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Palo Alto voters may have a rare opportunity later this year to shake up how the city chooses its mayor.
In a move that could upend the City Council’s long-standing tradition of selecting one of its members to serve its mayor for a year, council members directed staff on Feb. 5 to start laying the groundwork for a 2024 ballot measure that would empower the voters to make that choice themselves. The council also agreed that the mayor’s term should be lengthened to either two or four years. The exact length would be determined by a specially appointed council committee in the coming months.
If approved, the proposal would strengthen the role of the mayor, a position that today is viewed as largely symbolic, diplomatic and procedural. In addition to taking part in ribbon cuttings, groundbreakings and other local events, the mayor has the power to shape the agenda, create committees and represent Palo Alto on regional bodies such as the Cities Association of Santa Clara County and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Some council members, including Vicki Veenker, have argued that the role of the mayor is only becoming more critical as regional issues become more complex and time-consuming. She recalled a recent trip to Washington, D.C., where she attended the U.S. Conference of Mayors and witnessed what she called a “real national conversation.”
Supporters of the change argued that it’s hard for Palo Alto to fully participate in that conversation when it changes its mayor every year. Veenker suggested that the current system doesn’t give local mayors a chance to learn from other mayors and make an impact on the region.
“We don’t have a voice there. We show up once a year with a mayor who can take advantage of the learnings and trainings and meet some people, and then the next year it’s a new one. … For a city like ours it would be helpful to us to have more mechanism to be impactful, to share our learnings … but also to learn from others and build relationships in a more continuous way,” Veenker said during the Feb. 5 discussion.
Palo Alto’s current system, for all of its flaws, is more of a rule than an exception around Santa Clara County. Nine of the 15 cities in the county (Campbell, Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Mountain View, Palo Alto and Saratoga) have their council choose one of its members to serve as mayor for a year.
Other examples, however, also abound. Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Gilroy and San Jose all have their voters elect a mayor to a four-year term. In Morgan Hill and Milpitas, the term is two years.
Sunnyvale Mayor Larry Klein, who in 2020 became the city’s first mayor to get directly elected, touted the advantages of longer mayoral terms. Klein (who is not to be confused with former Palo Alto mayor of the same name) said his city has debated its method of choosing a mayor for decades, with voters rejecting proposals for a directly elected mayor in 1987, 1991 and 2011. Voters finally approved the change in 2020, when Sunnyvale switched to district elections.
“It was a transition from the city’s standpoint because we went from seven people directly representing everyone and being directly elected by everyone to one district council member and (to) one mayor who represents the whole city,” Klein said at the Feb. 5 meeting.
Klein, who is now running for his second mayoral term, said the new system has the benefit of allowing the mayor to strengthen his or her relationships with city staff and with counterparts from other cities.
“The longer you are mayor, you have a very good regional voice,” Klein said. “It’s better for the city and also it’s a better relationship that the mayor has with the city manager.”
It also, however, means that fewer people would get to be mayors because the position would only turn over every four years. That, however, is not necessarily a bad thing, he suggested.
“Ultimately, for most cities, not everyone should be mayor,” Klein said. “And I know mayors from other one-year selection cities who were counting from almost day one to the end of their year.”
In Palo Alto, switching how a mayor is picked would require a change to the City Charter. The council’s Feb. 5 decision authorizes staff to start working on ballot language for the change, which would be brought back to the council in June.
Not everyone is convinced that the city should make the change. Winter Dellenbach, a Barron Park resident and City Hall watchdog, noted that Palo Alto has less than half of Sunnyvale’s population and has less of a need for a longer-term mayor.
“It’s more bureaucracy,” Dellenbach said of the current proposal for direct mayoral elections. “It does smack to me of creating an office for possibly the prestige of it, rather than the need for it.”
Past proposals to change how Palo Alto chooses its mayors quickly fizzled, with most council members generally concluding the existing system works just fine. Two years ago, former council member Alison Cormack and Greg Tanaka both proposed picking a mayor by rotation rather than through a vote, a change that their colleagues rejected (notably, neither had able to secure enough support from their colleagues to become mayor). The council also briefly considered direct mayoral elections last year but chose to defer the discussion to early 2024.
At their Feb. 5 meeting, council members proved more willing to accept change than they were in the past. The council voted 5-2 to direct staff working on a ballot measure, with council member Pat Burt (a former three-time mayor) and Vice Mayor Ed Lauing (an odds-on favorite to become mayor in 2025 under the current system) both dissenting. If approved, the new rules would take effect in 2026, the city’s next election year.
