After years of struggling with economic issues and the endless struggle with the downtown redevelopment plan, the city is preparing for a turn-around in the economy. All the signs are there. It may be just a matter of time, so what happens to the land is important.

When the discussion came up about whether to put a church in an industrial zone, the question was whether filling the space would be a mistake because it would close that facility off from potential business.

And when Sunnyvale's Onizuka Air Force Station showed up on the Department of Defense Base Realignment and Closure list this year, the city, while concerned about job losses, also viewed the possible closure with an eye for using the land for business development.

The planning commission approved Lockheed Martin's request to sell off some of its land for development, hoping the land would be used to incubate new technology.

Certainly the city is counting on the new downtown center to bring business and retail taxes into its coffers, but, in the meantime, the businesses along Murphy Avenue are anticipating and preparing for some hard times.

The Downtown Association--knowing business will face problems as redevelopment goes through its construction phase--has stepped out from under the wing of the Chamber of Commerce to become a viable organization on its own. This in order to give its full focus to those problems related to redevelopment.

The city has also laid the foundation for boosting its coffers.

Voters approved a raise in the business license tax and the TOT. And the city is also looking toward the retail tax that will come from the new Best Buy store that opened this year.

When it comes to money, however, the schools struggled the hardest with preparation. With the constant shift in messages from the state, the districts had to anticipate the worst and plan deep cuts into staff. Fortunately, the worst didn't happen.

The city, as a major player in Silicon Valley, is also trying to get more technologically fit. It's now part of a test project proposal to become completely wireless, so that anyone can take a laptop anywhere in the city and dial into the Internet. The city has been trying to provide this kind of accessibility for cell phones, but it isn't so easy, as cell phone companies are finding out when residents object to cell phone towers, time after time.

The most important preparation the city has been doing this year is in filling out its top staff. All the department heads are now in place, which means the city staff is in full swing again.

And, of course, this was an election year and the council, with two new members, is anticipating the new year.

By JASON GOLDMAN-HALL
and SANDY SIMS

January

After more than a year without a permanent director of public safety, Sunnyvale City Manager Amy Chan named former Sunnyvale police, fire and administrative and technical services captain Don Johnson to the chief's position. At the time of his appointment, Johnson was chief of police in Los Altos. Johnson was sworn in on Jan 30.

Roland Wanigatunga, 84, and the Sunnyvale Sunrise Rotary Club organized a donation of water purification equipment and tablets for Wanigatunga's homeland--Sri Lanka--after the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami ravaged the area. The donations from local Rotaries were to be distributed by the Rotary of Colombo West in Sri Lanka.

Camino Medical Group moved its pediatric clinic from Mountain View to a new building at 877 W. Fremont Ave., Building N. The clinic planned to remain in Sunnyvale until 2007 when construction should end on Camino's new facility in Mountain View. According to Camino spokeswoman Cynthia Greaves, one quarter of Camino's 200,000 patients live in Sunnyvale, and more than one-third of all people in Sunnyvale use the medical group.

City council approved an appeal to stop AT&T's installation of a 55-foot telecommunications tower at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Sunnyvale at its Jan 11 meeting. Some 54 of the church's neighboring households had signed the appeal.

Residents of the 30-year-old Oasis Mobile Manor learned on Jan. 10 that they may be forced out of their homes within a year. More than 50 residents of the park and their families packed into a crowded clubhouse to get details on the proposal by representatives of Centex Homes who were working with park owners, Dubrovnik Properties, to convert the park.

Four FUHSD schools attend "SOS Stressed Out Students" project at Stanford in an effort to try and reverse the stress district high school students experience in today's highly competitive academic atmosphere. The schools attending were Monta Vista, Lynbrook, Cupertino and Homestead high schools.

The United States Air Force decided on Jan. 11 not to move the Air National Guard's 129th Rescue Wing from Moffett Federal Airfield to Castle Airport in Atwater.

Jonathan Thalberg announced to a packed council meeting on Jan. 11 that he would close his It's Delicious shop on S. Murphy Avenue at the end of February. Thalberg had accepted a position with a major high-tech firm in the Bay Area, and said he's looking forward to starting his new job.

February

City Manager Amy Chan announced that Watsonville's library director, Deborah L. Barrow, was taking over Sunnyvale's library staff of almost 130 people on Feb. 28. Barrow had been in Watsonville since 1995 and had held management positions in the Chula Vista Public Library system.

Gary Lamit, a De Anza College instructor of mechanical design, launched the Scholarships for Veterans program to help members of the military attend community colleges.

U.S. Geological Survey researcher Richard Stanley said there is oil in the Cupertino basin, particularly trapped along fault zones and along the margins of the basin.

The Sc[i]3 Support Group, organized to find a way to maintain Sunnyvale's patent library, a program run through the city library. The support group sent donation letters to South Bay companies. Mikio Ishimaru, chairman of the group, said it needed $100,000 worth of pledges in order to present an acceptable plan to the city council. On Feb. 9 Ishimaru began meeting with firms to find donors.

The city council voted 6-1 to permit Centex Homes to begin exploring the possibility of converting the land at Oasis Mobile Home Park for another use.

Sunnyvale Columbia Neighborhood Center's part-time health clinic, which serves low-income youngsters under the age of 19, was losing its staff, but the city of Sunnyvale partnered with MayView Community Health Center to continue the service. As part of the MayView transition, the clinic was to get a new nurse practitioner, who was trilingual in English, Spanish and Hindi and would allow the clinic to better connect with the different cultures in Sunnyvale.

Fremont Union High School District, after two years of budget cuts, began requiring all students except seniors to meet strict new residency requirements by the end of March. Those students who failed to meet the requirements were to be "disenrolled." At a Jan. 11 board meeting, trustees approved the change in residency requirements as a way of avoiding future budget cuts.

March

The Sunnyvale School District--facing a deficit of $1.1 million for the 2005-06 school year--came up with recommendations for cuts in positions if the district approved budget cuts. Of the 16 positions slated for reduction, 12 were classified positions. In some cases, the district planned to cut "full-time equivalent" positions, which meant they would cut the number of hours people work, not necessarily the positions themselves.

The minister of economy from Lithuania, Viktor Uspaskich, visited community leaders--including the city council at its March 1 meeting--and local high-tech companies such as Advanced Micro Devices and Hewlett-Packard Co. Uspaskich said his main mission in Sunnyvale was to look at how the city fuses education and technology as part of its culture. The Lithuanian official was on a one-week trip that took him to Los Angeles, Sunnyvale and Washington, D.C.

At its March 1 meeting the Fremont Union High School District board heard teen mothers and staff from the Tot Center at Cupertino High School offer ways to preserve the program. The state's Office of Family Planning had decided not to renew its $100,000 grant money for the teen mom and tot program. The center had 15 pregnant and parenting teens enrolled and eight of their children in its daycare center, as well as 12 children of district employees. The board said district staff would continue looking for options to keep the Tot Center fiscally independent, including possible grants from FIRST 5 Santa Clara County or the Fremont Union High School Foundation.

Forum Development Group--the developer that was poised to turn the vacant Town Center Mall property into a new "lifestyle center" similar to San Jose's Santana Row--had to return to the bidding process after 2 1/2 years of thinking it had the job virtually sewed up. Forum was unable to line up the financing in time to acquire the property. Because of the delay, property owner Lehman ALI reopened bidding for the sale of the property, and got six bids by its Feb. 11 deadline.

Plans for the 25-acre Peterson Middle School field were the hot topic at the March 8 Sunnyvale City Council meeting. Roger Barnes, business administrator for the Santa Clara Unified School District, presented the district's "white paper," an outline of the issues, rumors and potential uses for the open space.

The Sunnyvale Elks Lodge elected its first female exalted ruler in 45 years of existence. On Feb. 23, Bonnie Lander was elected exalted ruler of the lodge for the next fiscal year.

Sunnyvale City Council approved a resolution naming all six city-owned fire stations as safe surrender sites, meaning that a newborn dropped of at any of them would be taken into care, and immunity against all charges would be granted to the adult who surrendered the child. If a child is dropped off in Sunnyvale, the city's first priority is to seek medical care to make sure the child is healthy. All Sunnyvale public safety officers are trained as emergency medical technicians, so they can provide some care if necessary. After the child is safe, Child Protective Services and other groups will be brought in to find a home for the abandoned child. As part of the law, there is a 14-day "cooling-off" period in which a mother can change her mind and reclaim her child.

April

The downtown redevelopment project, almost three months late in starting, needed yet another two months in order for property owner Lehman Brothers Inc. to negotiate with developers. Lehman had originally hoped to sell the property to the Forum Development Group and have the downtown project begin in early 2005, but Forum's delayed efforts to get financing forced property owner Lehman to look for other developers.

City council in a 4-2 vote upheld the planning commission's approval for Sprint to install a 50-foot tall monopole--disguised to look like a tree--on land owned by the California Water Service Company. This was despite an appeal and protest by 12 residents on Carlisle Way. The tower would provide better cellular phone coverage for Sprint customers around Carlisle Way. Vice Mayor Ron Swegles and Councilman Fred Fowler both said that although the towers caused conflict between neighbors and cell phone providers, they provided a service to the community and improved the quality of life in Sunnyvale.

One week after Lehman Brothers Inc. asked the Sunnyvale City Council for 60 additional days to find someone to buy its Town Center Mall project, it looked as if Lehman had found a buyer-- Forum Development Group, which beat out three other developers.

Sunnyvale's patent and trademark depository library, Sc[i]3, was granted another stay of execution on March 29. In a 4-3 vote, the council gave Sc[i]3 a year to move from its location at the city's library to Cogswell Polytechnical College. The city also allocated $53,000 from its service level stabilization reserve to cover the transition period.

The Moffett Field Historical Society Museum reopened on April 13 after being closed for more than three years. Its new location was Building 126. Originally located in Hangar One, the museum closed in 2002 because of PCB contamination. During the museum's closure, staff negotiated with NASA for a suitable space to house its aviation artifacts and as a result acquired a new home near the hangar.

The Sunnyvale School District Board of Trustees unanimously voted to eliminate or reduce the positions of 11 classified employees at its April 14 meeting. District officials said these cuts would balance the budget for the 2005-06 school year.

An operation designed to crack down on alcohol sales to minors resulted in 10 citations at Sunnyvale businesses in a four-hour period on March 24. The Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety and the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control ran a decoy operation in which local high school students entered establishments and attempted to buy alcoholic beverages. The students were able to purchase alcohol from almost 30 percent of the 36 businesses they visited.

Fremont Union High School District officials said vending machines are an unfortunate fact of life at the district's five high schools. At a time of growing nationwide concern about obesity and overweight adolescents, local officials say the vending machines provide needed revenue. They also say the vending machines offer at least a few healthy items to students who are surrounded by places off campus where they can purchase unhealthy items. A California law took effect in July 2004 banning soda, candy and chips from elementary school cafeterias and vending machines.

The growth in gangs in San Jose is filtering into Sunnyvale. Public safety's gang enforcement team is working to stay on top of the problem.

Sunnyvale City Council unanimously approved a recommendation to raise utility rates. The increased rates were to take effect after July 1 and amount to a 4.5 percent increase for water, a 5.5 percent increase for wastewater and a 5.5 percent increase for solid waste. The average consumer would see monthly bills increase 99 cents for water, $1.08 for wastewater and $1.53 for solid waste services. A typical bill were projected to run about $72.42 per month.

May

Martha Kanter, chancellor for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, spearheaded a coalition of California community colleges advocating for continued funding from the state government. The district's colleges were among under-funded community colleges in California, with the school spending a minimum of $3,700 to educate each student. The statewide average is $4,100 per student.

The city announced May 4 that it would appoint a senior deputy county counsel from Santa Clara County, David Kahn, as the new city attorney.

First-year De Anza College student Cory McCarthy received the first award from a local nonprofit organization, Scholarships for Veterans. McCarthy enrolled at De Anza after being wounded in Iraq. The scholarship provides up to $2,000 for tuition and fees per quarter.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which handles water for much of the peninsula, including most of Sunnyvale, began treating its water with chloramine instead of chlorine in February of 2004. Some people around the Bay Area began having symptoms--eye and respiratory irritation, even asthmatic symptoms. Concerned Citizens Against Chloramine, a group of some 30 people, formed to educate people about the effects of chloramine on people, animals and the environment.

