December 03, 2003

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Editorial: 'Holiday Fund' helps out in a tough time

These are the groups that organize the programs and provide thousands of volunteers a way to provide their services within an effective network -- services that focus on educational and other programs serving families and children.

In the past decade the fund has channeled more than $2 million to organizations in the form of grants awarded each spring -- grants that enable the organizations to do specific things they otherwise might not be able to accomplish.

Last spring, funds were disbursed to 52 community-based groups, with an emphasis on child-and family-oriented programs. Another $10,000 is reserved for college scholarships for graduating high-school seniors involved in significant community-service activities.

It is a true "spirit of giving" community fund.

This year the Weekly has renewed last year's goal of $300,000 for the fund. Nearly 150 persons have already joined the donor list in the first two weeks of the campaign, a big surge toward the more than 700 persons who usually give. The list will be printed in the Weekly each week through December and into January, so readers can watch it grow. Donors may designate an individual or organization the donor wishes to honor.

Funds raised will again be matched by grants from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, two world-famous Palo Alto-based organizations that maintain local ties and commitments. The support of other local foundations is expected to be announced soon.

Proceeds from the Weekly's Moonlight Run each fall kick-start the Holiday Fund. The Weekly covers all administrative costs for the Holiday Fund so the full value of the donations can go to the nonprofits. The fund is co-sponsored by Community Foundation Silicon Valley, which holds the funds and issues the checks for the grants. Donations are fully tax-deductible. A donation coupon is printed on page 8 of this issue and is available on the Weekly's community Web site, www.PaloAltoOnline.com.

Join us. It feels really great.

Award chutzpah points but stick with 50 feet

The announcement last week by BRIDGE Housing that it would like to "discuss" going beyond the city's three-decades-old 50-foot height limit in a housing project in southeast Palo Alto should be put to rest before it ever gets to the drawing board.

Enough said.

BRIDGE is a partner with the Jewish Community Center in planning a new future for the old Sun Microsystems site, a "Campus for Jewish Life." All told, the housing and community and office facilities could comprise one of the largest single developments in Palo Alto's history. Preliminary architectural-sketch glimpses of what the center could look like have been shared with a select few but have not yet been publicly released.

Not that there isn't a severe need for additional below-market-rate units, but bringing up increasing the number of units at the tag end of a city study on development impacts for the Charleston/Arastradero roads corridor is seriously poor timing.

And just bringing the 50-foot matter forward demonstrates a lack of sensitivity about Palo Alto's oft-turbulent history over large developments and the fact that the 50-foot limit was a hard-fought victory for "residentialists" after a series of high-rise projects had been proposed in the late 1960s and 1970.

It also is insensitive to the concerns of residents along the Charleston Avenue corridor, which presently has a moratorium in place while the city staff labors to complete the traffic-impact study of developments all along the corridor. As two former mayors, Gary Fazzino and Larry Klein, noted last week, the 50-foot limit is viewed as "sacrosanct" and has won widespread acceptance since its adoption.

It's an issue that BRIDGE Housing and the JCC should leave alone, and get on with letting the community as a whole get a look at what they're planning for this sector of town.

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