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Thursday
Feb.13,2014
Vol XIII,Edition 154
HALFWAY TOGOAL
STATE PAGE 7
 
PLANNING FORFIRSTGARDEN
SUBURBAN LIVING PAGE 20
MORE THAN 728,000 SIGN UP FOR HEALTH PLANS INCALIFORNIA
City may havebudget surplus
San Mateo officials pleased,butexpressing measure of caution
By Samantha Weigel
DAILY JOURNAL STAFF
New tax revenue estimates indicate an extra $7 million inbudgetary breathing room for the city of San Mateo andwhile officials are expressing relief and optimism, there isalso a strong measure of caution after years of belt-tighten-ing and tough budget choices. Still, members of the council are taking strides to deter-mine the best way to use the money to meet a host of built-up needs like new hiring and employee raises along withfuture goals like removing the North Shoreview neighbor-hood from a flood map requiring hefty insurance costs andimproving its streets and other infrastructure. The needs andgoals are also tempered by the reality of a quarter-cent salestax increase expiring in four years and future increases inpension liabilities. The council held a budget and policy study sessionMonday to review forecast models and discuss council pri-orities as it moves toward finalizing the budget in June.“It’s very gratifying. We were guided very well by our cityFinance Director Dave Culver. He made some excellent rec-
By Angela Swartz
DAILY JOURNAL STAFF
Millbrae voters will get a chance to decidethrough an all-mail ballot if they want torenew a fire suppression assessment tax setto expire in May. The fire suppression tax was first passedin 2004 and extended in 2009. It currentlybrings in $1.2 million annually and the newtax, if passed by a major-ity of voters, is estimatedto bring in $1.5 millionannually for 10 years.The renewal proposes anannual tax of $174.83 persingle family home, andfor each dwelling unit formulti-family parcels withthree or more dwellingsin the amount of $125.19. For commercialuses, the tax is based on the number of rooms in the hotel, number of beds in vari-ous residential care facilities and the landuse/building square footage for other non-residential land uses in the various amountsdesignated in the engineer’s reportapproved by the council Monday. The vote would be conducted by a mail-inballot sent out in March. The ballot isintended for return in April, said MayorWayne Lee.Councilwoman Anne Oliva said theassessment is nothing new and it’s some-thing the city needs to continue.“Everybody needs to buckle down,” Olivasaid. “At this time today, we need to get thisassessment back on board and continue tohave public safety in Millbrae.”
Millbrae to vote on new tax
Fire assessment extension would last 10 years,raise $1.5 million annually
Wayne Lee
 The San Mateo Community College District installedplug-in electronic vehicle chargers late last year.
District colleges seeauto changes
EV chargers,new technology enter three schools,district office
Sex offender tried fordefrauding woman
By Michelle Durand
DAILY JOURNAL STAFF
Asex registrant living with a demented 66-year-oldMenlo Park woman took out thousands of dollars of loans inher name while leaving her with life-threatening bloodsugar levels because he hadn’t purchased needed insulin fora month, according to prosecutors.Darryl Keith Phillips, 51, had also opened investmentaccounts in the woman’s name and was preparing documentsto take out a $150,000 loan on her home, prosecutors said.Phillips has pleaded not guilty to the allegations and willstart a jury trial Tuesday on charges of elder abuse, falsify-ing documents and resisting arrest. Phillips, a three-strikes
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MEDAL COUNT
GOLD SILVER BRONZE TOTAL
4
NorwayCanadaNetherlands
3 54 4 24 41210102
U.S.A.
