Portola Valley News

Elizabeth Lasensky stood in front of Eileen Donahoe's Portola Valley residence on a chilly night in February 2007, waiting for Barack Obama to show up for a fundraiser.

Coming to the Woodside Village Church at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 1, is a one-hour documentary entitled "Where the Water Meets the Sky." The film tells the tale of 23 women from Zambia who learn filmmaking to show the plight of girls orphaned by AIDS.

Click on pictures to enlarge and view captions. Bill Lane Portola Valley's first mayor and considered by many to be the founding father of the town, met with some 60 friends and associates for cake, punch and lots of balloons in a get-together celebrating his 90th birthday at a Sunday, Nov.

San Mateo County authorities are advising the public of various road closures this morning to accommodate the running of the Ormondale Turkey Trot in Portola Valley.

Though motorists, cyclists and other passersby wouldn't know it when driving by 555 Portola Road in Portola Valley, behind the trees just west of the pasture are regimented rows of grapes, part of the Spring Ridge winery.

The results are in. As green buildings go, Portola Valley's new complex of library, Town Hall and community hall join a select few municipal buildings awarded the top rating by the green building community.

Two foundations have organized to raise support for public school children in east Menlo Park and East Palo Alto.

The Ford Field baseball diamond at Alpine Road and Westridge Drive in Portola Valley is not famous for its shade trees.

The public is invited to a Sunday, Nov. 22, celebration of the 90th birthday of Bill Lane, Portola Valley's first mayor, the former publisher of Sunset Magazine, and a town benefactor many times over.

A tenacious Portola Valley rat, now deceased, shut down electrical service at The Sequoias retirement community on the morning of Monday, Nov.

In choosing to renew Portola Valley's two-part utility users tax for the fifth time, voters showed enthusiastic support for not raising the tax, strong support for the tax's open-space element, and significant support for raising the appropriations limit so the town could collect revenues to help pay the town's operational expenses.

The White House on Monday, Nov. 9, announced the nomination of Portola Valley resident Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe to the post of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

When Leslie Ballinger and her family started raising chickens in 1998, they were pretty much on their own.

Tickets are still available for a rhythm-and-blues dance under the stars in Portola Valley from 8 p.m. to midnight on Saturday, Nov.

Piles of unwanted phone books littered throughout the Bay Area and the state could soon be reduced under legislation proposed Thursday by state Sen.

Last April, residents of Portola Valley and Woodside went out and collected samples to test for sudden oak death , and gave them to scientists from the University of California at Berkeley.

Lew Southern and Lee Boucher no doubt have many good stories to tell of mutual experiences and adventures stemming from their 40-year friendship, begun when they first met at a Menlo Park Newcomers gathering.

What a compelling reason not to vote for the parcel tax! "It's the economy studpid!" Brilliance resides in Atherton.

California's domestic violence program will be spared from elimination this year with Gov.

The Museum of American Heritage will present "Bill Lane remembers Sunset," an evening with Bill Lane of Portola Valley, former publisher of Sunset magazine, at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct.