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By Sandy Brundage, Renee Batti and Dave Boyce

The Almanac covers Menlo Park, Atherton, Woodside and Portola Valley -- where residents like to think of their hometowns as places that remain true to "village" ideals such as community spirit, safety, and smart growth.

The year tested their commitment to those ideals.

Menlo Park
An undercurrent of change pervaded Menlo Park in 2012. The long-awaited passage of the downtown/El Camino Real specific plan heralded a flurry of project proposals, just as city officials had hoped. But at least one proposal appears to be following the letter of the new regulations rather than the spirit.

Passing the specific plan was a key step toward revitalizing El Camino Real and the vacant car lots owned by Stanford University. Developer John Arrillaga stepped in to propose building an eight-acre complex of medical offices, offices, retail, and a smattering of rental housing -- instead of the senior housing development city officials said they were led to believe Stanford supported during specific plan negotiations. Since the project meets the specific plan's baseline requirements, the city won't get a say on whether the Arrillaga project should be built.

The lack of housing won't help the city meet state-mandated housing requirements. After settling a lawsuit brought by three advocacy groups in May for years of failing to comply with state housing law, Menlo Park started a hectic process to identify potential sites for an estimated 1,000 high-density and affordable housing units, a process that inspired protests by residents of Sharon Heights and Linfield Oaks when their neighborhoods landed on the list.

Menlo Park captured global headlines for another project, this one praised by city officials and residents alike. Facebook hired renowned architect Frank Gehry to design its 22-acre Constitution Drive campus.

Mr. Gehry's sketches show a single enormous room perched on top of a parking structure and capped by a rooftop garden -- what Facebook representatives described as "an office in a forest." His portfolio includes the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Other community changes involved downsizing rather than supersizing. Kepler's Books and Magazines revived under the ownership of entrepreneurs Praveen Madan and wife Christin Evans. After time off for remodeling to bring back the radical feel of Kepler's, the couple re-opened the landmark store in October with a smaller footprint, but larger inventory. They also created a nonprofit events and lectures arm, with most author appearances free to the public.

And then there were the changes no one wanted to see. Violence unsettled the community as a string of at least 16 shootings in six months in Menlo Park and East Palo Alto left behind a trail of wounded and dead. Police, attributing the outbreak to a gang feud, stepped up collaborative efforts to stem the violence, using enforcement techniques and community outreach to appeal for peace. A fire at Beechwood School injured no one, but caused $400,000 in damage to the private K-8 Belle Haven facility.

Among the faces of those who will guide the city through the ups and downs are newcomers. Alex McIntyre arrived as city manager in the spring, while Bryan Roberts left his position as police chief in the fall. Ray Mueller and Catherine Carlton joined the City Council. Incumbent Kelly Fergusson bid farewell to the dais after losing a chance at a third term by 235 votes during the November elections; Andy Cohen, whose second term also ended this year, opted not to seek re-election.

School news meets crime news
At year's end 2011, the Almanac reported the unusual circumstance that three out of the four elementary school districts in our coverage area had, or soon would have, new superintendents. The fourth, the Portola Valley School district, was bucking the trend, with Tim Hanretty beginning his second school year as superintendent that summer.

Mr. Hanretty, we reported, "doesn't appear to be going anywhere anytime soon." We were wrong.

After pleading no contest in August 2012 to charges of embezzling nearly $101,000 from the Portola Valley district and fraudulently obtaining a loan for the Woodside School District during his tenure there, Mr. Hanretty is serving a two-year prison term and facing a sizable restitution debt to both school districts. Although he has already paid much of the Portola Valley district's debt, a court struggle is ongoing to determine how much he owes the Woodside district.

Taking the reins at the Portola Valley district in 2010 from Anne Campbell, who assumed new duties as superintendent of county schools, Mr. Hanretty resigned his post in January after the DA's office launched an investigation of possible misappropriation of funds from the time he was the Woodside district's finance officer.

