Portola Valley honors planner, schools reporter for community service Portola Valley honors planner, schools reporter for community service (August 29, 2001)

By Marion Softky

Almanac Staff Writer

George and Marjorie Mader have served Portola Valley for a combined grand total of 67 years.

As town planner since 1965, Mr. Mader has helped Portola Valley develop plans and regulations to preserve its rural ambience at the time of rapid development of Silicon Valley, and made it a world model for how to plan development around geologic hazards _ notably the San Andreas Fault, and numerous landslides.

Starting in 1970, Mrs. Mader has followed Portola Valley schools for the Almanac. She has meticulously reported school board meetings, programs, and activities through eight school superintendents, dozens of school board members, and thousands of students.

Portola Valley residents will recognize these contributions to the town and its children when they honor George and Marjorie Mader at the fourth Blues and Barbecue celebration on Sunday, September 9, beginning at 3:30 p.m. at Town Center. Proceeds will benefit the town's Open Space Acquisition Fund.
Staying rural

In many ways, George Mader's story is the story of Portola Valley.

The young planner was working for San Mateo County, helping prepare a plan for the Portola Valley area, about the time a group of residents became alarmed at the pressure to subdivide the western hillside overlooking the town with cookie-cutter lots.

So when Portola Valley incorporated in 1964 to control its own future, there was already a plan in place. And Mr. Mader was working with the late Bill Spangle of Ladera in the planning firm of Spangle Associates.

Bob Brown, a member of the first Town Council and a town leader for more than 20 years, remembers being impressed with "the brilliant young planner." The new council quickly hired him.

"George has been the backbone of our success," Mr. Brown says now. "The plan was the major tool we had. He developed ordinances to put teeth in it."

Seated in the conference room of his Ladera office, Mr. Mader recalls the challenges of developing regulations to keep Portola Valley from becoming an extension of Menlo Park and Palo Alto.

When Portola Valley incorporated, for example, its undeveloped land was zoned for one-acre lots all the way to Skyline. "That [one acre] was the minimum amount to have a horse," Mr. Mader comments.

Working with Town Attorney Jim Morton, the council and Planning Commission, Mr. Mader came up with regulations to require larger lots on steep hillsides. "I believe Portola Valley adopted the first slope-density regulations in the state," he says carefully. "Now it's pretty common."

Predictably, these measures inflamed property owners who saw their profits reduced by the rezoning, but Portola Valley prevailed. "There were threats," Mr. Mader acknowledges. He credits the town's success in forestalling lawsuits to former attorney Jim Morton. "He was an amazing attorney. He knew the law so well he could encourage the town to try new things," Mr. Mader says.

Mr. Brown gives a lot of credit to Mr. Mader, who has sat with unwavering patience through thousands of hours of often-contentious meetings, as town residents and officials thrashed out myriad details of new rules or projects.

"He gives excellent presentations," Mr. Brown says. "He is able to say what he believes without alienating people. Everything he says is backed up by facts _ that's how he's been able to survive."

Over the years, Portola Valley has adopted other creative methods of achieving its goals. These include rules relating to geologic hazards; and innovative zoning for Portola Valley Ranch.

When geologic studies showed that the old Bovet ranch in southern Portola Valley included the San Andreas Fault and landslide-prone Coalmine Ridge, the town _ after much debate and soul-searching _ broke its one-acre minimum rule for lot size. As a result, today's Portola Valley Ranch allows homes clustered on half-acre lots on the eastern section of the ranch, while the fault area and Coalmine Ridge are preserved as permanent open space held in common ownership. The community also has lots of trails, and a requirement for landscaping with native plants.

"That was a major, major decision," Mr. Mader says. "Now it has become almost a model. Three council members live in Portola Valley Ranch."

Another early innovation _ that still causes problems _ was establishing the principle that the town only wanted commercial uses that served the town. "The things that people need locally," Mr. Mader says.

Through this policy, Portola Valley forestalled think tanks on Windy Hill. It's still fighting to prevent regional offices from creeping over from Sand Hill Road, and to make sure that lawyers with offices in town primarily serve residents and not a wider clientele.

Now that Portola Valley is largely built out, major challenges are controlling the size and design of new or expanded homes, and meeting state requirements for housing, including for lower-income families, Mr. Mader says. A new housing plan is due to be released this fall. "It's a real problem to provide below-market-rate housing where land costs are so high," he says.

How does he stand the long meetings and unending debate?

"The problems are intriguing," Mr. Mader replies. "And you've got such excellent people to work with. The Town Council, the Planning Commission and the staff give respect to advisers and consultants. They are willing to entertain innovative ideas."
Geology: bane and boon

"Portola Valley is both in the unenviable position of being bisected by the San Andreas Fault and by landslide areas _ and in the enviable position of having those as a basis for preserving open space," says Mr. Mader.

The new town's response to its geologic underpinnings has earned international notice, and helped make Mr. Mader into a national and world leader on planning land use in areas of geologic hazards, and recovery from earthquakes. "Portola Valley led us into it," he says.

The perils of geology came abruptly into focus in the late 1960s, when storms saturated unstable hillsides. Brand new houses slid down soggy slopes in Vista Verde and Woodside Highlands, and the county lost a road in Vista Verde. "The county put the road back and it slid again," Mr. Mader notes.

