A Feb. 1 story by Education Reporter Alexandria Rocha cited several incidents of harassment suffered by members of Palo Alto High School's Gay-Straight Alliance. According to The Paly Voice, a journalism Web site run by Palo Alto students, Supervising Deputy District Attorney Jay Boyarsky attended a faculty meeting at the school on Feb. 2 to make an official statement offering support for gay students. "I hope that my showing up and lending a hand to GSA will send a signal that intolerance and discrimination against any group is not acceptable," Boyarsky told the Voice.
Jeanne Aufmuth was named president at the San Francisco Film Critics Circle's annual meeting last week, according to an article on Palo Alto online. The organization has members from newspapers, radio and television stations and online publications. In addition to writing for Palo Alto Weekly, Aufmuth teaches film classes for elementary and high school students.
For its 25th anniversary issue, Palo Alto Weekly is examining how the community and its people have changed since the paper debuted on Oct. 11, 1979. In the past quarter-century, Palo Alto has become known as the birthplace of Silicon Valley, and its cultural and economic landscape has changed considerably. To illustrate this, the weekly is revisiting neighborhoods it first profiled in its 10th anniversary issue, and profiling two new neighborhoods as well.
Owner, publisher and editor of the Sun since 1966, Steve McNamara addresses his sale of the paper to Embarcadero Publishing in this message to his readers. He writes, "Being editor and publisher of the Sun has been a dream job, way better than working the oars at the dailies in North Carolina, Miami and San Francisco where I started out." And he's leaving his legacy in good hands. About the paper's new owners, McNamara says, "In the newspaper business there are some real egomaniacs and general nut cases, but these guys are at the other end of the scale."
Two AAN newspapers serving different parts of the San Francisco Bay Area became part of the same organization today as the owner of the Palo Alto Weekly, Bill Johnson, purchased the Pacific Sun of Marin County. The sale coincides with the 70th birthday of Sun owner, publisher and editor Steve McNamara, who purchased the paper in 1966 and grew it into an award-winning newsweekly. McNamara said, "Once the decision [to sell the Sun] was made, it seemed natural to pass the responsibility to my old friend Bill Johnson and his associates at the Palo Alto Weekly." Said Johnson, "Steve and I have known each other and shared our challenges and ideas with each other for the last 25 years, and this seems like a natural outcome of that relationship."
