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Los Altos Town Crier

Saturday
Jul 04th
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Council accepts civic center master plan

The Los Altos City Council accepted the final master plan June 23 for rebuilding the city's 18-acre civic center. Among the council recommendations was an order to keep all buildings no higher than two stories, and a go-ahead to include more than 200 spaces of underground parking. Next up is consideration of an environmental impact report before final approval of the master plan, expected some time before the end of the year. For more information, see this week's Town Crier print edition or visit www.losaltoscommunitycenter.org.

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News
Elliott Burr/town crier Police on downtown taggers’ trail

Los Altos Police are searching for four suspects in the early-morning vandalism that targeted downtown properties June 20. Vandals etched graffiti into the windows of approximately 70 businesses along Main Street in a spree that police approximate began at 2 a.m. and lasted an estimated 45 minutes.

Surveillance video from merchants captured two males and two females carving into the glass, leaving the tags “CLOPS NLT” on the majority of doors and windows, “TWON” and three swastikas scratched on glass at Aldo Los Altos, 388 Main St., and Sheldon of Los Altos Photography, next door.

Cover Story
ELLIOTT BURR/town crier Saving species: Los Altos Hills resident brings entrepreneurial edge to conservation

When Los Altos Hills resident Charles Knowles, known as Charlie in most circles, felt a call toward wildlife conservation as a young man, he started small but ambitious – and armed with a big cat. After reading an inspirational article about cheetah researcher Laurie Marker, he decided to raise money for her cause.

“I called Marine World and borrowed a cheetah, which took some persuasion,” he explained. “I borrowed my aunt’s house, because I was living in a tiny, tiny house in Mountain View at the time. I had a few friends over and we raised $5,000.”

 
Sports
Elliott Burr/Town Crier Spotting a shooting star

In introducing Anthony Morrow to the 100 youngsters at last week’s Golden State Warriors Basketball Camp in Los Altos Hills, camp director Jeff Addiego said, “I don’t know if there’s a better shooter on the planet right now.”

Lofty praise, indeed, but Morrow’s numbers back it up. This past season he led the NBA in 3-point shooting percentage – as a rookie.

Community
COURTESY OF Sue Michel 38th pancake breakfast set for Saturday

Los Altos Union Presbyterian Church has scheduled its 38th Annual Pancake Breakfast 8:30-11:30 a.m., rain or shine, Saturday in the church’s patio and fellowship hall at 858 University Ave.

The Fourth of July celebration began as a small gathering at the Barbecue Pit on the church grounds in 1971. The pancakes were cooked on griddles over the uneven heat of a charcoal fire, a real challenge for the cooks. Over the years it has evolved into an all-church event that welcomes the community, neighbors and friends to attend.

 
Business
Mary Beth Hislop/Town Crier Merchants express their outrage with vandals, frustration with police

As if the tough economy and stagnant business climate aren’t enough to make Los Altos business merchants a bit gloomy, enter four flagrant hoodlums who etched into the glass at nearly 70 businesses along downtown’s Main Street June 20. With little in the way of healthy profits, replacing the glass in storefront doors and windows is not going to help the bottom black line stay out of the red for many businesses.

The vandalism comes on the heels of an attempted jewelry robbery in August and three jewelry heists that hit Main Street last fall. Merchants wanted to know where the police were this time and what they could do to protect their businesses.

Schools
Courtesy of Michelle Bissonnette Los Altos High School teacher makes way to Washington, D.C.

After competing against more than 550 applicants nationwide, Michelle Bissonnette, an English teacher at Los Altos High School, has a new role in Washington, D.C.

The Department of Education selected Bissonnette as one of three Teaching Ambassador Fellows to work as a full-time employee of the department for the 2009-2010 school year.

 
On The Road
courtesy of Honda Hybrids, anyone?: A look at gas-savers from Honda and Toyota

With prices for regular gas creeping past $3 a gallon again, and several new hybrids on the market, we were pleased this past month to have two hybrids in our driveway to review, the 2010 Honda Insight and the 2009 Toyota Camry Hybrid.

Books
Image Short stories examine immigrant experience

Immigrants from places like India and Africa often describe large, networked families and communities that buffer individuals from life’s slings and arrows. The effects of broken families, the death of a parent, marital stress or financial misfortune are borne by an entire community rather than balanced on the backs of a single family.

In her latest collection of short stories, “Unaccustomed Earth” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), Jhumpa Lahiri focuses on the particular experience of Indian immigrants who have come to the United States to pursue educational and vocational opportunities. Isolation from home, family and culture is not only a common part of the immigrant experience, but a magnifying lens that Lahiri uses to bring out exquisite details in the emotional elements present in every ordinary human life.

 
Travel
Courtesy of Tracing Tea Tracing Tea: The story so far

Part-time Los Altos resident Max Lovell-Hoare embarked on a documentary film journey last year following tea’s path from cultivation to consumption.

The Tracing Tea expedition and documentary film team is taking a circuitous route from the tea estates of Darjeeling, India, to London, the home of afternoon tea. How far would you go for a cup of tea? To the end of the block? How about 15,000 miles?

 
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Town Tube

A video from a surveillance camera in a downtown store reveals four individuals involved in the June 20 vandalizing of nearly 80 store windows along Main Street. Detective John Korges said the suspects, two men and two women, used a sharp object to carve permanent tags in the windows, some reading "CLOPS," which Korges said could relate to a MADtv comedy sketch parodying the police. Also surfacing were stick-on name tags reading, "IZ R.I.P." Iz "the Wiz" was a prominent graffiti artist in New York and died June 18. Any information about the vandals should be referred to the Los Altos Police Department at (650) 947-2770.

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