After that, Portola Valley took geology seriously. Working with a new geologic advisory committee inspired by the late Dwight Crowder, the town hired a geologist to map the entire town for faults and landslides. With Mr. Mader's planning expertise, it developed regulations that assured that geology was taken into account in land use and building decisions.

New regulations restricted building on landslides, and required geologic studies for new building on unstable lands. Portola Valley enacted California's first law requiring buffers between new buildings and earthquake faults.

This pioneering work led regional, state and federal agencies to use Portola Valley as a model for creating practical rules to guide agencies making decisions about land use in hazardous areas. "Our Portola Valley work was an impetus," Mr. Mader says.

In this country, Mr. Mader has worked under contract for the U.S. Geological Survey, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), and the National Science Foundation. He's served on the California Seismic Safety Commission, and chairs the California Earthquake Safety Foundation. He has just retired from 30 years of teaching at Stanford in a program he helped develop that combines earth sciences with public policy and land use planning.

Working with the United Nations, Mr. Mader has visited China, Japan, Mexico, Ecuador, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Algeria and Italy in connection with earthquake damage and rebuilding after disasters. He particularly remembers a helicopter tour of Italian hill towns damaged by a major earthquake near Naples.

Portola Valley's geologic regulations have incidentally contributed to the town's ability to reduce building density and preserve open land. This also has value to the region, Mr. Mader says. "The preservation of open space in Portola Valley is important, not only for residents, but for the whole Midpeninsula area."

@small: Devotion to schools

When Marjorie Mader first started attending meetings of the Portola Valley School Board for the Country Almanac at the then-red schoolhouse, Portola Valley Town Center was still a school.

The community was smaller then, and the school population was larger. "It was a real community feeling," Mrs. Mader recalls nostalgically. "It was very informal and caring. (Fourth grade teacher) Robin Toews could take her kids to the creek and write poetry."

Since 1970, Mrs. Mader has been going faithfully to Portola Valley school board meetings and analyzing them for the community. She's also branched out and become an expert on the local educational scene. She's covered the Menlo Park School District and the Sequoia Union High School District, and kept a knowledgeable eye on developments in other local school districts from Redwood City to Ravenswood, as well as community colleges.

Sally Stewart of Portola Valley, trustee of the Sequoia high school district, has known Mrs. Mader since joining the Portola Valley school board in 1971. After three terms, she moved to the Sequoia board in 1983. She's running for re-election in November.

"I used to read the paper to see exactly what happened in my board meetings," Mrs. Stewart recalls. "Marjorie is always very thorough. She knows the background, and knows what is going on, and puts it in context."

Mrs. Mader came to the Almanac as a professional journalist. A native of Wisconsin, she earned a journalism degree at Stanford. She spent a year with the Coro Foundation in San Francisco as an intern studying public affairs, and then worked for the San Rafael Independent Journal.

During that time, she met George Mader, who had a recent degree in city and regional planning from the University of California at Berkeley. They recently celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary. The young couple moved to the Menlo Park area in 1956 when Mr. Mader joined the late Bill Spangle to work on San Mateo County's first Master Plan. After a year in Delft in the Netherlands on a Fulbright scholarship, Mr. Mader returned to San Mateo County as a senior planner.

He joined Spangle Associates in 1960, and took over as president when Mr. Spangle retired in 1985. Mrs. Mader recalls they moved into their new Ladera home on Memorial Day, 1965.

Thirty-six years later, their three children _ Steve, Ann and Phil _ still live in the area. Steve and Helen live in North Fair Oaks, Phil and Alison live in Palo Alto, and Ann and John Stillman live in unincorporated West Menlo Park with their children, Cayla and Bradley. Steve is a local contractor, Ann is an engineer with San Mateo County, and Phil is a planner/developer.

It was a school issue that brought Mrs. Mader back into journalism in 1970. After she had worked very hard on a curriculum problem in the Las Lomitas district, the Almanac failed to cover a key meeting. She called the editor, the late Hedy Boissevain, and found the paper didn't have enough reporters. "She called me back that afternoon and asked if I'd do Portola Valley," Mrs. Mader recalls.

As a young mother, Mrs. Mader loved the feel of the Portola Valley schools. "There were really outstanding board people. Parents were really involved in schools, and came to board meetings, and promoted programs. There was more art and more music. There was a lot of activity beyond the classroom walls," she says. "It really was a community feeling."

Passage of Proposition 13 in 1978 forced cuts in many programs, Mrs. Mader notes, because the school board could no longer set its own tax rate to fund the programs it wanted.

After 30 years and eight superintendents, the schools are still excellent, Mrs. Mader observes. "They have become more performance-oriented."

Funding is improving, at least in Portola Valley, she notes. Besides state money, district schools benefit from the parcel tax, the school foundation, and the 1998 bond issue. Another bond issue will appear on the November ballot.

Over her years with the Almanac, Mrs. Mader has done community reporting and feature writing well beyond the education beat. She particularly enjoys doing profiles of some of the impressive people who live in our communities. And she's learned to take pictures. "I really enjoy taking photos of kids," she says. Mrs. Mader enjoys using her skills to inform the community on education issues. "I'm personally into education," she says. "Offering students a really fine education is one of the most important things you can do."