Posted by Wayne Martin, a resident of the Fairmeadow neighborhood, on Mar 21, 2013 at 11:21 am

Paul Losch seems to place a lot of importance on the opinion of the residents/individuals who make up these groups. But these groups are, for the most part, made up of amateurs. There are no competency tests that must be passed, in order to qualify for these boards—although in some cases, the individuals who are chosen do possess appropriate qualifications—such as is the case for the Architectural Review Board (ARB).

It’s not hard to disagree with Losch, however, that in this matter the behavior of individual Council members was not very “process-oriented”—revealing that several of the sitting Council see local governance to be more of their personal toy, rather than a well-orchestrated, process-driven, institution.

In this case, there does not seem to be any real problem that needs to be solved. There might be some instances where some standing ordinances are being violated, but little evidence of that seems to have been presented by Council, at least at this point. The claim that the City is saving people from “second-hand smoke” is incredibly doubious—even though “second-hand smoke” can be annoying.

There was some anecdotal evidence about problems with smokers in some parks presented in the thread reporting on the Policy Committee’s intentions. But none of these claims were backed up with any real evidence, such as evidence of dozens of complaints made to the police, and/or the Council, about the inability of people to use the parks because of “second-hand smoke”.

Given today’s technology, why not have Staff install some cigarette smoke detectors that can provide some hard evidence about the concentration of cigarette smoke that park visitors are exposed to, and perhaps a few surveillance cameras that could be used to provided better enforcement of current ordinances?

And why not provide a convenient web-page for park visitors to upload pictures of people smoking, to help the Police understand when and where to dispatch officers to provide some “teeth” for any current, or future, ordinances.

I’m not certain that the thousands of hours that Palo Alto Boards and Commissions have spent talking are as helpful as Paul Losch seems to. However, it would be a good thing if Council followed the rules that it has set up in the past.

It seems to me that before there are clear problems to be solved, that there are other matters more pressing for the Council to be addressing—like the long-term pension problem, for one.

Posted by Resident, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Mar 21, 2013 at 12:14 pm

Both Paul and Wayne are making some excellent points here.

I would agree that this proposal is a waste of time, energy and just a case of our council spouting hot air and trying to appear socially conscious.

We have many rules in our parks at present which are not adhered to, not policed, and are a waste of time unless they are enforced. For this reason, making more rules is just a feel good gesture which will not make a difference.

I don't think we have a real problem with smoking tobacco in our parks although there are times many of us have seen someone smoking there and been bothered by the smoke. We may, or may not, have more of a problem with smoking pot in our parks and this problem may be at times when the parks are "closed" rather than during the day.

Since there is nothing to stop a park being used by anyone during the evening or overnight hours, there is no enforcement of the no alcohol policy or the dogleash policy or even the rules at present for no smoking near playground and picnic areas, why does it make any sense to ban smoking at all? It will just appear on a small notice at a park entrance that nobody pays attention to and will never be enforced.

I would much rather the council do something positive to improve infrastructure and balance the budget without increasing taxes rather than imposing a ban on something that isn't a big problem and won't be enforced.