Publication Date: Friday, December 23, 2005
News Digest
News Digest
(December 23, 2005)
Some city departments closed for holidays
Various Palo Alto city departments will be shut down over the next week in honor of the holidays.
All libraries will be closed Dec. 24-Jan. 2, as will be the Art Center.
Lucie Stern and Mitchell Park community centers will be closed Dec. 26-30. Cubberley is closed Dec. 20-24 and Dec. 30-31.
The parks will be open, with limited staffing, and the golf course will also be open. The Baylands Nature Interpretive Center, however, will be closed Dec. 24-25 and Jan. 1. It will close at 3 p.m. on Dec. 31.
The Junior Museum and Zoo will be closed on Christmas and New Year's days, and will close at 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.
The city's Development Center will be closed Dec. 26 and 30.
The Utilities Department's customer-service center will be closed Dec. 26-27 and Jan. 2.
Animal Services will be closed Dec. 24-26, Dec. 30 and Jan. 1-2.
Public Works operations, including the landfill, will be open, with limited staffing.
The Police Department's public-service and records desk will be closed Dec. 26 and Jan. 2.
Fire stations, paramedics and all emergency services will be open throughout the holidays.
Alleged art thief misses court date
One of three people suspected of stealing a van containing paintings worth up to $100,000 and then trying to sell the stolen artwork back to a Menlo Park gallery failed to appear in a San Mateo County courtroom on Wednesday, forcing a judge to issue a $50,000 warrant for his arrest.
South San Francisco resident Derek Hanson, 41, who was out of custody on $25,000 bail, was supposed to appear in Superior Court Judge John Runde's courtroom on Wednesday for a superior court review conference, according to the San Mateo County district attorney's office.
Hanson along with South San Francisco resident Deanna Joao, 46, and San Francisco resident Jeffrey Harp, 33, pleaded not guilty last week to charges of burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary, selling stolen property and resisting arrest.
The van theft that started the chain of events leading to the arrests occurred in the 1300 block of Indiana Street in San Francisco on Nov. 23.
The owner of the Sense Fine Art gallery in unincorporated Menlo Park said he had driven the paintings to San Francisco for a preview of an exhibition that was scheduled to begin at his gallery on Dec. 2.
The van and steering wheel were locked, the paintings in the van were covered and the driver was gone only for a few minutes. However, when he came back, the van was gone.
The owner, who has asked not to be identified, said that among the missing works of art were paintings by local artist Stephen Foss.
In the course of about a week, Sense Fine Art, which is the exclusive agent of Stephen Foss paintings, began receiving word about inquiries made to Bay Area galleries regarding a piece of art matching the description of one of the stolen paintings.
According to the sheriff's office, the gallery received phone calls on Dec. 2, Dec. 9 and Dec. 10 from a man saying he wanted to bring a Stephen Foss painting into the Menlo Park gallery for appraisal.
The sheriff's office set up three separate surveillance operations, but the man failed to show up each time.
However, on Dec. 11, gallery owners called the sheriff's office and said the suspect was in Redwood City and had been given directions to the art gallery, according to the sheriff's office.
Anticipating another no-show, sheriff's deputies nonetheless responded to the gallery and staked it out.
The owner said the first suspect to arrive was Joao, who spoke for a long while with the gallery director. She then made a call on her cell phone and two men came into the gallery, the owner said.
When the deputies subsequently stormed the gallery, the two men fled and the woman remained inside with two stolen paintings in her hands, the owner said.
She was arrested without incident. Hanson and Harp fled the scene but were quickly apprehended, according to the sheriff's office.
Because Hanson did not appear on Wednesday, a preliminary hearing for him on Tuesday was vacated, according to the district attorney's office.
Joao and Harp remain behind bars in lieu of $25,000 bail. They will return to court for a preliminary hearing on Tuesday at 9 a.m.
A total of three paintings, with an approximate value of $45,000, have been recovered, but five are still missing, according to the sheriff's office.
-- Bay City News Service
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