The Front Page

The following agenda can be found on the Town's website:

TOWN OF LOS GATOS
TOWN COUNCIL/SUCCESSOR AGENCY MEETING
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2012 -- 7:00 P.M. -

MEETING CALLED TO ORDER

ROLL CALL

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE


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On Tuesday, October 30 , Los Gatos – Saratoga Union High School District, in partnership with Los Gatos High School, will host an informational and communication session on recent Board policy changes regarding incoming ninth graders to Los Gatos High School. The topic will be new changes to the Freshman Transition Plan including curricular changes in Social Studies, Physical Education, and Health/Driver's Ed.

The meeting will be held in the LGHS Library from 7:00-8:00 p.m. Members of the staff will be present to provide information about the proposed changes and to address your questions and concerns.

The official registration season at LGHS begins in January and you will be receiving official materials in a few months. This meeting is intended to afford the LGHS community an opportunity to provide input about these curricular changes.

If you have any questions, please contact Markus Autrey, Principal of Los Gatos High School at mautrey@lgsuhsd.org. Thank you.
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I think I can speak for all of the StorySnoops when I say that we are very fired up that our local heroes, the San Francisco Giants, have won the World Series! Woo hoo! The Bay Area is celebrating tonight! And because we are book people, we are hoping that maybe, just maybe, a kid you know will be inspired to pick up a baseball-themed book after watching the series. The books listed below cover all of the bases (sorry, couldn’t resist) and run the gamut from detailed baseball-game-playing books to books featuring the mega-fan, or maybe just a nice subplot involving baseball. Regardless, we enjoyed these books and hope they hit a home run (oh jeez, sorry!) with the young sports fan in your life.


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We caught a glimpse of something in the Mercury News Police Blotter that said computers were stolen from Fisher Middle School last weekend.

Then, we received emails from parents that Fisher students were discussing the theft. The emails stated it was the new iPads being used in the 8th grade Science classes that had been stolen. Have you heard any more information? If so, please let us know in the comments. ...

The NBC11 website has the complete video from two reports, one aired Friday and the second one yesterday. InsideLG received emails with questions about the NBC news van stationed at Van Meter yesterday morning. And this afternoon, a reader sent us this photo, showing an LGPD officer asking the NBC11 news van to move their vehicle.


The following news story appeared on NBC11 (written by Stephanie Chuang):
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In a story we first told you on NBC Bay Area last Friday, the tension between one South Bay family and the Los Gatos Union School District (LGUSD) is coming to a head.

Tuesday morning, the Edwards family walked 9-year-old Ella and 7-year-old Sarah into the Van Meter Elementary school office – only to be greeted by the superintendent and two police officers.

“That’s when my heart sank, when I heard there were police officers just to prevent my girls from going to the school they belong in,” said Shuly Edwards, the girls’ mother, before she began to cry. ...

Everyone is invited to attend the opening ceremonies for the Los Gatos Creekside Sports Park, 930 University Avenue, this Saturday, October 27, at 10 a.m. Mayor Steve Rice will speak, and radio personality Kim Vestal will emcee. Justine Lauren will sing the national anthem and the Los Gatos High School cheerleaders will perform. The brand new soccer field will see its first official United Soccer League games at 1:30 and 4 p.m.
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Architect Christopher Noll, AIA, headlined a tour of the Los Gatos Public Library last Friday. The event, sponsored by the Friends of the Library, featured artist Ben Phipps and a video hookup with artist Sheri Simons. Librarian Henry Bankhead hosted, and managed the video chat. Carol Hamilton, president of the Friends, introduced the evening.

Noll, the principal architect of the new library, expanded on the metaphor of the building as a lantern, a largely transparent structure that serves as a beacon for the community at night and lets the sunlight illuminate the knowledge within during the day. Noll & Tam studied the new building’s relationship with the existing civic center closely and tried to provide a pleasing complement rather than turn away from and ignore the older complex. The view of the new library from the fountain plaza shows how compatibly the contrast turned out. Where the award-winning 1965 buildings seem closed in and half-buried, the library is open and slightly raised. The library is transparent, not opaque. Instead of red brick and concrete, the library uses redwood and stone.

The concept for the new building addresses the present and future, rather than the town’s historical architecture, but avoids futurism’s sterile and cold feeling in favor of warm and inviting, as expressed in shapes, spaces, and materials. From the beginning, the project aimed for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. Buildings that meet LEED qualifications, as established by the United States Green Building Council, consume energy wisely ...

The following information can be found on the Los Gatos Town website:

Due to the length of our agenda and in fairness to later items on the agenda, the audience is requested to make their comments as brief and precise as possible, and limit them to 3 minutes or less.

AGENDA

TOWN OF LOS GATOS
PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING
TOWN COUNCIL CHAMBERS
110 E. MAIN STREET
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2012
7:00 P.M.

ROLL CALL

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF OCTOBER 10, 2012

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Both the LGUSD and LGEF have posted notices about this joint meeting. From LGEF, the following email:


Please join the Los Gatos Education Foundation (LGEF) and the Los Gatos Union School District (LGUSD) Board of Trustees for the first joint community workshop to discuss what programs LGEF might fund in 2013-2014.

This joint LGEF/LGUSD workshop will allow the two organizations, along with parents and community members, to engage in a dialog about how LGEF can best contribute to the success of our children.

