September, 2004

Wayne Satterwhite, LANN Contributor

My name is Wynne Satterwhite and I am the new principal at Los Altos High School. I have been with the District for the past 20 years in various roles and am looking forward to this new opportunity to continue creating a school climate where students feel welcomed and supported. Part of my vision is to reach out to the greater community and try to involve everyone in the education of our students. Together we can make a difference for every student that passes through LAHS.

As always in California, the school budget is a challenge. When you look at our school you see a state-of-the-art facility (if you haven’t been on campus since we finished construction, please stop by), friendly students and staff and great test scores. However, our district is no different than most in terms of how the economy and student population growth affect the general budget. Our Board recently adopted recommendations from the Budget Advisory Committee which will mean that we will be working with fewer dollars per student next school year. At the same time, we expect an increase of approximately 75 students. We have worked very hard to keep most of this financial impact away from extra-curricular programs. All program budgets have been cut including Athletics and Performing Arts. Funding for field trips, some co-curricular programs and supplemental services are among these reductions.

As we begin our 50^th Year Anniversary celebration, I am inviting you as community members to get involved. We have an outstanding Tutorial Center that is always looking for volunteer tutors, we can always use donations of time and/or money, and we are looking for community members interested in specific areas of study to "adopt" programs such as Drama, Culinary Arts, Automotive Repair, Robotics, Speech and Debate, Model United Nations, Mock Trial, and the Music Department.

Many of you already give to the MVLA Education Foundation which we so appreciate. Through the community’s gracious donations to the foundation, we are able to reduce class size for all 9^th grade English classes (20:1), Algebra 9 (20:1) and Geometry 9 (20:1); to extended the hours in the Library; to fund the Tutorial Center and the College/Career Center and to continue to offer the outstanding academic and extra-curricular programs that our families and community expect.

Thank you for your continued support and I hope to see you at one of our many activities throughout the year.

Although I am a native to the Bay Area, compared to most of my fellow Board members, I am a relatively "newbie" to Los Altos. I moved here in 1996 when my husband and I bought our first home. Since that time, I can understand why people move and stay here---Los Altos is a wonderful community.

My background has been in corporate finance within the high-tech industry. I was first introduced to LANN at the same time as my oldest child was born and I had decided to be a stay-at-home mom. LANN was recruiting for a treasurer and I saw a wonderful opportunity to use my professional expertise at a community level. Since that time, I have worked on LANN’s long-term strategy, annual renewal efforts, and membership feedback (and also had another baby!). It’s a great honor to be LANN’s Co-President and continuing to fulfill LANN’s mission.

Santa Rita, Egan, MVLA Foundation

And Bali, Burma, Bhutan for vacation

After living in 9 different locations in the last 25 years, including two assignments in Hong Kong, my family and I are delighted to be 10+ year residents of Los Altos. What appeals most to us is the lifelong dedication of its residents to volunteer. We are an involved community and this atmosphere reminds me of all of the best of my mid-western roots.

My career was in sales and marketing and I am proud to say that I have been retired for nearly 10 years. In that 10 years I have been indoctrinated in all kinds of public school initiatives from PTA co-president for Santa Rita, Brownie leader, to e-Scrip co-chair.

The fours years I served on LAEF were a tutorial on funding of California public schools. I have helped to raise funds for the theatre equipment at Los Altos and Mountain View High Schools. I have served as interim president of MVLAH Foundation and LAH PTSA officer. I have served for 2 years on the LA/LAH Volunteer Recognition Board. Two of my newest initiatives are supporting the 50^th Anniversary of Los Altos High (scheduled for May 2005) and serve on the Board of the Los Altos Cultural Association.

In my spare time I am a gardening enthusiast. I serve as the President of the oldest iris club in Northern California and my family calls me a fuchsia-ist when I meet with the members of my Fuchsia Club!

My wife, Robin and I have two daughters: Sarah is 20 and a junior at the University of Arizona studying retail science and Libby is 15 and a sophomore at Los Altos High.

My wife Mary Ann and I moved to Los Altos in 1982 after having lived in Palo Alto for 17 years. I had gone to graduate school at Stanford and Los Altos always seemed like it was another world a long distance away. Once we moved to Los Altos, because our real estate agent said the lots and houses were much bigger than in Palo Alto, it turned out to not be so far away and a wonderful place to live.

