Around the Terrace: April 22, 2020

Here are some recent announcements and news stories of interest to College Terrace and the surrounding area.

City of Palo Alto Coronavirus Daily Report
If you haven’t already subscribed, this is an excellent daily email from the City of Palo Alto that includes news from the city and county, online events, and resources for families and businesses.

Palo Alto Braces for $30 Million Revenue Loss
At Monday’s City Council meeting, City Manager Ed Shikada presented potential options to address the city’s projected revenue shortfall due to the pandemic. These options included closing library branches, scrapping its shuttle program, and suspending plans to spur housing production.

Stanford COVID-19 Community Town Hall
Join Stanford Medicine’s Office of Community Engagement this Thursday at 3:30pm for a virtual Town Hall on the COVID-19 outbreak. A panel of health experts will discuss current recommendations for shelter-at-home and social distancing, share latest COVID-19 research efforts at Stanford, and answer community submitted questions. Pre-register and a Zoom link will be sent before the town hall begins.

Stanford Dish To Be Closed

We’re sharing a message from Stanford regarding the Dish and other recreational spaces on campus…

Hello Neighbors,

Last week, we implemented additional health and safety measures at the Stanford Dish to allow us to be able to keep the area open as long as possible. Extensive signage and increased staff presence were intended to reinforce and educate Dish users to act responsibly in the interests of the entire community. While many visitors have taken those measures to heart, unfortunately, there have been a persistent minority of individuals who have not complied with these rules and have, therefore, put others at risk. Many community members have expressed their concerns about what they have experienced at the Dish.

We have a responsibility to ensure that anyone on Stanford property follow state and county social distancing guidelines to protect public health and safety. At this time, we regretfully believe the only way to do so is to close the Dish area.  We will close all entrances to the Dish at 5 p.m. Friday, April 3rd.

We realize that this will be a disappointment for many in our community, but the health and wellbeing of our community needs to be our primary objective. We will be actively looking for ways to safely reopen the Dish area, and we will communicate with you as soon as we feel that is possible.

Also, the updated Santa Clara County shelter-in-place order that extends through May 3, requires more stringent action with regard to the use of outdoor spaces that are used at Stanford for recreational activities.

Please see our most recent healthalerts.stanford  e-notification issued today from Russell Furr, Associate Vice Provost, Environmental Health & Safety for more details. 

We appreciate your understanding during these unique and challenging times.

College Terrace Volunteers Needed for City’s Emergency Response Team

Palo Alto Emergency Services is looking for one person on every block, or pair of blocks, in College Terrace to volunteer as a temporary Block Preparedness Coordinator (BPC). BPCs are Palo Alto’s most local level of emergency response. Their job is to check in with their neighbors in the case of major emergencies and report needs up the emergency response chain of command. There is supposed to one BPC per block across the city, but College Terrace has only three active at present. So we need some help!

During the shelter-in-place BPCs are being asked to knock on people’s doors about once a week and check that everyone in each house is okay. If people need help, BPCs can help them direct them to the resources they need.

Is this something you can do for either your own block or one near by?

If you volunteer, the city will supply you with an ID, a fluorescent vest, and informational materials to share with neighbors. You can also run through a brief online training module to help you understand what BPCs do.

BPCs report to a central Neighborhood Preparedness Coordinator (NPC) in each neighborhood. College Terrace’s interim NPC is local resident Andrea Edelman, who also works for the city’s Office of Emergency Services. Please contact Andrea if you are able to help keep our community connected and resilient at Andrea.Edelman@CityofPaloAlto.org. 

CTRA Spring Newsletter & Stanford Dish Info

Normally, the CTRA distributes its semi-annual newsletter by delivering printed copies to every doorstep in College Terrace. This time around, we’re doing virtual delivery via PDF, so here’s the Spring 2020 Newsletter:

Download the Spring 2020 CTRA Newsletter

For those who still enjoy touching things, we actually printed the newsletter before the pandemic and have placed paper copies in many of the Little Free Libraries around the neighborhood. If you can’t find one there, let us know and we’ll drop off some more.

The following is a notice from Stanford regarding using of the Dish:

Attention Stanford Dish Users

The Stanford Dish is currently open for outdoor recreation.The Dish website will be updated if conditions change

Gates:

The Alpine gate will be closed starting Thursday, March 26, 2020.
The remaining three gates will remain open: Stanford Ave., Gerona, and Frenchmans.

Expectation for Dish recreation users:

We are all in this together and Stanford cares deeply about keeping this regional treasure open while we all take precautions in line with Santa Clara County’s shelter-in-place order.Stanford asks for your partnership in ensuring that all users take responsibility to keep the public safe and healthy. As the signs at the entrance to the Dish indicate, the rules on social distancing must be observed.

Accessing the Dish:

  • If the Dish area or parking areas are crowded when you arrive, please return at a later time or use the Matadero Trail, which can be accessed at Foothill Expressway and Page Mill Road. Additionally, there is access and parking to the Matadero Trail from Coyote Hill Road.
  • Please follow the pedestrian crossing signals while crossing the roadways.
  • While waiting to enter the gate and crossing roadways to the gate entrances, please do not cluster near others.

 Please follow these guidelines while using the Dish route:

  • Keep a 6-foot distance from other hikers at all times.
  • Stay on the right side of the path.
  • Related groups (persons who are part of your household) should walk in groups of no more than two people to avoid a cluster across the path. Please hike single file as much as possible.
  • Use caution while passing other walkers and keep 6 feet apart.

 NOTE:

  • We have had complaints that people are not following this rule and if this continues, this will force us to close or limit access to the Dish.
  • Department of Public Safety personnel may periodically and temporarily close access to address crowding.

Annual Meeting Postponed

The CTRA board has decided to postpone the CTRA Annual Meeting and Board Election, originally scheduled for next Saturday, March 21, at University Lutheran Church.

The CTRA typically publishes a newsletter in conjunction with the annual meeting, which is delivered to every doorstep in College Terrace. While we’ve already printed the newsletters, we are going to hold off on delivery until we can update them to mention the postponement. Thanks to all who volunteered to deliver–we’ll be in touch again soon!

Finally, the CTRA board will have it’s usual monthly meeting this Wednesday at 7pm, but it will likely be online instead of in-person. We’ll post an agenda and further details on Monday.