Prep basketball
previews begin with
a look at four leagues
SPORTS, B1
YUCK IT UP!
SF Sketchfest to celebrate classic
comic cinema and TV / FUSION, C1
Daily News
THE
MOSTLY SUNNY
59 38
Full weather report / B6
baydailynews.com
JANUARY 6, 2011
Thursday Vol. 16 No. 39
FREE
150
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NEWSPAPER
ATHERTON EAST PALO ALTO LOS ALTOS LOS ALTOS HILLS MENLO PARK MOUNTAIN VIEW PALO ALTO PORTOLA VALLEY REDWOOD CITY SAN CARLOS STANFORD WOODSIDE
Witness recounts couple’s last fight
n Friends of Zumot describe their relationship with the defendant, recall the hours leading up to Schipsi’s death
BY JESSE DUNGAN
Daily News Staff Writer
ZUMOT
SCHIPSI
A witness testified Wednesday that Bulos “Paul” Zumot had argued with his girlfriend the night before she
was found slain in the Palo Alto cottage they shared but
not as heatedly as the prosecution contends.
Victor Chaalan, a friend of the couple who has known
Zumot for eight years, was called to the stand by Santa
Clara County Deputy District Attorney Chuck Gillingham in part because he was the last person to talk to murder victim Jennifer Schipsi, 29, with the possible exception of Zumot himself.
Zumot, 37, is accused of strangling Schipsi and setting their Addison Avenue cottage ablaze to conceal the
crime on Oct. 15, 2009. Prosecutors say the killing ended
a tumultuous two-year relationship that had been marked
by domestic violence.
Chaalan, a San Mateo mechanic shop owner, told
jurors he attended a birthday party Schipsi had thrown
for Zumot at a Sunnyvale restaurant the night before her
death.
Because he didn’t drink at the party, Chaalan testified
that he drove the couple from the restaurant to Zumot’s
downtown Palo Alto hookah shop/cafe after the party.
During the ride, Schipsi started crying when Zumot persistently asked her whether she had accepted money to
pay the bill.
Schipsi was still upset when they arrived in Palo Alto,
Chaalan said. When Zumot went inside the hookah cafe,
Chaalan tried to console her as she sat on the back bumper of the car but she seemed to want to be alone. So
Chaalan went into the cafe to join the party, he said.
“I felt she was pushing me away or something,”
Chaalan said. He said Schipsi later walked home, which
concerned Zumot because she had broken a shoe heel
and he feared a car might have followed her.
Chaalan stayed out with Zumot at the cafe and a res-
taurant next door until about 2:30 a.m. He testified that
he called Schipsi at Zumot’s request to let her know he
was going to follow Zumot home.
When Chaalan and Zumot went inside the Addison
Avenue cottage, Chaalan said he knocked on a bedroom
door to ask Schipsi to get a blanket for Zumot.
When Gillingham asked if he went inside with Zumot because of the argument, Chaalan said the couple’s
dispute wasn’t his business and he accompanied him as
a friend.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Mark
Geragos, however, Chaalan said his memory didn’t
match parts of what was written in the police report. He
said Schipsi had watery eyes and was trembling during
the ride from the restaurant, but not necessarily crying.
Pressed further, Chaalan said he didn’t think he had
knocked on the bedroom door to ask Schipsi for a blanket
for Zumot despite having testified earlier that he had.
ZUMOT, page A4
Little League
looks to put
home plate
at park
Not just
Riley’s Place
RIGHT: Ida Sephers, 3, a homeless child from Shelter Network’s
Haven Family House in Menlo Park, meets Harry Wiggums, a guinea
pig, at Riley’s Place in Woodside on Dec. 21, 2010. BELOW: Wendy
Mattes, right, shows Ida and her sister Seaunne, 5, how to feed Leo, a
Nigerian dwarf goat. AmeriCorps Mentor Brandon Julian watches in
the background. Read the story on PAGE A3.
n Group warned that Atherton
LiPo Ching / Bay Area News Group
neighbors will likely fight project
BY BONNIE ESLINGER
Daily News Staff Writer
Menlo-Atherton Little League is making a
pitch for turning the Holbrook-Palmer Park field
into a bona-fide baseball diamond, complete
with bleacher seats and a concession stand.