 3 5 91
By Angela Swartz
DAILY JOURNAL STAFF
With developing technology, theSan Mateo County CommunityCollege District’s automotive depart-ment is changing and the district isadding new auto resources to each of itscolleges.One such move was the installationof plug-in electronic vehicle, or EV,charging stations at each of the threedistrict schools and the district officein San Mateo in September 2013. Thestations come from a grant initiated byworkforce development staff at Cañadaand Skyline colleges.“EVcharging stations fit neatly withthe goals of the trustees and in thestatewide energy initiative we partici-pated in,” said Karen Powell, directorof facilities maintenance and opera-tions for the district. “We want to havea limited carbon footprint.”Skyline, home to the district’s autodepartment, is also changing with thetimes, adding courses on hybrid andelectric vehicle maintenance. In 2010,a new building was installed on cam-pus for all electric and hybrid vehicletraining. To install the charging stations, thedistrict partnered with SchneiderElectric and the California Energy
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Two Tampa Bay women get lost wedding dresses back
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — TwoTampa Bay area women are now backin possession of their own weddingdresses nine years after a mix-up gotthem switched.The Tampa Bay Times reportedWednesday that Marie Keeney wasplanning a ceremony to renew hervows with her husband of nine years.Her 8-year-old son, Braden, had askedthem to do it so he could be part of theceremony.But the planning came to a halt lastyear when she took the wedding dressout of the storage box and realized itwasn’t hers. She was devastated andcanceled the ceremony.“It made me cry,” she said. “And Inever cry.”But Keeney, 45, began investigat-ing.She contacted the dry cleaners thatdid the preservation and was told thetask had been outsourced to a New Yorkcompany, Wedding GownPreservation.She felt her dress was lost but want-ed to get the dress she had back to itsproper owner. She posted photos onFacebook and contacted the media, inhopes that the owner would learnabout the dress. But no one came for-ward.Then Wedding Gown Preservationfound Keeney’s dress and shipped itback to the dry cleaners.“I think it’s a miracle,” Keeney said.“I can’t believe I got my dress back.”An invoice that was also foundshowed that the other dress belongedto a Katherine Stephenson. The Timestracked down Stephenson living threemiles from Keeney. Stephenson hadlong accepted that her dress had beenlost. She picked it up last week.“Several people at that wedding arenot with us anymore,” Stephensonsaid of the 2001 ceremony. “It will bereally nice to have something specialfrom a time when they were all in ourlives.”Meanwhile, Keeney has rescheduledher renewal ceremony for her 10thanniversary in November. And thedress still fits.“They say it’s bad luck to wear yourdress twice,” Keeney said, smiling.“But I don’t believe any of that.”
Heart-warming messages to patients etched in snow
MINNEAPOLIS — Huge messagesleft in the snow on the frozenMississippi River are giving patientsat St. Cloud Hospital a lift. At ground level, the patted-downsnow doesn’t look like much. Butfrom the hospital windows above, themessages are quite clear. The latest arethe words “love” and “believe,” alongwith a peace symbol. Each time there’sfresh snow, there’s a new message.Nurse Mary Habiger has seen a manand woman in snow shoes stampingout the messages. She says the mys-tery man and woman seem well organ-ized and plan their messages inadvance. Habiger tells WCCO-TVthere arelots of family lounges in the hospitalthat face the river. So even if apatient’s room doesn’t overlook theriver, they can view the messages fromthere.
San Jose cop convicted of writing bogus tickets
SAN JOSE ASan Jose police offi-cer is facing possible prison time fol-lowing his conviction on charges hewrote bogus tickets to two peopleinvolved in a lawsuit he filed.Fifty-one-year-old George Chavez isscheduled to be sentenced in April afterpleading no contest on Tuesday tofalse personation and filing a falsereport.Authorities said Chavez issued aphony traffic citation and parkingtickets last October to a driver withwhom he got into a crash and his ownattorney in a subsequent lawsuit.The victims’signatures wereallegedly forged.Chavez is a 23-year veteran of theforce. He was placed on administrativeleave when the allegations surfaced.His status with the police depart-ment was not clear on Tuesday.
