Headlines

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / January 30, 2018 City Council votes in a closed session to appeal ruling that favored Sand Hill Property Company Palo Alto plans to appeal a December court ruling that invalidated the city’s fines against Sand Hill Property Company for failing to maintain an operational grocery store at the redeveloped Edgewood Plaza. By a 7-2 vote, with Mayor Liz Kniss and Councilman Greg Tanaka dissenting, the council directed ...

Despite escalating budget, City Council votes to stick with the plan for a six-level garage Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner, January 23, 2018 California Avenue merchants scored a political victory Monday night when Palo Alto officials reaffirmed their plan to construct a garage with two basement levels and more than 600 parking stalls on a Sherman Avenue lot. By an 8-1 vote, with Adrian Fine dissenting, the City Council voted to reject a ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Elena Kadvany / December 6, 2017 Members disagree on how to balance gifts and public accountability The need to strike a balance between welcoming anonymous donations and providing transparency as a public agency divided the Palo Alto school board on Tuesday night, with its members ultimately approving in a 3-2 vote a new requirement for internally disclosing donors' identities. People or organizations who give the district more than $50,000 and ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / November 29, 2017 Palo Alto and Menlo Park request 60 more days; Stanford calls proposal 'unwarranted' As the comment period on Stanford University's proposed expansion winds down, city officials from Menlo Park and Palo Alto are calling for the Santa Clara County Planning Department to give them another 60 days to evaluate the potential impacts of the General Use Permit amendment that the university is seeking. In ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / September 11, 2017 Palo Alto councilman settles with FPPC after agency finds three violations Palo Alto City Councilman Greg Tanaka has agreed to pay $733 in fines after the California Fair Political Practices Commission found inaccuracies in the financial forms his campaign filed during last year's council race. The agency, which enforces the state's Political Reform Act, found that Tanaka's campaign had committed three violations in reporting ...

Palo Alto Daily Post - by Allison Levitsky / September 12, 2017 In a City Council race that hinged on development in Palo Alto, now-Councilman Greg Tanaka failed to identify several donors as real estate developers, California Fair Political Practices Commission said yesterday (Sept. 12). Tanaka said he has agreed to settle with the FPPC for incorrectly reporting campaign donations and leaving blank or misreporting the occupations of Chop Keenan, Jim Baer, Roxy Rapp, Mark ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / September 8, 2017 More downtown employees than intended bought permits in five residential areas closest to central downtown An error in implementing downtown Palo Alto's evolving Residential Preferential Parking program, which aims to eventually stop commuters from parking in residential neighborhoods, caused the exact opposite to happen this summer: Too many permits were sold to employees wanting to park their cars in five out the area's 10 ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / August 23, 2017 City of Palo Alto Utilities did not accurately record sizes of water meters in bills, prompting more than 500 errors Hundreds of water customers in Palo Alto received erroneous bills after the city failed to accurately record the size of their water meters, according a new audit from the office of City Auditor Harriet Richardson ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Linda Taaffe / August 17, 2017 City staff directed to look at other options for public input Palo Alto could move ahead with plans to transform its rail corridor without a formal community stakeholder group to provide feedback on the project if the City Council approves its Rail Committee's recommendation, which runs counter to what the city's Planning and Transportation Commission supported last week ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / July 14, 2017 Municipal code, city priorities guide officers' work More than perhaps any other City Hall program, code enforcement is a custom-built operation that mirrors its community ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / July 14, 2017 Staff: Less than 5 percent of cases investigated each year leads to fines For a team that consists of just three people, Palo Alto's code enforcers have been facing an unprecedented level of public scrutiny of late. In January, the council received the latest National Citizens Survey that showed a troubling trend: only 52 percent of the respondents rated Palo Alto code enforcement as "good" or ...

