Posted by Homer Jamison, a resident of the Ventura neighborhood, on Mar 21, 2013 at 11:16 pm

My sons are enrolled at PALY, and I truly appreciate the quality of education available in Palo Alto. On the other hand, it seems like overdevelopment without increasing traffic capacity in the corridor really compromises our quality of life. Just how many productive person hours are lost each week to the perpetual traffic jams around Oregon Avenue and 101? Do we want to spread this experience to the San Antonio Road interchange at the southern border of our city? I read that there is now some feeling that the choice to sell "surplus" school real estate years ago may have been shortsighted. Do we want to repeat the mistake again by selling off more contiguous PAUSD land? Wouldn't it be more visionary to keep the property, and integrate it into the long term real estate needs of the school district?

I know Athena Academy, who has a two year agreement for the site, and they're doing amazing things to educate children with dyslexia. Do you realize that as many as 20% of our youngsters are challenged by some degree of dyslexia, but there are only a few schools in the bay area that address the problems in a creative, state-of-the-art manner? Athena Academy has strong academic credentials, and though they are young, they are very promising. If given the opportunity, I would vote for PAUSD to keep the property at 525 San Antonio Road to maximize their choices for long term benefit to the district; meanwhile, they have a most worthy tenant in Athena Academy.

Posted by CrescentParkAnon., a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Mar 22, 2013 at 12:11 am

> Do we want to repeat the mistake again by selling off more contiguous PAUSD land?

I hope not.

Posted by Marcellus, a resident of the College Terrace neighborhood, on Mar 22, 2013 at 2:49 pm

You know the Athena Academy will get kicked off that land, and their work will be disrupted. The developer will not pay its real market value. if they did, they would not be able to make enough profit. That location is not a good place for housing because of busy San Antonio, and any people who bought there would find those homes incredibly hard to sell in the future.

Let's hope Kevin Skelly actually has a brain in his Harvard educated head.

Posted by Paly Parent, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Mar 28, 2013 at 10:03 pm

What happened to the original comments on this story?

Posted by WilliamR, a resident of the Fairmeadow neighborhood, on Mar 29, 2013 at 7:24 pm

@ Paly Parent--

There is another thread with the same title, about a dozen entries down, with 30-some comments, so that's probably what you're looking for.