FOR THE RECORD2
Thursday
Feb.13,2014
 THEDAILYJOURNAL
The San Mateo Daily Journal
800 S. Claremont St., Suite 210, San Mateo, CA94402
Publisher: Jerry LeeEditorin Chief: Jon Mays
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As a public service,the Daily Journal prints obituaries of approximately 200 words or less with a photo one time on the date of the family’s choosing.To submit obituaries,emailinformation along with a jpeg photo to news@smdailyjournal.com.Free obituaries are edited for style,clarity,length and grammar.If you would like to have an obituary printedmore than once,longer than 250 words or without editing,please submit an inquiry to our advertising department at ads@smdailyjournal.com.
 Talk show hostJerry Springer is70.
This Day in HistoryThought for the Day
1914
The American Society of Composers,Authors and Publishers, also knownas ASCAP, was founded in New York toprotect the copyrights of creators andensure compensation for public per-formances of their works.
“To go against the dominant thinking of your friends,of most of the people you see every day,is perhapsthe most difficult act of heroism you can have.” 
— Theodore H.White,American political writer (1915-1986)
Actress StockardChanning is 70.Actress Mena Suvari is 35.
Birthdays
REUTERS
An orphaned baby elephant drinks milk from a bottle at the Daphne Sheldrick Wildlife Trust for Orphans within the NairobiNational Park,near Kenya’s capital Nairobi.
Thursday
:Cloudy. Aslight chance of rain. Highs around 60. West winds 5 to 10mph.
Thursday night:
Mostly cloudy.Patchy fog after midnight. Visibility onequarter mile or less at times after mid-night. Lows in the lower 50s. West windsaround 5 mph.
Friday:
Cloudy. Highs in the upper 50s. West winds around5 mph.
Friday night
:Mostly cloudy. Lows around 50. Northwestwinds 5 to 10 mph in the evening...Becoming light.
Saturday:
Mostly cloudy. Aslight chance of rain. Highsin the upper 50s.
Saturday night:
Cloudy. Achance of rain. Lows in theupper 40s.
Local Weather Forecast
In 1542
, the fifth wife of England’s King Henry VIII,Catherine Howard, was executed for adultery.
In 1861
, Abraham Lincoln was officially declared winnerof the 1860 presidential election as electors cast their bal-lots.
In 1920
, the League of Nations recognized the perpetualneutrality of Switzerland.
In 1935, 
a jury in Flemington, N.J., found Bruno RichardHauptmann guilty of first-degree murder in the kidnap-slay-ing of the son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. (Hauptmannwas later executed.)
In 1939, 
Justice Louis D. Brandeis retired from the U.S.Supreme Court. (He was succeeded by William O. Douglas.)
In 1943
, during World War II, the U.S. Marine CorpsWomen’s Reserve was officially established.
In 1960
, France exploded its first atomic bomb in theSahara Desert.
In 1974
, Nobel Prize-winning Russian author AlexanderSolzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union.
In 1980
, the 13th Winter Olympics opened in Lake Placid,N.Y.
In 1984, 
Konstantin Chernenko was chosen to be generalsecretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s CentralCommittee, succeeding the late Yuri Andropov.
In 1988
, the 15th winter Olympics opened in Calgary,Alberta, Canada.
In 1991
, during Operation Desert Storm, allied warplanesdestroyed an underground shelter in Baghdad that had beenidentified as a military command center; Iraqi officials said500 civilians were killed.
In other news ...
(Answers tomorrow)OBESE QUESTOBJECTDISCUSYesterday’sJumbles:Answer:Casper and his wife shopped in a — “BOO-TIQUE”Now arrange the circled letters to form the surprise answer, assuggested by the above cartoon.
THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME
by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek
Unscramble these four Jumbles,one letter to each square,to form four ordinary words.
TIVDOGOCLIFILRYMGEGENA
 ©2014 Tribune Content Agency, LLCAll Rights Reserved.