League representatives advised Atherton officials in October they want to significantly improve the field, which they lease from the city.
They presented artist renderings that showed an
irrigated field with permanent chalk lines and
lights.
When league representatives took their plan
to a parks and recreation commission meeting in
November, they were told to return with more
details, including the proposed height for all
structures and information about how changes
would affect the field’s use and the surrounding
neighborhood.
Residents within 500 feet of the park would
need to be formally notified if a formal plan is
developed, Atherton officials said.
And if the past is any indication, some neighbors likely will insist on weighing in before any
lights or bleachers go up. A lawsuit was filed last
year over new stadium lights at nearby MenloAtherton High School.
“I think there will be a lot of opposition,”
Atherton Mayor Jim Dobbie said.
Bob Hellman, a Menlo-Atherton Little
League board member and former coach, said
the baseball field at Holbrook-Palmer Park is a
“shamble” with weathered grass, poor drainage
and an uneven surface that’s unsafe.
PARK, page A4
New trash service flooded with complaints
n Recology garbage trucks involved in minor accidents in Mountain View, Belmont on Wednesday
BY MIKE ROSENBERG
Bay Area News Group
The first few days on the job for
the new garbage company serving
440,000 people between Burlingame
and East Palo Alto have been plagued
by missed pickups, mass confusion,
thousands of customer complaints
— and now a diesel fuel spill and a
ruptured gas pipe.
Officials at Recology, which took
over weekly trash, recycling and
composting pickup services Monday
from Allied Waste, pleaded with customers for patience early this week
as they try to “work out the kinks” of
Anda Chu / Bay Area News Group the switchover.
A crew from Clearwater Environmental Management cleans up
More than 8,700 people called the
a diesel fuel spill in the parking lot of the Neptune Society of
company’s customer service line on
Northern California Cremation and Memorial Services in Belmont on Monday and Tuesday, and thousands
Wednesday. A Recology garbage truck tank ruptured in the morning, more followed suit Wednesday.
spilling the diesel fuel. The company took over garbage pickup for
In response, the company on
the area between Burlingame and East Palo Alto on Monday.
Wednesday sent four more trucks
onto the streets and added pickups on
seven routes for neighborhoods that
had gone more than a week without
trash service. They also brought in
10 more customer service representatives.
Several dozen residents who
called a Bay Area News Group
newsroom this week said that their
trash had not been picked up or the
pickup was late, that their garbage
cans were not emptied properly or
that their special pickup instructions
had not been forwarded to Recology
from Allied.
Many sought more information
and said they were not properly notified of the switch. Some could not get
through to customer service agents
or found the agents unhelpful.
Then, on Wednesday, the driver of
one of the company’s 127 new trucks
drove over a large rock, puncturing
TRASH, page A4
INSIDE TODAY
School parking solution
Los Altos council makes road to
Blach school a little easier with
more changes to come / LOCAL, A3
Calling for public feedback
Palo Alto looks into an AT&T plan
for a free-standing cell phone
tower near a church / LOCAL, A2
New year brings good news
December really was the most
wonderful time of the year — and
decade — for jobs / BUSINESS, A6
Mega Millionaires: Two lucky
tickets net their Pacific Northwest
buyers $190M each / NATION, A5
www.baydailynews.com
LOCAL
150
The Daily News Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011
A3
Drop-off
embargo at
Blach school
put on notice
RIGHT: Seaunne Sephers, 5, a homeless child from
Shelter Network’s Menlo Park shelter, rides on a cart
pulled by Kachina, a miniature horse, at Riley’s Place in
Woodside on Dec. 21, 2010. Riley’s Place volunteers Emily
Jones, left, and Cynthia Brown help guide the horse.
BELOW: Homeless children pet Henry Kapono,
a miniature horse, at Riley’s Place.
Photos by LiPo Ching / Bay Area News Group
n Los Altos council approves parking fix;
some had said ‘no stopping’ restrictions
behind campus force traffic elsewhere
BY DIANA SAMUELS
Daily News Staff Writer
A touching experience
BY LINDA GOLDSTON
Bay Area News Group
The small boy at Shelter Network’s Haven
Family House in Menlo Park was given his
choice: He could pet a miniature horse, a goat,
a dog or a rabbit.
