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By Paul Losch
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About this blog: I was a "corporate brat" growing up and lived in different parts of the country, ending in Houston, Texas for high school. After attending college at UC Davis, and getting an MBA at Harvard, I embarked on a marketing career, mai...
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About this blog: I was a "corporate brat" growing up and lived in different parts of the country, ending in Houston, Texas for high school. After attending college at UC Davis, and getting an MBA at Harvard, I embarked on a marketing career, mainly in the Bay Area with different companies. My former wife went back to medical school after we had been married a few years, and we moved into married student housing at Stanford, had our two now adult children while she was a medical student, and moved into Palo Alto when she started her Residency. Been here ever since. As my kids were going through the Palo Alto schools, I was actively involved in their activities, most notably head umpire for Palo Alto Little League and 9 years as a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission, among other activities. My kids both are grown, my son teaches 5th grade locally, and my daughter, fluent in Mandarin, is working in China. I sold the business I owned and ran for 8 years in 2012, worked on the Obama campaign, and am consulting for non-profit organizations, which gives me a nice, flexible schedule. Lots of stamps in my passport, and for fun, I like live performances &emdash; theater and music - and of course the Giants!
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Palo Alto Bowl--the Deeper Implications
Uploaded: Dec 15, 2009
I am a big believer that Palo Alto is a special, but not unique, community. There are other towns which offer great opportunities and amenities, Palo Alto has been very good with its offerings over the years.
They don't all come from the City. Stanford provides many programs available to the public, as does the School District and private entities, including Palo Alto Bowl.
This is glue that holds us together. I really don't care for bowling, but I attended numerous birthday parties at Palo Alto Bowl when my kids were age appropriate for such activity.
I worry that many programs that are provided through the City's Community Services Department are now at risk of getting cut or eliminated altogether, due the the current financial circumstances the City faces: declining revenue sources, actuarial expenses from retired employees, major infrastructure upgrades, and on going operational expenses.
So, to bring it back to the bowling alley, what's the City to do? The decision has been made, and the process seemed to be better than some other big projects of late. While it is a shame to lose the bowling alley, it appears that this approval to get a Hilton Hotel in town will help the revenue line, which in turn means that fewer programs run the risk of getting cut.
A Hilton Hotel is quite different from many of the other lower cost places that comb El Camino Real, it is more like the demised Hyatt Rickeys. It has the potential to attract travelers who are part of the Hilton affinity program, and those who travel here and are on the expense account.
I regret that Palo Alto Bowl is going away, and I hope that some of the revenue generating by this new hotel through the hotel taxes paid by patrons will keep alive other programs, mainly funded by City revenues, that otherwise would be cut or eliminated altogether.
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