In 1986 we moved to our present home. Within a couple of years a developer purchased the large piece of property at the end of our street and rumors flew about how many oversized homes he was going to build after tearing down the beautiful old house on the property. This scenario energized my neighbor Lou Becker and me and I started my involvement with Los Altos City government in our attempt to moderate the development. We spent many nights dealing with the Historical Commission, the Planning Commission, and the City Council. I was able to learn a lot about how the development process worked (and didn’t work) and in the end we did make a difference.

At the urging of former Councilman Ted Laliotis, I became active on the Board of Directors of the Los Altos Homeowner’s League and furthered an interest in land use issues in Los Altos. This episode also started Lou Becker on a path to get elected to the Los Altos City Council and I worked on his election team.

I met Leslie Lodestro in 1999 when Tom Anderson, whom I had known from the Homeowner’s League, suggested that she was exactly the right person to start a new, more modern version of the Homeowner’s League. This new organization should attract the kind of people who were now just moving to Los Altos, some 40 years after the first wave of development, not just the ones who had lived here for those 40 years. Leslie was indeed exactly the right person, and after Tom and I convinced her that she was right for the job, the Los Altos Neighborhood Network was born, mostly due to her energy, hard work, and connections with lots of talented friends.

I’ve learned a lot working with LANN. Los Altos has seen a great deal of change in the 20 plus years I’ve lived here. Most of the change since 1982 has been in diminished open space and in the character of the population from older adult-only households to younger families with lots of children. LANN is the perfect organization to keep both ends of that population spectrum informed on important Los Altos issues. It’s been a privilege to be associated with LANN.

I was born and raised in the UK. My career in finance started in London in the banking industry, where I worked for about 10 years. In 1988 I was offered a two-year assignment to New York, which I immediately accepted, having always wanted to experience living and working in another country. I enjoyed my time in New York immensely and felt settled there after a few months. The two-years extended to five years and during that time I met my wife, a native Californian, and moved to the Bay Area in 1994. Over the last 10 years I have worked as Treasurer of Silicon Valley Bank, CFO of PayPal and (currently) CFO of Nokia Venture Partners.

In my personal life, I am married with two children and have lived in Los Altos for several years. My 4 year old daughter attends pre-school at Children’s House of Los Altos and my son will start at Children’s House in 2005. Both of our children will attend Los Altos public schools.

I am a marathon runner. I have run 17 marathons since 1982, my most recent being the Silicon Valley Marathon in 2002, and I am currently training for this year’s New York City Marathon in November. I became interested in city affairs soon after moving to Los Altos and I was appointed to the Citizens’ Financial Advisory Committee in 1998. I proudly became a U.S. citizen in October 2003.

I’m Kathy Wright, secretary on the LANN Board. My husband and I have lived in Los Altos for 19 years and have two teenage sons. I got involved in LANN because members were very supportive when we were faced with loss of privacy from a neighbor’s two-story project. Participating on the LANN Board has been very rewarding as I have met wonderful people who are dedicated to serving their community and its neighborhoods.

I grew up in Palo Alto and Menlo Park, but preferred a slightly more rural environment when my husband and I chose to live in Los Altos. I could identify with my great grandparents’ move from San Francisco to Los Altos back in 1910 when they too preferred country over city living. I love that Los Altos still has a small-town feel to it, even though my sons would like to see video arcades on Main Street! Besides taking the minutes for LANN meetings, I also substitute teach for the Los Altos School District, volunteer at Los Altos High School, enjoy a monthly book group, dabble now and then in watercolor painting, and try to find time to work on family genealogy, a very addicting hobby!

After residing in Los Altos for 23 years, I think it is safe to call this town home. My husband and I were lucky enough to move here and buy a "fixer up" in a wonderful Rancho neighborhood. We realized then it would be a great place to live and raise children. At that time we both worked for start-up high tech companies and although we have little time at home due to long hours, what time we did have was devoted to the house. We took the long path to remodeling which involved 5 years of contractors with a lot of "do-it-yourself" involvement on our part. We experienced the challenges of variances and city permits. It was through this process that I became interested in our community and the neighborhoods in it.