He chose the rabbit — for a reason. When
his family became homeless, they had to surrender their bunny to the Humane Society, and
he missed it.
“He was so comforted to hold a bunny
again,” said Wendy Mattes, founder and executive director of Riley’s Place in Woodside,
a nonprofit organization dedicated to making
such moments possible for homeless or chronically ill children.
If children can’t come to Riley’s, the allvolunteer group will take animals to the children — all with the goal of allowing the children to forget their problems for a time and
experience the comfort that spending time
with animals can bring. Off-site visits include
trips to Ronald McDonald House.
“We can’t cure their illnesses or change the
situation for the homeless, but we can bring
some joy into their lives,” Mattes said.
Riley’s was inspired by the short life of Riley Church, who loved animals of all kinds but
felt a special passion for horses, which she rode
regularly. The San Carlos girl dreamed of riding
in the Olympics one day but was diagnosed with
an inoperable malignant brain tumor in 2004.
In April 2006, when she was too sick to go
see her horse Louie at Webb Ranch, Mattes,
who had been her riding instructor, and some
friends borrowed a miniature horse to take to
Riley. No one who was there will forget the
smile on Riley’s face when the tiny horse
marched into her living room.
“The little horse looked around the living
room at the assembled family and friends and
then walked straight to Riley in her wheelchair
and put her head in Riley’s lap,” Mattes said. It
was as though the horse “knew her purpose for
being there,” she said.
Riley died a month later, at age 14.
But that day when the miniature horse was
taken to Riley and the way the young girl lived
her life — with gusto and a deep compassion until the end — stayed with Mattes, who
founded Riley’s Place in the girl’s honor in July
2009 with the help of a small group of others.
Mattes said she hopes someone will donate
land for a permanent home for Riley’s, but she
is grateful to the National Center for Equine Facilitated Therapy for allowing them to move to
the back of the center’s property in Woodside.
Another sponsor, Peninsula Humane Society, has helped Riley’s expand its family of
Woodside nonprofit
connects homeless, ill
children with animals
animals to share with children and, occasionally, adults. It includes three miniature horses,
Kachina, Ayana and her colt, Henry Kapono;
two Nigerian dwarf goats, Leo and Laverne,
who have their own climbing structure; two rabbits, Casper and Robin; two guinea pigs, Harry
Wiggums and Mistletoe; and Oreo, a black and
white neighborhood cat who was donated to Riley’s by his owner after the cat decided he liked
living there better than his other home.
“These adoptions with Riley’s Place are especially touching,” said Scott Delucchi, senior
vice president of the Peninsula Humane Society.
“Formerly homeless, unwanted or neglected animals now have the life of the proverbial Riley,
and they bring smiles to the faces of kids who
have many reasons not to smile.”
Every animal at Riley’s has a story; every
child they visit has a story, Mattes said.
So do the volunteers, many of whom go to
Riley’s daily to help groom, feed and care for
the animals and help clean the small three-stall
barn, with peek-through slots so the horses and
goats can see and check on each other.
Riley Church “would be here night and
day,” said her mother, Andrea, who is one of
the volunteers at Riley’s Place.
“She adored animals, and how important
they were to her during her radiation and
chemical therapy.”
Whether neighbors like it or not, students eventually
will be allowed to be dropped off again behind Blach
Intermediate School in Los Altos.
At a special meeting attended by about 150 people
at Los Altos High School, the council voted Tuesday
night to approve Fehr & Peers Transportation Consultants’ recommendations for solving parking problems
around the school and making the neighborhood safer
for students.
Those recommendations include installing a traffic
light at Covington Road and Miramonte Avenue, adding
bike paths on Carmel Terrace and Altamead Drive, and
removing the “no stopping” signs erected in November
2009 on those streets to prevent student drop-offs.
But the signs won’t be removed until safety improvements such as the bike paths are finished, and that could
take years.
Plus, money for those projects hasn’t been set aside
yet. The project’s details have to be approved by the city
council as part of its budget process this spring and summer.
“The plan was to move forward (with the consultant’s
recommendations), but with some caution, and maybe a
second look when we look at the budget,” Mayor Ron
Packard said Wednesday.
