Some time back, the BPA Board created a new email list, BPA-jobpostings. The objective was to create an online version of our kiosk on which folks post notes about some need or special capability they have to offer – whether it be a job they need help for, or some expertise they have for those who might be interested. In a similar way, folks who subscribe to the BPA-jobpostings list can send and receive emails from other group members if they have a job and need someone to do the work for them or let others know they are available to do some work themselves.
We placed a box on the back of our current membership sheet that you can check if you are interested – if so, I’ll send you an invitation to join. Or you can click on the ‘Subscribe to the BPA-jobpostings email list ” and subscribe yourself [This is now one of the options on the “For Members Only’ page that is under the ‘Pages’ tab]. To actually access the page with the email subscribe box, you’ll need a password, which is the same password used for downloading the BPA Babysitting List. If you joined online, the password was emailed back to you; if you don’t have it, send us a request via the ‘Contact Us’ tab.
The BPA-jobpostings email list is a Google Group, just like the other BPA email lists. This means that when you subscribe to the email list, you join the group.
Examples of the types of work suitable for this list are:
BPA-jobpostings: an online version of our kiosk
yard cleanup
house maintenance
picking up groceries and errands
pet walking
office support and filing
mothers’ helpers
and tutoring
Some of these jobs would be ideal for teenage or college age children or grandchildren of BPA members who are keen to pick up some extra money while helping out a Barron Park neighbor or a senior with some chore. If there are teenagers or college age children in your home who fit this picture, ask them to sign up or follow the list for them.
We have instituted several privacy protection measures for group members. The group is only open to current Barron Park Association members and members of their family. An email message sent to BPA-jobpostings goes to all members of the group; but if you receive an email describing a job you would like to do, just reply to the individual who sent the email. This way, if you are looking for work, you can keep your email address private.
This email list is not intended to include babysitting: the separate BPA Babysitting list continues as it has the past. The first compilation of BPA Babysitters for 2013-14 was just posted here
on our website.
Smita Kolhatkar is the Educational Technology Teacher On Special Assignment (TOSA) at Barron Park Elementary School in Palo Alto. She uses Scratch and Tynker in her school’s lunchtime programming club, which sparked similar programs at other schools in the Bay Area.
Read more about Smita and how Barron Park School successfully runs this club: Tynkering at Lunchtime
” Tynker is a platform that can be flexibly integrated into a classroom or school. While some schools use it in their formal computer programming curriculums, other schools use it to enhance learning in classes like math, science, art and so forth. Still others have used it in extracurricular coding clubs, like this Lunchtime Club. Kids from across grades get together in a room, and experiment – there is no formal structure or curriculum, just a gentle direction, and the rest is up to the kids’ imagination.”
Location: Barron Park School Room 2 (former kindergarten room)
Anticipated absences (excused): Markus Fromherz
Call to order:
1. Volunteer (or Assignment) of Secretary to take minutes for this meeting.
2. Agenda Changes (3 minutes)
3. Approval of Minutes (2 minutes)
4. Pedestrian Safety on the Bol Park Shared Path (Art Liberman) (20 minutes) A number of residents have expressed concern about the issue of pedestrian-bicycle safety along the shared path in Bol Park. Art proposes that the Barron Park Association Board vote to recommend that the City of Palo Alto help the situation by installing some signs, to inform and remind bicyclists that they need to slow down and share the path with pedestrians.
5. Status Report on May Fete (John King) (10 minutes) The May Fete is scheduled for Sunday, May 19.
6. Approval of New Member, Lisa Landers, and Possible Re-assignment of Membership Duties to Her. (10 minutes) Lisa Landers lives on Barron Avenue. New members are welcomed by the Board.
7. Authorization of Expenditure for Updated Software for Membership Data Base: (Art Liberman) (10 minutes) Up to $300 is requested for the purchase of an upgraded version of Filemaker Pro.
8. Presentation of Slate by Nominating Committee (Nancy Hamilton and Linda Elder) and Election of New President, Vice President and Secretary. (15 minutes) The following have been nominated to serve through the end of 2013. (John King will continue as Treasurer.)
President: Art Liberman
Vice President: Markus Fromherz
Secretary: Lydia Kou
9. Approval of Diversity Event (Lydia Kou) Lydia will provide details.
10. Status reports and updates on other items are being handled primarily through e-mail. Opportunity for direction and interactions. (5 minutes) [ Green Team, Zoning and Land Use, Traffic, Civic Affairs, Environmental, Native planting]
11. Proposals for items for future agendas (5 minutes). These items are awaiting space on a future agenda. They will not be discussed at this meeting except to clarify who is taking the lead on each.
Review of the BPA as ‘Chartering’ organization of a Boy Scout Troop (May or June)
Proposal to survey BPA membership attitudes about Buena Vista (date undetermined)
Job description for Business Liaison (date undetermined)
The Palo Alto Housing Corporation, developer of the Maybell Homes and Senior Housing Project at the corner of Maybell and Clemo, commissioned a Traffic Study that was submitted to the City’s Planning Department in February. The traffic study was made public only recently following a request by BPA President Lynnie Melena. Click on the link to download the Maybell Clemo project Traffic Study.
The study reveals that the developer, with input from the City, has broadened the possibilities for entrance/exit by cars from what they presented at the community meetings last September. The consequence of this Traffic Study is that there is now a clear preference for traffic to/from the site to use Maybell and not Arastradero, as had been proposed initially.
