Piedmont’s City Hall will be closed on Presidents Day, Monday, February 16.  The City Council meeting will shift to Tuesday, February 17.

A meeting of the CIP Committee will be held on Wednesday, February 18.

The Piedmont Unified School District has announced the dates for enrollment of new Kindergarten through Fifth Grade students.

PIEDMONT UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

Elementary School Enrollment for 2015-16 School Year

Enrollment of Kindergarten through Fifth Grade students who will enter Piedmont Schools in the Fall of 2015 will open on –

Tuesday, March 3, 2015,

from 8:00 a.m.to 3:30 p.m.

at the Ellen Driscoll Theater

325 Highland Avenue

 Piedmont, CA 94611

If you are new to the District or your student(s) grade K-5 are not currently attending elementary school in one of Piedmont’s schools, please plan to enroll your student(s) on March 3, 2015.

Please download documents for enrollment by visiting the District website at www.piedmont.k12.ca.us/district-info/enrollment.

Please bring paper copies of relevant documentation to submit on March 3, 2015. Parents are required to bring original birth certificates of children to be registered to show proof of age. Children should not accompany parents for enrollment.

Parents must provide, at the time of enrollment, a grant deed and three additional proofs of residency. Parents renting/leasing must provide, at the time of enrollment, a lease AND a copy of the property owner’s rental permit from the city, and three additional proofs of residency. For information on acceptable proofs, please go to the District website: http://www.piedmont.k12.ca.us/districtinfo/enrollment and scroll down to “Proofs of Residency.”

State law requires that parents/guardians submit an immunization record prior to kindergarten entry. Parents should come prepared with documented evidence showing complete dates that children have been adequately immunized.

To enroll in our Kindergarten program, children must be 5 years old on or before September 1st, 2015.

It is anticipated that each school will have several classes at each grade level. It is the intent to keep class sizes similar from school to school. In order to do this, children may be assigned to a Piedmont school outside their immediate residency area. Every attempt will be made to keep siblings together and to look at school proximity if a shift is necessary. However, students may be transferred to another elementary school in the District within the first two weeks of the new school year.

The Piedmont Unified School District offers a Transitional Kindergarten program. In keeping with State guidelines, this program is for students who turn 5 years old between September 2nd and December 2nd

Updates will be posted on the District Webpage as they develop.

Information provided by the Piedmont Unified School District.

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– School Board Member, Doug Ireland announced how the search for a new Superintendent of Piedmont Schools is progressing.-

As we start February, here is where the process stands from the Board’s vantage point. We will continue to update the district website and the Portal.

On Feb. 11, we will review the Profile report and characteristics from HYA which will be posted to the website. Feedback and comments will be included. To be clear, we aim to attract highly qualified candidates.  And we also believe highly qualified candidates may emerge from a wide range of educational and professional backgrounds. We intend to find the best available talent for our district.

Screening interviews will be conducted by HYA Feb.13 and 17 to narrow the field based on our agreed criteria. By Feb. 24, a slate of qualified, screened candidates will be presented to the Board. First round Board interviews will begin shortly thereafter. The field will be narrowed again to culminate in a decision by the end of March.

When we did our homework about searches, it was clear there is a unique recruiting “season” to the educational profession. Recognizing this, we moved quickly following Superintendent Hubbard’s announcement by naming a board subcommittee, forming a city wide search committee, hiring a search firm and setting a preliminary schedule. As there are now six known superintendent vacancies in Northern California alone, with more likely in the coming weeks, we are glad to have acted expeditiously. And we remain confident our early and organized approach has positioned us to attract and secure a great new superintendent.

Thank you for your ongoing interest and participation.

Doug Ireland, Board of Education

Editors’ Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

At its meeting on Monday, February 2nd, the Piedmont City Council appointed five members to the Information Technology Task Force to work with the City’s Information Technology Consultant to help develop a five year strategic plan.

