Palo Alto seems to be a new magnet for fast, healthy and casual food. On the heels of instant-hit LYFE Kitchen comes a new, Asian offering from the executive chef at Slanted Door: Asian Box.

Opening today at 5 p.m. at Town & Country Village, Asian Box is inspired by Asian street food carts, showcasing traditional recipes made with ingredients sourced locally.

Executive Chef Grace Nguyen brings the bright and flavorful tastes of Southeast Asia to a Western locavore clientele, and has done so without any gluten on the menu.

CEO Frank Klein’s vision was to create a dining experience that is “fun, exciting, healthy, and quickly dtam sang, or made to order,” according to an announcement Thursday. Klein will open two more Asian Box locations in the Bay Area in 2012.

“I love Asian cuisine but have always found it challenging to find places offering fresh and authentic menus, especially in the fast-casual sector,” said Klein. “Asian Box evolved from the idea of the kind of restaurant I’d want to eat at and introduce to my family and friends.”

The restaurant’s slogan, “What’s in Your Box?” refers both to the compostable packaging used to serve the food and to the importance, they say, of knowing how the food got to your plate.

“It doesn’t matter if you are in a fine-dining restaurant or a grab-and-go shop,” Klein said. “More and more, people want to know where their food comes from and how it’s being prepared.”

Grace Nguyen’s menu was influenced by her Vietnamese heritage and refined with the help of Chad Newton, Culinary Director for FK Restaurants & Hospitality, which owns Asian Box.

“Quickly served food remains in high demand, but there has been a shift in diner preferences.  They want food that’s raised responsibly, sourced locally and prepared fresh,” Nguyen said. Authenticity is also an important aspect for Nguyen, who learned traditional cooking methods and recipes from her Vietnamese grandmother.

Menu items start at $6.95, and guests create their own “box” by selected from a number of ingredients, similar to the process at Sprout.

The meal starts with a choice of Asian Vegetable Salad, Rice Noodles with Mushroom Broth, Brown Rice or White Rice. Then you add a main protein, such as Lemongrass Marinated Pork, Garlic and Soy Glazed Beef, or Coconut Curry Tofu.

Another layer of selections could include wok vegetables, crispy shallots, fresh jalapeño, and more than a dozen other toppings, plus a housemade sauce, such as the Asian Box Tamarind Vinaigrette, Asian Street Dust—a blend of exotic herbs and spices—or the “not for the timid” HotBoxIt sauce, a fiery blend of peppers, peppercorns and chili oils.

Asian Box is the latest addition to Town & Country, where Silicon Valley venture capitalists would not have far to drive.

“The partners chose Palo Alto as the first location for many reasons,” says Klein. “The interest by Venture Capitalists in the concept showed that we had struck a chord. The fast-casual segment is on fire and we felt that Palo Alto, the birthplace of so many creative concepts and the center for education and technology, was the right environment in which to change the way people think about Asian food in the U.S.”

Asian Box was designed in partnership with Rubber Design, and is currently pursuing green restaurant certification from the Green Restaurant Association.

It's a pilot program for the City of Palo Alto Utilities (CPAU) -- the first year is capped at 4 megawatts and meant for medium-sized commercial rooftops with a minimum size of 50 kilowatts per installation. The FIT is applicable to solar only, although other renewable energy sources could be considered later on. The city will pay $0.14 per kilowatt-hour for 20-year contracts.

Palo Alto is arguably the heart of Silicon Valley, home to dozens of venture capital firms and thousands of new companies armed with a startup and innovation culture fueled by its immediate neighbor, Stanford University. The city itself has about 26,000 electric meters and a peak load of approximately 180 megawatts.

The program limits itself to medium and large commercial solar rooftops in the interest of keeping workload issues to a minimum in the early stages of this endeavor.

