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Facing public criticism and a bitter split in its own ranks, the Palo Alto City Council backed away on Monday from its contentious plan to allow lame-duck council members to appoint new members to the city’s Planning and Transportation Commission.
Instead, after weeks of procedural maneuvering and political squabbling, the council agreed to defer the planning commission appointments to early next year, thus allowing newly elected council members to participate in the process. The compromise represents a concession from the four council members on the council’s more pro-growth wing, who had previously advocated for making the appointments on Dec. 14, the council’s final meeting of the year.
The three council members in the more slow-growth wing protested that proposal, with Vice Mayor Tom DuBois accusing his four colleagues of “ramming through” appointments before new council members are sworn in and council member Eric Filseth likening the move to the recent actions by the President Donald Trump administration to hamstring the incoming administration of President-elect Biden.
The ugly political tussle culminated in DuBois, Filseth and council member Lydia Kou all missing the Nov. 12 meeting in which the council interviewed candidates for the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Architectural Review Board. All three also told the city clerk that they would not be able to attend the Dec. 9 meeting in which the council was scheduled to interview candidates for the planning commission and the Historic Resources Board. Because council member Alison Cormack was also unable to attend that meeting because of a death in the family, the council did not have a quorum and the interviews never took place.
On Monday, the three council members who had hoped to make the appointments before the end of the year chided their three colleagues from the “residentialist” side for missing the Nov. 12 meeting and preventing the Dec. 9 one from taking place.
“As mayor it was extremely embarrassing to interview candidates with only four of us in attendance — including incumbents who have spent years serving the city,” Fine said. “That said, Palo Alto does not need another fight.”
“But by golly, folks, the rank hypocrisy and bad faith involved in this process truly astounds me. It’s really below Palo Alto’s standards. I hope we all reflect on that.”
Council member Alison Cormack also expressed disappointment at the tenor of the conversation. Even though Cormack supported changing the council policy to shift the recruitments to spring, she favored sticking with the existing policy this year and making the appointments in December. After numerous residents spoke out against the rush to make appointments this year, Cormack said that the community is “better than this.”
“We shouldn’t be threatening people’s political futures for complying with our current municipal code and prior practice,” Cormack said. “And our council is better than this. We have council members who have refused to participate in interviews and it was embarrassing for me and I think it’s disrespectful.”
Kou, DuBois and Filseth all pushed back against the suggestion that they had boycotted the Dec. 9 meeting to prevent it from happening. All three told this news organization that they had prior commitments and that they were planning to watch the videos of the interviews before voting on the appointments.
DuBois said that he had work commitments which required meetings with people in different time zones, including teams in Tel Aviv and China. In an email, he called the council majority’s move to make appointments in December a “transparent attempt by outgoing council members in their last meeting to place the Planning Commission in opposition to the Council rather than advisory to it — this is a huge waste of time and money.”
Kou said that her inability to attend was due in part to the council majority’s decision to schedule a meeting on such short notice. She told this news organization that she has regular meetings, including commitments to church committees, that in this case prevented her from attending the interviews.
“I’m not embarrassed,” Kou said Monday in response to accusations from Fine and Cormack. “I have to work and I have other meetings I have to go to — they are standing meetings.”
Fine bristled at that explanation, and by suggestions from Kou and DuBois that the council extend the recruiting period for the Architectural Review Board. The board has two seats that needed to be filled and the only applicants were the two incumbent members, Grace Lee and Osma Thompson (the council reappointed both by a 6-0 vote, with Kou abstaining).
“Considering we get chastised all the time about doing our work, I find that considerably rich,” Fine said in response to Kou. “And frankly, if you guys want more ARB folks, show up to the interviews, really.”
Like Kou and DuBois, Filseth also said he had another commitment on Dec. 9 and was planning to watch a video of the meeting.
“Council is a part-time job, so most of us have varying levels of other commitments,” Filseth told this news organization in an email. “It’s inevitable that those other commitments regularly compete for our time and schedule. Faced with one of those conflicts this week, I chose the other. Had the interviews actually proceeded, I’d have watched the videos as I’ve done other times.”
While the council stopped short of throwing out the interview process altogether, Kniss noted that the city’s existing ordinances that govern appointments don’t actually require interviews.
“They may be desirable, but they do not have to be held. … And I’m truly disappointed that we couldn’t get a quorum for many of the times we wanted to have interviews, including just last week,” Kniss said.
Several residents strongly criticized the proposals to allow lame-duck members to choose planning commissioners and to potentially forego the interview process before making appointments. Resident Hamilton Hitchings argued that allowing lame-duck council members to fill the commission with pro-growth members would, ironically, “hurt the pro-development forces it seeks to benefit.”
“If the PTC is so stacked with pro-development members and lacks meaningful residential representation for the tens of thousands of Palo Alto voters, then it will mean the residents’ concerns will not be able to get worked out at the PTC,” Hitchings said. “Thus, the output of PTC will hit a brick wall when it comes before the City Council.”
Barron Park resident Winter Dellenbach chided the council and city staff for even considering moving ahead with appointments without first interviewing the candidates. This, she said, is both unfair to the applicants and risky for council members, who won’t really know whom they are appointing to important positions.
“Are they articulate, respectful? Do they listen or interrupt? Are they knowledgeable about what is most important? You only know what they wrote in response to boilerplate questions, yet you are thinking of voting on them tonight with low information, without seeing or interviewing them,” Dellenbach said.
