Menlo Park

A couple is looking for a place to go this holiday season now that their RV has to move from a relative's property after a neighbor in Menlo Park complained.

New report shows Bay Area rental market continues a steady climb, with Menlo Park leading the region with the average rent in that Peninsula city hitting $4,355 last month.

Facebook built a multi-billion dollar business on the back of social networking. Now the Menlo Park tech giant is lending its financial broad shoulders to helping solve the California housing crisis. “It’s a continuum. It’s not new. It’s scaling what we’ve done in the past, where we saw benefits from our interventions,” said Menka Sethi, Facebook’s Location Strategy Director. She says the company began its foray into housing in 2016 to explore possible pitfalls. Now, Facebook is pledging $1 billion to construct 20,000 units of housing state-wide over the next decade. The tech giant says $250 million is designated for mixed-income housing on excess state land and $150 million for affordable housing. Another $225 million, this time in Menlo Park land, earmarked for affordable housing. And $25 million to build teacher and essential worker housing in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties “If this is gonna be an effective deployment of capitol, it’s important this be true philanthropy and real money on the ground assistance and not another investment scheme,” said Prof. Kelly Snider, a regional and urban planning expert at San Jose State University. Housing and urban planning experts say over this decade, the Bay Area has created only one new unit of housing for every 10 new jobs. The result has pushed the price of housing skyward and forced many middle-class families to leave. Advocates say Facebook and other tech giants such as Google can make a dent in the problem with large donations, coupled with partnerships with community members to address the housing shortage. “This is critical. It means a range of income level people can stay in our communities.,” said Duane Bay, Executive Director of EPACANDO, an affordable housing organization. Added Sethi, “The urgency to step up now and solve the big problems, it felt real and we felt we could help, and so here we are.” There is $350 million being held in reserve for future commitments. The question now: How fast can the multiple municipalities act?

The owner of a California jewelry business has been sentenced to three weeks in prison for paying $15,000 to rig her son's ACT exam.

Fifty-four-year-old Peter Jan Sartorio, of Menlo Park, California, was sentenced Friday to a year of probation after pleading guilty in May to a single count of fraud and conspiracy. He is the eighth parent to be sentenced in the scheme.

A 59-year-old Peninsula man associated with a local swimming pool pleaded not guilty on Monday to 20 counts of sexual assault charges involving children. The accusations date as far back as the 1980's, San Mateo County prosecutors said.