The Beyond the Searsville Dam Coalition will present a slideshow Tuesday, April 13, on the benefits of removing Stanford's Searsville Dam. The program will start at 7 p.m. at Patagonia's Palo Alto store, 525 Alma St.

Stanford University's Searsville Dam, built in 1891 to supplement drinking water from Crystal Springs Lake, never served that purpose, and no longer serves a critical need. Its reservoir is now largely filled with silt.

Moreover, the aging dam poses a liability in the event of a major earthquake, blocks annual runs of steelhead trout from access to their spawning grounds, and compromises the ecology of the San Francisquito watershed.

Removing this obsolete concrete wall provides an opportunity to revive submerged wetlands, help restore threatened steelhead to their ancestral habitat, and provide natural flood protection benefits.

Go to beyondsearsvilledam.org for more information.

Community meetings on higher education

The public is invited to community coffee meetings with Assemblyman Ira Ruskin on Saturday, April 10, in Palo Alto and Los Altos. The topic is the work of the Joint Committee on the Master Plan for Higher Education, which Mr. Ruskin co-chairs.

The meetings will be held from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Saturday, April 10, at the Palo Alto City Council Chambers, 250 Hamilton Ave., and from 3 to 4:30 p.m. the same day at Brian's restaurant at the Rancho Shopping Center, 680 Fremont Ave. in Los Altos. For more information, call 691-2121.