Top stories of 2008

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By Andrea Gemmet

Staff Writer, The Almanac

From the specter of speeding trains to the heartbreak of disappearing cash, 2008 has been a difficult year for many Midpeninsulans. Called upon to select the top news stories of the year, the newsroom staff chose the stories that kept reporters’ notebooks filled and dominated the chatter on The Almanac’s Town Square forum.

The top stories aren’t all bad news. On the bright side, Portola Valley celebrated the completion of its fabulous new Town Center, funded largely by residents’ donations.

On the not-so-bright side, local schools saw piles of cash evaporate, victims of declining home values, bad county investments and a clerical error. The state’s high-speed rail initiative is dividing the communities of Atherton and Menlo Park, figuratively and possibly literally, and Woodside admitted that parts of town are wildfire hazards, while Portola Valley fought the designation for its own neighborhoods.

Schools lose cash

Public school budgets took one hit after another this year.

Billionaire Larry Ellison successfully argued that his elaborate Woodside estate, a re-creation of a feudal Japanese estate, has limited market appeal due to its “structural over-improvements” and excessive landscaping. Its devaluation for tax purposes from $173 million to a mere $70 million resulted in a nearly $300,000 hit to the Portola Valley School District in 2008, and a $62,000 loss to the Sequoia Union High School District.

Then, over the summer, a clerical error by a county staff member triggered a court judgment awarding $20 million in back property taxes to biotech behemoth Genentech. The South San Francisco-based company routinely challenges its property tax assessments, and it won more than a dozen of them by default, which could cost the county’s public schools $8 million.

Adding insult to injury, the county investment pool bought Lehman Brothers debt instruments, and lost a total of $155 million when the venerable investment bank went bankrupt in September. School district officials, obligated by the state education code to hand the districts’ bond money over to the county treasurer’s investment pool for safekeeping, gnashed their teeth as more precious funds disappeared. It was an especially tough blow for the Menlo Park City School District, which had just dumped the proceeds from a school construction bond into the county pool, and lost nearly $4 million.

Stretching scarce dollars is going to be even more important in the new year, as the state’s budget crisis will doubtlessly slash education funding even further.

Not all onboard

If you want to start an online shouting match, just mention Proposition 1A, the multi-billion-dollar bond measure to build a high-speed rail line connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles. There just doesn’t seem to be a middle ground on this hot-button issue.

Statewide, the measure passed easily, but locally, not everyone is onboard with the idea. The chosen route will send trains rocketing through the Peninsula along the Caltrain corridor, which will have to be widened to accommodate extra tracks. City councils in Atherton and Menlo Park are opposed to the plan, and joined a lawsuit challenging the project over environmental concerns. They were the only two cities in the state to do so.

But while elected officials see trouble ahead, those who favor high-speed rail accuse opponents of being head-in-the-sand NIMBYs, heedless of the overall environmental benefit of the massive mass transit initiative, an allegation to which they strenuously object. High-speed rail will cause the loss of private property and heritage trees along the tracks, and add to noise pollution, opponents say. They add that the plan is fiscally foolhardy.

“The project has been approved by the voters without regulatory controls, budget or legitimate business plan,” says Menlo Park resident Martin Engel, an outspoken opponent of the project. “It promises to be, in my mind, a calamity of as yet unrealized dimension.”

Greenest town hall?

For the past couple of years, Portola Valley officials and residents have labored mightily to build a new Town Center, and this September they celebrated the project’s completion. After an earthquake fault trace was discovered in 2002 under some of the buildings, town officials had to figure out how to rebuild on safer ground.

The result was somewhat akin to a modern-day barn-raising, with residents pitching in to donate $17 million, attend workshops to rough out the design, and deciding to restore a long-buried portion of Sausal Creek running through the property.

Living up to the town’s pioneering standards of environmentalism, old structures were dismantled and building materials salvaged, rather than being sent to the landfill.

With its many sustainable, energy-efficient and environmentally sound features, the new three-building complex — a library, Town Hall and community hall — may earn a platinum-level award, the highest recognition given by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Down the road in Atherton, town officials have been closely monitoring Portola Valley’s progress as they embark on their own campaign to construct a new building for administrative offices and the Atherton Police Department.

Fire hazards

A sense of rejection may have nagged at Woodside Fire Protection District Fire Marshal Denise Enea at times in 2008 as she proposed that certain neighborhoods in the fire district be designated as wildfire risks.

In April, the Portola Valley Town Council unanimously rejected a map prepared by Ms. Enea that would have declared parts of several neighborhoods — Woodside Highlands, Westridge, Alpine Hills and Portola Valley Ranch — at “very high” risk.

The potential impact on fire insurance drove the council’s decision to tell the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to stay with an old map that showed no such risks in town.

Cal Fire recently released a map showing only Woodside Highlands as a “very high” risk area. Fire insurers have told The Almanac that they have their own vegetation maps for setting rates.

Ms. Enea’s markups were based on water supply, accessibility for firefighting vehicles, and topography. Her map took a slightly tougher view than a map prepared by a consultant hired by the town.

Her analysis of Woodside received a receptive hearing in June, when the Town Council approved designations of “very high” risk for the Emerald Hills neighborhood and areas west of Kings Mountain Road and along and around Old La Honda Road.

However, when she came back in September to request extending that designation to include Woodside Glens, Greer Road east of Huddart Park, Moore Road and a few other areas, the Woodside council said no.

The council did ask staff for recommendations that could expand the number of parcels that would fall under a building code requiring the use of fire-inhibiting materials and landscaping for new homes.

Almanac staff writer David Boyce contributed to this report.

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