The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 4

Wedne.dav. October 6, 1993 SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER 3 "Everybody moved here be' Esplanade at Yerba Buena Gardens BILL MANDEL I Area of detail fZ 3K Francisco LKxr Carousel HOWARD jut fl'U Moscone Children's place IX miT lx-J 1 1 Bowling II! 1 IJJ center mm Ice skating rink i Day core folsom Agency offers list of hid attractions Miata, a sports car marketed on a wave of baby boom nostalgia, were looking to evoke a sweet, golden era of languorous Saturday afternoons and apple-scented American dreams, they set their commercial in this old chicken-ranching town of 46,000. With the brazen invasion of one home, the soundless snatching of one precious child, that golden tinge is threatened. As the people of Petaluma mobilize to find Polly Klaas, they are fighting, as well, to rescue their sense that Petaluma is a hometown that, in the words of resident Pat Diamond, "gives assurance that we and our kids are safe." "At this age we're tentatively leaving kids home alone for the first time, teaching them to be independent, and now this," said Diamond, a local businesswoman with two school-age daughters. "I wonder if we aren't teaching kids, girls especially, to be too nice, to be passive enough to allow a stranger to come into the house and not scream bloody murder." A few blocks away, in what until last weekend was an empty storefront in Petaluma's Old West downtown, Polly Klaas' white-bearded paternal grandfather, Joe Klaas, stood in the crowded hubbub of the Find Polly volunteer center and told his story over and over.

"The guy said, 'Don't scream! Don't make a sound or IU slit your said Klaas, who is the author of a book on the missing pilot Amelia Earhart. The long, fluorescently lit room was packed with 87 Petal-umans doing whatever they could mailing out flyers fea- turing a photo of Polly and a police composite of her abductor, calling radio stations to urge continued interest in the case, answering inquiries on an 800 number, stacking tables with donated food and drink that Tuesday included cheesecake from a local deli. Noting that nearly 1,000 people have volunteered to work on Polly's kidnaping, David Collins of San Francisco's Kevin Collins Foundation said, "I've been to some of these volunteer centers and there are, maybe, 10 people doing the work. This is amazing." Explained volunteer coordinator Geri Olson, a Sonoma State University psychology professor whose children know Polly Klaas: "This is a town that attracts people who want a sense of community. It's not a faceless suburb.

It's a small place where people feel that every person can make a difference. People have come out to help because helping makes them feel connected. It's a way for them to fight back." Alison Marks, a Petaluma mother, was at a nearby photocopying machine duplicating the addresses of California's public libraries, which will be sent flyers. "Everyone I know in town thinks that, of all the places they've lived, Petaluma is the best family community," said Marks. "We'd like to believe that when kids are at home with their parents, they're safe.

It's so frightening to realize that we can teach them all the right things, all the things that matter about keeping themselves out of harm, and it happened anyway." Bill Sobranes, who's been writing a daily column for the Petaluma Argus Courier for 41 years, thinks Petaluma's lure has been its undoing. Petaluma plunges into modern times OETALUMA "My mom's really flipped about this" 13-year-old Kamika Milstead lm said as she walked warily from Petaluma Junior High Tuesday afternoon. "She's always telling me there are bad people out there. But this guy wasnt 'out He went right into Polly's room." Milstead lives a few doors down sleepy Fourth Street from the house where Petaluma's sense of "home" was violated late Friday. A tall, bearded, knife-wielding man let himself into Polly Klaas' bedroom, trussed and gagged two of her friends and carried the 12-year-old seventh-grader into the night.

"Everyone's locking all their doors and windows," Milstead said. "It seems like everything in Petaluma is going backward." Backward is what Petaluma normally prides itself on being. When the makers of Mazda's Convention Center Children's garden EXAMINER GRAPHICS Buena. "It is only coincidental that we're discussing these plans today," said agency Executive Director Edward Helfeld. The plans, he added, "have been under way a long time, and our critics were aware of them." Helfeld estimated that construction would begin on the $48 million project by mid-1994 and be completed by fall 1996.

Featuring outdoor and indoor activities, the children's center will be built atop the underground Moscone Convention Center and alongside the Esplanade Ballroom. Except for the carousel, bowling center and ice rink, other attractions have been unpublicized. They include: Moving sculptures that gyrate on command. A rope-climbing net. A children's theater, with performances by and for kids.

