GOOD SAMARITANS . . . Palo Alto city utilities workers had their hands full last week during the height of the storm Thursday morning with power outages throughout the city. One call which came in about 9:30 a.m. stood out in particular, from a 91-year-old man and his caretaker, residents of 400 Hale St. in Crescent Park, whose block had been without power since 7:30 a.m. As they waited for their power to be restored, they said, a tree had fallen and broken a window. They wondered if someone from the city could fix it for them. Department electricians Ken Schwab and Manuel Topete, normally dispatched to fix metering problems, answered the call. They temporarily fixed the window with plastic, cardboard and duct tape. "There was a nasty storm going on," recalled Jay Thomas, manager of electric operations. "We just sent somebody," he said, figuring they could find a way to help, even though normally window-fixing is not in most electricians' job descriptions.
IN REMEMBRANCE . . . The Palo Alto Police Department dedicated a memorial plaque Friday which will hang in the department lobby, in memory of Reserve Officer Ted Brassinga, who was accidentally shot while role playing in a SWAT training exercise on May 15, 1994. The Police Department will also be planting a Coast Redwood tree in Johnson Park on Waverley Street in Palo Alto as a living memorial to Brassinga. He was the third officer to die in the line of duty in the city's history.
STICKER SHOCK . . . When the California Avenue merchants built a new parking garage, they decided to take the contractor's advice and use stickers rather than having signs saying "small car only" painted on the asphalt, because they were told stickers would last longer. Funny thing, some pranksters have recently been peeling the stickers off the ground, removing some of the letters, and leaving signs reading "all cars only." In the meantime, the California Avenue merchants are telling the city or the contractor that somebody better solve the problem. Perhaps with some paint?
FARM RANKINGS . . . Stanford officials have long said they pay little mind to the annual "beauty contest" rankings of top schools by U.S. News & World Report magazine, but others do. In the latest rankings, the graduate school of business fell from the top spot to third place this year, behind MIT and the University of Pennsylvania. The law school, on the other hand, moved up into a tie for second with Harvard, but the medical school fell to 12th. The graduate school of education was second while the school of engineering was fourth.
NAMES AND NOTES . . . Stanford University researcher John Harvey has been named deputy assistant secretary of defense, effective March 21 . . . State Sen. Tom Campbell will hold a town hall meeting in the Palo Alto Council chambers on March 18 at 4 p.m. . . . Christmas in April has elected Katrina Wollenberg of Atherton to serve as chairman of its board of directors.
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