Weston Healy, an Eagle Scout with a 4.17 grade-point-average, was about to complete his senior year at Gunn High School and looking forward to enrolling at Cornell University this fall.

All that was jeopardized last Thursday after the Gunn campus was thrown into an emergency "Code Red" lockdown, terrifying students and parents and resulting in Healy's arrest on charges of possessing a weapon on a school campus.

Today Healy, 18, is at home in Los Altos Hills, suspended from school, while his lawyer works with Gunn officials and the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office in hopes of ensuring Healy's plans for his future unfold as previously expected.

It was all an innocent mistake, according to Healy, his father and lawyer Eric Geffon of San Jose.

District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Amy Cornell said Healy's case is under review. A court clerk said an arraignment is scheduled tentatively for next Thursday, which is the day after Gunn's graduation ceremony.

The weapon in Healy's car the day of his arrest was an airsoft rifle, a recreational weapon that can be purchased for $50 to $300.

Unlike metal BBs from a BB gun, airsoft products shoot non-puncturing plastic BBs and are used in games similar to those played at the popular birthday-party venue Laser Quest in Mountain View.

The median price of Bay Area homes rose drastically over the past year.  Palo Alto once again shows a strong demand for houses – multiple offers are not uncommon today.  An especially high number of multiple offers are seen on sales in the under $1.5M price range, where inventory is relatively low and the highest number of buyers are competing for houses.  Here are just two examples of recent local market activity:

•  A house in the Barron Park area listed at $1.2M was sold with 18 offers at $1.375M with a full-cash, non-contingent offer and closed escrow in less than 14 days.
• A 100+ year fixer-upper in Professorville was listed at $1.125M and sold at a much higher price with 11 offers in less than a week.

 

We are quickly approaching the spring selling season.  As of end of March, there were 44 pending sales in Palo Alto.  If this is any indicator of things to come, we will see an increase in market activity with first-time buyers still driving the market.  South Palo Alto accounted for 13 out of 27 Palo Alto March sales.  Out of these 13 houses sold in South Palo Alto, 10 went at higher than asking price.

Article also contains year-over-year March and month-over-month data. Palo Alto median price is about 17% from March 2009. Looking forward to spring selling season!

When home prices, mortgage applications to buy homes and consumer confidence are ALL pointing upward, even the perpetual doomsayers on Wall Street have to admit: Housing in the U.S. looks like it's on a very positive track.

And that's where we are right now. The latest monthly Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index came in higher last week. Prices were up in 12 of the 20 major markets that Case Shiller monitors.

On a year-over-year basis, prices gained nine percent in San Francisco, six percent in San Diego, about four percent in metropolitan Dallas, Washington DC and Los Angeles, 2.6 percent in Denver and one and a half percent in Boston.

We see positive trend developing here in Palo Alto too. March median price is up 17% comparing with 2009 and month over month trend is also positive. Multiple offers are becoming common again. One of the home we know about was sold with 18 offers.

Palo Alto High sophomore swimming standout Jasmine Tosky made some serious waves during the Columbus Grand Prix that finished its three-day run on Saturday in Columbus, Ohio. Tosky won three events and placed in the top four of four others.

The talented Tosky capped her performance on Saturday night by winning the 100-meter free in the long course meet in a sizzling 55.60. She came back to set a pool record of 2:10.69, the 10th-fastest in the world this season, while winning the 200 fly. Tosky ran down Dagny Knutson in the back half before opening up a sizable lead.

Maddie Schaefer, who is a teammate of Tosky on Palo Alto Stanford Aquatics, was fifth in the 100 free (56.50).

On Friday, Tosky was third in the 400 IM in 4:46.96 and fourth in the 50 free in 26.27. Schaefer was third in the 50 free (26.06) and 10th in the 100 bck (1:04.84). Palo Alto High junior Sarah Liang was 11th in the 200 breast in 2:46.62 and 19th in the 400 IM.

On Thursday's opening night, Tosky won the women's 100-meter butterfly in 1:00.13 to qualify for the Summer Nationals. She also finished third in the 200 free (2:00.85) and took third in the 200 IM (2:17.08) while showing she's a serious candidate for future national and international meets.

