Forbes just printed a column that features Sunnyvale’s own Leigh’s Favorite Books, discussing the challenges that face independent business operators, and how Leigh’s has managed to do it right, during tough economic times. Nice piece about a local success story.
FollowThe Denver Post is reporting that the US Commerce Office has selected Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Jose as the three cities to get a US Patent and Trademark Satellite office. This is mixed news for us – good news that Silicon Valley will get one of the offices, bad news that it’s not in Sunnyvale. But San Jose launched a full-court press to get the office in their city, and they offered significant enticements as encouragement. Congrats to them, and thanks to the US Commerce Office for recognizing the importance that Silicon Valley plays in high-tech innovation.
CNN has an interesting article about the growth of e-book lending by libraries. Good read, and it touches on some of the issues that modern libraries and book publishers are dealing with as they transition to the digital era. Sunnyvale is no exception (and if you haven’t seen our “e-reader petting zoo”, you should stop by the library and check it out).
Very long, but very interesting night.
We started with a closed session regarding the downtown, nothing much I can say about that. We then had no less than three Special Orders of the Day. The first was to receive an award from the Tobacco Free Coalition of Santa Clara County and Community Advocate Teens of Today for Sunnyvale’s efforts to deal with smoking. The second was to recognize Parks and Recreation Month. One nice note here – it was accepted by Howard Chuck, one of our Parks and Rec Commissioners. Howard just finished his final Commission meeting last year after eight years of service. It was nice to see that. Finally, PSOA presented the check for their annual “Fill the Boot” fundraiser to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. PSOA raised $32,307.64 this year. Nice job, guys.
The Palo Alto Daily News has an interesting article about the measured results of a road diet that city implemented on Arastradero to improve safety and encourage cycling, similar to what has been already done in some Sunnyvale locations, and what is being considered at other locations in the city. The resulting study revealed that the new road diet did not decrease automobile volume (it actually increased slightly), it did not increase cut-through traffic in other neighborhoods, and it did indeed increase cycling traffic.
It always strikes people as counter-intuitive that removing lanes can improve traffic, and the immediate resident response is often concern about the potential impact to surrounding streets. But road diets are proven methods of improving transit, when they’re done properly and in the right locations.