“I lean toward — this really isn’t broken,” Burt said. “There are certain advantages that would occur from having a two- or four-year mayor term, having it directly elected versus council elected. But I think our system has served us well enough that I don’t see any pressing need to change it.”
Lauing agreed and noted that the city’s priorities have remained the same over the past few years, even with the new mayor coming in every year.
“I don’t see, for the business of the city, that there’s anything to be gained from that,” Lauing said.
Others, however, were swayed by the argument that having a directly elected mayor would lead to more effective representation for the city. Mayor Greer Stone was among those who supported the change. He suggested that it would be more democratic to have voters choose the person who will serve as the city’s “political face.”
“I think it’s a really important role, and more democracy is really a good thing,” Stone said. “I think we should trust the residents who voted us into office to also trust them to have the wise judgment to vote the mayor in.”
Oh, no! More campaigning to tolerate, or ignore.
I’m not sure that many Palo Alto citizens watch city council meetings. It’s a good way to learn more about city council members. Also, during the public comments period, you can listen to comments by people who might run for city council. I’m afraid that city council members who raise lots of money from local businesses and corporations will use that money to send mayoral election mail to Palo Altans. When the city council selects a mayor, they know how prepared and knowledgeable other council members are. If I remember correctly, Greg Tanaka and Allison Cormack were the top vote getters in their initial elections . Neither became mayor. They often voted against the other council members. I don’t believe this is a popularity contest among city council members. I think they generally nominate members who have broad experience in city council matters. They then vote for who can best represent city council members, who are directly elected by Palo Alto citizens. I believe that Pat Burt has been elected mayor several times is due to his collegial manner and his wide knowledge of matters brought before the city council. Perhaps the term for mayor could be two years, if people think this improves communication with mayors in other peninsula cities?
What a waste of time. We have a city manager to run the city. The city council choses the mayor based on how prepared and competent they feel their fellow members are. But that person is still one of the 7 elected city council members. No need to have a beauty contest by having an election for mayor. It’s a nice perk for the year for that person and then they should move on and get back to working on city council.
I think electing a mayor is the wrong way to go.
Perhaps we could consider not to term out the mayor after one year and let s/he be elected for 2 terms or 2 years..
Making this decision by vote to the public, many of whom can’t even tell you how many members on council, is not very effective. It will open the decision to those who have the best social media or fund raising skills. Best to let council members decide who is best suited to be mayor and who will be most effective dealing with issues and the public..
Our system is not broken. Now staff is assigned this new task. I agree with Burt and Lauing. Veenker is the driver here and Tanaka has always been hurt as he has never been considered mayorial material. Now the CC needs to stay away from this foolish undertaking and devote energy to serving the residents.
I don’t see a problem with the way it is since the mayor still has only one vote and there is no guarantee that an elected mayor will be any better informed than any other council member.
But given the way the majority of Palo Alto residents don’t really spend much time watching PACC issues or the candidates for CC, then I can’t see that there is any value in changing the status quo. So many residents don’t know what the local issues are until they discover that their road suddenly has road furniture built and they complain that nobody told them in advance. For a well educated City and a population that takes State and National issues in its stride, there is very little interest in local issues on the ballot.
The reported discussion did not seem to evidence awareness that Palo Alto is a city manager form of government, where the city manager is the chief executive and the council is the legislative/policy branch. Normally, an elected mayor would be the chief executive. So a lot of thought needs to go into exactly what the mayor would be doing and how the city manager fits in.
The same thing can be achieved by CC electing the same person mayor 2 or more years in a row. There’s nothing other than tradition that requires an annual change. Also, mayoral tenure doesn’t really matter unless we have a mayor who, with CC, will impose some control over the City Manager and senior staff. I cannot imagine anything more destructive to transparency and governance that reflects the preferences and best interests of residents than to have a 4-year mayor who defers to the City Manager.
I am in favor of keeping the system we have now. I don’t think an election is as good at picking a mayor as the Council doing so. The Council has made good choices up to now; the members know who will best lead.
People – we have a problem here – our city keeps getting called out for what ever it does. People think that great industry is here – it is not. People are using this city as a wedge to promote themselves and they are not doing anything. So let’s accept the hype and make sure that our mayor is not someone who is trying to use our city to work their way up the political ladder. Let’s vote on who is going to make our city a good place to live – not a “symbol” of whatever the current political gig is. The current political gig is divisive and counterproductive. And is only serving those who have no actual interest in keeping our city as a good place to live.