The city has tried for years to deal with traffic in the
neighborhood generated not only by Blach but also by
several nearby schools such as Miramonte and Mountain View High. The drop-off restrictions were imposed
as an experiment and neighbors on Carmel and Altamead have strongly supported them.
But others in the community, including teachers at
Blach Intermediate School, say the restrictions prevent
them from parking near their classrooms at the back
of the school and force all students to be dropped off
at Blach’s front entrance on Covington Road, causing
problems.
“What I think that the people on Carmel and Altamead have done is said, ‘Our little pocket of the world
is safe now,’” said Karen Van De Vanter, a resource
specialist at Blach. “But what they haven’t done is acknowledge the little pocket in front of Blach is less safe
than it was.”
Vivian and Dave McNulty, who live on Carmel
Terrace, argued that Blach’s front entrance is better
equipped to handle the drop-offs. Vivian McNulty said
the proposed “Class I” bike path that is meant to separate bicyclists from street traffic will narrow the street
and cause more safety problems as cars try to back out
of driveways.
“Basically what we heard (at the meeting) last night
is what the neighborhood thinks about (the traffic situation) doesn’t matter at all to the city,” Dave McNulty
said Wednesday. “I think the city is cutting us out of the
decision-making.”
The council voted 4-1 to direct staff to do a detailed
analysis of the recommended improvements and 3-2 to
remove the “no stopping” restrictions once the improvements are finished.
E-mail Diana Samuels at
[email protected].
Fitch named as new Santa Clara County crime lab director
BY TRACEY KAPLAN
Bay Area News Group
After a nationwide search to find a new leader
for Santa Clara County’s crime lab, District Attorney Jeff Rosen selected a DNA expert who recently conducted a highly regarded investigation
into botched blood-alcohol tests.
Rosen said he chose Colorado Springs crime
lab Director Ian Fitch, 48, because DNA testing
accounts for about half of the local lab’s workload, and because he trusts him “to identify problems, not sweep them under the carpet.”
The reputation of Santa Clara County’s lab
has been tarnished by questionable fiber testing,
which led to the dismissal of murder charges in
one case and a finding of factual innocence about
five years after a San Jose man was wrongly incarcerated in a separate armed robbery. The lab
also didn’t test some physical evidence from a
controversial alleged gang rape at a De Anza College baseball players’ house party, apparently under orders from former District Atttorney Dolores
Carr’s administration.
In Colorado Springs, prosecutors had to dismiss
or reduce nine drunken driving charges as a result
of errors a crime lab analyst made on blood-alcohol
tests dating back to 2007. The mistakes were discovered after the analyst failed a proficiency test.
Fitch essentially inherited the problematic lab
when he arrived in 2008.
Local defense attorneys said Fitch announced
the mistakes and eventually fired the analyst believed responsible.
“He identified the problem, solved it and and
didn’t sweep it under the rug,” Rosen said. “One
of the reasons I chose him is I expect him to tell me
areas where our lab can do even better.”
handling of the whole affair.
Even the attorney for the analyst who
“He seems to have the instinct to do
was fired said Fitch did not try to cover
the right thing,” Greenwood said.
up the mistakes.
Fitch said he urged the police depart“Once he found out about it he did
ment in Colorado Springs that oversees
something,” said Colorado Springs atthe lab to issue a press release revealing
torney Rich Radabaugh, who represents
the mistakes and would do the same here
the fired crime lab analyst in a wrongful
if necessary.
termination claim.
“I’ll be as transparent as they let me,”
Fitch also had to deal with allegations
he said.
that the first person assigned to checking
FITCH
He isn’t a complete unknown. Rosen
the analyst’s work offered to overlook
her mistakes if she provided him with sexual fa- noted that he worked for the Santa Clara County
vors. That person quit after that came to light, and lab as a supervisor for 18 months starting in 2006
an outside investigator was brought in to finish the and was well-liked by the staff.
By March 1 the latest, Fitch is expected to asinvestigation. The lab stopped doing blood-alcosume the $134,207 post. His wife works as a pathol tests altogether in May.
Public Defender Mary Greenwood was on ent agent and will transfer to a local branch of the
the panel of seven who interviewed the job can- law firm of King & Spalding. The couple has a
didates. She said she was impressed with Fitch’s 7-year-old son.