Editorial Editorial (March 11, 2005)

Mission accomplished

We have taken pride in our accomplishments as a community newspaper during the last five years but nothing compares to our feelings when we learned that three Russian orphans were adopted by a Pleasanton family after they read about them in our paper.

Last summer, reporter Teresa C. Brown followed a news tip that Kidsave was sponsoring children from Russia in the Bay Area, with the idea that people might meet them and feel comfortable pursuing their adoption. She visited a home where three siblings, ages 8-11, were staying, talked to the children through a translator, and took photographs. When art director Shannon Corey laid out the story, she played big a portrait of the three children that captured their beauty and their affection for each other.

Their eyes looked right from the page into the hearts of readers Tamara and Bret Stover, who the very next day attended the picnic noted in the story to meet the children. An organizer tried to steer them to single boys and girls but the couple showed her the photo in the Weekly and insisted that these were their children. The Stovers returned three weeks ago from Russia, now a family of five, with Olya, Anna and Vasily.

Our mission statement notes that we pursue stories that reflect the diversity and vitality of the community. But this story has gone above and beyond. We find it humbling and inspiring to have profoundly influenced these people's lives.
A win-win decision for all

Everyone benefited from last week's decision by the City Council to scrap plans for a public restroom in the Veterans Memorial Building at the far south end of downtown. The veterans won their month's-long battle to protect their memorial from what they viewed as a "desecration" by constructing a public lavatory on the south side of their building. Council members had an opportunity to praise veterans for their service to the country, both today and in past wars, including Vietnam. Taxpayers were spared the cost of building an undersized, single unisex restroom that would hardly serve daily passers-by, let alone many of the thousands who go downtown for parades and special events. Even the Pleasanton Downtown Association, which asked for the Veterans Memorial restroom, came out ahead in its long effort to build public restrooms downtown. In rejecting the veterans building proposal, the council asked City Manager Nelson Fialho to report back next month with a plan for public restrooms that would be more conveniently and centrally located downtown, whether along Main Street or near Lions Wayside Park where summer concerts are held.

We don't often find win-win decisions at City Hall that truly benefit all sides. This was one for the record books.

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