Around Town Around Town (June 22, 2005)

LEAF IT TO PALO ALTO . . . Letters to the City Council regarding last week's decision to ban gas-powered leaf blowers continue to tumble in. Some residents praised the council for taking long-overdue action, but others rolled their eyes. Joe Rolfe chided the council: "The ban makes us all look foolish and it is wasteful of time and money. If we are going to ban leaf blowers, how about: hedge trimmers, chain saws, hammers, rotary saws, train whistles, and sirens except in cases of dire emergency. This may rule out routine traffic stops. How about loud arguments? Have all of you ... lost perspective?" The noise and pollution caused by the machines notwithstanding, letter-writer V. Phan agreed, ranting, "What's next, gardeners must cut grass by hand? Cities across California are debating about school closures, budget cuts, and crimes -- but not PA. They're busy with leaf blowers." The subject heading of Phan's caustic e-mail? "CUT YOUR OWN DAMN LAWN!!!!!"

IT'S HEEEERE . . . Lurking somewhere in a Palo Alto Quonset hut is a truck that plans to capture San Francisco -- digitally. So says SiliconValleyWatcher, a business e-zine that has been reporting on the Google 3D mapping project. The truck is outfitted with lasers and digital cameras "to create a realistic 3D online version of San Francisco, and eventually other major cities," according to the Web report. The only hitch to capturing the information would be if cars or pedestrians block the view. Last week, the Web site posted a photo of a corrugated metal hut and indicated the secret Google truck was inside. No hint on its exact location.

A SALMON IN MATADERO CREEK? . . . Nope. Just someone's striped-bass dinner. Neighborhood excitement about a possible salmon having made it from the San Francisco Bay all the way to Barron Park via Matadero Creek turned out to be a fish-y story, of sorts. Lisa Porcella, a biologist with the Santa Clara Valley Water District, examined photos of the large fish, consulted with fish experts, and concluded that it was no salmon. "We are all in agreement that the fish in question is unmistakably a striped bass," she said in an e-mail to residents Kirsten Flinn and Doug Moran, who had sent in the photos last week. "It appears that the fish has been filleted to some extent as the skin that is peeled back is very intact and this is a typical filleting style that fisherman utilize. If a raccoon or skunk had gotten to the fish the skin would not have been peeled back quite so nicely. Striped bass are not the best jumpers or navigators through difficult low-flow waterways so it is very unlikely that this fish came up from the bay. Hence, I think this was someone's dinner that was thrown in the creek when they were finished with it." But keep those cards and photos coming, she encouraged: "We are always interested in hearing reports of unusual fish or other critters in the creeks."

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? . . . She was out of town, but not out of touch -- well, most of the time. Dialing in from Carlsbad, Calif., last week, Councilmember Hillary Freeman participated in council deliberations by phone. Midway through the four-hour meeting, however, she discovered that the 200 minutes she'd put on her phone card wouldn't be enough. After Freeman got disconnected and tried unsuccessfully to re-establish a connection a few times, City Attorney Gary Baum asked that staff confirm she was on the line. No sooner had Mayor Jim Burch said, "Yes, she is," then the phone speaker loudly clicked and began beeping the "disconnected" signal. Burch paused. "I think you have your answer," he quipped. Freeman later re-established her connection and stayed on the line till the end of the meeting.

CSI: PALO ALTO . . . On Thursday, kids attending the Museum of American Heritage's annual Math and Science Summer Camp are getting more than a dose of decimals and equations. The students, who are 11 and older, will hear a presentation by Palo Alto Police Agent Alex Afanasiev on crime scene investigation, or CSI. "The kids have been watching 'CSI' on TV and a lot of stuff isn't too realistic, so we're going to try to debunk that," said Wendy Breu, the museum's education director. "The TV show takes short cuts and everyone's a jack of all trades." The students will learn the careful detail that goes into investigating a crime scene, and also gather some info on how to go about becoming a crime scene detective.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.