Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.11.09: Sensitivity Training (not yet) mandatory in Palo Alto...

What is is about Palo Alto public officials and talking about race and ethnicity? Last year, Palo Alto lost Police Chief Lynne Johnson because of stupid comments, now the Palo Alto Unified School District Superintendent is back tracking on comments about the achievement gap. Is the clock ticking on Kevin Skelly now too?

The County is really pissed. (Watch Dog has predicted a Tea Party...) The State is going to withhold money from the County because the State is out of cash. IOUs have a way of making people angry. Especially Supervisor Gordon, who said: “We will burn through our reserves fairly quickly and then what?” And then throw tea in the Bay Supervisor Gordon!

In a related note, Supervisors Gordon and Church will be heading to Sacramento for a California Constitution Summit in Sacramento on February 24th...presumably to help with the Tea Party...

Watch Dog has written about Everest Charter School (likely) getting its Charter. Well, one Charter School (Garfield Elementary Charter) is going from Charter School back to standard Public School (Redwood City Elementary School District).

The South San Francisco 12-story eye-sore/development will be occupied by the end of the year (hopefully)...Marketing was kicked off yesterday by giving tours to the South City City Council. The tour guide didn't say, "Isn't 101 a beautiful highway?!" While the developers are obviously trying to paint a rosy picture of the prospects for tenants, the County Times story paints a different picture...

We read (and wrote about) reports about the weekend robbing/sexual assault at a San Bruno gas station...well, it turns out there is a video that not only shows the assailant, but also shows him helping customers...a friendly criminal...

Daily Journal Editor Jon Mays discussed banning Styrofoam...(there is a proposed ban pending in San Bruno)...Specifically, Mays talks about Lt. Gov. John Garamendi's plan for a statewide ban. What else is there for the Lt. Gov. to do these days?...

Speaking of bans...the County Times provides us all an update on the Belmont smoking ban that went into effect last month. It turns out that nobody is coughing up a lung complaining about it yet...

The Fed’s showed up in Palo Alto’s Utilities Department and left with 7 boxes filled with documents about the qualifications (or lack thereof) of pipeline workers. Utilities' Director Valerie Fong isn’t worried, Palo Alto conducted its own investigation after questions were raised about employee qualifications. Fong said, “Our own assessment was that these tests were conducted with integrity, and the folks who work on the gas pipeline were indeed qualified."

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