Palo Alto Daily Post - by Emily Mabach / July 13, 2017 A judge has ruled that a development company temporarily doesn’t have to pay the city of Palo Alto a $5,000-a-day fine for failing to provide a grocery store in the Edgewood Shopping Center ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / May 19, 2017 City auditor to review program as survey shows increasing citizen concern The most recent National Citizens Survey, which came out in January, shows only 52 percent of the city's residents rating code enforcement as "good or excellent" — though most respondents also noted that they had not personally observed any code violation ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / March 17, 2017 Fair Political Practices Commission launches investigation into whether Palo Alto council member inaccurately reported contributions The agency that oversees California's campaign-finance laws has launched an investigation into the campaign finances of Palo Alto City Councilman Greg Tanaka, who reported an influx of cash from developers after winning the election last November and who accepted and later returned $5,000 from a property owner whose project ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / March 17, 2017 Citizens committee blasts City Council’s vote to remove programs from land-use guide Palo Alto officials will revisit on Monday their controversial January decision to strip all programs from the city’s guiding land-use document, the Comprehensive Plan — a move that some characterized as a “formatting” change and others decried as a betrayal of public trust ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / March 16, 2017 FPPC launches investigation into whether Palo Alto vice mayor improperly reported her contributions Prompted by a citizen complaint, the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) has launched an investigation into the campaign of Palo Alto Vice Mayor Liz Kniss, whose re-election bid was boosted by a flurry of late contributions from developers and who did not disclose most of these contributions until well after ...

Mercury News - by Kevin Kelly / February 1, 2018 Southgate residents want office employees off their streets, while city looks to add permits to El Camino Some Southgate neighborhood residents are upset that Palo Alto officials are already talking about changing an experiment designed to make it easier for them to find street parking in front of their homes. But the council unanimously decided to revisit the trial in June. If Caltrans, which owns ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Sue Dremann / January 26, 2018 Neighborhood warms to new and creative activism to unclog residential streets Riled by daily traffic snarls on their residential streets, about 70 Crescent Park residents met with Palo Alto police and transportation officials on Jan. 18 to discuss how to end commuters' occupation of their neighborhood. Greg Welch, a Center Drive resident, spearheaded the neighborhood advocacy. "As our next steps, we will have almost ...

Despite escalating budget, City Council votes to stick with the plan for a six-level garage Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner, January 23, 2018 California Avenue merchants scored a political victory Monday night when Palo Alto officials reaffirmed their plan to construct a garage with two basement levels and more than 600 parking stalls on a Sherman Avenue lot. By an 8-1 vote, with Adrian Fine dissenting, the City Council voted to reject a ...

Washington Post - by Lori Aretani / January 22, 2018 The three-year battle between residents in Northwest Washington and the Federal Aviation Administration over noise from flights at Reagan National Airport is now in the hands of a federal appeals court. The two sides presented their case to a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last week. A ruling, which could take several months, will be closely watched ...

Palo Alto Daily Post - by Emily Mibach / January 18, 2018 A parking garage with an entertainment center — such as a movie theater — may be catapulted up the Menlo Park City Council’s to do list. Polling released to the city on Tuesday revealed that 74% of polled residents would support seeing a three-story “multi-use parking structure” downtown. City Councilman Ray Mueller, has been calling for a structure like this since 2014 and ...

Public comment period winding down for university's large-scale expansion plan Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / January 18, 2018 Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian will host a public meeting on Tuesday regarding Stanford University's 2018 General Use Permit (GUP) application. As the public comment period is ending Feb. 2, the meeting will be one of the last opportunities for residents to make verbal public comments regarding the GUP. If the permit is ...

City's plan to replace utility and water mains, add street improvements to launch this spring Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / January 18, 2018 The streets of downtown Palo Alto will transform into a hive of construction activity this spring, when the city launches an ambitious, yearslong plan to replace utility pipes, upgrade traffic equipment, widen sidewalks and expand its fiber-optics network. The construction frenzy is set to launch in April and May ...

Palo Alto sees uptick in cutoff walls to curb groundwater pumping Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / January 12, 2018 On a single block of Webster Street in the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, a tale of two basements is unfolding — one that illustrates the city's evolving debate over groundwater. The use of cutoff walls in Palo Alto can be attributed in large part to a citizens group called Save Palo Alto's Groundwater, ...

Residents and business owners raise concerns about proposed three-story building Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / December 27, 2017 Karen Price, a massage therapist with a practice on Cambridge Avenue, believes the three-story building on her block won't just change the character of the surrounding area. It will also, she said Thursday, threaten the character of the city by accelerating the displacement of small, community-serving businesses like her own by tech companies with ...

