Palo Alto City Council
Wide field of candidates battle for five seats

Development, traffic, historic preservation top long list of issues

by Marcella Bernhard

One candidate for the Palo Alto City Council called this year's race "the first real election ... in a long time."

Palo Alto voters next week face the challenge of choosing from a wide field of candidates vying for five open seats on the nine-member council. The outcome could well define the community's future for years to come.

Newly elected council members will play a major role in several critical issues, including choosing a new city manager and determining the size and scope of development projects in north and south Palo Alto.

The council also will be expected to set policy and order priorities on sensitive subjects that include the possible closure of library branches, upgrading children's facilities, expanding the city's technological resources, covering some of the cost of a homeless services center and funding a new public safety building.

Council members also face a demanding constituency that has grown weary, angry and disillusioned from the three-year battle over historic preservation, the city's perceived overuse of consultants and a poor response to the February 1998 floods.

The next few years will bring enormous change to the council, as more seasoned members are pushed out by the 1992 law limiting office holders to two consecutive terms. Councilmen Joe Huber and Dick Rosenbaum and Vice Mayor Lanie Wheeler are all stepping down this year.

The fourth full-term seat on the ballot is held by Councilwoman Dena Mossar, who is seeking re-election to the post she won in 1997, when Joe Simitian left the council to join the county Board of Supervisors.

Eight candidates are running for the four full-term seats: Planning Commissioner Bern Beecham, former Mayor Mike Cobb, homeless advocate Victor Frost, technology expert Mark Heyer, nonprofit director Judy Kleinberg, former Palo Alto planner Nancy Lytle, incumbent Mossar and council critic Ed Power.

But the race for one two-year seat--opened by Councilwoman Micki Schneider's resignation in July--may be even more competitive. The city's hotly debated historic preservation ordinance was expected to dominate the race, pitting property-rights advocate Craig Woods against three supporters of the law: Jim Burch, Bob Moss and Planning Commissioner Phyllis Cassel. Historic preservation has played a less visible role than anticipated, however, because of the number of candidates and issues involved.

From interviews, a questionnaire distributed to each of the 12 council hopefuls and their comments at candidate forums, the Weekly has culled the candidates' positions on four major issues:

• The historic preservation ordinance. Passed by the council in June after three years of debate and almost $1 million in consultants' fees, the ordinance bars demolition or major renovation of about 700 historic homes while offering financial incentives to owners of historic homes. Implementation of the ordinance has been halted pending a March referendum spearheaded by the Palo Alto Homeowners Association.
• Whether the city should enact a mandatory design-review program for new or substantially remodeled single-family homes, to control the spread of so-called "monster homes" out of scale with existing neighborhoods.
• Two proposed development projects: a plan by the Hyatt Corp. to build a new Hyatt Rickeys hotel and add 300 housing units at the hotel site in south Palo Alto; and Roxy Rapp's proposal to build an 80,000-square-foot live/work project on the Peninsula Creamery site on High Street at Channing Avenue.
• How to address traffic problems in Palo Alto, particularly the flow of commuter traffic through residential neighborhoods.

The candidates' positions on these issues are summarized in the biographical sketches that follow.