October 19, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Editorial: Kishimoto, Klein, Barton, Morton and Drekmeier for Palo Alto City Council

A widely divergent group of 10 candidates is vying for five seats on the Palo Alto City Council this November.

The field includes only two incumbents seeking re-election -- Jack Morton and Yoriko Kishimoto -- and thus has attracted more qualified challengers than usual. Two incumbents, Jim Burch and Hillary Freeman, opted not to seek another term, while Vic Ojakian is termed out after serving eight years. That means the nine-member Council will have at least three newcomers.

Seven of the 10 candidates are qualified to serve and will draw support from significant segments of the community, while three -- Danielle Martell, Norm Carroll and Victor Frost -- have neither the breadth of support nor a sufficient understanding of the issues facing the city to be credible choices. Two additional candidates, Sanford Forte and Roger Smith, dropped out of the race even though their names appear on the ballot.

Unlike many past council races, where candidates' views on development and traffic were dominant, this campaign has largely centered on the city's loss of business tax revenues and what can be done about it, concern over the overall costs of city government and employee benefits, and the council's ability (or inability) to reach and implement decisions efficiently and effectively.

The council's "balance of power" with city management and finding the appropriate boundaries between policy-making and micro-managing continue to entangle and divide the council, and thus also have become campaign issues.

Since Kishimoto has generally been among the more skeptical and questioning of city staff on the council while Morton has been among the more supportive, this campaign has often found Morton as the sole defender of the current city administration. Morton's impatience for long meetings and the many questions some of his colleagues ask of the staff is evident at almost every council meeting. Unlike almost every other candidate in the race, he is happy with the current balance of power between the city manager and the council.

Interestingly, former council member and mayor Larry Klein, seeking a return to the council after serving almost nine years in the 1980s, expresses great frustration over what he sees as not enough council oversight of city management and too little council leadership in making the policy decisions council members were elected to make.

Several years of fiscal challenges for the city and the recent or impending loss of significant tax-generating businesses have led every candidate to stress the importance of creating business-friendly policies and streamlining permitting processes.

But how that rhetoric will translate to actual policy and decisions on development proposals is largely guesswork, since proposals -- such as locating one or more auto dealerships on the site of the current Municipal Service Center -- are too preliminary for formal positions.

Three candidates, Kishimoto, Karen Holman and Peter Drekmeier, are running with support from those generally viewed as wanting to protect neighborhoods -- in some cases, putting neighborhood interests above community-wide interests. In the old days they would have been described as "residentialists," though Palo Alto values long-ago evolved to that being the political center. Candidates Jack Morton, John Barton and Skip Justman each hold views that would be described as more sympathetic to business, but with that now being in vogue their views are also mainstream.

Palo Altans (and candidates) are not used to having to weigh trade-offs between maintaining a healthy tax base capable of sustaining our voracious appetite for city services and the impacts of development, and now even those most cautious about new development are saying they are open to working with business to get their needs met.

Bottom line: The future direction of specific city policies is not nearly as important in this race as is selecting the five candidates who will be most likely to coalesce the nine-member council and begin operating as a unified group.

An impossibility? Perhaps. But in arriving at our endorsement decisions, we looked first and foremost for candidates we thought were capable of respecting each other, problem-solving as a team, holding the city management accountable and being courageous enough to make decisions that might not please everyone but which nonetheless need to be made for the greater good.

We think Yoriko Kishimoto, John Barton and Larry Klein come out on top of the field as the best qualified and best suited to serve. Kishimoto has gained confidence and grown immensely in the last four years. She has asked tough and appropriate questions, guided policy in a productive way and has evolved into a clear and independent thinker.

Klein and Barton each bring strong track records of prior elected service. As a school board member for the last eight years, and as president of the Chamber of Commerce, Barton has demonstrated excellent leadership and problem-solving skills and would be especially useful on school-community issues.

Klein's previous council service came when the council and city were functioning at their best, and we are hopeful that his vast experience can help recreate that constructive environment.

Of the remaining candidates, we recommend Jack Morton and Peter Drekmeier, but each with some important hesitations. Morton, a CPA who works with many local non-profit organizations, has chaired the council's Finance Committee and has made a priority of trying to reduce the burdens of the infamous "Palo Alto process," where decisions drag on until everyone's need for information and input have been satiated.

In his zeal for quick decisions, however, he often ends up disrespecting colleagues who have legitimate questions and concerns, creating unnecessary rifts and actually undermining his own goals. If he is re-elected, we hope Morton will do a better job at listening patiently to and working with colleagues with differing views.

Peter Drekmeier is a Palo Alto native who has been an environmental activist for all of his adult life. He was a founder of Bay Area Action (and worked to create Acterra through a delicate merger with the Peninsula Conservation Center) and the Stanford Open Space Alliance. But more importantly he would bring a young, fresh and intelligent voice to the council.

A "global" thinker interested in issues far removed from Palo Alto's council chambers, we're not convinced that Drekmeier will enjoy using his intellect to analyze relentlessly local-issue staff reports, but we're willing to take the chance.

He will also need to recognize that as a council member his past animosity toward Stanford and its land use planning must be tempered if he is to serve effectively the entire community.

Voters with doubts or concerns about either Morton or Drekmeier should feel comfortable supporting Karen Holman as an alternative. A member of the Palo Alto Planning & Transportation Commission, co-chair of the South of Forest Avenue (SOFA) Working Group and an active historic preservationist, Holman is well-versed on city issues. She believes the city staff wields too much power and that the public is feeling unheard by the council.

Skip Justman, a real estate attorney, is making his third bid for the council. We find him less knowledgeable on the issues and less committed to the hard work that council service entails, as evidenced by his declining to participate in at least two candidate surveys and debates.

Palo Alto voters have a good field to select from in this year's race, with an unusually broad range of backgrounds and skill sets. We recommend Yoriko Kishimoto, Larry Klein, John Barton, Jack Morton and Peter Drekmeier for Palo Alto City Council.

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