The only entrance/exit proposed at the community meeting was on Clemo, and with the existing barriers at the end of Clemo near Maybell, all the traffic created by the site would then flow to/from Arastradero (The traffic study has no figures of the site itself with traffic directions so I have created them using their site plan on which I superimposed arrows: Maybell runs vertically on the left, Clemo runs horizontally at the bottom).
Traffic exit/enter Clemo to/from Arastradero
In a second proposal in this Traffic Study, which is the one preferred by the developer, the project would be served by two driveways—one driveway on Clemo Avenue and a second via an access easement through the adjacent Arastradero Park Apartment Complex (a property that is also owned by the Palo Alto Housing Corporation) to the north that would connect to an existing driveway on Maybell Avenue.
Traffic enter/exit via easement to Apartment driveway to/from Maybell and Clemo to/from Arastradero
Each of these proposals has two scenarios. The second scenario – suggested by the City of Palo Alto, according to the Traffic Study – is to relocate the barrier on Clemo Avenue from its existing location near Maybell Avenue to immediately east of the proposed project site driveway on Clemo. As a result, this would block all traffic to/from Arastradero and all traffic generated by the project would flow to/from Maybell.
All traffic enters/exits to/from Maybell with relocated Clemo traffic barriers
What about the Traffic – from the Conclusion of Study
The consults favor this last configuration. They conclude, from an analysis of the traffic generated by the project, that even under this last proposal with the traffic barriers moved “ residents along Maybell Avenue would not notice a change in traffic as a result of the proposed development. As stated earlier, given the severity of queuing, bike and pedestrian trips on Arastradero Road, it would be beneficial to relocate the barrier on Clemo Avenue to east of the project driveway, so that the project trips cannot access Arastradero Road via Clemo Avenue.”
You may wonder what criteria the consultants use to say that the residents along Maybell ‘would not notice a change in traffic.’ They use an assessment based on a model that starts with the average daily traffic (ADT) volume and then state that a 20 to 30% increase in traffic could be added to a roadway before residents would perceive the increase. As a baseline, they use the ADT weekday of 3320 on Maybell Ave and estimate the average increase from the project would be 120, which is well below their criteria of what is a noticeable increase. However, they do not mention that the ADT on Maybell increased by 25% over what it was prior to the Arastradero restriping project and is already at a level that exceeds ” 2500 vpd, the maximum acceptable volume on a local residential street as defined by Palo Alto’s neighborhood traffic calming program.” [Gale Likens, former Palo Alto Transportation manager in Establishing thresholds of significance under CEQA]
The study strongly favors the Clemo auto barrier relocation, which would direct all the traffic to/from the site to Maybell. “The barrier relocation may be beneficial in that it would prevent project trips from attempting to access Arastradero Road from a stop-controlled approach that is affected by significant queuing issues and bike and pedestrian trips during peak periods. While similar issues are present at the Maybell/Clemo intersection, they are less severe as the traffic volume on Maybell is much lower than on Arastradero.”
The single family homes have garages in the rear and their entrance/exit traffic would be serviced by the site’s main driveways rather than directly onto Maybell or Clemo. This was a change from the first concept, in recognition of the the fact that during the periods between 7:45 and 8:15 AM Maybell Avenue is congested and “there are hundreds of pedestrians and bikes that use the Maybell corridor during this period to access the nearby schools. “
The study acknowledges the already serious problems that occur during AM peak hours on Arastradero: “.. this intersection [Clemo and Arastradero] is currently subject to frequent blockages as queues extend along Arastradero Road from the downstream intersection at Coulombe Drive past Clemo Avenue. Thus, the “Clemo via Arastradero” access alternative, which would funnel all of the project traffic through the Clemo/Arastradero intersection, would exacerbate the existing congestion at this intersection. In contrast, moving the Clemo barrier to the east of the project driveway so that all project trips would access Clemo Avenue via Maybell Avenue would result in less delay.”
Next Steps
The project will be reviewed by the Planning and Transportation Commission sometime in the coming months. In the meantime, if you have opinions about the study and its conclusions that you want the City staff to hear, send them to Curtis Williams, Director of the Planning and Community Environment Department (curtis.williams@cityofpaloalto.org), and to Tim Wong, the City’s staff planner assigned to the project (tim.wong@cityofpaloalto.org).
The Barron Park Association Board would also like to hear your views as well. Send an email to BPA-Board@googlegroups.com.
You can add your comments to this post if you register as a “user” on our website – click on the register link and enter a username and choose a password in the top of the left hand sidebar on our home page (this is required to prevent spammers from adding comments).
A change to the section of our bylaws that relates to the election and term of office of the President and Vice President of the Association was approved by the BPA Board at its meeting on March 19, 2013.
The essence of the change is that the President and Vice President shall be elected in November of each year for a term of one year, beginning January 1 of the following year. The new bylaws provide a clear succession plan. When the President steps down, the Vice President automatically becomes President for the following term and a new person is elected as Vice President.
This change was made, in part, as an inducement for current Board members to accept a leadership role of the BPA, knowing their term of service as President would be limited. Also, the Vice President and President would work together, familiarizing the Vice President with work of the President on current issues and comfortably allowing him/her to step into the role of President at the end of the year.
A link to the full text of our bylaws is at the bottom of the About the BPA page. You can also find at the bottom of this page links to other BPA policies.
