Reporters' notebook

We were thinking the name could be changed to Amici’s Far East Coast Pizza, but instead the first "Ello Amici’s” will open in January on Xiang Yang Road in the popular HuaiHai Road shopping district in Shanghai. Ello is Chinese for Enjoy. The opening is a collaboration between co-founder Peter Cooperstein, partner Mike Forter and the Lo family of Shanghai.

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Consider them Friends of Omar. On Sept. 18, a group of San Carlos employees organized by executive assistant Nekaya Nachmann and including Councilman Bob Grassilli partnered with a team from SamTrans for the American Heart Association’s annual Heart Walk. The 10-member team, dedicating its effort to the late mayor Omar Ahmad, raised $5,600 for cardiac research and care and was the number one generating team in San Mateo County.

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Speaking of San Carlos, residents really like their absentee ballots. In the November election, 75.9 percent of ballots in the city were by mail rather than early votes or at the polls.

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Have you seen Santa in San Mateo County recently?

Santa temporarily traded in his sleigh for a Macy’s bus tour of 26 U.S. cities. Among his bus tour stops was Daly City’s Macy’s Serramonte Center. It was part of the 2011 Believe campaign which locally supports the Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Activities kicked off in Union Square with 16-year-old wish kid Shelby Miguel, an aspiring singer from Daly City, singing holiday tunes as invited skaters took a lap around the ice rink at Union Square. Later, Santa and his elves went to Daly City where he visited with little boys and girls.

Macy’s "Believe” campaign invites children to mail letters to Santa using Macy’s Santa Mail Letterboxes. Macy’s donates $1 for each letter mailed in store, up to $1 million, to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Each stamped letter dropped off by Friday, Dec. 9 will mean an extra $1 donation.

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Ten Kaiser Permanente Northern California hospitals, including Kaiser Permanente South San Francisco, have been named 2011 Leapfrog Top Hospitals, an honor that rewards medical centers for outstanding success in such areas as using electronic health records to reduce medication and other errors, lowering infection rates, maintaining appropriate physician and nursing staffing and other measures of safety and efficiency.

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Presidential candidate Mitt Romney stopped by Burlingame last night for a little fundraiser at the Marriott. For $1,000, attendees could dine in his presence. Preferred seating was $2,500 and a private roundtable with a photo opp was up to $25,000.

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The Peninsula Ballet Theatre opens its 41st season of performing the "Nutcracker” locally starting Saturday at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City. About 45 professional dancers and staff from the San Mateo-based ballet company opened the show in Reno last weekend as a primer for its upcoming shows. The Fox will host the "Nutcracker” for the first time in 10 years. For more information visit www.peninsulaballet.org.

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SolarTech, a national renewable energy consortium, will present state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, with its annual "Solar Hero” award today in San Jose. As this year’s public sector honoree, Simitian is being recognized for his Senate Bill 2X, which made California a national leader in its commitment to renewable energy. Signed into law earlier this year, SB 2X requires private and public utilities to obtain 33 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by 2020. U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu called Simitian’s SB 2X a "groundbreaking piece of legislation that would put California at the forefront of the clean-energy economy.”

The reporters’ notebook is a weekly collection of facts culled from the notebooks of the Daily Journal staff. It appears in the Thursday edition.