A slate "drawing" wall for graffiti taggers to do their thing. Handrails that double as sound tubes, enabling youngsters to talk to each other from remote locations in the park. A learning garden for planting. A garden for kite flying. Facilities for instructing children in the arts and video.

Video cameras that permit visitors to take pictures of each other, then play them back minutes later. According to Santos, these will also serve as surveillance cameras for security purposes. The ice rink will be of National Hockey League size with a grandstand seating 700. DAILY 3 Tuesday's draw: 4 6 2 --J us if 11 7" 1 Esplanade I I ballroom I l'M-Jii $: ill' cause it was a safe town, and now it's not safe anymore," said Sobranes, whose esteem in Petaluma is such that a bronze statue of him stands at the burg's main intersection. "It's a fairly easy commute down 101 to San Francisco.

And the developers and politicians have been urging people to move here for 30 years. Housing developments are our biggest cash crop. So we have drive-by shootings, gangs, burglaries. "You know that old saying, 'People don't lock their Well, it really was true here. But a few years ago I went out for a walk and didn't lock my door, and when I got back my TV and stereo were gone." Polly's abduction was Topic A-to-Z everywhere a visitor went in Petaluma on Tuesday.

Inquiring minds constructed exculpa-tory alternative scenarios. Polly's dad, Marc, operates the Hertz concession in San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel. Her mom, Eve Nichol, directs telemarketing for a local children's clothing company. Her stepfather, Allen, is an architect. Did they have enemies? Is one a se-, cret drug dealer? Did the kidnapper target pretty Polly because she modeled for her mom's company's mail-order catalog? "People would really like to explain this horror in a way that has nothing to do with them, with Petaluma as a town," said businesswoman Pat Diamond, who has so much faith in Petaluma that she leaves her Jeep Grand Wagoneer unlocked with a $5 bill lying on the passenger seat.

"If they can blame something besides the inexorable arrival of modern, random crime, they can continue to feel safe. As for me, I called the burglar alarm company this morning." Graduate Gemologists (NIDEROST TABER) San Francisco 94108 (800)368-7325 TO 50 BELOW MARKET 7:00 p.m., Sundays 1-5 p.m. mssirko warns classmdwB ami See "You have to adwortiso where' --v customers can be sure to find you." attJitattOSO) PCamttlCr Delivery problems DIAMOND EXPERTISE Shown from "Quality Collection" of 'H' color, 'VS' clarity or better Second Class Postage Paid at San Francisco How to reach the editors (Area Code 415) Executive Editor 777-7761 Managing Editor, News 777-7760 Operations 777-8736 Job Hot Line 777-7895 Reprint permission 777-7769 News departments (Area Code 415) Aealatant Managing Editor, Enterprise 777-7886 News 777-7858 Art Director 777-7824 ForeignNational Fax 543-3392 Desk 777-7964 Local News desk News tips 777-7850 Fax 777-2525 Metro Editor 777-7881 Photo Photo Photo Rob Stephanie Mall: department San P.O. San Marin Oakland Redwood Additional each desk 777-7840 Editor 777-7841 reprlnta 777-7790 Promotions 777-7770 BIIIMandel 777-7930 Morse 777-7831 Salter 777-7885 Switchboard 777-2424 Address the appropriate at Francisco Examiner Box 7260 Francisco, CA 94120 Bureaus (415)479-4114 (510)272-6966 City (415) 365-5459 Sacramento (916) 445-4310 Washington (202) listings are located in section. DIRECT DIAMOND IMPORTERS 80 years on Post Street Union Square since 1912 Amy SL mi iiiiii iiiimin in Educational and hands-on toys eyed for Yerba Buena By Gerald D.

Adams EXAMINER urban planning writer Under fire for neglecting children's activities in the $87 million Yerba Buena Gardens project that opens Monday, the Redevelopment Agency has disclosed details of children's attractions it intends to construct on an adjacent block. Although it will be The City's first amusement park since Play-land-at-the-Beach closed in 1972, the center will include neither a roller coaster nor thrill rides. Rather, the Yerba Buena Children's Center will contain 3 acres of hands-on educational toys, gardens and more traditionally a mer ry-go-round, ice skating rink and bowling center. Architect Adele Naude Santos, who described the plans to redevelopment commissioners Tuesday, insisted that Yerba Buena's amusement park would be nothing like Disneyland or the Santa Cruz boardwalk. Last Sunday in The Examiner, activists Sue Hestor and Calvin Welch criticized the agency for omitting children's attractions from the central block of Yerba The Examiner corrects errors.

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