The $0.14 per kilowatt-hour figure was based on the city's avoided cost. Here's the calculation:

• $0.070 for energy
• $0.034 green premium
• $0.006 local capacity value, essentially avoided distribution grid costs
• $0.019 avoided transmission access charges (TAC), an amount paid in California for every kilowatt-hour that is delivered from the transmission grid.
• $0.006 avoided transmission losses
• Total: $0.1355 per kilowatt-hour

 

So, the $0.14 per kilowatt-hour FIT price includes a $0.0045 premium and was agreed upon as a number that would attract developer interest. The cost of a fully subscribed program would be $29,000 per year; the city council estimates that the cost to the utility customer would be $0.01 per month. At this scale and modest cost, the city gains experience with the permitting, interconnection, metering, and billing process while developers gain experience in working with Palo Alto. (Note that Gainesville, Florida's FIT price was in the $0.26 to $0.32 range, which is good for developers, but perhaps not so good for municipalities.)

Craig Lewis, the Director of the Clean Coalition, a distributed generation advocacy group, attended the February 7 Palo Alto City Council meeting and commented that he saw this as "a good program, because it is constrained and not open to residential rooftops." He added, "It delivers the trifecta of being cost-effective, timely, and environmentally sustainable, and the pilot program is designed for success by avoiding pitfalls like dealing with tax complications of residential-level projects." 

Jon Abendschein, Palo Alto's Resource Planner believes that $0.14 per kilowatt-hour is a price that will attract developers to the program.

Detractors of feed-in tariffs have claimed that the prices can never be set at a proper rate and that auction mechanisms are a more equitable solution. Others have argued that having no subsidy at all is the right solution. In the meantime, Palo Alto will likely have a FIT in place come March 5.

Palo Alto-based Tesla Motors will unveil the newest model of its "electric supercar," the Model X, in a live webcast tonight, Feb. 9, at 8 p.m. PST.

Tesla is positioning itself as the electric car manufacturer for those who want a "green" car without sacrificing style - one look at a Tesla Roadster or the Model X's predecessor, the Model S, and one might think they were looking at a snazzy new Porsche, Camaro, Ferrari or the like.

The pricing of the Model S ranges from $49,900 for the base model, all the way up to just under $100,000, if one opts for a longer-lasting battery, other amenities, a signature color and more.

To date, Tesla has sold more than 2,000 electric cars in 31 countries around the globe. Their owners have driven more than 18 million electric miles.

Following tonight's live unveiling, interested buyers will be able to reserve their Model X cars through Tesla's website, beginning Friday morning, Feb. 10.

To watch tonight's live webcast, visit www.teslamotors.com.

John Oddo once dreamed of having a three-story house with postcard views of downtown Los Angeles. Hamstrung by the recession, he ended up with what designer Louis Molina calls “the smallest new house in Echo Park.” The building is only 495 square feet, but thanks to its creative design, Oddo's tiny gem feels positively inviting.

Broad expanses of glass and high ceilings allow natural light to flood the interiors. Doors and windows are framed in warm wood. Splashes of color add a sense of playfulness. Sleek built-in cabinets and wood paneling conceal appliances and clutter, and every room opens enticingly to a view of the garden.

“The drive was not how to make the most affordable house,” Molina says. “The drive was to make the biggest experience in a small amount of space — enriched living, not impoverished living.”

PHOTO GALLERY: Modern living in 495 square feet

In 2002, Oddo bought an 1897 Victorian that, after losing its second floor to a fire, had been converted to a one-story duplex. He remodeled the duplex but decided to tear down and replace the shoddy, termite-ridden 1950s rumpus room grafted on in back.

“I was going to build my wonder space — a split design with a stairway in the middle and rooms on both sides staggered every half floor,” Oddo says. “This was at the top of the building boom before everything got too expensive. When I couldn't get a construction loan, that put the kibosh on the whole thing.”

With their client ready to settle for merely a new garage, Molina and Laurent Turin, partners in Good Idea Studio, convinced Oddo that his money would be better spent on a habitable space with a carport. In other words, they reasoned, why not build a smaller house?

“I thought that was brilliant,” Oddo says. “I'd been living in the smaller duplex in the Victorian anyway, which Louis and Laurent had helped renovate. At 535 square feet, it was everything I ever needed. I didn't need 1,800 square feet.”

