NOE Newsflash: Town Crier endorses Los Altos

LOS ALTOS, CA -- The editorial board of the Los Altos Town Crier has selected Los Altos as the area in which Los Altos residents should do most of their holiday shopping.

In a studious, point-by-point analysis, the board argued, "why not shop and spend downtown and in our other shopping districts? The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. For starters, there’s available parking."

"Shoppers may choose from 11 women’s clothing stores, eight jewelry stores, five children’s stores and a toy store," the Town Crier writes, "the downtown also has two shoe stores and two pet stores."

The decision of where the town's residents will shop may have impact on retailers from Stanford Shopping Center to as far as the Gilroy Premium Outlets.

"We're beyond humbled," said Phyllis Dreer, 78, of Main Street Antiques. "It would have been easy for the Los Altos Town Crier to have urged Los Altos to do most of its shopping outside of Los Altos."

Edward Landis, 82, quickly interjected, "Just like it would have been easy for Town Crier to have endorsed against Prop 8, like the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, San Diego Union Tribune, and even the Orange County Register did. But no, our paper has the courage to speak out against the unpleasant things outside Los Altos, like homo-marriage and stores larger than Draeger's."

The editorial also reiterated one of its long running themes: Los Altans have more money than some other people who live nearby. "Residents from our communities will be shopping and spending more than other areas," writes the editorial.

After reading this, 36-year-old Mountain View resident Miguel Sanchez (pictured at right), an illegal immigrant living with 13 of his illegal immigrant relatives, could only cartoonishly shrug as he pulled out the insides of his pant pockets to reveal that they were completely empty.

"The new bar"

Although its exact name and precise location have yet to be determined, the new bar in downtown Los Altos is already generating buzz. Its first true test will be in eight days, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, when the sons and daughters of Los Altos (including those who consider themselves "prodigal") return home for the holiday and immediately look for somewhere to drink. A current resident (and former teammate) sends along this preview, edited for length but not for political correctness:

The new bar is cool. I definitely like the layout and the fact that there are a bunch of tables. There also are back rooms for when we go there with groups and aren't feeling like mingling with other people. The price of beer is good too; if I remember correctly, Sierra Nevada's were only $4 — maybe $4.50, but still less than the $6 you pay at Bandera’s [Los Altos Grill]. So that's a plus.

Right now it is the new thing and everybody in Los Altos wants to go there, so it's a little crowded, and unfortunately the crowds are old people trying to be young again. I'm all for partying with adults, but, at least when I was there, it seemed like there were a lot of people with a "I'm too young for Bandera's" attitude, when in reality they fit right in at Bandera's. Hopefully it will be nice when the crowds die down and it becomes a quieter place, not as crazy as it is now.

The food is good too. I tried the wings, a classic bar food, and they were good. The Boardwalk has better, and these wings were a little smaller than usual, but overall I enjoyed them. I also had a burger there, which was good as well. The garlic fries were delicious, not like at a Giant’s game, but still really good. Our waitress was pretty retarded and one of our meals came out later than the rest, not even to the point of any of us complaining, but still later. She ended up taking it off the check without us saying anything at all. So that was really nice.

Overall, I give it my approval. I think it's a really fun place to go and obviously it's great because we can walk to and from. I will be spending many a night there in the future. I talked to the owner that night, just real quick, and asked him what time they close and he said that it's usually between 12-1 AM, but that's only because people are leaving. If people stay and are partying, they will stay open until 2 AM, which is really nice. I don't know what it's like after midnight; had a late dinner there and hung out for a bit afterwards, but didn't stay late to close the place down. I really want to do that and see what it's like, but that most likely won't be until the night before Thanksgiving.

It is worth noting that our contributor's approval is essentially a necessary and sufficient condition for success as a Los Altos watering hole.

CHANGE!!!!!

Change comes to Los Altos!!!!

I love the postal service as much as anyone, except maybe my college friend Addorio. I mean, just think how mind-blowing it is that you can put a letter in a box in Los Altos and for 42 cents have it probably show up in a box you've chosen 3,000 miles away. (And nevermind the fact that you could do the same thing much faster for free via e-mail). But: really? Still no mention anywhere on the site of the fact that Obama won?

The Town Crier isn't ignoring the election entirely. It has the results of the high school board election, although for some reason not the Los Altos Hills City Council race. (More on both races in a later post). Also, this:

This year’s presidential race and state propositions have engendered hurt feelings that go beyond the election results.

Also, with help from the Town Crier, they've engendered hurt feelings that are directly attributable to the election results. Of course, it hurts more to lose a campaign sign than to lose a fundamental right.