On December 1, 2014, the City Council created an Information Technology (IT) Task Force. The Council solicited applicants for the Task Force and held interviews at its meeting of January 20, 2015. Impressed by the skill and experience of the pool of applicants, the Council decided to increase the membership of the Task Force from three to five after the interviews. The Council took formal action to make the appointments and increase the membership of the Task Force at its meeting of February 2nd.

“I am thrilled and gratified that so many talented residents stepped up to serve our community,” said Mayor Margaret Fujioka. “Technology is a game-changer. It has the potential to not only increase communication, but make government more efficient and accessible. Piedmonters deserve no less.”

The five residents appointed to the Task Force are: Tom Kutter, David Mason, Michael Parks, Poojitha Preena, and Adam Schwartz. Each has extensive experience in Information Technology, ranging from small businesses to companies with world wide presence. The five members will collectively provide insight and perspective on the recommendations of the Consultant and will assist with vetting and prioritizing suggested initiatives.

Meetings of the Task Force will be noticed and open to the public.

At this meeting, the City Council also selected ClientFirst Technology Consulting to develop a five year Information Technology Strategic Plan for the City. With offices around the country, ClientFirst Technology Consulting has a long history of working with small and medium sized cities in several states, including many in California. In the Bay Area they have worked with Cotati, Danville, Dublin, and Healdsburg. Their firm has deep expertise in both strategic planning and operation of governmental IT systems.

“ClientFirst is a deeply experienced firm with expertise in helping cities improve their technology infrastructure and expand its effective use and application,” said City Administrator Paul Benoit. “I have confidence that ClientFirst will do an outstanding job for Piedmont and that they will help us carry forward Mayor Fujioka’s initiative to promote the use of technology in our city government.”

Residents with questions are invited to contact the City Clerk’s office at (510) 420-3040.

“What we all share is a desire for you to pursue the greatest Superintendent for PUSD regardless of the institution they attended or the field they majored in. We expect that candidates for Superintendent will have a proven track record as teachers, principals, or superintendents and this experience should play a critical role in your decision.

To be clear- we would be very supportive if a graduate of the Ivy League and/or a STEM field is the also strongest overall candidate for Superintendent based on their professional accomplishments in the field of education and serving students of all academic needs. We just don’t want the search to be limited or candidates prioritized based on these factors.”

Shahan Soghikian wrote the following opinion on the search for a new Superintendent of the Piedmont Unified School District:

“We owe our children the opportunity to learn in an open, dynamic environment unconstrained by the target of any one learning approach or pre-determined future. They will be artists, scientists, technologists, doctors, writers, athletes, philanthropists or zookeepers because they are inspired by what they learn, who instructs them and their own discovery process in the world. Whether they go to an Ivy League or community college, they need to find their own path. Let’s first and foremost select a great leader who understands the breadth of our community and the wide range of opportunities our children may choose to pursue. Let’s inspire them to learn by creating compelling curriculum led by energetic, forward thinking teachers. Let’s teach them how to think critically, make a good argument, write a compelling statement, and be good collaborators through group projects and team sports & activities. We have the good fortune of being in a community with amazing parents who volunteer their time in many different way to support and build programs embraced by the school district. Let’s all work to insure this open, supportive and collaborative environment continues to be fostered by the new superintendent. Let’s focus on selecting someone with a proven skill set in these areas, not by where they went to school, what they studied or their own personal areas of interest. The world is much bigger than that.”