Like others caught in the economic squeeze, he made do with less. But with Molina and Turin's help, scaling back never meant sacrificing inspired design. For roughly $245 a square foot, Oddo wound up with three rooms — a living-dining-cooking area, a bathroom and a bedroom — plus two shaded patios and a garden of native plants that draw the eye outdoors, all of which make the house appear larger.

The project's diminutive size is maximized by its thoughtful layout and details. Strategically placed stucco walls provide welcome refuge from the busy street and from neighbors, allowing for a secluded courtyard. The rusted steel exterior trim and house number are set off by climbing vines that will soften and shade the decidedly contemporary facade.

“It was important that the first impression wasn't small and cheap,” Molina says. “We didn't want it to look like we had to make compromises.”

The lockable steel-framed front gate with half-inch-thick frosted acrylic maintains privacy and security, so that all doors of the house can be left open to capture refreshing breezes. Though the house has air conditioning, deep, sun-blocking roof overhangs are often enough to keep interiors comfortable in summer.

Not everything inside is visible all at once, which furthers the illusion of a bigger home. When you enter through the living-dining area, a partition hides the galley kitchen. A stroll down a short hallway reveals the bedroom at the end. From there, you can turn into the bathroom or step outside and loop back around the house through the garden.

Simple materials were used to save money and provide stylish continuity from room to room. The floor is polished concrete. The Douglas fir trim around the sliding glass doors is complemented by Douglas fir wall panels that keep audio-visual equipment tucked out of sight. The doors and windows from Taylor Brothers Architectural Products in Los Angeles cost about $25,000, a splurge justified by the welcome sense of openness they provide. “We kept cost in mind to know when to spend and when not to,” Molina says.

White-painted cabinets made of medium-density fiberboard, or MDF, are an example of where frugality paid off. The cabinets, running 36 feet along one side of the building, provide plenty of kitchen storage, camouflage the washer and dryer, and serve as built-ins for clothes in the bedroom. Molina estimates that custom cabinets would have easily cost $40,000. Using mostly IKEA units kept the price to about $4,000 before installation.

Other budget-conscious moves included “floating” the kitchen partition of white-painted light density fiberboard, or LDF, on square tube steel posts from Industrial Metal Supply of Sun Valley. The partition serves as dish cabinet and buffet counter on one side and projection screen on the other. Elsewhere, recycled pink plexiglass remnants accent bookshelves, and the courtyard's tranquil blue stucco continues inside the bedroom, cleverly erasing the boundary between outside and in — again, seeming to expand the space.

By the time the house was completed in 2009, the recession forced Oddo to rent out the new space as well as his duplex and move to Orange County to live with his father. He also admits, though, that he would not have been able to fit everything he owned into his compact new home.

So while Oddo downsizes his belongings, Joshua Selsky, a software engineer at UCLA, has enjoyed living in the house. A fan of modernism, Selsky answered Oddo's ad on Craigslist and, after one walk-through, snapped up the rental for $1,600 a month.

“Yes, it's expensive,” Selsky says, comparing his little house with much bigger lofts that were going for $1,700 at the time he moved in. “But it has good amenities. What I'd seen in other places all looked very much the same. This place oozes personality. I appreciate that and understand that you don't get that for free.”

So does this house, where tenants have gladly paid for quality of space over quantity of space, prove that smaller is better? According to Molina, “It proves that small is good. Smaller isn't better for everyone. But many of us could do with less, for sure.”

-- Emily Young

SIDEBAR: THE COMPACT KITCHEN

The cabinet wall that runs the length of John Oddo's house provides abundant storage. To save tens of thousands of dollars, he decided to forgo custom cabinets in favor of pre-made units that were only 2 feet deep. Oddo searched the Internet to find space-efficient appliances that fit:

Summit refrigerator and freezer; www.summitappliance.com.

Capital stove, a discontinued model with an infrared broiler; www.capital-cooking.com.

Fujioh vent, quiet but powerful; www.fujioh.com.

