Editorial: Swapping 1/5th acre shouldn't need vote Editorial: Swapping 1/5th acre shouldn't need vote (December 17, 2003)

But legacy of 1965 Parks Dedication initiative includes mistrust -- and city will likely take a 'better safe than sorry' approach
One of the most treasured legacies of the turbulent 1960s in Palo Alto was the Parks Dedication ordinance, enacted by an initiative petition drive in 1965.

The ordinance requires a vote of the people in order to convert any public parkland to non-park use. The initiative and resulting ordinance, spearheaded by former Councilwoman Enid Pearson, was an important step toward protecting the city's parks and open space from the actions of a City Council majority at any given time.

With the dedication ordinance in place, residents could rest easy that their parks will be there for their children and grandchildren, and for future generations of families to enjoy.

What the ordinance failed to consider, however, was the possibility that minor or inconsequential changes to park land might be necessary. Such a situation occurred in 1997, when some portable classrooms at Walter Hays Elementary School were inadvertently placed so they spilled onto adjacent Rinconada Park.

The obvious solution, most everyone agrees, is to simply swap an equivalent .193-acre section of school-district land located a few feet from the encroachment.

But defenders of the park dedication ordinance insist that such a swap requires a vote of the people, which would cost $200,000 if placed on next November's ballot, much less if delayed until November 2005.

Putting this matter before the voters is downright silly, but the defenders of the dedication ordinance view it as a matter of principle and threaten legal action if the council attempts to solve the problem without a public vote.

Under no circumstances should the issue be put before the voters next year at a cost of $200,000. The six-year-old non-issue shouldn't need to go to the voters at all, but when weighed against the possibility of an even sillier lawsuit, then we'd hold our nose and put a clarifying measure on the 2005 ballot.

Downtown North barriers Downtown North barriers (December 17, 2003)survey deserves another try
Unless a planned Downtown North neighborhood survey is resuscitated, a colossal waste of time and effort will have occurred for both city transportation staff and residents of the badly divided Downtown North area unless .

For weeks, the staff and residents -- badly divided over whether to keep traffic barriers in place after a six-month trial period ends early next year -- have wrangled over draft questions for a survey of the neighborhood.

Just as they had reached a hard-fought agreement on the questions, the opposing sides in the barriers debate locked horns on who should be able to participate in the survey. The issue boiled down to households (favored by the anti-barriers "Unblock" group) versus individuals (favored by leaders of the Downtown North Neighborhood Association).

Exasperated staff members finally had enough and tossed the entire hot potato to the Planning and Transportation Commission to decide in January, with the possibility of hiring an outside consultant to conduct the survey.

That would be a colossal waste of money, in our view, matching the waste of time that has already occurred if that alternative is pursued. Everyone involved should take a deep breath, think a bit about outcomes and try once more to devise a polling method that would give the community and city leaders some idea how residents feel. This isn't a Presidential election -- it's a non-binding neighborhood opinion poll.

For Downtown North, don't leave the matter just dangling there -- finish the job and get on with the survey. Flip a coin, if necessary, to decide if households or adults will be surveyed, but get on with it and let's get a permanent traffic plan adopted.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]