After a long, complex process of land sales and donated space, Sunnyvale Community Services finally became the owner of its own building, with much of the credit going to the generosity of Advanced Micro Devices. Once split between offices in the former Sunnyvale Senior Center and storage space in the empty Town Center Mall, Sunnyvale Community Services had its home base at 725 Kifer Road. The building's near 12,000 square feet is divided into warehouse space, meeting rooms and offices..

City council approved the revised De Anza Park sports field plan to allow the installation of a batting cage. The vote followed a series of failed and substitute motions, friendly amendments and flaring tempers. The 4-3 decision was the last approval in a series that started on Dec. 6 when the Sunnyvale Elementary School District said it supported having cages at the southwest corner of the ball fields next to Ticonderoga Drive.

June

The U.S. Department of Defense released its Base Realignment and Closure list, which included the Onizuka Air Force Station in Sunnyvale. If the list was approved, Onizuka operations would move to Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc.

Residents of the Oasis Mobile Manor mobile home park on Alberta Avenue learned that they had less than a year to be out of their homes so the park could be redeveloped. On June 14, the Sunnyvale City Council approved the conversion impact report prepared by Centex Homes and Dubrovnik Properties. The report outlined the plan to move residents out and clear the park so it could be redeveloped. The CIR also included a generous plan to compensate residents for the costs of relocation, worth more than $30,000 for residents if they moved out within 45 days.

More than six months after its original proposed start date, the Sunnyvale City Council approved the Forum Development Group's demolition plans for the empty Town Center Mall property. Project Manager Jane Vaughan said Forum hoped to have the first stage of demolition--on the condemned parking deck east of Mathilda Avenue--completed by the start of the holiday shopping season.

Dangerous malfunctions and misfires in traffic signals had Sunnyvale city officials concerned that someone in the city was tampering with equipment.

The Iranian Christ Church that had its beginnings in Cupertino dedicated a new building in Sunnyvale as its home. Church officials say it's the largest Iranian Christian church in the world.

Character actor Jon Polito--of Seinfeld and The Crow fame--came to Sunnyvale to film scenes from the independent movie Valentine's Day Special, by writer/director Eric Sullivan and his wife Laura. The movie was filmed at Pezzella's Villa Napoli Italian restaurant in Sunnyvale on June 26 and 27, and filmed a bathroom scene at Cogswell College.

The University of East-West Medicine in Sunnyvale received accreditation for its master of science program in traditional Chinese medicine came from the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.

July

Sunnyvale approved another year's budget without cutting services. The total budget for 2005-06 was $216 million in revenue, but $227 million in expenditures. The city saw the $11 million deficit as manageable because it was to be spread out over 20 years, and the city set aside reserves to shore the debt up.

Sunnyvale Cares--a community group formed by various organizations to combat hunger--held a summer food drive to make sure that low-income families in the area were taken care of year-round. Summer months can be particularly hard on these families because children are home more, and they don't have the benefit of school-provided meals.

August

The Free Flow Tour--an amateur skateboard event--flowed through Sunnyvale Skatepark, bringing 64 skaters a shot at the big time. The tour was part of the larger Dew Action Sports Tour that came to San Jose. Twenty-seven Sunnyvale residents competed in the event, but several out-of-town skaters won the competition.

Residents of Chopin Drive banded together to fight the completion of Best Buy and PetSmart stores in their neighborhood. The 27-foot tall Best Buy store on El Camino was just 20 feet from a fence line the store shares with neighbors on the north side of Chopin.

Demolition started on the Town Center Mall on Aug. 3, some eight months after it was slated to begin.

Journalist and author Steven Vincent--a Homestead High School graduate--was abducted from the streets of Basra in southern Iraq and died on Aug. 2. Vincent had been in Iraq off and on since late 2003. During his three trips, he wrote for the New York Times and worked on his first book, Into the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq. His family believed Vincent's killing may have been in response to his last published work in which he accused the British government of allowing Shiites to carry out assassinations under the guise of working as a security force.

The Sunnyvale City Council approved a plan to allow residents to remove American sweet-gum trees, commonly called liquidambars. The trees drop hard brown seedpods that litter sidewalks and turn into slipping hazards for residents. Under the new ordinance, residents would have to pay for the removal. The council also looked at streamlining the process for obtaining necessary tree-removal permits. Of the more than 36,000 trees in Sunnyvale "urban forest," almost 4,000 are liquidambars.