Blanco sink, a stainless-steel model only 18½ inches wide but 9½ inches deep, enough for a stockpot; www.blancoamerica.com.

GE dishwasher, a small machine most commonly used for bars or secondary kitchens; www.geappliances.com.

Whirlpool washer and dryer, stackable units that were discounted because they were slightly scratched and dented; www.us-appliance.com.

After years of dwindling usage and shrinking space, Palo Alto's recycling center will shutter for good in February -- the latest development in the city's ever-evolving waste-management operation.

The recycling center, a fixture at the city's landfill in the Baylands for nearly four decades, will shut down in February so that the city can cap the landfill, which permanently closed in July. On Tuesday (Nov. 1), the City Council Finance Committee will discuss the future of local recycling and ways to educate local residents about alternatives to the recycling center.

Most residents won't need too much education. According to Brad Eggleston, the city's solid-waste manager, the center accounted for only 6 percent of the city's total recyclables in fiscal year 2011, down from 13 percent in 2008. The vast majority of the city's recyclable goods are collected at the curb in blue containers. Items that don't fit into the blue bins can be placed at the curb in biodegradable containers, provided these containers' weight does not exceed 60 pounds.

The city's trash hauler, GreenWaste, also offers a free annual pick-up service for items too large for the bins.

Among the questions the council will try to answer is what to do with the "household hazardous waste" materials that the recycling center currently accepts, including motor oil, batteries and antifreeze. The city currently allows residents to bring in these items to the center on the first Saturday of each month. Residents can also arrange to bring in their hazardous waste at mid-month by appointment.

While the center's closure will prevent residents from delivering their recyclable goods to the facility, it could make it more convenient for them to dispose of their hazardous waste. Once the center closes, the city plans to expand storage space at the Household Hazardous Waste station near the center, allowing the station to remain open longer.

"Upon completion of the improvements staff anticipates that the HHW station will eventually be open to the public on a non-appointment basis, twice per week for two to four hours," Eggleston wrote in a report.

Residents will also retain the option of delivering their hazardous waste to the Sunnyvale Materials Recovery and Transfer (SMaRT) Station in Sunnyvale.

The recycling center has also been shrinking in recent years to accommodate refuse burial. According to Eggleston, it has gone from 1.6 acres in size during its peak to its current level of 0.4 acres.

The council's Finance Committee had considered earlier in the year a staff proposal to relocate the recycling center. But given the dropping usage and the available alternatives, the committee decided in July that closing the facility altogether makes more sense.

The committee will resume its discussion of the recycling center's closure at its Tuesday meeting, which begins at 5 p.m. in the Council Conference Room at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave. The full council is scheduled to consider the topic in December.

Separating fact from PR can be a challenge when assessing how green a company’s efforts are. In the case of LYFE Kitchen, however, the proof is in the flooring. And chairs. And lights, walls, countertops, paint—really every square inch of the place.

As the new restaurant brand celebrates the opening of its first location with a ribbon-cutting ceremony today, guests may not notice that the physical place, from the bottom up, is a cutting-edge model for sustainable design, featuring everything from bamboo floors and efficient LED lights to creatively repurposed building materials and high-tech energy-efficient appliances.

Architect Gary Wiggle, of Keisker & Wiggle Architects, said that LYFE CEO Mike Roberts asked his team to start by writing a sustainability platform from scratch.

“That platform made us stop and think about it very early on, so it didn’t become an afterthought and a band-aid approach—gee, 'what can we do to save energy, what can we do to have a small carbon footprint?’” said Wiggle. “It became sort of the base of our thinking.”

PHOTOS OF LYFE KITCHEN’S INTERIOR

The story begins with the demolition. The existing site was a teeth-whitening dental suite with concrete block sidewalls. The demo team salvaged and re-used 75 percent of that material, leaving the sidewalls fully exposed and untreated in the final design and significantly reducing landfill waste.

With the shell ready for build-out, the design team turned their attention to the interior.

