The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District elected Curt Riffle its president during the board’s first meeting of 2012.
Jed Cyr, who represents Sunnyvale in Ward 3 was voted vice-president, Peter Siemens, who represents Cupertino, Los Gatos, Saratoga and Monte Sereno for Ward 1, was elected treasurer. Yoriko Kishimoto, who represents parts of Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Palo Alto, Stanford and Sunnyvale for Ward 2.
Riffle will preside over the district’s 40th anniversary in November. The district was created by voters in 1972 to protect and preserve open space lands and is divided into seven districts, or wards, that include the San Mateo County coast to Pacifica, and the Santa Cruz Mountains.
In 2012, the district will be carrying out its new strategic plan which includes preserving land as open space, while strengthening the District�s partnerships and increasing its environmental stewardship and public access and education efforts.
�It�s an honor to be part of an organization where everybody from the board to the staff to the volunteers are so passionately committed to the work we do,� Riffle said in a prepared statement from the district’s public information officer.
Riffle, a resident of Los Altos, is a program officer for two programs at the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. He is responsible for the Conservation and Science Program and the Local Program. He manages the Local Program�s Conservation & Science and its Los Altos/Los Altos Hills grantmaking, and leads the Packard Foundation�s Environmental Sustainability Task Force, according to the foundation website.
The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District manages 26 open space preserves totaling over 60,000 acres in the South Bay, Peninsula and Coastside areas.
http://losaltos.patch.com/articles/open-space-district-elects