SUNPAC--the business political action committee in Sunnyvale--split from the Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce and set out on its own just months before the 2005 elections. Chamber President/CEO Suzi Blackman said the split allowed the chamber to focus more on the issues of coming elections, while SUNPAC was then free to endorse candidates as it has been doing. SUNPAC was started in July 2002.

Sunnyvale residents attended an Aug. 22 meeting in San Francisco with officials from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to discuss the use of chloramine in local water supplies. Many of the residents in attendance--from cities around the peninsula--said they experienced violent allergic reactions in their lungs and skin from the chemical, which is used as a disinfectant instead of chlorine.

More than 160 local residents chanted and cheered outside the Sunnyvale Community Center to support Bay Area resident Cindy Sheehan's attempts to meet with President Bush.

At the time, Sheehan had been protesting outside Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch, seeking to meet with him to discuss what her son Casey was fighting for in Iraq when he was killed.

September

Demolition on the Town Center Mall began in earnest on the parking structure east of Mathilda Avenue. Project manager Jane Vaughan said she hoped to have demolition finished by the beginning of the holiday shopping season.

Sunnyvale's Best Buy store opened Sept. 23, bringing with it the promise of sales tax to the city and a sense of defeat to the residents who had fought to prevent its final construction.

For months, neighbors on Chopin Drive--south of the store--fought the size of the building, how close it was to their fence-lines and the placement and the height of the giant yellow and blue Best Buy logo.

Following the hurricanes in the south, Sunnyvale Neighborhoods Actively Prepare reviewed their training methods and decided to focus some of their efforts on making sure residents are prepared to support themselves for several days if necessary.

October

Sunnyvale's Compact Disc Warehouse--one of the last large independent record stores in the South Bay--closed its doors after almost two decades of providing warm service and in-depth musical knowledge to the local music-buying community. Store manager Donald McGreal said the store's owner had fought a long losing battle against declining revenues and rising expenses.

Longtime Sunnyvale resident Laura Lorman was elected president of the California College and University Police Chiefs Association. The association works to make sure the safety concerns of schools are heard by state officials. Lorman is the police chief for the West Valley-Mission Community College system, where she has worked since 1979.

Sunnyvale residents and members of the Citizens Concerned about Chloramine cancelled a meeting with state Sen. Joe Simitian after they learned that they would not be able to speak at the event. They had hoped the meeting would be a public debate between their group and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

Shortly before the November election in which they were political rivals, Councilman John Howe and Housing and Human Services Commissioner Nancy Smith both expressed concern over the lifetime benefits that many council members are eligible for upon retirement. The benefits--similar to those offered to upper management in the city--can range from $7,000 to $11,000 annually.

Lockheed Martin officials went before the Sunnyvale Planning Commission on Oct. 24, to request that their 303.98 acres be divided into five lots. This plan was to help them consolidate space and allow them to sell off some of the surplus land. The commission approved the plan. Commissioners said they hoped the land could be used to incubate new technology in the area.

November

The tables turned on a contractor who tried to sue the city for unpaid overrun costs when a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge ruled in favor of Sunnyvale, ordering Thompson Pacific Construction to pay more than $120,000 in damages to the city. The company was hired to work on the $10 million Sunnyvale Senior Center project. It never completed the project, and left bricks unmatched, concrete uncolored and safety measures such as exit doors and railings incomplete.

The Sunnyvale School District began talks with Cingular Wireless to place a cell phone tower on the Bishop Elementary School property. Rent for the tower--which would have been paid to the district--could have been as high as $1,250 a month.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger showed up at the Sunnyvale 24-Hour Fitness on Nov. 4 to promote his ballot measures for the Nov. 8 election. None of his measures were approved by California voters.

The Fremont Union High School District snagged some 300 students for living outside the residency boundaries required by the school. The checks were performed daily by a full-time administrator. Estimated savings to the district for weeding out students who did not legitimately belong at a district school were almost $2 million each year.

The Sunnyvale City Council extended a moratorium on placing recreational facilities in industrial or commercial zones until more research could be done on the issue. In Sunnyvale, a number of community groups such as churches have moved into industrial areas because prices are lower and space is more available. However, such mixed-use in industrial zoned property has its drawbacks. Industrial sounds and emissions can cause problems.

