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News From Silicon Valley's Neighborhoods Sex Sting Los Gatos--San Jose police arrested Lester Bernard Decker on a $1 million warrant for solicitation to commit child molestation. According to a press release issued by the San Jose Police Department, Decker is charged with two counts of attempting to send harmful materials to a minor via the Internet and one count of attempted child molestation. Decker, who lives in Watsonville, is an outdoor education teacher at the YMCA Camp Campbell in Santa Cruz County. Juvie Fix Willow Glen--Troubled teens are getting a second chance to make good and avoid entering the juvenile justice system. Minor offenders now have the option of participating in the county's Restorative Justice Program, which tries to teach first-time offenders the consequences of their actions. "Of course, we're not going to change their lives in three months," progam coordinator Erik Valeriano says. "The idea is to connect them with some sort of service, or role model, that can keep working with them." Since its inception, the county's program has had an 88 percent success rate--the number of teens referred to the program has fallen by almost 20 percent. Slide-walk Saratoga--A perilous section of sidewalk near Lea Anne Hernandez's family business has raised a few tempers. Hernandez twisted her ankle several times on the 6-inch fault outside the Saratoga Oaks Lodge, but things got worse when two guests also tripped on the sidewalk, one badly injuring her face in the fall. These sidewalks belong to CalTrans, who put a construction barrier over the section, but didn't repair it for the good part of a year--and dozens of phone calls later. Hernandez is happy. "[The city needs] to have a navigable sidewalk," she said. [ San Jose | Metroactive Central | Archives ]