Lady of Song 07/16 Mose Allison Trio 07/17 Claudia Villela Band 07/18 John Santos Sextet 07/19 Khalil Shaheed & the Mo’Rockin Project

07/20 Gerald Clayton Trio 07/21 Kristen Strom Quintet 07/22 The Music of Dave Brubeck presented by Victor Lin 07/24 Giants of Jazz: Charles McPherson, Junior Mance, and Tootie Heath 07/25 Ruth Davies’ Blues Night with Special Guest Keb’ Mo’ 07/26 Dena DeRose Trio 07/27 Junior Mance Trio 07/28 100 Years of Django with Julian Lage, Victor Lin & Jorge Roeder 07/29 Visions: The Stevie Wonder Songbook 07/31 Rebecca Martin featuring Larry Grenadier, Steve Cardenas & Larry Goldings 08/01 Dave Douglas Quintet Plus 08/02 George Cables Trio 08/03 Nicholas Payton with the Taylor Eigsti Trio 08/04 Joshua Redman Trio 08/06 SJW All-Star Jam Session 08/07 Taylor Eigsti Group featuring Becca Stevens

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Page 20ÊUÊ >ÞÊÓn]ÊÓä£äÊUÊ*> Ê Ì Ê7ii Þ

Palo Alto cellist Kris Yenney is advisor to the TheatreWorks actors, helping them move like real musicians.

up, he and his parents were very involved in community theater on the East Coast. From a young age he helped his parents learn their lines, or trod the boards himself. Even while at Oberlin he was writing one-acts and a musical. He ultimately earned a master’s degree in theater at Villanova University, and today is an assistant theater professor there. Hollinger is now working on several new musicals and plays, including a play called “Ghost Writer” set to premiere this fall in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, the TheatreWorks team, led by director Meredith McDonough, is working toward a June 5 opening night. Kris Yenney is more used to playing cello in the orchestra pit or serving as music director, as she’s done for many TheatreWorks shows, but it’s clear that being an advisor has been a most enjoyable challenge. The actors don’t have a lot of musical experience, so much of her job is coaching them on how to hold and move their instruments, miming performing, while the recorded music plays. It’s a sort of choreography. But moving like a musician is more than just playing. Yenney has also helped the actors with the visual, eye-contact communication that is second nature to members of a small musical ensemble. Yenney is used to working with new musicians as director of two Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra ensembles, and here she finds herself again reminding players not to keep their faces down in their music stands. Even the music stands themselves must get the proper treatment. Just the other day, Yenney had to coach the actors on the proper way to put away their stands. “They were sort of twisting them into shapes that no musician would do,” she said, laughing. N What: “Opus,” a play by Michael Hollinger, presented by TheatreWorks Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St. When: The show previews June 2, 3 and 4 and then opens June 5, running through June 27. Cost: Tickets are $27-$39 for previews and $29-$62 for regular performances. Info: Go to theatreworks.org or call 650-463-1960.

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West Bayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;La Traviataâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; brings sweeping melody and rich presentation to the Lucie Stern Theatre

Welcome to extraordinary retirement living. Webster House is a continuing care retirement community located less than a mile from Stanford University and a short walk from downtown Palo Alto. Whether you enjoy a wellorganized day complete with meals and stimulating activities or living at your own tempo, Webster House will make you feel right at home. At Webster House we are dedicated to welcoming you on your own terms.