A subsequent investigation of the Portola Valley district's finances turned up the theft of public funds, which Mr. Hanretty used for his home construction project, as well as numerous bookkeeping irregularities, the result of which significantly overstated the district's available funds and plunged the district into a financial crisis that will take several years to resolve.

So it turns out that the Portola Valley School District was fourth in the queue for a new superintendent after all. Carol Piraino, the former Corte Madera School principal who was serving as assistant superintendent under Mr. Hanretty, stepped up to that position after a stint as interim superintendent following Mr. Hanretty's resignation.

Winds of change in Atherton
Should Atherton build its new public library in Holbrook-Palmer Park? Sound like a simple question? Not in Atherton, where few things lack complicating twists and embellishments.

The question may have been the key impetus for major change in the town's political arena, culminating in a shift in power on the five-member City Council. It ultimately was put to voters last month, but not before anger and resentment had solidified against the three council members -- Kathy McKeithen, Jim Dobbie and Bill Widmer -- who decided in October 2011 that the library should be in the park, ignoring demands of numerous residents that voters should be allowed to decide.

Also calling for a vote in October 2011 were council members Elizabeth Lewis and Jerry Carlson, who during the last four years often joined together in casting the minority vote on some significant council issues.

In the spring, the council responded to growing public pressure and agreed to put the question on the ballot, and 69 percent of the voters said no to the park location. In what may have been a ripple effect of the controversy and the hostility it engendered toward the council majority, Ms. Lewis was the top vote-getter, by far, in the race for two council seats. Cary Wiest, who fared poorly in the council race just two years ago but is seen as a likely ally of council members Lewis and Carlson, came in second.

Denise Kupperman, who led the citizen task force on the library rebuilding project and was a strong advocate of building it in the park, came in a distant fourth in the field of four candidates.

There's little dispute that the existing seismically unsafe, cramped library in the Town Center needs renovation or a complete rebuild, but the town will now have to study other options.

In addition to the influence of the library question on voters' choice for council members, another force was in play. In what many longtime residents say was an unprecedented involvement in an election, the Atherton Police Officers' Association waged an aggressive telephone and mail campaign on behalf of Ms. Lewis and Mr. Wiest, using methods characterized by council members and residents as scare-mongering and deception.

In condemning the APOA tactics, the council majority and members of the public said the campaign activities were an attempt by the police union to influence the results of contract talks that begin next year.

On the nonpolitical side of town government, the City Council in October appointed George Rodericks city manager -- the first permanent manager since the departure of Jerry Gruber in October 2010. Although the plan was to hire a permanent manager in the spring, the council was divided when trying to choose from among the top finalists in a recruitment process.

Town Hall was led from January until mid-October by City Clerk Theresa DellaSanta, who managed to keep the ship afloat during a time of significant staffing change and policy shifts -- not to mention an election season.

Woodside's new management
Town Manager Kevin Bryant took over from Susan George in January after 19 years when she had a stellar record for leading Town Hall staff and keeping finances in tiptop shape. Mr. Bryant, who worked as Ms. George's assistant since 2008, has led what appears to have been a seamless transition.

The council meetings continue to be productive, with lively debates and sometimes painstakingly thorough examinations of the details of running a municipality, including establishing a Circulation Committee to address issues of getting around town effectively, planning for an Arts & Cultural Affairs Committee in 2013, and settling on how to categorize riding arenas.

In the "lively debate" department, new Councilman Tom Shanahan has turned heads behind the dais with his ardent advocacy of forgoing the use of other people's money, as he refers to state and federal funds, to address Woodside's infrastructure needs.

Mr. Shanahan argued in April against using $215,600 in county and federal money to upgrade crosswalks at Woodside Elementary School, and in November about accepting some $6.5 million in federal funds to rehabilitate three bridges considered "structurally deficient" and "functionally obsolete" by the California Department of Transportation. On these issues, he represented a minority viewpoint on the council.

No one on the council dissented in October on a proposal to establish a widely popular farmers' market on Wednesday afternoons near the intersection of Skyline Boulevard and La Honda Road, after an auspicious but technically illegal debut in August.

■ Moderate-income homes in Portola Valley?

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