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Around The Glen
Teen who firebombed judge's home charged with hate crime
Nineteen-year-old Victor Quintin Podbreger was charged on Sept. 1 with possession of a destructive device and a hate-crime enhancement in connection with the Willow Glen firebombing at Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Jack Komar's home.
If convicted, Podbreger, who is being held without bail, could face a sentence of up to 12 years and eight months in jail.
Also on Sept. 1, the two 17-year-old males who were arrested in connection with the firebombing appeared with their parents in juvenile court. Both denied the charge of arson and hate-crime enhancement. If convicted, they face confinement by the California Youth Authority until age 25.
Both 17-year-olds will remain in custody pending further hearings.
--Jessica Lyons
PTA busy planning new WG programs
With the new school year come new programs at Willow Glen Elementary School.
"Willow Glen's great," says Kim Coleman, PTA co-president and Willow Glen Elementary alumna. "We have top-scoring students, we have a lot of parent involvement. We're starting an art program, we have an after-hours computer lab, we're trying to start a music program, we hold monthly family nights and an annual carnival--we really do have a lot of people who care."
To spearhead the new art program, the PTA will have parent or grandparent volunteers come to the classrooms and teach the youngsters about art.
"It provides the kids with exposure to the arts that they might not have been getting, it gets parents involved in the classroom and it provides teachers with some free time to work on lesson plans," Coleman says.
The PTA is sponsoring a booth at Founders Day to promote the program, and they are already busy planning monthly family nights which will include a harvest festival and costume contest in October, Christmas caroling along Lincoln Avenue in December, a salsa tasting night and a Valentine's Day dance with the Joe Sharino Band.
--Jessica Lyons
Lincoln Ave. design firm generates new ideas
Generate, a three-person design and marketing firm, has recently opened at 1302 Lincoln Ave. Partners Jonathan Brink of Willow Glen and Michael Coman of San Jose say that friendly, personal Willow Glen is the best location for their firm, which is small and personal itself.
The partners "reformulated" the old design and advertising company, in which Brink was a partner, at the same address. The third member of Generate is Todd Berliner, who does production for the company.
Generate designs websites, advertising campaigns and tradeshow exhibits. The partners help clients with annual reports, logos and letterheads, product brochures, posters and slide and video presentations. The company's primarily high-tech clients include IBM, Sony and Hewlett-Packard.
To kick off its official launch, the firm designed a spiral-bound business journal called "Obligate." Obligate is divided into segments for listing objectives, requests, obligations and deadlines.
"[Obligate] is proof that we can design, and it's a reflection on how we do business," Brink says. "We wanted to show how we think about projects."
A sample of the journal can be obtained on the Internet by visiting www.generate.to.
--Kara Chalmers
Picking up the kids from school creates a safety hazard
Residents of Iris Court, a street adjacent to Willow Glen Elementary School, brought a potential safety hazard to the attention of the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association earlier this summer. The problem concerns students of the kindergarten, which is located on the corner of Iris Court and Minnesota Avenue. Iris Court is a narrow street, and some kindergartners' parents, rather than use the school parking lot, park in the street's no-parking zone and double park when picking up children.
"It made the narrow street even narrower and caused blind spots," says WGNA board member John Gibbs, who facilitated a meeting on the issue Aug. 26 with Willow Glen Elementary principal Anita Sunseri; Michelle McGurk, chief-of-staff for Councilmember Frank Fiscalini; elementary schoolteachers; and Carol Myers of the school board.
Some solutions came out of the meeting. First, traffic police could more strictly enforce the no-parking rules already in place during the critical time block of 11 to 11:15 a.m. on certain days of the week.
Fiscalini's office has agreed to work with the police on enforcement and with the city's streets and traffic department on possibly changing "no parking" signs to "no stopping," Gibbs says.
It was also decided that when kindergarten teachers meet with parents, they will try to hammer home the message to not park illegally, and to mention their concerns in newsletters.
In addition, Fiscalini's office may contact Iris Court residents about their feelings on the matter. Gibbs says the group will meet again in about a month if the problem remains.
--Kara Chalmers
Even seniors have to go back to school
School is in the air all around Willow Glen. Notebooks are being purchased and pencils sharpened for classes. And Willows Senior Center is no exception, as many of the Metropolitan Adult Education classes for fall 1999 begin there this week.
Classes include Spanish, memoir writing, genealogy and art history. There are all kinds of fine art and musical instrument classes as well as fitness classes.
Among the classes are such offerings as calligraphy and "Scrapbook Your Memoirs." Most courses begin between Sept. 1 and Oct. 16 and run until January 2000. Fees range from $5 to $20 and are payable to the instructor upon registration on the first day of class. Call Willows Senior Center for more information at 408/448-6400.
--Kara Chalmers
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