by Mort Levine

he banner in front of the Lucie Stern Theatreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s facade in Palo Alto proclaims Verdiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;La Traviata,â&#x20AC;? but it could easily be written as â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Miracle on Middlefield Road.â&#x20AC;? This richly presented and sung standard of the opera repertory shows what a collaboration of a well-balanced cast of energetic young singers along with a talented orchestra and a team of very creative, resourceful opera professionals can accomplish even with major funding shortfalls in the current economy. West Bay Operaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 54th season winds up next weekend, May 29 and 30, with this â&#x20AC;&#x153;Traviata.â&#x20AC;? The opera is set in a gaudy 19thcentury Paris and its title translates as â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Fallen Woman,â&#x20AC;? but Verdi gives us a heroine who is admirable and with whom, by the operaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tragic end, we come to totally sympathize. Singing the lead as Violetta, the kept woman who seeks true love, is lyric soprano Karen Slack, who is verging on a breakout into major houses. She has already sung to acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as a fill-in for an ailing colleague, and has won a number of singing competitions. Violettaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s passionate true love is Alfredo, a naive scion of a wealthy family. The role is sung by another newcomer to West Bay Opera, JesĂşs LeĂłn, a sweet-voiced high tenor from Mexico, who has also been a winner of a number of competitions and programs for young singers in various countries. The third key role is Alfredoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s father, Giorgio Germont, portrayed by Zachary Gordin, a young high baritone. Gordinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s portrayal adds gravitas and sensitivity as Germont

OPERA REVIEW becomes aware that in breaking up the lovers, he is also witnessing Violettaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s demise. Desolate and ill with tuberculosis, Violetta collapses in death at the operaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conclusion. Stage director Richard Harrell, who heads a strong opera program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, works magic despite the small stage to create the two rollicking ballroom scenes in what is otherwise a rather intimate, almost chamber opera. One of these features the marvelous brindisi drinking song: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Libiamo neâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; lieti calici.â&#x20AC;? The other includes a neatly choreographed gypsy-toreador ballet highlighting Julia Schmitt and Jennifer Mitchell. The enthralling sweep of the arias, duets and ensemble singing shows the genius of Verdi, who makes his own melodic magic. Another West Bay newcomer who adds his needed magic is conductor John Kendall Bailey, who founded Berkeley Lyric Opera. His supple control of his small orchestra provides the ideal balance for the singers. Peter Cromptonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s elegant sets and Callie Floorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s costumes set a high standard, adding to the total effect. N What: â&#x20AC;&#x153;La Traviata,â&#x20AC;? presented by West Bay Opera in Italian with English titles Where: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto When: Saturday, May 29, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, May 30, at 2 p.m. Cost: Tickets are $30 to $55. Info: Call 650-424-9999 or go to www.wbopera.org for ticketing and more information.

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Â&#x2DC;`iÂŤiÂ&#x2DC;`iÂ&#x2DC;Ă&#x152;Ă&#x160; Â&#x2C6;Ă&#x203A;Â&#x2C6;Â&#x2DC;}Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160;Ă&#x160; Ă&#x192;Ă&#x192;Â&#x2C6;Ă&#x192;Ă&#x152;i`Ă&#x160; Â&#x2C6;Ă&#x203A;Â&#x2C6;Â&#x2DC;} For more information about Webster House, visit www.websterhousepaloalto.com

How To Clinics

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Go to www.PaloAltoOnline.com/calendar *>Â?Â&#x153;Ă&#x160; Â?Ă&#x152;Â&#x153;Ă&#x160;7iiÂ&#x17D;Â?Ă&#x17E;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160; >Ă&#x17E;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x201C;n]Ă&#x160;Ă&#x201C;Ă¤ÂŁĂ¤Ă&#x160;U Page 21

Arts & Entertainment

Palo Alto Soccer Club U9 boys and girls open tryouts: Session #1: Sunday, June 6, 4pm-5:30pm at Cubberley #1 Session #2: Thursday, June 10, 4pm-5:30pm at Termin #2 Session #3: Saturday, June 12, 4pm-5:30pm at Cubberley Football Field Please visit our website at www.pasoccerclub.org for more details. P.O. Box 50831, Palo Alto, California 94303

(650) 361-0561

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An open invitation to join us for the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Mitchell Park Library and Community Center.

Come say goodbye to the old buildings! 1:00-3:00pm 1:30pm 2:15pm

See the architetural plans â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and enjoy activities & Rickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rather Rich Ice Cream Short program and groundbreaking Family entertainment