Bob Kuchimski, who led the space planning and kitchen design efforts, said kitchens are notoriously mechanically intense and waste a lot of energy. LYFE Kitchen’s back-of-the-house is stocked with Energy-Star appliances, including a state-of-the-art dish machine that just came to market, said Kuchimski.

“It has condensation hood on it, so we’re capturing the heat and it goes in to reheating the next cycle,” he said. “So we’re only using three quarters of a gallon of water on each cycle, not having to generate any power. A typical cycle uses one and a half gallons.”

In addition to saving on water, the gas-heated machine requires a smaller-than-average heater, therefore saving big on energy, he said.

What’s more, LYFE commissioned a series of time and motion studies from the Synergy Group to look at how staff move around a kitchen.

“The cooks make money with their hands, not their feet,” said Kuchimski. “The idea is to keep them on the balls of their feet so they’re not moving back and forth. So there’s a whole art of pulling that together and keeping the kitchen as tight as possible, because real estate being what it is, you want to be a very efficient kitchen.”

A smaller kitchen, he said, is also easier to clean, and allows more space in the front of the restaurant for seats.

That dining area brought its own unique set of challenges for the design team. Margee Drews, who led the interior design, said their decisions carefully adhered to GreenGuard standards, which certifies indoor air quality in buildings like schools and hospitals.

To reduce off-gasing of toxic fumes, Drews found sustainably harvested, formaldehyde-free Vietnamese bamboo for the tabletops, coated with polyurethane instead of vinyl.

“PVC has off-gassing and can trigger asthma,” she said.

On the ceiling, large, decorative wood planks are the remains of old bleachers torn out of the University of San Francisco. One of those bleachers was kept intact and used as a bench, and all the chairs are made of recycled milk and juice cartons.

Even the wall paint, floor adhesive and tile thin set was carefully selected for their low emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

“Notice, you do not smell a new restaurant,” said Drews. “It’s smells really good. It smells like nothing.”

Despite the fresh thinking around green design, said Kuchimski, the final plan did not carry the high price tag sometimes associated with sustainability efforts. That’s because his team was told to keep it simple, he said.

“We worked very hard at trying to not be too elaborate in what we had, and let the materials be very natural—just take the simplicity and the beauty of the space and let the people and all the activity of the cooking and everything going on here almost be sort of the art in the space.”

CEO Mike Roberts said he was surprised at the results. After a lengthy career as a top McDonald’s executive, designing a green restaurant from the bottom up was bound to be a unique experience.

“I didn’t know this was all possible,” he said, but he’s a believer now. “You can have an environment that’s been created that is gentle on the earth and contains a low carbon footprint.”

For Roberts and the rest of the LYFE executive team, being green is a core element of their corporate philosophy.

“LYFE Kitchen is about do good, feel good, eat good. Do good is about caring for the earth. All of us who are part of this are committed to this.”

That commitment led Roberts’ team to have to find new suppliers, for example, in order to offer grass-fed beef.

“As soon as we found out that the product we were using could not be called ‘grass fed beef,’ that the cow consumed corn the last 90 days, we searched and probably entertained 20 different suppliers, and found one, the Hearst Corporation farm in San Simian.

Another interesting challenge, he said, is finding a new kind of straw that allows people to drink hot beverages, like coffee, without it melting, like corn starch straws do.

“So we’ve got to find out what this supplier can do to make that right,” he said.

The list of green design choices goes on and on, from LED overhead lighting to an outdoor refrigeration rack to energy-efficient glass in sliding doors that open to let in cool air.

“Everything you can see or touch, it fits our sustainability platform,” said Magee Drews.

Kuchimski agreed, adding that the platform really required unlearning some of the rules that typify American culture.

“We live in a disposable society,” he said. “and it’s like, ok, we’ll buy chairs and in a couple years we’ll throw these away and get new chairs. We didn’t look at it that way. It fills up our landfill. So we looked at trying to make things that were durable and long-lasting and more timeless.”

Now that LYFE Kitchen has opened its doors, Kuchimski, Drews and Wiggle can sit back and enjoy the food. This puts the pressure on Mike Roberts and the restaurant staff to ensure that the business itself is as long-lasting and timeless as its design.