It finally makes sense

The Los Altos City Council spent September caricaturing itself, first by ensuring that First Street remains inconvenient for bicyclists and then by putting the brakes on a proposed link to the Stevens Creek Trail.

Here is a sampling of quotes from the meetings, helpfully provided by the Town Crier.

Councilman Ron Packard:

"We want to encourage bicycling on the whole Peninsula. On the other hand, do we want to become part of a bigger community?"

Resident David Lambourne:

"It’s hard to support any plan in which a path runs in and out of our city."

Mayor Val Carpenter, paraphrased:

Mayor Val Carpenter said the project had already eliminated multiple street parking spaces, and that she was loath to remove more for a bike lane, noting that she observed many cyclists using downtown as a launching point for regional travel rather than a family-oriented destination.

Packard again, paraphrased:

City Councilman Ron Packard referenced the city’s Fremont Bridge remodel as a project that sacrificed charm for bicycle friendliness, and suggested that he didn’t want to make the same choice for First Street.

The takeaway from all of this: the City Council finds parking spaces charming, but not bicycle facilities, especially if they somehow connect to places outside of Los Altos.

Yes, Los Altos has a proud history of treating bicyclists like they were Gypsies. Perhaps that is what the Town Crier was getting at.

Maybe they are compensating for something

Since you keep asking, the 140-foot phallic symbol next to City Hall is a communications tower for the police department, and not just a way of taunting local peaceniks for their pole on the other side of the library being only eight feet tall.

One of the most interesting parts of this story is that it turns out "monopole" actually is a word.

What's scaring us: Art & Wine edition

I've been a little under the weather the last few days, so it feels like the right time for a linkdump, in the form of a list of things people are afraid of this week:

The Bush Administration: The Environmental Protection Agency protecting the environment.

Speaking of which: Jesus.

Congress: Big campaign donors being unable to use "I was just following orders" as a defense for helping the government spy on citizens.

Remember when people said that was not a defense?

Los Altos Hills residents: Toni Casey running for office

Personally I hope she does, because I am curious whether Los Altos Hills is conservative enough that her affiliation with George Bush might actually be to her advantage.

Los Altos residents: Mountain View residents

Don't worry Mom and Dad, the police think she was adopted.

Mountain View residents: Brown people, and also gays

Last week, I lamented that people were more upset about the Voice's use of the non-word "preggers" in a headline than they were about a double-murder that orphaned an 8-year-old boy. Readers of the Voice site responded (with some prodding from yours truly) in a flurry of posts insanely blaming the tragedy on low-income housing and federal immigration policy. (Not a single poster said anything along of the lines of 'I hope the police catch the people responsible for this.')

No no no no no no no no no.

*Exasperated sigh*

Parking structure downtown necessary

Rather than buying a gift for my dad, I spent a good part of Saturday analyzing all the logical fallacies in this editorial. (Sorry Dad). However, I'm not exactly a logician, so I deleted them and will just give you the gist:

It's wrong.

Two days before this editorial ran, the city council told the high school administrators they needed to do more to encourage students to make more responsible transportation choices. Now, inspired by the putative failure of completely baseless parking regulations that ignore basic principles of economics, the city is considering a massive subsidy to encourage people of all ages to drive to downtown, which is about half a mile from the high school.

To briefly engage in my own fallacious ad hominem attack, the best information I have on this subject indicates that Town Crier employees are among the worst offenders at evading local parking regulations, so I guess we shouldn't expect objective analysis.

Who owns the sidewalk?

I don't know of any studies that conclude one way or another whether there is in fact enough room in downtown Los Altos for everyone who wants to get a good view of the Festival of Lights parade. But, if there were, why would Town Crier-letter writer Anna Durante feel the need to tape off space and claim it as her own? And wasn't she just "scoring a spot" at another family's expense?

This supposed "tradition" of reserving spots has quite a few problems: it encourages private individuals to monopolize public space (for longer and longer periods of time), it creates a lot of litter, and it smacks of Los Altos's embarasingly recent efforts to exclude the poor and the brown through an unconstitutional and costly ordinance that forced day workers to cross the street and stand on the sidewalk in Mountain View.

Another letter writer, Honor Spitz, raises one other concern I didn't think to include. It makes downtown Los Altos look like "one great big outdoor emergency shelter." (Isn't "Spitz" a Jewish name? I guess Mark Zuckerberg isn't the only Member of the Tribe who wants to ruin Christmas.)

Next year, I'm going to kidnap somebody, blindfold them, drive them around for a while, and drop them off in downtown Los Altos, just to see if they think they have arrived at an emergency shelter.