Around Town Around Town (November 02, 2005)

TRICKING THE MEDIA . . . On Saturday, the Palo Alto Police Department put out a truly scary Halloween press release. The statement warned parents to "double-check candy given to children to ensure it is safe" and to "be very cautious of items not in a sealed wrapper or container." The department is perhaps unaware that the legend about cruel boogeymen distributing candy with razor blades or poison on Oct. 31 has been debunked. In his widely quoted paper, "Halloween Sadism: The Evidence," University of Delaware sociologist Joel Best concluded he was unable "to find a substantiated report of a child being killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating." Even stranger, the Palo Alto police's statement told parents to "remind your children to not talk to strangers," advice that would make trick-or-treating quite difficult. Perhaps little ghouls and goblins could just hold up signs asking for candy?

WORLD WIDE WED . . . Internet dating may be hot, but Internet proposing? Turns out it has some cache, at least for Palo Alto natives Dave Garr, an Internet marketing professional, and Elizabeth Pearson, daughter of Stanford Professor Emeritus Scott Pearson and retired Gunn and Palo Alto high schools principal Sandra Pearson. When Garr recently wanted to pop the question, he went online, creating a "DaveLovesElizabeth.com" Web site that spoofed the real matchmaking site eHarmony. On it, Garr recounted the couple's love story in HTML. "I fell in love with you faster than Google is indexing this page," he told her on the site. At the end, Garr wrote instructions directing Elizabeth to where he was waiting "to ask you a question." Her answer? A real-time "Yes" -- and a hug.

WHICH CANDIDATES SHOPPED PALO ALTO? . . . When it came time to print their campaign materials, many of the 10 candidates for the Palo Alto City Council chose to "Shop Palo Alto," but a few took their business elsewhere. With the health of the city's retailers being one of the campaign's major issues, the Weekly decided to calculate what percentage of candidates' spending on campaign literature went to Palo Alto businesses. John Barton was the least faithful, spending a scant 7.8 percent of his funds in Palo Alto. The San Francisco firm Terris Barnes and Walters got the vast preponderance of the $14,698 Barton spent on campaign literature. In fairness to Barton, the firm exclusively handles political materials, unlike say Kinko's or other local print shops. The two incumbents -- Yoriko Kishimoto and Jack Morton -- both spent less than half their funds in Palo Alto. Kishimoto spent 26.9 percent (of $8,194) locally, with much of her work given to Alonzo Printing in Hayward. Morton spent 42.5 percent (of $3,805) in Palo Alto, although he spent closer to home -- his largest beneficiary was Mountain View's Inksmith Printing. Candidate Harold "Skip" Justman was the most loyal to Palo Alto, spending $5,920 on campaign literature and all of it in the city (mostly at Jungle Digital Imaging on High Street). The remaining three candidates with sizable war chests spent primarily in Palo Alto. Larry Klein relied upon Omega Printing on Waverley Street for much of his campaign materials, and spent 90.9 percent (of $8,034) in Palo Alto. Karen Holman primarily used Pip Printing on El Camino Real and spent 81.5 percent (of $2,986) in Palo Alto. Peter Drekmeier relied mostly upon Prodigy Press on Grant Avenue, and spent 87.5 (of $6,477) percent in Palo Alto. By the way, campaign literature was chosen for this particular litmus test because it's something candidates could arguably buy in any Bay Area city. The candidates themselves reported how they spent their funds, through Oct. 22, in state mandated forms due to the City Clerk Oct. 20.

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