Publication Date: Friday Apr 17, 1998

CITY COUNCIL: Look who's talking Monday--not the mayor

Since it began nearly 10 years ago, the State of the City address has followed something of a formula. A veritable who's who of Palo Alto politics turns out to schmooze over finger food. The guests are usually honored with a musical number or two. Everyone piles praise upon the fair hamlet of Palo Alto. But this year, the event will be different in one singular respect. The address--originally meant to outline a vision for the city, the road map for the next year's policy--won't be given by Palo Alto's elected leader, Mayor Dick Rosenbaum.

Instead, it will be given by the council-appointed city manager, June Fleming, the woman who is responsible for turning council policy into plans for action.

What she'll talk about is unknown. Both Fleming and Rosenbaum are keeping mum on the subject. Rosenbaum says he asked Fleming to make the speech months ago in hopes she would enlighten Palo Altans with her 30 years of public service.

"I am looking forward to hearing the city manager speak," he said this week.

But the decision has provoked some murmurs of disapproval from a few of Palo Alto's more prominent citizens.

When former Mayor Larry Klein--the inventor of the State of the City address--first came up with the idea in 1989, he had a firm notion of its purpose.

"The mayor would use this as an opportunity to present a vision," said Klein, a partner with the Palo Alto law firm Ritchey Fisher Whitman & Klein. It would be a chance for the city's highest officeholder to tell the citizens "where the city is, and where he or she thinks the city ought to be going over the next year or two," he said.

In 1994, Mayor Liz Kniss spawned the idea for the Family Resource Center, soon to become a reality. In 1995, Mayor Joe Simitian took his speech to the people, announcing in a crowded Ventura School cafeteria that infrastructure and schools had to become a priority. Palo Alto Together, a wide-ranging volunteer effort, was launched by Mayor Lanie Wheeler in her 1996 address. And last year, Mayor Joe Huber cautioned citizens against blind optimism in the face of the city's economic success.

This year offers plenty of fodder for a vision. Palo Alto's fiber loop has the potential to transform residential communication capabilities and contribute to an ever-booming local economy by attracting high-tech business to the downtown.

An entire 10-acre parcel of the downtown area, the South of Forest Avenue area is open for redevelopment when the Palo Alto Medical Foundation moves to its new site next year--what some council members have called a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to recreate a large area of the city.

And the city is now at a crossroads in historic preservation. According to Gail Woolley, Palo Alto's mayor in 1987, the issue of how to preserve the city's architectural fabric is fundamental to its future. "I'm just delighted it's getting the attention it's getting," she said.

But are these the issues Palo Altans want to hear about from their city manager, the woman who has traditionally been in the position of putting council-driven policy into practice?

For Klein, it goes against tradition. "I think (the address) should be given by the mayor," Klein said. The manager shouldn't be in the position of outlining the city's vision, he added. "As I see it, it's her job to carry out those instructions." 

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