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News From Silicon Valley's Neighborhoods Park Proposal Cupertino--Groans from the audience told the whole story: These residents living around Portal School opposed both the use of Portal Park and the conversion of Portal Elementary. When Cupertino Unified School District boardmember Barry Chang admitted the district does not have sufficient funds to carry out the conversion, their groans turned into shouts. Chang expressed hopes that residents would "look at the big picture," when considering the location of a fifth middle school. When he suggested the district and the city could engineer a plan to share use of Portal Park, he was met with a resounding "No!" Child Molester Los Gatos--One of the Los Gatos girls allegedly molested by a Santa Cruz man was his biological daughter, according to the Santa Cruz district attorney's office, and both girls were under the age of 14. Lee Thomas Bjorn, recently arrested in Los Gatos, has beem charged with 11 counts of molestation in Los Gatos and five counts of molesting three girls in Santa Cruz County over the past 20 years. Records indicate Bjorn was arrested several times in the past but never convicted for most of the charges filed against him. He is currently being held at Santa Clara County Jail without bail. New Vision Sunnyvale--Attempting to tip the debate over what the Bible says about homosexuality, Bruce Hahne, coordinator of the New Visions project, hopes to spread love and acceptance. Twenty-five churches in Santa Clara Valley are sponsoring this year's five-week series, which will be held mostly at the First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto. "When I think that a congregation as small as ours is touched by the lives of so many gay people, and when I think of the misunderstanding they must feel, it breaks my heart," says Roger Jones, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Sunnyvale. [ San Jose | Metroactive Central | Archives ]