Around Town Around Town (September 15, 2004)

WAITING FOR 'GO' (DOH!) . . . A group of approximately 20 College Terrace residents trooped unhappily out of City Council chambers last week -- not because things didn't go their way with the Planning and Transportation Commission, but because things didn't go at all. After sitting through nearly three hours of discussion about a Barron Park neighborhood issue, the patient College Terrace crowd thought they'd get their chance to speak for or against a plan to install traffic circles and speed tables in their neighborhood. But no. At 10 p.m., the commission took a second look at its agenda. Another issue had to be reviewed that evening because of a deadline, leaving no time for the College Terrace review. But even then the existential wait didn't end without some confusion. The commission first said the College Terrace issue would be postponed (prompting people to get up to leave), then that it would not (causing them to turn around). Finally, the commission said again that it would be postponed. Looking like refugees from a Samuel Beckett play, dazed residents filed out into the City Hall lobby, wondering what the heck just happened.

YANK'S DOODLES ARE DANDY ... Who said the law is dry? For months, Stanford graduate student Sam Peterson has alleged that the City of Palo Alto is ducking its duty by allowing an illicit and naughty newspaper, Yank, to be distributed in news racks. Last week, the city attorney's office responded with a report arguing that the "adult-oriented" publication was legally permitted for sale in boxes around town. According to city ordinance, such boxes need to be equipped with blinders to block sexually arousing material "depicting or describing specified sexual activities" or "depicting or describing specified anatomical areas." Peterson believed the city is violating a state law that blocks "obscene, indecent or immoral" materials from public view. The attorney's office noted that this issue "is fraught with constitutional peril" since the First Amendment makes such laws difficult to enforce. On a side note, the report also reported that stricter limitations on all news racks would "soon" be coming to California Avenue, similar to what is already in place on University Avenue.

WANTING WIRELESS ... Twelve-year-old Palo Altan Sterling Hancock made a simple request to the City Council in an e-mail last month: set up free wireless Internet access all over town. "Don't you think that would be a great idea?" Sterling asked the elected officials. "Palo Alto is where Silicon Valley was born. We used to be the technology capital of the world, but now there are many places that are doing technology better than we are. If we had wireless internet, wouldn't that make us a pioneer again? We should be showing the world the way. Besides, it would be so convenient, and really cool."

'A' IS FOR ADVERTISING . . . A basket of homegrown apples with a "Free Apples" sign is so ... not Palo Alto. In this marketing-savvy town, free apples come with their own advertisements. On a sidewalk in the Palo Verde neighborhood sat a cardboard box overflowing with fist-sized green apples -- organic ones, the sign touted. It went on to give helpful recipe suggestions --"good for apple sauce, apple pie, apple cobbler, apple cake" -- then ended with the backyard farmer's endorsement " ... delicious." Hey, it's a competitive world out there.

NEW NIMBY NUISANCE ... One man's solar panel, as the saying does not go, is another man's annoyance. Greg Bell, who lives on Cowper Street, complained about the placement of a neighbors' solar panels to the City Council in an e-mail last month. Bell said the neighbors' home now has the "look of a downtown office building of glass and steel." He included a digital photo of the home, and added: "Although I am fully in favor of using alternative energy. I do believe the placement could have been done on the garage, reducing the unsightly nature of the panels." He further requested that the city mull over tighter restrictions on the placement of such solar panels, forcing them to be considered for the rear of a home first, the garage second and the front "dead last."

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