Dozens of prospective buyers and curious gearheads formed a line on Saturday at Menlo Park's Tesla Motors dealership to sit inside the first mass production car to be developed and built entirely by a Silicon Valley company.

As members of the public got their first close-up look at the new Tesla Model S sedan, Menlo Park resident Rich Shane said he'd already made up his mind to buy the new Tesla, potentially the first electric sedan that can go as far as a conventional gas powered car on a tank of gas.

He said he canceled his reservation for a Nissan Leaf because its 100-mile range is well beat by the Tesla, which can run for 160 miles if you buy the $59,000 base model and as far as 300 miles with an optional $20,000 battery pack. "I couldn't accept not being able to get to and from Sacramento," Shane said.

Set to compete with BMW's profitable five series, the Tesla S is an attempt to build a luxury car with a sports car feel. With a compact electric motor, no transmission and a lithium-ion battery spread flat under the floor, the company claims the car has twice the storage room as the BMW five series, with substantial trunk space at both ends. It can also seat seven, if two optional rear-facing seats are installed in the back that can only be used by small children.

The placement of a battery that weighs as much as 1,000 pounds under the floor gives the Model S the lowest center of gravity of any production car, Tesla claims, helping the 3,700 pound car to handle better than other car in its class and almost as well as the Lotus-designed Tesla Roadster, said store manager Neil Joseph.

The electric motor generates 306 horsepower at 7,000 rpm and 362 foot pounds of torque until a 14,000 rpm redline. Tesla claims it can accelerate from 0-60 miles per hour in 5.6 seconds and reach 130 miles per hour. A sport version is said to be able to do that in less than five seconds.

Once inside the car, most could not get their eyes off the 17-inch, high-definition display in the center of the dash, a $1,900 option. It functions like an enlarged iPad with Internet access over a 3G connection, allowing clear access to Google maps and climate controls.

More than 6,000 people have already put themselves on a waiting list to buy the car and more than 600 have put down a $40,000 refundable deposit, said Tesla sales adviser Kyle Thompson. The car is set to be built in 2012 in Tesla's new assembly line at the former NUMMI plant in Fremont, with 5,000 to be manufactured in the first year and 20,000 a year after that.

A federal tax rebate brings the price of the car down to just under $50,000, "which sort of seems in the range I would expect," Shane said. The price can go up for those who want more than the 160-mile range. An intermediate option for a 230-mile battery pack costs another $10,000.

Thompson said the expensive battery was well protected from road hazards by a steel plate and a frame. It can also be removed from the bottom of the car in minutes, should the need arise.

Hooked up to a 240-volt outlet, the 300-mile battery can charge in only five hours. Unlike the Nissan Leaf, the battery charger comes standard in the price of the car. Tesla expects the battery to retain 70 percent of its capacity after 100,000 miles.

The Model S has yet to undergo crash testing, but Tesla expects a five-star rating.

While the $50,000 car may be too expensive for many, Tesla may use profits from the Model S to pay for the development of a cheaper model. Thompson said in three years, Tesla expects to sell a $30,000 to $40,000 electric car.

It’s Thursday, and if you have no idea what you’ll do for the weekend, Patch is coming to the rescue.

We’ve got the best bets for your done-work-outta-here time. Check out our picks for the best summer activities to hit.

1. CALIFORNIA CAFE WINE FAIR

Where/When: California Café Bar & Grill, 700 Welch Rd, Palo Alto; Saturday, 1p.m. to 7 p.m.

Why go: Celebrate with music, food and some of the best wines (unlimited tastings!) from the California Cafe cellar. Chef Mark Pettyjohn is planning some creative appetizers to compliment the vino.

Price: $45

2. ELECTRIC VEHICLE RALLY & CAR SHOW

Where/When: Palo Alto High School, 50 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Why go: The Silicon Valley Electric Auto Association brings out 50 converted, handmade and company-manufactured electric cars for test drives!

