Portola Valley Notes Portola Valley Notes (January 28, 2004)

Film to protect library windows

Anyone who happens to be sitting beneath a window in the Portola Valley library during an earthquake won't have to worry about falling shards of glass with the town's recent decision to coat the windows with a clear safety film. Work is scheduled for this week, said library director Thom Ball, at a cost to the town of $7,390.
Plans to rebuild Town Center

The Portola Valley Town Council has scheduled a special informational meeting for Monday, February 9, to discuss plans to construct new town offices.

Discussion topics will include geologic conditions at the Town Center, financing, location of the new buildings, and an invitation to interested community members to participate in the design of the buildings.

The proposed design phase -- called a "charrette" -- involves a group of professionals working in public from a tightly scripted schedule over four days and evenings and taking input from residents who choose to participate.

The end result is a site master plan for the new buildings, including phase-by-phase diagrams, cost analysis and images of the buildings, all to be shown to the public at an open house event. The design would be subject to council approval.
Detours ahead

Beginning in April 2005, a seven-month-long detour will become a headache to some and perhaps a misery to others with the closure of the few hundred yards of curving roadway between two Santa Cruz Avenue intersections: at Sand Hill Road and at Alpine Road.

At the January 14 meeting of the Portola Valley Town Council, representatives from Stanford Management Co. presented plans for widening the roads that feed the two intersections.

With the connecting stretch of roadway between the intersections closed between April and October 2005, Portola Valley drivers may want to organize errands to avoid trips that involve stops in both Ladera and Sharon Heights in Menlo Park.

To get to Sharon Heights from Ladera during that phase of construction, drivers will have to take Alpine Road to Junipero Serra Boulevard, then to Campus Drive, Stock Farm Road, Oak Road and Searsville Road and then onto Sand Hill, Stanford spokesman Jim Inglis told the Town Council.

Alternatively, they will have the choice of driving through Portola Valley, taking Portola Road to Sand Hill Road.

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