State’s loosened development standards costing local control raise eyebrows on the City Council San Mateo Daily Journal - by Austin Walsh / December 7, 2017 New state housing laws requiring city governments to cede a substantial portion of their local control alarmed Burlingame officials who fear the regulations may bring unintended consequences. Officials raised concerns the legislation will invite development of boilerplate, cookie-cutter plans by sapping officials authority to enforce design driven decisions. “Burlingame for ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Sue Dremann / December 1, 2017 Residents to seek solutions for the daily line of cars on neighborhood streets Fed up with the daily traffic gridlock on their neighborhood's streets, Crescent Park residents are banding together to get the city of Palo Alto's attention. For hours each day, Crescent Park residents are plagued by the hundreds of vehicles that jam the streets within blocks of University Avenue, from Middlefield Road ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / November 28, 2017 For some members, decks are a sign of vitality; for others, a waste of staff time The council didn't take any votes on the proposal, which is still in a conceptual phase and which has not yet been the subject of a formal application. The pre-screening session was a chance for the council to either nip the project in the bud and avoid unnecessary ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Palo Alto Weekly editorial board / January 26, 2018 Simitian vision for subsidized teacher housing has long road to travel Every organization in Palo Alto — business, nonprofit and government — is struggling with the lack of affordable housing and the resulting employee-recruiting and commute challenges. So before letting teacher housing become the sole focus, we'd like to see clear evidence of need and demand and a policy discussion about ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Sue Dremann / January 26, 2018 Neighborhood warms to new and creative activism to unclog residential streets Riled by daily traffic snarls on their residential streets, about 70 Crescent Park residents met with Palo Alto police and transportation officials on Jan. 18 to discuss how to end commuters' occupation of their neighborhood. Greg Welch, a Center Drive resident, spearheaded the neighborhood advocacy. "As our next steps, we will have almost ...

Palo Alto Daily Post - by Allison Levitsksy / January 25, 2018 Santa Clara County supervisors voted unanimously yesterday (Jan. 23) to usher ahead a plan to house public schoolteachers on a 1.5-acre plot of county-owned land across the street from the Palo Alto courthouse. “This is an idea that has been rolling around in my head and my office for the last couple years,” Board of Supervisors President Joe Simitian of Palo Alto said ...

The Daily Journal - by Samantha Weigel / January 22, 2018 Legislation affecting local governments draw statewide attention, could spur more construction As the new year unfolds, local governments are expected to begin unraveling the practical implications of new statewide laws designed to promote affordable housing. The laws touch on a range of issues including streamlining the planning process for certain housing developments, which some worry will strip local control; creating a new permanent affordable ...

Project would require 'innovative' partnerships with school districts, cities Palo Alto Weekly - by Elena Kadvany / January 21, 2018 To help teachers cope with the increasingly high cost of living in the Bay Area, Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian is proposing the county partner with local school districts and cities to build a 60- to 120-unit affordable housing complex in Palo Alto. The teacher housing would be built on a county-owned, 1.5-acre site ...

City's 2017 ordinance sparks big questions about little dwellings Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / January 15, 2018 The city has seen some modest successes with the new law since its passage in April. Traditionally, the city has seen only about four accessory-dwelling units constructed per year, according to staff. Last year, planners had issued permits for nine new ADUs. Another 14 applications are currently under review, according to a report from the Department ...

Liz Kniss proposes new housing committee, senior-housing complex Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / January 12, 2018 In a rare departure during an annual meeting typically devoted to pomp and plaudits, Kniss proposed on Monday establishing a special council committee to focus exclusively on housing. She also called out housing for seniors as a particularly urgent need and pointed to long waiting lists at all of the city's senior-housing complexes. A new development ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / December 5, 2017 Palo Alto council members, planning staff say recently passed bills could reduce local control, spur major change For Palo Alto's housing advocates, the broad package of bills that Sacramento lawmakers signed into law this fall are exactly the type of disruption that the city needs after years of sluggish residential construction and a deepening crisis of affordable housing. But for the Palo Alto City ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / December 1, 2017 Palo Alto officials, residents question university's plans to manage anticipated traffic and housing problems The City Council plans to approve on Monday night a comment letter on the project's voluminous draft Environmental Impact Report, which assesses likely consequences of the expansion. The letter takes issues with Stanford's assumptions about traffic, groundwater and fire-service demand, among many other things ...

