Council candidate list growing in Palo Alto
Three more Palo Altans consider running for City Council
A real-estate lawyer, a school activist and a land-use consultant are the latest three Palo Altans to explore a run for City Council in November.
Gregory Scharff, Nancy Shepherd and Brian Steen all stopped by the City Clerk's office in the past week to pick up candidacy papers -- the first step in running for council.
The three are joining a quickly growing field of candidates for seats on the nine-member council, which will have at least four new members next year.
Scharff, a real-estate lawyer, and Shepherd, the former president of the Palo Alto Council of PTAs, both picked up papers last week, according to the city clerk's office.
Steen, a member of the Board of Directors of the local Rotary Club and a leading proponent of building an underground tunnel for the proposed high-speed-rail system, picked up his packet and declared his candidacy on his newly created website Monday.
Earlier his month, planning commissioner Karen Holman, former school-board member Gail Price, realtors Dan Dykwel and Leon Leong, sidewalk campaigner Victor Frost, and businessmen Timothy Gray, Mark Weiss and Roger Mansell had also pulled their papers.
All candidates must now gather signatures from at least 25 Palo Alto residents and submit the signed papers to the city clerk's office by Aug. 7.
Of the three councilmen whose terms expire this year and who are eligible to run again, Larry Klein is the only one who will do so. So far, Klein is the only candidate who had returned his papers to the City Clerk's office with the required signatures.
Councilwoman Yoriko Kishimoto and Vice Mayor Jack Morton are both termed out at the end of the year. Mayor Peter Drekmeier and Councilman John Barton are concluding their terms and have opted not to run again, citing personal circumstances and the time commitment of serving on the council.