   J  u  m   b   l  e  p  u  z  z   l  e  m  a  g  a  z   i  n  e  s  a  v  a   i   l  a   b   l  e  a   t  p  e  n  n  y   d  e   l   l  p  u  z  z   l  e  s .  c  o  m   /   j  u  m   b   l  e  m  a  g  s
IN
A:
U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager (ret.) is91. Actress Kim Novak is 81. Actor George Segal is 80.Actress Carol Lynley is 72. Singer-musician Peter Tork (TheMonkees) is 72.Actor Bo Svenson is 70. Sen. RichardBlumenthal, D-Conn., is 68. Singer Peter Gabriel is 64. ActorDavid Naughton is 63. Rock musician Peter Hook is 58. ActorMatt Salinger is 54. Singer Henry Rollins is 53. Actor NealMcDonough is 48. Singer Freedom Williams is 48. ActressKelly Hu is 46. Rock singer Matt Berninger (The National) is43. Rock musician Todd Harrell (3 Doors Down) is 42.
Lotto
 The Daily Derby race winners are Gold Rush,No.1,in first place;Lucky Star,No.2,in second place;and Solid Gold,No.10,in third place.The racetime was clocked at 1:40.72.
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Thursday
Feb.13,2014
 THEDAILYJOURNAL
LOCAL
SAN BRUNO
Grand theft.
Aman in black clothingtook $3,000 worth of merchandise on the300 block of El Camino Real before 7:58p.m. Friday, Feb. 7.
Burglary
. Alaptop was taken from thetrunk of a white 2001 Toyota after its dri-ver’s side window was smashed on the 800block of Commodore Drive before 7:22a.m. Friday, Feb. 7.
Animal complaint.
Awoman reported aneighbor’s dog appeared to be yelping inpain at the rear of a house on GreenAvenue before 10:01 a.m. Monday, Feb.3.
Reckless driver.
Agray Ferrari ran redlights heading north on El Camino Realbefore 5:19 p.m. Monday, Feb. 3.
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO
Malicious Mischief.
Genitalia wasdrawn on someone’s black BMW328i atthe Boys and Girls Club on West OrangeAvenue before 11:55 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3.
Burglary
. Jackets and a diaper bag weretaken from a car after it had one of its win-dows smashed on Point View Place before7:37 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3.
Damaged property
. Someone hit a stopsign and left, leaving their license plateand sign in the center median at the inter-section of Grand and Magnolia avenuesbefore 3:03 p.m. Monday, Feb. 2.
Malicious mischief.
AHonda Accordwas spray-painted with yellow paint onGrand Avenue before Monday, Feb. 2.
Firefighters rescue dog from burning Pacifica home
Firefighters rescued a dog from a burninghome in Pacifica Tuesday afternoon, NorthCounty fire officials said.Crews responded to a report of a fire in the100 block of Edgewood Drive in a residen-tial neighborhood off of Highway 1 at about3:10 p.m., officials said.The one-alarm blaze at the two-story, sin-gle-family home was contained to thekitchen area and was controlled within twohours, officials said.After putting out the blaze, crews searchedthe home and rescued the occupants’dog,which was in a bedroom at the rear of theresidence. The dog suffered smoke inhala-tion and was administered oxygen beforebeing returned to the occupants.No one was injured in the fire. Five occu-pants were displaced and have receivedhousing assistance from the American RedCross, according to fire officials.The cause of the fire remains under inves-tigation.
Police reports
These guys are going nowhere
Agroup of men at a dead end were tryingto take the dead end sign on the 2400block of Evergreen Drive in San Brunobefore 1:32 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 1.
COUNTY GOVERNMENT
County Planning CommissionerChris Rankin
announced he is stepping down after 14 years to move on to otherthings.• The
Mid-Peninsula WaterDistrict
elected a new presidentand vice president of its board of directors this month. President
Louis Vella
has served on the board since 1999 and vice presi-dent
Betty Linvill
has served on the board since 2007. The dis-trict supplies water to 28,000 customers in Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City andparts of unincorporated San Mateo County.
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