Curbed San Francisco - by Scott Lucas / October 12, 2017 An exclusive analysis of regional jobs and housing with surprising conclusions When you look at the data, the cities that score the worst in building enough housing units for their workers aren’t Palo Alto and similar cities. It’s our biggest cities, like San Francisco and San Jose, that really drive the problem. Here’s what we found ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / October 29, 2017 Three council members propose eliminating off-street parking requirements for 'car-light' projects In the latest effort to combat Palo Alto's housing crisis, three council members are proposing significant revisions to the city's parking regulations, including eliminating parking requirements altogether for "car-light" developments that offer transit amenities to their tenants. The proposals in the memo target a wide range of disparate regulations -- including ones relating ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / October 17, 2017 Palo Alto officials opt not to explore rent stabilization measures Palo Alto's foray into rent stabilization blew up at the starting line Monday night after the City Council majority struck down a proposal from three council members to strengthen the city's tenant-protection laws. After a marathon discussion that featured philosophical clashes, procedural disagreements, personal attacks and testimony from nearly 70 public speakers, the council ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Sue Dremann / January 26, 2018 Neighborhood warms to new and creative activism to unclog residential streets Riled by daily traffic snarls on their residential streets, about 70 Crescent Park residents met with Palo Alto police and transportation officials on Jan. 18 to discuss how to end commuters' occupation of their neighborhood. Greg Welch, a Center Drive resident, spearheaded the neighborhood advocacy. "As our next steps, we will have almost ...

Palo Alto Daily Post - by Allison Levitsky / January 25, 2018 Replacement of the Pope-Chaucer Street Bridge — which was blamed for much of the damage in the 1998 flood that inundated Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park — could be delayed by a bureaucratic snafu between the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. The creek authority plans to replace the bridge ...

Palo Alto Daily Post - by Elaine Goodman / January 22, 2018 The city of Menlo Park’s attempt to block a Stanford development project that officials fear will worsen traffic on Sand Hill Road will be reviewed by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors tomorrow (Jan. 23). The project is a four-story, 153,821-square-foot office building for medical school faculty that Stanford calls the Center for Academic Medicine. It would be built at the site ...

LASD to decide whether to put Bullis charter at San Antonio site Mountain View Voice - by Kevin Forestieri / January 18, 2018 Despite concerns about traffic and a desire to bring a local neighborhood school to families living in the San Antonio area, a majority of Mountain View City Council members agreed Tuesday night to let the Los Altos School District decide whether to relocate Bullis Charter School to Mountain View. The council was ...

New York Times - by Lisa W. Foderaro / December 24, 2017 With services like Google Maps, Waze and Apple Maps suggesting shortcuts for commuters through the narrow, hilly streets of Leonia, N.J., the borough has decided to fight back against congestion that its leaders say has reached crisis proportions. In mid-January, the borough’s police force will close 60 streets to all drivers aside from residents and people employed in the borough during the morning ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Sue Dremann / December 8, 2017 New Ross Road fixtures are confusing bicyclists and drivers, creating danger, residents say The city of Palo Alto's effort to turn a south Palo Alto street into a bicycle-friendly boulevard is encountering a chorus of complaints from residents who say that the changes are making the road more dangerous ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / December 1, 2017 Palo Alto officials, residents question university's plans to manage anticipated traffic and housing problems The City Council plans to approve on Monday night a comment letter on the project's voluminous draft Environmental Impact Report, which assesses likely consequences of the expansion. The letter takes issues with Stanford's assumptions about traffic, groundwater and fire-service demand, among many other things ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Sue Dremann / December 1, 2017 Residents to seek solutions for the daily line of cars on neighborhood streets Fed up with the daily traffic gridlock on their neighborhood's streets, Crescent Park residents are banding together to get the city of Palo Alto's attention. For hours each day, Crescent Park residents are plagued by the hundreds of vehicles that jam the streets within blocks of University Avenue, from Middlefield Road ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / November 29, 2017 Rail Committee considers new studies on rail-crossing alternatives, financing Despite years of discussions about the need to separate the Caltrain tracks from the local streets that intersect the rail line, Palo Alto leaders are still struggling to figure out what the project would look like and how it would be paid for. On Wednesday morning, the City Council's Rail Committee considered two new studies ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / November 28, 2017 City Council moves ahead with new fire station and bike bridge, despite major questions about latest cost estimates Palo Alto's ambitious plan to fix up the city's aged infrastructure and build a new bike bridge over U.S. Highway 101 is being strained by a sizzling construction market, which is adding millions of dollars to the price of each project and forcing local officials to ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Sue Dremann / October 9, 2017 Commuter traffic, parking issues disproportionately affect residents, officials say Surrounded by U.S. Highway 101, Willow Road, Bayfront Expressway and Embarcadero Road, East Palo Alto is a gateway to Silicon Valley jobs. But the city's residents bear a disproportionate burden of commuter traffic while receiving little or no benefit, residents said. Since traffic is mostly due to Stanford University, Facebook and tech companies, the city ...

