Posted by Timothy Gray, a resident of the Charleston Meadows neighborhood, on Sep 28, 2012 at 10:47 am

Dear Editor,

I'm sure it was a typo, but the Timothy Gray answer to question #10 was as follows:

"10. Which of the below options best describes your view? Please give an example to support your position.

i. The City Council gives too much weight to the views and interests of developers."

The above story reads: "In general, my sentiment is pro-developer."

It more appropriately should read: "In general, my sentiment is a residentialist."

We need to moderate growth, and when we do provide exceptions for projects, we need to act from a shared community vision for progressive growth that consistently and fairly funds its own increased infrastructure demands, and provides a objectively quantified public benefit that is determined by the resident's priorities -- not determined by the developer.

Community Benefit concessions are a currency owned by the residents and must be applied to the public good according to the priorities set by the residents.

Please don't confuse "moderated and progressive growth" with an anti-growth or anti-developer sentiment. We have something special in this town that we all love and cherish, and if we don't be careful, our prized schools will be diluted, and the City's infrastructure deficit will increase. We can find a shared community vision for growth that is a win-win.

Respectfully submitted,

Timothy Gray, (Candidate for City Council)

Posted by Jocelyn Dong, editor of the Palo Alto Weekly, on Sep 28, 2012 at 11:15 am
Jocelyn Dong is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online

Thank you for your post, Tim. I have clarified above that your opinion is that the City Council is pro-developer, which goes along with how the question was phrased. (You chose the answer, "The City Council gives too much weight to the views and interests of developers.") Hope that clears things up for our readers.

Posted by BIG ISSUE GUY, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Sep 28, 2012 at 5:00 pm

This is the gorilla in the closet:

ARE YOU FOR OR AGAINST THE PROPOSED "ARTS" DISTRICT?

That's the only question I'm interested in hearing an answer to.

Posted by Mark Weiss , a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Oct 2, 2012 at 10:46 pm

It's a half-truth for the Weekly to state that I did not respond to their survey. I said that questions #10 and #7 about developers having too much sway and PC planned community zoning being particularly problematic were by far the most important issues to me, and that overall their format was reductivist. In a letter to the reporter, I also complied with the request for actual faux-soundbytes to two other questions. You can read more about it at my blog

or the 30 minute video on their Youtube page gives a little more insight into my platform.

Web Link

Of course the fact that I was photographed and on a separate day talked to the editor and publisher for an hour contradicts the impression that they give that I was not cooperative.

I've been a supporter of the Weekly for many years, as advertiser, source and reader -- I was disappointed they played me like this, although I admit I kinda asked for it by suggesting a different format.

They have the right to cover or not cover the issues as they see fit, but I bristle at the idea that they claim they will cover all six candidates equally then employ varying standards for that.

They could obviously update the online version of this to include me, or could follow up with more info on my campaign, background and platform, if they want to. Maybe they will.

In my letter to Gennady Sheyner I do mention my concerns with "the proposed arts district" a poster asks about, although that was not part of the survey either. It's not really an arts district, by the way, it's one type of art -- theatre - -and one purveyor. I think they might have bid out the lucky tenant of the new proposed theatre, or had a rotating residency for world class companies from various parts of the world. It's three times more office space than theatre.

I might be paranoid about being mistreated and misunderstood, but readers can ask: why would the Weekly suppress these particular viewpoints?

I think there is enough truth behind the things I believe will make our community better and enough people who agree with me and are equally concerned that I can probably survive the egg on my face here.