Reporters' notebook

On Tuesday, the San Bruno City Council learned that the expenses incurred by the city from July 1, 2011 through Sept. 30, 2011 were $313,761. Currently charged to the city’s disaster fund, San Bruno has submitted those to PG&E for reimbursement. So far, $27,909 was received toward reimbursement. Expenses include: $64,213 in general administration; $5,854 for police patrol during the one-year commemorative events; $74,997 for site security; $21,011 for planning and building review; $21,861 for commemorative events; $1,007 for overtime by the public services department for street sweeping and maintenance and topographic survey and map services; $5,638 for fiber installation; $73,606 for National Transportation and Safety Board investigation and proceedings, which includes travel and professional services; $9,991 for materials and supplies; $7,470 for counseling assistance program; and $28,113 for reconstruction engineering services, according to a staff report by Finance Director Edmund Suen.

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Goblins, ghosts and ghouls will swarm the Tenderloin District in San Francisco in search of candy, games and a safe place for trick or treating at the 15th annual Halloween in the Tenderloin Festival from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29 at the Tenderloin Children’s Playground, 570 Ellis St., San Francisco.

Volunteers from Notre Dame de Namur University, students from NDNU’s Streetwise Sociology class, the Boys and Girls Club, the police department and local residents will participate in this event, which creates a safe place for children in the Tenderloin to celebrate Halloween. There will be food, music, activities for children and maps that indicate safe homes and neighborhoods at which children can trick or treat Halloween night. Volunteers, guests, children and anyone else in attendance are encouraged to dress in costume.

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The San Carlos Lions Club is working with the Parks and Recreation Commission to raise $2,000 for shade trees around the newly renovated playground in Laureola Park. To help out, mail donation checks to the San Carlos Lions Club, P.O. Box 94, San Carlos CA, 94070.

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Looking for a good photo op? Beth Cavall, manager of Dona’s Hallmark in San Carlos, reports seeing a "beautiful abundance” of monarch butterflies next to the Laurel Street store. Cavall said she’s never seen so many outside Pacific Grove.

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A Burlingame freelance project manager is heeding his father’s deathbed wish to reward a little-known San Francisco organization that confirmed his dad would die of liver cancer. He will do a four-day trail run Oct., 26 to Oct. 29 through Marin County to celebrate, ironically, Joie de Vivre — "the joy of living.”

Samuel Saddik, 44, will run 42 miles from Sausalito over Mount Tam and down to Inverness including an 8,000-foot mountain climb.

Sponsorships, contributions and other financial support he is receiving will be donated to thesecondopinion, a San Francisco, nonprofit agency that has been quietly providing free second opinions for 38 years to California adults diagnosed with new or recurring cancer. To support the effort, or to learn more, visit www.thesecondopinion.org.

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