Talk:Los Altos, California

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

WikiProject California (Rated B-Class) This article is part of WikiProject California, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page to join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale. Mid This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale. San Francisco Bay Area WikiProject     (Rated B-Class) This article is within the scope of the San Francisco Bay Area WikiProject, a collaborative effort to build a more detailed guide on Wikipedia's coverage of San Francisco and the Bay Area. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. B This article has been rated as B-class on the quality scale. Mid This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale. WikiProject Cities     (Rated B-Class) This article is supported by WikiProject Cities, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to cities, towns, and various other settlements on Wikipedia. For more information, or to get involved, visit the project page. B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.) Low This article has been rated as low-importance on the priority scale.

So everyone editing this article is probably from around Los Altos. Sup.

Contents 1 The telephony stuff makes no sense 2 Question 3 History? 4 This article needs to be cleaned up! 5 pronunciation 6 earthquakes 7 Education

[edit] The telephony stuff makes no sense

I'm taking it out right now. This is an article for a general audience, not phone phreaks. If we really need to mention utilities, we should merely mention that AT&T (formerly SBC Pacific Bell) is the local telephone carrier and the NPA is 650. The other information really should be at 650 area code for the small number of hard-core hackers who really care about that stuff. --Coolcaesar 00:19, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

What do "Sister Cities" mean?

It means Town twinning. Habbak 20:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History?

I heard from an older woman in the neighborhood ( who remembers when Los Altos was primarily orchards) That way back when, each resident was given a choice for what kind of tree they wished to recieve from the city. Would there be any merit to mentioning Los Altos's tree history? ex: the remarkable amount of trees... when a resident cuts down a tree they have to replace it. etc. etc. Califor128 7:13, 06 Febuary 2007

I know the mid-Peninsula/West Valley region very well (I created and uploaded a large number of the photos on Wikipedia for those cities) and I've never heard what you're claiming about Los Altos. Do you have a source for that? Please see core policies Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. --Coolcaesar 07:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as the tree policy goes - here is proof through the minutes of a los altos city council meeting in 2003 - [1]

3. Topics of mutual interest

Commissioner Disney raised a question regarding the City’s street tree planting policies. It was discussed that staff, the Architectural and Site Control Committee, the Planning Commission and the City Council all have authority to require street tress as part of the design review process, and that projects are required to provide either street trees or front yard private tree depending on the pattern that currently exists within a particular neighborhood. Commissioner Disney suggest that the City should always require formal street trees regardless of what existed in the neighborhood to promote large canopy trees everywhere. It was agreed that staff and the Planning Commission would investigate this further. No motion was necessary. --Califor128 00:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is another link that attests that at least any Los Altos resident needs a permit to remove a tree from property, and if done without a permit they have to replace the tree.[2] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Califor128 (talk • contribs) 00:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

Those sources merely support the assertions that new projects have to have trees and that one cannot remove or alter trees without a permit, which is actually quite common. They do not support your original assertions regarding "the remarkable amount of trees" or the right of the original residents to select a tree to receive.

By running a simple Google search for the words "protected tree permit," I discovered that several other cities in California also have protected trees, including Loomis, Oakland, Palo Alto, Martinez, Sunnyvale, Ventura, Beverly Hills, Orinda, Pasadena, Los Angeles, Hayward, Tiburon, Sausalito, Citrus Heights, Roseville, Danville, Healdsburg, and Davis---and many other cities outside of California have similar regulations! And San Francisco has both an Urban Forestry Ordinance [3] (with a section covering landmark trees) and a Tree Dispute Resolution Ordinance.[4] So your assertions about Los Altos's tree regulations being unique simply don't hold water. You'll need to dig up some real history books at the library to prove your point. --Coolcaesar 04:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article needs to be cleaned up!

Two years ago it was okay and now the article is a real MESS. I am going to clean it up later this year.

Current issues I will eventually deal with:

• The claim that Los Altos may have had the first sound baffle is unverified. WHO has stated or made or verified that claim? If that claim hasn't been published elsewhere, it shouldn't be published here because that would violate official policies Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not.

• Links to neighboring cities should have the state name spelled out in full (California), not condensed to the postal abbreviation (CA). Wikipedia is not an envelope.

• The History Museum text may be a possible copyright violation and in any case most of the detail can be deleted.

• The parades/activities list is unnecessary, irrelevant, inappropriate, and in violation of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of random information. Thousands of American cities have similar parades. In contrast, Laguna Beach's Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters are institutions unique to that city.

• The tornado section is silly and irrelevant (some part of the world has freak weather on any given day). The freak tornado issue can be dealt with in the article on the Climate of California if it really needs to be mentioned. Most Wikipedia readers in the Midwest take tornadoes for granted. Wikipedia policy is to cater to a worldwide audience, not just a local one.

Any objections? --Coolcaesar 08:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree with almost all of this. The Pet Parade, however, is a Los Altos institution and I'm not aware of similar parades in a lot of other places so it might deserve mention somewhere. Flashcube 23:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Pet Parade and Festival of Lights. Remember, Festival of Lights is the only one in the entire region, since Mt. View, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Cupertino, and San Jose all have incredibly congested main streets that can't host such a parade. I'm going to go delete that tornado thing and re-add the San Francisco Earthquake, since USGS specifically stated that Los Altos was in the red zone (VIII). I'll add a source to. --haha169 (talk) 04:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] pronunciation

Since [ɔ] does not occur in California English, I'm wondering what the real pronunciation is. Is the al like the name Al, or like all? Should it be IPA: /lɒsˈʔæltoʊs/? /loʊsˈʔɑltoʊs/ kwami 08:37, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Since no one's responding, I'm making a guess and putting in the first one. kwami 23:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] earthquakes

although I agree that those two sections were not really clean, the 1906 and 2007 quakes both had an impact on the city. According to 1906 earthquake shake maps, Los Altos was colored "red". For the 2007 one, it dramatically increased the likelihood of of a major quake in 2007, so I think that those two should be left there. --24.6.103.162 (talk) 05:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Education

I'm removing the bit about there being a question about Bullis School going into a new Los Altos Hills school district; the county Committee on School Organization decided against it last January. [5] --Flashcube (talk) 22:52, 17 December 2007 (UTC)