LGEF will be presenting the results of the parent survey and the LGUSD will present their staff survey results as a prelude to discussing possible grants for LGEF to consider funding for the 2013-2014 school year.
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The following agenda can be found on the LGUSD website:

Regular Board Meeting
October 16 - 6:30 p.m.
Thomas P. O’Donnell District Office Board Room

Superintendent
Dr. Diana G. Abbati

Board Members
Kathleen Bays
Scott Broomfield
Doug Halbert
Chris Miller
Tina Orsi-Hartigan

...

Joe Friday asked the following question:
"So, what do people think about Prop 30 vs. Prop 38? Seems pretty relevant."

Since people were commenting back, I decided to make it a quick article because I'm also interested in what our readers think. ...

This week, both LGUSD and LGSUHSD are celebrating increased API scores. Of course we should be pleased that the score is moving north...but is the change meaningful?

The California state average API score has increased steadily, every year since 2005 (and maybe before that, but I was able to find data to 2005 at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/ap/). The obvious question is: Are California’s schools really getting better every year, or is the rating scale changing every year? With the slow strangulation of funding for many school districts, I personally believe that the API rating scale is being “managed” politically to make everybody look good.

Instead of high-fiving ourselves for increasing the number, a better way to look at LGUSD’s performance would be to compare our schools with a comparable district. Here’s a comparison of API performance with Los Altos. We seem to be getting closer to the high-performing schools in Los Altos, but things get harder as scores approach a “perfect score” of 1000.

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TOWN COUNCIL/PLANNING COMMISSION STUDY SESSION CALLED TO ORDER - 5:30 P.M.

> Affordable Housing Overlay Zone Study Session. Discuss and provide feedback regarding the affordable housing overlay zone (AHOZ),including development standards and design and site guidelines for five properties at various locations in Los Gatos generally located at: the corner of Capri and Knowles; one property east of Winchester and Knowles; the west side of Oka Road; and two on the east side of Oka Road. The assessor’s parcel numbers are: 406-28-032, 424-32-069, 424-08-074, 424-08-057 and 424-08-021

Staff Report

Attachment 1

Attachments 2-14

Attachment 15

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Thanks to Joe Friday, we have audio of the most recent LGUSD Board Workshop.

3.1 - 4.1 Flag Salute, Report out of Closed Session, Approval of Agenda, Public Comment, Consent Agenda (1:22)

5.1 Budget Planning Workshop (2:03:12) (it may take a moment to load this larger one)

6.1 Future Board Meetings (1:00)

The end!

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Parents will learn more about the Los Gatos Union School District's focus on how the Common Core State Standards will change the learning environment and requirements for students as they progress through K-12 education.

...

The following agenda can be found on the town's website:

Due to the length of our agenda and in fairness to later items on the agenda, the audience is requested to make their comments as brief and precise as possible, and limit them to 3 minutes or less.


AGENDA

TOWN OF LOS GATOS
PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING
TOWN COUNCIL CHAMBERS
110 E. MAIN STREET
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2012
7:00 P.M.

ROLL CALL

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Minutes of September 26, 2012

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Every Monday and Friday, InsideLG features StorySnoops, a Los Gatos based Company. To find out more information, please click HERE. Unfortunately, we didn't get every day posted, but here's one more to enjoy!

In the spirit of Banned Books Week, StorySnoops is hosting a retrospective of some of our favorite “frequently-challenged” author interviews and book reviews. BBW is the American Library Association’s annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. It highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States. Check out the ALA timeline, showing significant banned and challenged books over the past 30 years. These are some of our all-time favorites—can you imagine someone denying you access to these books?

Our guest today is Lois Lowry, the award-winning author of more than thirty books for children, including one of the most frequently challenged books for the past decade, The Giver.
...

Every Monday and Friday, InsideLG features StorySnoops, a Los Gatos based Company. To find out more information, please click HERE. This week, we'll be featuring StorySnoops everyday as they interview Banned Book authors.

In the spirit of Banned Books Week, StorySnoops is hosting a retrospective of some of our favorite “frequently-challenged” author interviews and book reviews. BBW is the American Library Association’s annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. It highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States. Check out this ALA timeline, showing significant banned and challenged books over the past 30 years. These are some of our all-time favorites—can you imagine someone denying you access to these books?

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is a prolific children’s author, well known for her trilogy, Shiloh, a 1992 Newbery Medal winner. She has also won two Edgar Awards in the Best Juvenile Mystery category. Phyllis writes the popular Alice series, for which ...

Every Monday and Friday, InsideLG features StorySnoops, a Los Gatos based Company. To find out more information, please click HERE. This week, we'll be featuring StorySnoops everyday as they interview Banned Book authors.

In the spirit of Banned Books Week, StorySnoops is hosting a retrospective of some of our favorite “frequently-challenged” author interviews and book reviews. BBW is the American Library Association’s annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. It highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States. Check out this ALA timeline, showing significant banned and challenged books over the past 30 years. These are some of our all-time favorites—can you imagine someone denying you access to these books?

Our guest today is beloved author Judy Blume. More than 80 million copies of her books have been sold and her works have been translated into 31 languages. This highly acclaimed writer is the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement, ...