At a meeting Feb. 10, Los Altos City Council members elected Jim Thurber to the city's seven-member library commission.
Thurber will be filling the unexpired term of Fran Vella, who resigned in the fall of 1997. Thurber's term will run through February 2001.
"I've always been interested in libraries," Thurber, 69, said, in an interview following his election. In fact, he was mayor of Los Altos, from 1962-1966, when the current library was built.
Thurber left Los Altos in 1967 and joined the U.S. foreign service.
"Much of my work was working with American libraries overseas," he said. In 1990 he moved back to Los Altos.
Looking ahead to his new task, he said he would like to see how technology can improve libraries. In that area, "We're already way ahead," he said.
Other candidates for the library commission included Dorothea Long, John Morgan and Bob Stanfield.
Study session considers one-time money
The Los Altos City Council has scheduled a study session to consider the city's annual midyear report for 7 p.m., Tuesday, Room A in the Community Center at 97 Hillview Ave., in Los Altos.
Also under discussion will be some one-time money mentioned in a May 29 staff report by Sherry Lambach, the city's finance director.
The amount of the one-time money was not available on Monday. Since the council adopted the city budget last June, numbers have changed and the city is "still finalizing a report," Lambach said. "The old numbers are not correct any more."
Last June the city council decided to carry the one-time money forward until this midyear review, to give everyone time to consider how it could best be used.
To spend it then, "would be throwing money at issues," said Councilman Francis La Poll at the June 6 study session.
The purpose of the midyear report is to review how the city is performing financially during the current fiscal year (July 1 - June 30); to identify any necessary or desirable financial revisions to the budget for 1997-98 and 1998-99; to accommodate changing priorities by reviewing departmental goals and programs; and to identify any long-term financial trends that might affect the city, said City Manager Dianne Gershuny.
- Joanne Griffith Domingue