Sunnyvale's first WellnessExpress Clinic opened in the El Camino Real Longs Drugs store, bringing quick, affordable health care to local residents. The store accepts payment from patients or their insurance companies to provide a range of services, including some vaccinations.

Planning Commissioner Chris Moylan and former Palo Alto Fire Captain Tony Spitaleri won their bids for seats on the Sunnyvale City Council on Nov. 8, and former Mayor John Howe was returned to the council. They were sworn in on Nov. 29.

Sunnyvale voters approved an increase in the city's Business License Tax and Transient Occupancy Tax and approved Measure F--to standardize boards and commission term limits. But voters did not choose to amend the city charter to remove the requirement that the city manager must live in Sunnyvale. Voters did approve Measure G, which amended the charter to include "heritage resource," in items for review by the Sunnyvale Heritage Preservation Commission. In the race for the Sunnyvale School District, Anita Herrman, Wendy Bockholt and Jeffrey D. Arnett won seats, and Paul Fong and Bruce Swenson won seats on the Foothill-De Anza Community College District Board.

Advanced Micro Devices was nominated for a Tech Museum Award for its 50x15 program. The program plan is to get 50 percent of the world's population online by 2015, through the use of public education programs and rugged computers meant to stand up to harsh conditions and heavy use.

A rash of burglaries targeting and Asian and South Asian residents struck South Sunnyvale and parts of Cupertino during November. Homes were ransacked, and in some cases losses topped $24,000. Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety Lt. Marty Dale said the robberies were affecting a disproportionate number of ethnic residents, suggesting the criminals were targeting those homes.

A group of South Bay churches, including First United Methodist Church in Sunnyvale, took out an ad in the Nov. 19 San Jose Mercury News to show residents that all people--regardless of sexual orientation--were welcome in their congregations. The ad was in response to a decision handed down by the church's highest ruling authority, which reinstated a pastor in Virginia who had been suspended for denying membership in the congregation to a gay man.

EHC Lifebuilders opened its annual Cold Weather Shelter Program at the Maude Avenue National Guard Armory just in time for the winter storms. The shelter has 125 beds for those who are homeless. This is the shelter's 18th season.

The Sunnyvale City Council approved Centex Homes' plans to turn the Oasis Mobile Manor mobile home park into more than 50 single-family homes. For months, Centex had been working with residents to get them moved out--many with relocation assistance, benefits and compensation in excess of $25,000. According to the conversion impact report approved by the council, all residents must have moved out of the park by Feb. 1.

The Sunnyvale Rotary Club gave Community Services a 1998 Dodge van. The van--completely refurbished by local businesses--will be used to transport food and goods to and from SCS's massive Kifer Road warehouse.

December

The first phase of demolition on the Town Center Mall was completed almost a month ahead of schedule, which left ample parking, no loud noise and dust for local business owners to contend with. The condemned parking structure east of North Mathilda Avenue was the first structure to go. After the holiday season, demolition will move over to the parking lot at Washington and Sunnyvale avenues. A number of downtown business owners including Il Postale owner Joe Antuzzi praised the demolition crews for their work, because the downtown businesses had feared the work would be going on during the peak shopping season.

Morgan Quitno Press named Sunnyvale the fifth safest city in the United states in the 100,000 to 499,999 residents category, and the 17th safest city overall. Sunnyvale was the only Northern California city to place in the top 20 overall, although San Jose was named the safest city in the 500,000 and over category.

Parts of southeast Sunnyvale became a testing ground for city-wide wireless internet access as the first 100 MetroFi wireless receivers turned on at the beginning of December. MetroFi plans to increase the network to encompass all of Sunnyvale if the council approves the permits.

In a much-needed show of support for struggling downtown merchants, the Sunnyvale City Council approved two plans to improve the downtown area and ensure its long-term survival. They allocated $6,400 to hire a consultant to investigate the formation of a Business or Property Improvement District to support the area and several thousand more to pressure wash and steam clean the area. They also voted to change the cleanup schedule.

Kiss It Good Buy owner Nell Gartner planned to close her S. Murphy Avenue store by the end of the year.

On Dec. 13, the Sunnyvale City Council denied the Alliance Christian Church's appeal to put a church in an industrially zoned building.

The council said that the church use did not match zoning, and a better use of the space would be class A offices or research space for interested companies.