Year in people Year in people (December 29, 2004)

The city manager

Frank Benest has a reputation in Palo Alto for being a "strong" city manager. This was the year, though, that he really needed that strength.

In February, Benest's wife Pamela Grady died from complications relating to pneumonia, leaving him to raise their two young children alone. Then he battled throat cancer.

"It certainly focuses one on what's important, doesn't it?" he said at the time.

The city didn't seem to suffer while Benest took time off to deal with his personal tragedies -- after all, he's always been more of a visionary who delegates the city's day-to-day operations.

At the end of the year, Benest jumped back to work and negotiated a much-heralded deal with Stanford University to provide two new community soccer fields. He was also rewarded with a 10 percent pay raise. His nine bosses, the City Council, wrote how they appreciated his "optimism, commitment, enthusiasm, loyalty, courage and the manner in which you handled your personal challenges."

In 2005, Benest will have to muster even more strength: he'll be leading the city in a fifth consecutive year of budget cuts, one that's likely to produce the deepest trims yet to beloved public services. --Bill D'Agostino
The mountain lion

In Palo Alto, 2004 was the year of the mountain lion.

In two prescient weeks in late April-early May, two deer were killed on Stanford University land; the suspect was a cougar (or two).

But when another mountain lion, or possibly the same one, wandered into a residential neighborhood on May 17, police began an all-out puma-hunt. After a neighbor's old black Labrador ran him up a tree, police officers, seeing the animal as a possible threat to nearby children, fatally shot the lion.

The killing instantly became the hottest topic in town. For some, the dead feline was a majestic victim of police brutality.

Mountain lion sightings continued all year. While some attributed the increase to people's heightened awareness, City Naturalist Deborah Bartens believed it was a sign of a changing world.

In October, another high-profile sighting occurred on a roof near Jordan Middle School, rattling the nerves of neighbors and reminding us of our rural surroundings. --Bill D'Agostino
The library director

When Paula Simpson was hired in February as Palo Alto's library director, hopes were high she would engineer a turn-around of the city's deteriorating library service.

First, Simpson embarked on a six-month "listening tour," hosting community meetings. "I'm here to challenge every assumption," she told a crowd at the Palo Alto Art Center.

After coming to the controversial conclusion that the system's five branches were stretching the city's library dollars too thin, she recommended closing two smaller branches to improve service at the other three.

More than 100 people came to the deciding City Council meeting earlier this month, most in opposition. The council agreed with the masses.

"Déjà vu," Simpson wrote the next morning on a listserv of local librarians. The e-mail's subject heading? "I'm alive."

Still, Simpson, a Minnesota native, received much kudos during the meeting. Even some who wanted their local library kept open at any cost agreed she was the person to help the libraries recover from years of neglect.

Next on her plate: pondering a way to build that new "full-service" library and finding funding to staff it without closing beloved branches. Simpson, who was previously Monterey's library director, said during one stop on her listening tour that she left her old job because she wanted new challenges.

"Guess what?" she said. "I think I found them." --Bill D'Agostino
Wayne Martin

City watchdog and gadfly Wayne Martin didn't sway from his anti-tax crusade this year when he led and ultimately won a battle against the local school district's parcel tax measure, which narrowly fell short of the two-thirds approval it needed.

Supporters of the parcel tax increase have said Martin was responsible for the measure's defeat, along with the tough two-thirds benchmark.

Martin, a self-employed computer programmer, used tactics similar to those he harnessed to oppose the $48.7 million library bond measure two years ago, which also came up short of the two-thirds.

As the only outspoken opponent of Measure I, Martin stuck to the numbers, preparing computer spreadsheets on district finances and "white papers" on district policies.

While supporters of the parcel tax increase spent thousands on mailing three colorful, glossy fliers, Martin had about a dozen supporters who helped deliver "No on I" packets to every doorstep in Palo Alto.

"It wasn't our intention to make a lot of trouble. It was our intention to educate the voters," said Martin, who during the campaign was virtually ignored by the district. Until now. Alexandria Rocha

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