Mountain View Voice - by Mark Noack / August 30, 2017 Local transit projects delayed by legal challenge Santa Clara County's new Measure B sales tax has already collected tens of millions of dollars for a multitude of transportation upgrades, but that money is now embargoed from being spent. An appellate lawsuit filed by Mountain View attorney Gary Wesley on behalf of Saratoga resident Cheriel Jensen is blocking the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority from ...

Mercury News - by Kevin Kelly / February 1, 2018 Southgate residents want office employees off their streets, while city looks to add permits to El Camino Some Southgate neighborhood residents are upset that Palo Alto officials are already talking about changing an experiment designed to make it easier for them to find street parking in front of their homes. But the council unanimously decided to revisit the trial in June. If Caltrans, which owns ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / January 30, 2018 To assist area employees, City Council looks to add portion of El Camino Real to Residential Preferential Parking district For residents, Southgate's new Residential Preferential Parking program is a huge success and should be continued as is. For nearby businesses, the picture is starkly different. The tussle between residents and businesses created a dilemma for the council. On the one hand, council members sympathized ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / January 24, 2018 New plans calls for adding employee permits to Residential Preferential Parking programs in Evergreen Park and Southgate Some residents voiced concerns about the process. Christian Pease, who lives in Evergreen Park, said that when the program was implemented, residents were assured that there would be a one-year trial, after which time the program would be revisited for possible modifications. Instead, staff appears to be ...

Despite escalating budget, City Council votes to stick with the plan for a six-level garage Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner, January 23, 2018 California Avenue merchants scored a political victory Monday night when Palo Alto officials reaffirmed their plan to construct a garage with two basement levels and more than 600 parking stalls on a Sherman Avenue lot. By an 8-1 vote, with Adrian Fine dissenting, the City Council voted to reject a ...

Palo Alto considers eliminating one of the basement levels at planned garage near California Avenue Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / January 19, 2018 With cost estimates rising dramatically, Palo Alto is considering scaling back its plans for the California Avenue area parking garage by removing one of the two planned underground levels. The revision, which is proposed in a new report from the Public Works Department, would reduce the cost of the ...

Palo Alto Daily Post - by Emily Mibach / January 18, 2018 A parking garage with an entertainment center — such as a movie theater — may be catapulted up the Menlo Park City Council’s to do list. Polling released to the city on Tuesday revealed that 74% of polled residents would support seeing a three-story “multi-use parking structure” downtown. City Councilman Ray Mueller, has been calling for a structure like this since 2014 and ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / December 5, 2017 Palo Alto council members, planning staff say recently passed bills could reduce local control, spur major change For Palo Alto's housing advocates, the broad package of bills that Sacramento lawmakers signed into law this fall are exactly the type of disruption that the city needs after years of sluggish residential construction and a deepening crisis of affordable housing. But for the Palo Alto City ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / October 29, 2017 Three council members propose eliminating off-street parking requirements for 'car-light' projects In the latest effort to combat Palo Alto's housing crisis, three council members are proposing significant revisions to the city's parking regulations, including eliminating parking requirements altogether for "car-light" developments that offer transit amenities to their tenants. The proposals in the memo target a wide range of disparate regulations -- including ones relating ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / October 12, 2017 Proposal to overhaul downtown's parking scheme criticized as premature Downtown Palo Alto's move toward parking meters hit an unexpected turn Wednesday night when the city's Planning and Transportation Commission voted against implementation. By a unanimous vote, the commission rejected all four options that were presented by transportation staff for overhauling downtown's parking system. Citing uncertainty about the impacts of parking meters on downtown retail, ...

Palo Alto Weekly - by Gennady Sheyner / September 8, 2017 More downtown employees than intended bought permits in five residential areas closest to central downtown An error in implementing downtown Palo Alto's evolving Residential Preferential Parking program, which aims to eventually stop commuters from parking in residential neighborhoods, caused the exact opposite to happen this summer: Too many permits were sold to employees wanting to park their cars in five out the area's 10 ...

Palo Alto Daily Post - by Matt Niksa / July 27, 2017 A shortage of parking is hurting retailers and restaurants in downtown Palo Alto and in the California Avenue district, not only because it reduces the number of customers but it is also making it hard to keep workers, panelists said at a discussion on local retail issues yesterday ...

The Daily Journal - by Samantha Weigel / Jul 24, 2017 Foster City is considering updates to its regulations on secondary units as it aims to comply with state mandates promoting the residences as a means to address the affordable housing crisis ...