Editors’ Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

The 2014 Year End Crime Report documents the continued decrease in the crime rate in Piedmont from 2013, which is welcome news.  With this decline in crime there has also been a drop-off in neighborhood watch meetings, 55% from 2013.  I think it would help the neighborhood watch participation rate if crime statistics were reported by crime district, as designated on the Map of Major Offenses on page 5 of the report.  There are six districts 10001 – 10006 and I have attached the crime report maps for Q3 and Q4 of 2014.  The map is cumulative so the Q4 map shows all crime for 2014 and when compared with the Q3 map one can “eyeball” the districts in Piedmont where crime has increased the most over the past quarter, but not easily (see http://www.ci.piedmont.ca.us/html/govern/staffreports/2014-10-20/crimereport.pdf).   I tabulated burglaries the best I could by counting off the map and came up with these district numbers:

Districts	Burglary – Q3	Burglary – Q4	Increase in Burglary
10001	12	15	3
10002	2	10	8
10003	17	16	-1
10004	3	8	5
10005	8	16	8
10006	2	9	7

I think the tabulated numbers are easier to convey where the increase in Q4 crime occurred in Piedmont and could be used to encourage neighborhoods to form watch groups. Chief Goede indicated that such crime data are being developed so I encourage you to provide her any support she requests to accomplish this.

Garrett Keating, Former City Councilmember and current member of Public Safety Committee

Editors’ Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

It is the directive of City Council that Piedmont achieves a 75% diversion rate of material from its solid waste stream.  As the staff report indicates, there has been some fluctuation in the estimate of Piedmont’s annual diversion rate by StopWaste. From my time on the Solid Waste Management Authority Board (SWMA), “outliers” were usually found in some years and corrected by StopWaste staff.  To my recollection, the 84% and 69% rates were attributed to a misreporting of tonnage at the landfill and are inaccurate.  When those numbers are excluded, the trend of Piedmont approaching the 75% goal is more evident and is paralleled by diversion rates calculated by Republic Sanitary Services (numbers from the RSS 2013 Annual Report).

 Diversion Rates:

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
StopWaste	60	63	64	66	73	84	75	69	71	80
RSS						68.5	67.6	68.4	71.3	72.7

Diversion Rates:

The performance audit of RSS should certainly look into this discrepancy but there are likely methodological differences beyond RSS’s control that explain the different estimates.  Both trends are currently capturing the diversion of recyclables and organics.

The adoption of 75% goal was a mandate of the SWMA authority of its members to continue to receive funding and it appears Piedmont is on the way to achieving that goal.  In my last year on the Board, there was an interest in moving away from these calculated diversion rates, which most cities had achieved or were close to, to actual measurement of “divertables” – recyclable and compostable materials – that are in the solid waste. This is the basis for the benchmarking study, which is based on a survey of waste containers and just came out last week. That report showed Piedmont to be an excellent recycler (less that 5% recyclables in the city’s trash) but a below average composter (39% compostable material in the city’s trash).  I think it would useful to evaluate RSS performance in the collection of green waste as part of the performance audit.

Garrett Keating, Former City Councilmember

Editors’ Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF PIEDMONT INVITES YOU TO AN AFTERNOON WITH THE HONORABLE JEFFREY L. BLEICH, AMBASSADOR TO AUSTRALIA 2009-2013

SUNDAY, MARCH 1, 2015

3:00 – 5:00 pm

PIEDMONT VETERANS HALL

401 HIGHLAND AVENUE, PIEDMONT

The League of Women Voters of Piedmont is proud to present an afternoon with Piedmont’s own Jeff Bleich, former Ambassador to Australia and Special Counsel to President Obama during the first year of the Administration.  Mr. Bleich also served as President of the California State Bar, and clerked for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Judge Howard M. Holtzmann of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague.  In 2013, Jeff received the State Department’s highest award for a non-career ambassador, the Sue Cobb Prize for Exemplary Diplomatic Service.  He is currently a Partner at the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson in San Francisco.

This program is a fundraiser to benefit the League of Women Voters of Piedmont, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to engaging citizens in the democratic process and promoting positive solutions to public policy through voter education.  Mr. Bleich will address electronic voting and ways of increasing voter turnout, with audience Q&A to follow.

Tickets are $35 in advance, $40 at the door.  Doors open at 3:00 with refreshments, program commences at 3:30.

To reserve a spot, visit www.lwvpiedmont.org and click the calendar link or contact Tracy Kirkpatrick at megeve@pacbell.net.