News Digest News Digest (September 16, 2005)

Council to discuss controversial $100,000 library gift

A controversial gift from the Friends of the Palo Alto Library will be discussed Monday night by the City Council.

The nonprofit is offering $100,000 for the city to purchase a modular building to expand public space at the city's libraries.

The gift is needed because public space at the Downtown Library is being reduced to make room for technical functions and the Children's Library will be closed for renovation for two years, according to a letter to the city from Friends of the Palo Alto Library President Jeff Levisnky.

City administrators turned down the gift earlier this year. Assistant City Manager Emily Harrison said they did so for a variety of reasons -- they think the cost for the portables is greater than $100,000 and there isn't a good spot for the portable buildings to be placed.

A memo from Councilwomen LaDoris Cordell and Hillary Freeman is prompting Monday night's discussion.

The gift rekindles a long-standing debate between the Friends of the Palo Alto Library and city administrators about the future of the five-branch library system. Last year, Library Director Paula Simpson and City Manager Frank Benest recommended closing smaller branches, including the Downtown Library, to make better use of the larger libraries.

The nonprofit opposed the recommendation, which the council ultimately rejected.

-- Bill D'Agostino

County sets deadline on Stanford trails

A Dec. 13 deadline has been set for Stanford University and Santa Clara County to reach an agreement on the location of two controversial trail connections in the Stanford foothills.

The county Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 Tuesday to have county staff negotiate an agreement with Stanford by Dec. 13 on the location of the two trails.

If the deadline is met, it would end a stalemate that has continued for more than five years, with environmentalists favoring trail routes through the Dish property above Stanford and the university pushing for routes outside the boundaries, both north and south.

The initial deadline for settling the trails dispute was December 2001.

Liz Kniss, chair of the county board, voted against the motion because it tied the two trails in one agreement -- contrary to an earlier position of the board to first reach a decision on the southern trail. She said the county has had an environmental impact report completed on the alternatives for the southern trail, known as the S1 route, but not on the northern (or C1) trail.

Kniss said she felt "blindsided" that Stanford is now requesting agreement on the C1 trail before it will agree to one of the alternatives for the S1 trail.

"Our position has been the same for a long time," Larry Horton, Stanford's director of government and community relations, said in response. He said Stanford had wanted to tie the two trails together in one agreement.

Stanford informed Kniss of its desire to link the decision making for the two trails together in a meeting with Kniss in August and via a letter sent to the county board on Aug. 30, said Jean McCown, Stanford's director of community relations.

Horton told the board Tuesday that Stanford would agree now to build a version of the S1 trail, called S1-A, along Old Page Mill Road, which many people in the environmental community have rejected because of it being on the road.

What some think a preferred alternative, S1-C, goes south of Stanford lands and crosses Highway I-280 at Arastradero Road. But Stanford won't agree to the S1-C trail unless it is part of package agreement with a C1 trail, according to Horton.

Many in the community had preferred an S1 trail that was largely north of Page Mill Road, but which Stanford had rejected.

Nonette Hanko, board member of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, spoke Tuesday and questioned whether there is enough time for the county to do an environmental analysis of alternative C1 trails before the Dec. 13 deadline.

But Horton said agreements can be made conditional upon environmental assessments, which could then be completed later.

The general use permit the county awarded to Stanford in December 2000 stipulated that agreement on the S1 and C1 trails was to be reached by December 2001.

-- Don Kazak

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