I retired from high tech life 5 years ago and have enjoyed spending time with our two children and becoming involved in the schools and community. Many hours of volunteering has taught me that an unpaid job can have as many, if not more rewards than a paid one. When LANN was formed and our first newsletter came out in August of 2000, I was lucky enough to be part of the process as Editor. I continue to enjoy my "job" and look forward to continued work with a great organization.

I’m a Bay Area native, born in San Jose and raised in El Cerrito where my mom taught school and my Dad served on the the City Council for 16 years and was twice elected Mayor. I gained an early and healthy respect for representative government. I  attended San Jose State where I majored in the Social Sciences with an emphasis in History and a minor in English. I stayed for grad school, earned a teaching credential and met my husband. I was married, had my first teaching job and had a child all by the time I was 22. Things were very accelerated then. We were in a duplex in Santa Clara, but we needed a house to call home.

My husband and I moved to Los Altos in 1994. Coming from our tiny home in Palo Alto, we felt like land barons on our big Los Altos lot. I went to Chico State and worked in high tech marketing for several years before I quit to stay home with my kids. My husband Jim and I have three children, two at Almond Elementary and one at St. Francis.

My introduction to the inner workings of Los Altos city government came in 1997 when I joined together with my neighbors to fight what we perceived to be an out of character, two-story monster home being proposed on our street. Through that activity I began helping to craft what is today the single-story overlay ordinance which neighborhoods can adopt for their street with a super majority vote. I got to know our city staff, our council members and made many friends (and some enemies) in the community through this one long and large effort.

Since that time I have had the luck to work on a variety of volunteer activities. I have served on the board of Vintage Affaire; a charity wine auction, which raises funds for the Peninsula Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Palo Alto. During the last election I got to work with the Town Crier as we put together a televised candidates forum for our community. In 1999 I was honored to be asked to take the reins and reinvent the Los Altos Homeowners League. I was lucky to serve as President from 1999 to 2003 when I handed the reins to Dianne Edmonds and Mike Abrams. I serve as the LANN Membership Chair today.

When I am not shuttling kids or volunteering you will find me at a YMCA aerobics class or punching away at my latest passion, kickboxing, at Studio Kicks on San Antonio Road.

Bill Crook is the LANN Traffic Chair. Bill graduated with a math degree from the University of Texas back in the dark ages! Before he retired, he was a Project Manager for IBM Corporation.

Bill is married and has two boys attending school in LASD.

Bill keeps busy volunteering, spreading his time among the City of Los Altos, Los Altos School District, Boy Scouts, and Little League Baseball.

My wife and I are long-time area residents. I went to Stanford and have worked as a pharmaceutical development scientist and project manager. We moved to Los Altos in 1985 and, over the years, have come to appreciate the semi-rural suburban nature of our community that makes it special. We have two children who attend Los Altos High School.

We got to know Leslie through the two story monster home issue, and then attended several early LANN board meetings. When LANN needed a webmaster, I volunteered to help. The position has more than paid back my effort by the people I have met and the insight I have gained into our community.

When I’m not busy with work or youth activities or LANN, I enjoy running, bicycling or swimming.

Retired business executive in communications industry.  Los Altos resident for over 40 years.  Past Los Altos City Councilmember and Mayor.  Served eight years on the Santa Clara County Water Commission and two years on the Valley Transit Authority Advisory  Committee.  Former Council representative to Community Finance Advisory Committee and current member of the Los Altos School District Citizens Advisory Committee for Finance. 

We  have 10  two- story  applications this month, so again, in the interest of space,  we will dispense with the applicant’s number and name. Now, here is the question... Are the application numbers and applicant names a  help to you in recognizing just where  new construction will occur? If so, we will continue to list them, and if not, it’s a space saver to omit them. Just let us know if you have a preference. Otherwise, look for a new, abbreviated version of, "New  Applications for Housing" from here on. Remember, we  list only two-story applications. Space permitting, we include single story additions or new homes that include a variance. Please direct your comments to Kathy Putman at 948-6641 or email them to kaputman@ aol.com