The annual Barron Square Social was held on October 29, 2017. A good time was had by all.
Nov 032017
Oct 282017
With sadness we must inform you of the death of one of our long-term residents, Margaret Ledford (4130) who passed away on Thursday, October 26th after a short illness. Margaret, and her husband Alan, were the realtors who sold the Barron Square properties when they were first built in 1979. We will inform the community of arrangements, etc. as the information becomes available.
At the 25th Anniversary of Barron Square, Margaret shared the following memories:
BARRON SQUARE
IN THE BEGINNING…
A Sharing by Margaret Ledford
After all the permits were granted, red tape satisfied, and a bank to offer loans was in place, Ledford Realty [Margaret & Alan] could now sell the 65 Barron Square Condominiums. This was a time when the condominium style of living was becoming very popular. The location was excellent, and the award-winning architectural plans spoke for themselves. The developer, Gerry Markoe, was concerned that the condos would move slowly and rushed to put them up for sale. The fact that the work had just started didn’t sway him. The trailer sales office was placed on the corner of Maybell and Thain Way, the “Condos For Sale” ad went into the Palo Alto Times, we crossed our fingers and hoped for a reasonable amount of lookers and buyers to come in.
My memory fails me regarding how many came in the first few days, but it turned out to be a very successful and speedy sales program. The first section sold fast, followed by the second, equally fast. When the units were completed, the buyers were pleased to see how really nice the units were, in spite of buying them off the blueprints.
(From the 25th Anniversary Newsletter, March 2004)
Oct 022017
With sadness we must inform you of the death of our long-time PML maintenance man, Dennis Forrest, who passed away on September 27th from complications after open heart surgery. His excellent work and his jovial attitude will be sorely missed by those of us who had the opportunity to work with him here at Barron Square. We extend our condolences to his daughter Christina and all his family.
Services for Dennis will be held 10:30AM on Wednesday, October 4, 2017 at Peninsula Temple Beth El, 1700 Alameda de las Pulgas, San Mateo, CA 94403 (map). Donations in his name may be made to the charity or foundation of your choice or the Peninsula Humane Society. The full obituary is available here.
Oct 022017
Recently the City of Palo Alto has been tagging some of the recycle containers to remind residents of the proper way to recycle cardboard. As shown on the tag, cardboard boxes should be broken down to conserve space and then placed in the blue container. Placing whole boxes in the container make the transfer to the collection vehicle difficult and may cause litter.
To save space in the container for other recycle items, the cardboard may be cut down or folded to pieces no larger than 2′ by 3′ , bundled securely and placed next to the blue container.
DO NOT OVERFILL THE CONTAINER. THE LID MUST BE CLOSED.
Sep 222017
Have you heard jets flying low and loud over your house, children’s school, or workplace, sometimes every 2 min or less, sometimes in the middle of the night or early morning? This noise is due to changes by the FAA in March under a program called NextGen, which concentrates air traffic in narrow corridors. As a result, virtually all SFO-bound flights from the South, West, and North converge over Palo Alto using trajectories that often cause substantial noise damage to residents.
Palo Alto has been disproportionately impacted. 3 of the 4 main routes into SFO now converge over Palo Alto. In the last 8 years, SFO arrival traffic increased by only 28%, while arrival traffic for the lowest and noisiest flights (3000-4000 feet) over Palo Alto went up a whopping 131%. In the last 2 years alone, the number of low flights (3000-4000 feet) over Palo Alto increased by 65% while nearby communities saw substantial reductions in low elevation air traffic.
Why should you care?
Many low flying aircraft degrade your health, productivity, and quality of life (as well as your children’s and other loved ones’) resulting in:
- Sleep disruption, stress, and exposure to pollutants such as carcinogenic aromatic hydrocarbons from aircraft exhaust emissions that undergo chemical changes in sunlight
- Decreased ability to concentrate for learning and working purposes
- Reduced ability to enjoy the outdoors
- Aircraft traffic also impacts property values.
We want the FAA to:
- Include noise and emissions as critical design inputs for arrival and departures routes.
- Distribute noise equitably over populated areas when it cannot be eliminated.
- Adopt more meaningful noise assessment methods on the ground.
What YOU can do!
- File noise complaints with SFO in one click with stop.jetnoise.net
- Login once through Gmail or Facebook (stop.jetnoise does not see or store your password but will email
complaints to SFO on your behalf). Create an icon on your phone or computer home screen for easy access. - We prefer that you use stop.jetnoise.net because it is simple, gives you flight data, and makes it easier to roll
up and analyze complaints. - At least one click per day to keep the planes away: one complaint from 100 different people carries much
more weight than 100 complaints from one person.
- Login once through Gmail or Facebook (stop.jetnoise does not see or store your password but will email
- Contact Congresswoman’s Eshoo’s office (eshoo.house.gov/contact; 408-245-2339) to demand that she
make addressing this issue a top priority. In addition, fill out her SFO noise survey (tinyurl.com/nlpne5a) - Visit the Sky Posse Palo Alto website (skypossepaloalto.org) and get involved:
- add a personal note to this flier and distribute it in your neighborhood.
- sign our petition to reduce jet noise over Palo Alto (click the Sign petition! icon)
- join our mailing list (click Join our mailing list on the website)
- follow us on Twitter (twitter.com/skypossepa) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/skypossepaloalto )
- Sign the petition to ask airlines to spend less than $5000 per jet to retrofit their Airbus A320
series with airflow deflectors to stop the loud “whistling” sound (bit.ly/1OJAVok) as required in Europe.