Congratulations on outstanding performance!!!

Palo Alto may ask Stanford University to help the city build a new police building, fund new shuttle programs and fix up local roadways before it allows the school to vastly expand its hospital facilities, a new staff report shows.

These subsidies are among the items Palo Alto officials hope to persuade Stanford to provide as part of the "development agreement" the university needs to sign with the city before it can proceed with Project Renewal, its $3.5 billion effort to rebuild its hospitals.

The City Council Finance Committee is scheduled to discuss the status of negotiations at its Tuesday night meeting.

Stanford's proposal includes the demolition and replacement of the current Stanford Hospital and Clinics complex; renovation and expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital; new medical offices near Hoover Pavilion; and improvements to the School of Medicine. Altogether, the project would add about 1.3 million square feet of development to Palo Alto, making it one of the most ambitious developments in the city's history.

Voters in the Palo Alto school district can expect ballots in the mail next week for Measure A, which would replace the current school parcel tax with a tax costing an additional $96 a year.

District taxpayers currently pay an annual $493-per-parcel, generating $9.4 million a year, about 6 percent of the school district's operating budget.

Measure A is a $589-per-parcel tax that would yield about $11.2 million a year for the district's approximately $154 million operating budget.

The parcel tax would expire in six years and would carry an optional exemption for seniors as well as a 2 percent annual "escalation adjustment." A two-thirds majority is required for the measure to pass.

Continuing on the Palo Alto School theme...

New, cutting-edge programs for Palo Alto's young adults could come out of a cooperative agreement on new uses for Cubberley Community Center, leaders said Thursday.

City representatives will huddle in coming weeks with Palo Alto school officials and the Foothill-De Anza Community College District to consider the status of the former high school campus at 4000 Middlefield Road, City Council Member Gail Price said.

Price spoke on a panel of community leaders on the question of whether Palo Alto can accommodate new multi-family housing developments while maintaining the quality of its schools. The event, sponsored by a variety of community organizations including the Palo Alto Weekly, was held at Channing House.

Moderator John Barton, a former member of both the Palo Alto City Council and school board, said that in addition to general growth pressures, Palo Alto is under substantial mandates from state government to produce more housing units for all income levels.

With Palo Alto school enrollment steadily growing – and funded in a manner that does not bring in significant additional dollars for each new student – Barton asked whether the school district would be able to accommodate the growth and maintain quality.

School enrollment historically has been cyclical, fluctuating between a low of about 7,000 and a high of 15,000 in recent memory, Price said. That fact alone makes planning extremely difficult.

Demographic projections call for an additional 1,200 students above the current 11,680 over the next five years, School Board Member Dana Tom said.

Beyond the budget challenges, the school district faces the challenge of whether it will have physical space to accommodate students if growth continues apace, Tom said, adding that existing facilities should be adequate for at least the next five years.

Two-story buildings at both high schools and at several elementary schools are being added to accommodate the projected growth, using funds from a $378 million facilities bond passed by district voters in June 2008.

Gunn and Paly are being upgraded to reach a new capacity of 2,350 students each. Current enrollment at Gunn is 1,898, and at Paly 1,832.

With Palo Alto school children population growing, this is the project to watch.

Summary of Survey Results

Fixed-Rate Mortgages
	Average Conventional 30-Year Commitment Rate	Fees & Points	Average Conventional 15-Year Commitment Rate	Fees & Points
US	5.08	0.7	4.39	0.6
Northeast	5.11	0.6	4.44	0.6
Southeast	5.06	0.7	4.39	0.7
N. Central	5.16	0.4	4.41	0.4
Southwest	5.02	0.6	4.36	0.6
West	5.04	0.9	4.35	0.8

From the same press release:

McLean, VA – Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®) in which the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 5.08 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending April 1, 2010, up from last week when it averaged 4.99 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.78 percent.

The 15-year FRM this week averaged 4.39 percent with an average 0.6 point, up slightly from last week when it averaged 4.34 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 4.52 percent.