Portola Valley Weekly Update February 2, 2023

This week's update:

• Founders’ Award for Lifetime Contributions to the Town of Portola Valley
• Fire Mitigation work along Golden Oak Drive starting February 9th
• Office Hours with Councilmember Hufty
• Workshop - Choose Your Climate Future
• Call for Civil Grand Jury Nominations
• State Legislative Update
• Check Your House for Mosquito Breeding Locations
• Conservation Committee Tip of the Month - Planting Guide
• Sustainability Committee Tips - Home Energy and Water Use
• Upcoming Events

Founders’ Award for Lifetime Contributions to the Town of Portola Valley

The Town of Portola Valley has established a lifetime contributions award that recognizes the cumulative civic engagement and leadership of longstanding volunteers in the Town of Portola Valley.

Nominees must have twenty years or more of distinguished service to the Town including on a committee, a commission and/or on the Town Council, as well as within other Town working groups, or within other Portola Valley local organizations (i.e. Portola Valley School District, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space, Friends of the Library, The Sequoias, etc.).

Fire Mitigation work along Golden Oak Drive starting February 9th

The Towns Public Works Department in cooperation with Woodside Fire Protection crews will be performing tree and brush maintenance work related to wildfire preparedness within the Towns public right-of-way adjacent to properties along Golden Oak Drive.

The project began in July 2022. The next section of Golden Oak Drive will start on February 9th. You can learn more about the project on the Public Works Fire Mitigation Project Page.

The work will be in sections over the next year to remove flammable fuels, deadwood, brush and tree limbs that are below six feet in height. Resident will be informed as the crews reach their stretch of the road. This work will continue through July 2023. The Town is providing this additional notification due to the length of Golden Oak Drive.

Residents who have planted in the right away are encouraged to do their own maintenance ahead of the crews as crews will be instructed to maintain all vegetation in the right of way to code standards. If you need guidance on what the right away is and what is public vs private plantings please submit your questions on PV Connect and Town Public Works or Fire Protection Staff will reach out.

Office Hours with Councilmember Hufty

Councilmember Hufty will be holding office hours throughout February on Wednesdays from 10 -11 am in the Heritage Room (next to the Library front doors) Drop by to talk about work that is going on in Town and share your thoughts.

Workshop - Choose Your Climate Future

A hands-on workshop to discover how to recover a healthy climate

Thursday, February 23, 7 pm-9 pm, at the Portola Valley Town Center

Join the hands-on event. Refreshments Served!

Join us to play with En-ROADS, a powerful online simulator, to explore how we can ensure a livable, sustainable climate by the end of this century.

This workshop is fun, free and open to everyone with a curious mind! No prior background in climate change is needed. Just come and explore!

Co-developed with the MIT Sloan School, En-ROADS is an easy-to-use planning tool that has been used in workshops in over 190 countries with over 200,000 people, including Members of Congress, community leaders, and the general public. It is based on the latest science and is updated monthly to stay current.

You will have a chance to learn about the most popular solutions to the climate crisis AND to propose and test your own scenarios. This 2-hour session will be lively, as we learn together what works and what doesn’t, and you’ll also hear about possible ways to get involved to make a difference.

Bring your laptop or share with others. Because the simulation tool is online, it’s possible for participants to bring a laptop to the session and concurrently run their own what-if experiments. Feel free to bring your own fully-charged Mac or PC!

This workshop is sponsored by the Sustainability Committee of the Town of Portola Valley.

The workshop leaders will be: Steve Levin, PV resident and En-ROADS Climate Ambassador and Laura Iyer, Leader of the CCL En-ROADS Engagement Action Team and an En-ROADS Climate Ambassador

Call for Civil Grand Jury Nominations

Over the next several months the Superior Court of California will be selecting citizens to serve on the 2023-2024 San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury.

If you are interested in being nominated to serve on the Grand Jury, please email towncenter@portolavalley.net by February 10, 2023, at 5:00 p.m., with a letter of interest, including qualifications. The Town Council will review the nominations and may discuss the nominations at a future Council meeting, date to be determined.

State Legislative Update

The Town contracts with Cruz Strategies, a government relations and public affairs consulting firm, to provide state legislative and budget updates for the Town. Read the most current update here.

Check Your House for Mosquito Breeding Locations

Water under your home? Don't let mosquitoes add to your list of worries! Staff from the SMC Mosquito and Vector Control District can check for mosquitoes breeding in the water and keep them from growing. Mosquito control is a service covered by tax dollars. Contact the District today for one of their certified vector control technicians to check under your home!”

https://www.smcmvcd.org/request-service

Conservation Committee Tip of the Month

The Conservation Committee’s most recent tip is a planting guide for our local native plants. Late fall and early winter are the ideal time to be planting natives, especially after the epic rains we received in January. Read the whole tip here.

Sustainability Committee Tips - Home Energy and Water Use

The Sustainability Committee provides a series of tips to help plan your personal and household sustainability goals. Go to the Sustainability Tip page for current and past tips. This tip provides some easy ways you can use technology to understand your home energy and water use.