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As the year comes to an end, The Almanac compiled a list of the most talked about stories of 2023, month-by-month.
City agencies grappled with how to plan for new housing. Applications began to trickle in for so-called “builders remedy” projects — a California provision that allows developers to bypass local land-use rules when cities fail to garner state approval for a long-range housing plan.
The community mourned farmworkers killed in a mass shooting in Half Moon Bay.
Local students planned protests after an M-A student was pinned down by police officers.
All the while, massive storms hit the Midpeninsula, leading to millions of dollars worth of damage to classrooms and other spaces.
Reflect back with us on the year that was.
January: The Currys enter the NIMBY debate
In January, The Almanac broke the news that Steph and Ayesha Curry waded into the housing debate in Atherton when they wrote a letter to the town asking it not to allow their neighbor, at 23 Oakwood Blvd., to build duplexes. The couple said they were hesitant to add to the NIMBY (not in my backyard) rhetoric.
The news went national and around 250 residents — a record number — and major news outlets headed to Atherton for a blockbuster City Council meeting about town housing plans. Residents largely spoke out against upzoning 23 Oakwood and other parts of town. The council gutted some of the multifamily housing zoning, but kept 23 Oakwood in the plan.
February: Huge storms hit Midpeninsula
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Stanford University began work to take town at least seven trees along Alpine Road near the Highway 280 south onramp in Portola Valley on March 30, 2023. Courtesy Carol Espinosa. -
SLIDESHOW: Dehumidifiers remove moisture from a flood-damaged classroom at Las Lomitas Elementary School in Atherton on Jan. 11, 2023. Photo by Magali Gauthier.
The year kicked off with a series of large storms.
A late January atmospheric river was particularly destructive, with windy weather knocking down power lines, shutting off electricity for days at a time to some residents. It caused flooding throughout the region.
Gusty weather in March took the life of one man, Javier Ivan Cruz Diaz, 29, of San Jose, as he was driving on Alpine Road in Portola Valley when a tree fell on his work truck.
Portola Valley residents called on Stanford, to better manage its eucalyptus trees along Alpine Road since one of its trees fell on his work van.
March: Menlo Park school district say Stanford funds won’t offset enrollment spike from development
Menlo Park City School District board members spoke out about the fact that a $2.5 million endowment slated to cover the costs of extra students from Stanford University’s new Middle Plaza housing project won’t be enough.
The district’s main source of funding is property taxes, but as a nonprofit, Stanford is exempt from paying taxes on the housing development. That means the project is expected to add students to Menlo Park schools, but it will not generate tax revenue that would help pay for their education.
April: A very good dog, or a very bad one?
In April, readers chewed over the saga of Bär, a golden retriever belonging to Menlo Park residents Tobias Kunze and Liliana Kunze Briseño. As far as the couple is concerned, Bär is a sunny, friendly dog who is eager to please. But after an incident with a husky that resulted in a wound, the city declared 3-year-old Bär a dangerous animal. That “quasi-criminal” designation includes restrictions the Kunzes deemed onerous, so they petitioned San Mateo County Superior Court to overturn the city’s decision, including 29 character affidavits from those who know the dog and were willing to attest to the court that he’s a very good boy.
May: M-A teens organize against police brutality
In the spring, Menlo-Atherton High School students led protests over the Atherton Police and school administration’s handling of a teen’s arrest in April. The teen was pinned to the ground at a bus stop just outside the school’s Atherton campus.
Students’ videos of the arrest circulated widely online, and the case spawned youth-led protests against police misconduct and grabbed headlines.
In October, lawyers filed a discrimination claim against administrators on behalf of the student over the arrest.
June: Wealthy towns called out by Grand Jury for trying to use granny units to fulfill housing mandates
A San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury put out a report in June saying that affluent towns like Woodside, Atherton, Portola Valley and Hillsborough are using backyard accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in their state housing plans to avoid building multifamily low-income housing.
Among the Grand Jury report’s recommendations is that the county and each city should stop using ADUs to meet housing targets until they have also proposed an effective monitoring system that verifies how newly developed ADUs will be used.
July: This time, the Manhattan comparisons are pretty apt
In July, Menlo Park officials reacted with dismay when Texas-based developer Oisin Heneghan’s company N17 filed plans to raze the former Sunset Magazine headquarters at the corner of Willow and Middlefield roads and replace it with a high-rise complex with housing, a hotel, office and retail space, including a 28-story building that would rise 20 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.
Under normal circumstances, a developer with such outrageous plans could expect a swift denial based on Menlo Park’s building regulations. But because the city has yet to get state approval of its housing element, a mandatory plan to accommodate new housing over the next eight years, officials’ hands could be tied.
Under “builder’s remedy,” cities and towns without a housing element accepted by the state could be required to approve any project that has 20% of its units designated as affordable for low-income households or 100% for moderate-income households, even if the project exceeds the zoning and general plan density requirements.
By August, State Sen. Josh Becker and County Supervisor Ray Mueller added to the chorus of disapproving locals, releasing a joint statement.