Price: Free

3. TOMATOBASH

Where/When: 13100 Montebello Rd, Cupertino; Saturday, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Why go: Give your taste buds a kick at the organic heirloom tomato tasting party under the oak trees at Picchetti Winery this weekend. The winery will be presenting more than 50 varities of heirloom tomatoes for tasting from local farms and gardens, from Green Zebras to Cherokee Purples. Yum!

Price: $15-$58, kids under 7 free

4. BEST-SELLING AUTHOR SPEECH AT BOOKS, INC.

Where/When: Books Inc., 855 El Camino Real Ste 33, Palo Alto; Friday, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Why go: Debra Samuels, author of My Japanese Table: A Lifetime of Cooking with Friends and Family, will talk about her book and how her palate came of age when she studied in Japan as a young adult. Book signing to follow.

Price: Free

5. STARCRAFT 2 TOURNAMENT

Where/When: Hacker Dojo, 140-A South Whisman Road, Mountain View; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Why go: Let your inner-geek reign and join Hardwired Gaming in their Starcraft II Open LAN Tournament. Winners get up to $600! 

Price: Free

Palo Alto prides itself on recycling, but residents may soon find it more expensive and less convenient to divert their waste from landfills.

The city is considering instituting a new rate for recycling and composting -- services that are currently offered for free. At the same time, staff is exploring closing the Recycling Center in the Baylands, a facility that allows residents to drop off such non-recyclable items as fluorescent lamps, anti-freeze and auto batteries.

The moves are part of a broader city effort to bring stability to the volatile Refuse Fund, which has been losing money for several years and is facing a $3.7 million deficit in the current fiscal year. City officials are also trying to bring the refuse system in compliance with Proposition 218, a state law that bars cities from setting rates that exceed the cost of providing the services for which these rates are charged.

Palo Alto currently charges commercial customers more than the cost of the service provided. Residential customers, meanwhile, get a major subsidy from the city. According to a Public Works estimate, the residential rates would have to be raised by 79 percent and commercial rates lowered by 42 percent for parity to be reached.

The City Council Finance Committee discussed on Tuesday night a variety of staff proposals for balancing the Refuse Fund's short- and long-term budget deficits. The committee balked at a staff proposal to raise residential rates by about 13 percent in October and asked staff to instead consider a flat fee that could be added to each residential garbage bill. The fee would help cover the trash, recycling and composting services.

The new fee is one of many changes the city is considering for its cash-strapped refuse operation, which depends on traditional trash for sustenance. The city loses revenue every time a customer goes green and switches from the standard 32-gallon trash can to the cheaper 16-gallon minican. So while residents are encouraged to recycle more and throw away less, these green efforts are also expanding the budget hole in the Refuse Fund.

To deal with this problem, the city is undertaking of a Cost of Service Study that would analyze the costs of each service and allow the city to completely overhaul its rates, possibly adding charges for composting and recycling. The study is scheduled to be completed in November.

In the meantime, committee members agreed Tuesday on the flat fee for residential customers. Though a flat fee would not encourage conservation, it would bring the city closer to Proposition 218 compliance. The new fee would go in effect in October.

Councilman Greg Schmid and Councilwoman Nancy Shepherd both said Tuesday that adding a fixed fee to customers' refuse bills would bring the city closer to rate parity. Schmid said Tuesday he was "startled" by the existing disconnect in the Refuse Fund between what the residents pay and the services the city provides. Under the current system, he said, customers could be paying for services they might not get.

"How can we be charging garbage rates to pay for all the other services?" Schmid asked.

Staff also proposed saving money by replacing the existing Recycling Center with a smaller facility that would be open twice a week, four hours per day. It would cost about $525,000 to make the needed site improvements, but the city would save about $300,000 a year when compared to the cost of running the current facility.

The committee, however, decided to take it a step further and asked staff to consider a full closure of the Recycling Center. Only about 6 percent of the city's total recyclable items were deposited at the Recycling Center in fiscal year 2011 -- down from about 13 percent in 2008, according to Public Works data.