This month, the plans got even more grandiose. Mayor Jen Wolosin announced on Dec. 14 that N17 filed revised plans increasing the tallest building’s height by about 70 feet to 421 feet tall, even closer to the modern definition of a skyscraper (150 meters or about 492 feet). “I find this submission to be outrageously out of scale from what is … reasonable,” Wolosin said in an email to constituents.
August: COVID-19 cases spiked again in the summer
In July and August, the Stanford Sewer Coronavirus Alert Network (SCAN) found that COVID-19 was making a comeback.
Still, numbers were nowhere near where they were the year prior.
September: Atherton social club eyed for potential housing
Atherton officials looked at various properties in town for possible new multifamily and workforce dwellings to help meet a state requirement for cities to plan for future housing.
Leaders of one such property, the Menlo Circus Club at 190 Park Lane, expressed dismay that their property came up for consideration in an environmental study that’s part of the town’s ongoing effort to craft a state housing element.
The club doesn’t “have the ability to build additional structures as we can no longer add impermeable surfaces due to maximum hardscape limits within our existing footprint,” club leaders wrote to the town. “With nearly 450 member-owners, it is also safe to say that there would never be a consensus to agree to subdivide any portion of our property for a potential sale to a developer, even in the unlikely event that a developer would be prepared to pay fair market value for the property.”
October: Native American graves found in Redwood City
In the fall, it was discovered that Redwood City’s vast Elco Yards development is the site of an ancient Native American burial ground, and for at least a year, an undisclosed number of skeletal remains — some perhaps hundreds or thousands of years old — were uncovered while excavating for the underground parking structure.
The burial grounds, which were uncovered between 2022 and 2023, shed light on a potentially significant ancient site that is a long-forgotten part of Redwood City’s history and one that seemed to be largely discounted and thought to have been destroyed long ago.
Jennifer Yamaguma, deputy city manager, said in October that aside from information that is protected and exempt from disclosure under state law, the landowner is required to consider the most likely descendant’s recommendations for treatment of the remains in accordance with Public Resources law.
November: Nazi swastikas or anime? Symbols found at Woodside High prompted investigation
In November, two symbols that appeared to be swastikas were found on the Woodside High School campus, prompting an investigation that included the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.
An investigation by school administrators and the sheriff’s office determined the school wasn’t under a threat, Principal Karen van Putten said. Instead, the school confirmed the drawings were not intended to be hate speech targeted at anyone or any group.
At least one member of the school community told this news publication that they were deeply upset by the symbols and questioned the explanation.
“What a crock of !#%$,” the community member said. The school knows “full well how painful it is for Jewish students and staff to see but then goes and has it painted over if it’s only anime?”
December: Rare Palo Alto beaver found in local creek dies
A beaver that was recolonizing the Matadero Creek in Palo Alto died in December after being treated for an unknown ailment.
The beaver, found in late November, represented a hopeful sign for Matadero Creek’s ecology. Beavers haven’t been seen in the creek for more than 160 years. A pair were first captured on a trail camera in 2022. A beaver kit was also spotted in the summer.
Other significant stories in 2023
President Biden visits Filoli
In November, President Joe Biden met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at Filoli estate in Woodside.
Xi arrived in the U.S. on Nov. 14 for the high-stakes meeting with Biden during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit taking place in San Francisco at the time.
It’s been an eventful couple of years for Filoli, which saw the popular gardens host the long-running PBS series Antiques Roadshow in 2022.
Girl Scouts take on Woodside over bus restrictions
Leading into the busy summer camp season, the Peninsula Girl Scouts squared off with the town of Woodside over restrictions on busing hundreds of children to summer camp at Huddart Park.
A new Woodside law that prohibits large vehicles from driving the last half-mile of Kings Mountain Road to the entrance of Huddart Park because of the road’s curves and narrowness.
The new rule affected other groups and town officials said they would work with groups to come up with a solution.
Lawsuit alleges ‘pay-to-play’ in construction projects under former college district chancellor
The San Mateo County Community College District filed a 120-page lawsuit in February against several construction companies for “fraud, bribery, and kickbacks.” The district alleges the scheme was led by disgraced former Chancellor Emeritus Ron Galatolo, who was charged with 21 felonies in April 2022 for misuse of public funds during his leadership of the district.
West Menlo Park residents get the mailbox blues
This year, patrons of the West Menlo Park United States Post Office branch on Avy Avenue near Alameda de las Pulgas reported missing and stolen checks. After The Almanac ran a story about one man’s woes when bills went AWOL, more residents reported similar thefts when they posted mail in the blue curbside box outside the post office.
United States Postal Inspector Matthew Norfleet recommended that people send out their mail from inside a U.S. Post Office location, telling The Almanac that mail should not be left unattended in outdoor mailboxes any longer than necessary.
“There’s no such thing as a mailbox that can’t be broken into,” Norfleet said. “It’s not a bank vault, right? It’s just like a temporary convenient place for your mail to be for a short time.”
Farmworkers killed in mass shooting in Half Moon Bay
In January seven people were killed during a shooting at a mushroom farm in Half Moon Bay.
The tragedy also drew attention to the plight of farmworkers living in housing in “deplorable” condition.
Citing poor living conditions, inadequate pay and nonexistent health care, officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, come out to demand change.
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