The council’s decision to defer planning commission appointments to next year, when a more residentialist-friendly council is in place, increases the likelihood that the two commissioners whose terms expire this month — Doria Summa and Ed Lauing — will win fresh terms. Summa has been the commission’s most consistent critic of development proposals and its most frequent and vocal dissenter on policy changes that promote more growth. Ed Lauing, who fell just short in his bid for a council seat in November, received an endorsement by the Palo Altans for Sensible Growth, which tends to support members aligned with the residentialist side.
Other residents who had applied for a seat on the planning commission are Kelsey Banes, Doug Burns, Alon Carmeli, Rebecca Eisenberg, Kathy Jordan, Kevin Ma and Jessica Resimini.
The council also moved ahead on Monday with an appointment of one new member to the Parks and Recreation Commission. While the process in this case was comparatively drama-free, the vote split along familiar lines. Fine, Cormack, Kniss and Tanaka all voted for Amanda Brown, making her the newest member of the commission. DuBois, Filseth and Kou all supported Brent Yamashita.
Good outcome on this matter, even though extreme grouchiness and lack of reponsibility was deployed by Council Members Fine, Cormack and Kniss in the process. It was as if they had nothing to do with launching and sustaining this powerplay.
I’ve come to expect extreme statements such as Fine’s, but was taken aback by Cormack’s 100% self-centered concern about herself rather than what was good for the city:
“We shouldn’t be threatening people’s political futures for complying with our current municipal code and prior practice,” Cormack said. “And our council is better than this. We have council members who have refused to participate in interview and it was embarrassing for me and I think it’s disrespectful.”
Cormack protests that she shouldn’t be held accountable for her political actions because it could threaten her political future, and that council members embarrassed and disrepected her personally. Since when was the city expected to revolve around Alison Cormack?
This from one of two council members who formulated, then voted unanimously for the policy that Commission appoinments should be made by the new council next year, agreeing it was bad practice to do so this year by a lame duck council.
And what political future of her’s was threatened here? In Palo Alto or a County Supervisor run in 2022 or something else? She better expect to be held accountable for either.
Nice to see some of these soon to be former PACC members wander off into the sunset.
Hopefully (with the exception of one previous supervisor), they won’t reincarnate as county supervisors & torment an entire region.
Fine’s petulance and lack of understanding of how politics works will not be missed. Cormack’s arrogant “it’s all about me” perspective is par for the course. What person thinks a library should be named after her?? https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2019/10/25/guest-opinion-in-search-of-a-cubberley-champion Good job by the community facing down the high-handed lame ducks.
Last night someone criticized the city’s “economic development plan” for omitting anything having to do with protecting small business and community development.
What was Fine’s response: to criticize the speaker for not showing respect for the hard-working city staff and consultants who put together the report!
Nothing about the substance of the comments. Appearance uber alles for those governing by slogans.
All the city manager did for his portion was regurgitate statistics from reports about Covid but he didn’t even know that San Mateo County was still open until Ms. Kniss corrected him. And no response to the comment that PAMF is turning away people who want to be tested.
Then our mayor PRAISED the city for all it’s done like having story hour!
We’ve got treasured local businesses dying and that’s the response from Shikada, Fine and Cormack?? Shameful. They think we’re idiots and it’s infuriating.
Will “you did a fine job” become an insult in Palo Alto?
Fine came across as petulant and entitled during his bid for City Council. I still don’t understand how he became Mayor so quickly. He expects to raise a family here because he grew up here and talked about ADUs as a place to put his parents so he could have their house. I was astounded by the arrogance.
Good news for democracy two days in a row! I’ll take it.
Yesterday a national newspaper published a simple phrase in an editorial. It applies to our nation and Palo Alto.
“…..bitterness as a political strategy rarely wears well.”
Palo Altans and its new Council still have high hurdles to clear with covid, finances, governance and getting vaccine into arms.
Boy mayor fine calling anyone out is rich. He has been, IMO, the worst mayor for a long time; even worse than Greg Scharff.
His petulance and facial expressions seem to scream “wait, i want my way! why can’t i have my way?” he will NOT be missed.
How did fine become mayor? He had the pro-growth majority votes. Go back and find the video in the online archives; listen and watch what transpired. You vote for me; I vote for you.
Stayed tuned and remember Allison’s voting record in 2 years. Hopefully she will not be voted in as vice mayor, and then Mayor in 2022; that would be a disaster.
Please email the new City Council members and voice your opinion as who is best to be the next Vice Mayor. Tom will make a great Mayor; it will be wonderful to have a mature hand on the gavel.
Thank you to all those who emailed and spoke up against this last minute t-RUMP-ian power grab. Maybe with fine and Kniss gone, we have a chance for resident’s input and sensible, transparent governance. At least we can hope.
I stopped watching the PACC televised meetings because I was in such disagreement with what was being said – and how it was being said – RUDE. Certain personalities actually preen in front on the screen as they report their thoughts that have no focus or logical conclusion – other then they are “there”. Anyone who has serious ambitions concerning their “political” futures were very obvious as to the end goal here.
They are not going to fair well in future political endeavors because they do not see where the taxpayer residents of the city want to go. If you do not know who your constituents are then you have no place in advancement. Trying to advance by bludgeoning the voters into situations which have no value is not a winner. Never threaten the taxpayer voter – they threaten back.
Looking through the article, I see comments attributed to Fine, Cormack, and Kniss supporting the lame-duck appointments. I see comments attributed to Filseth, Dubois and Kou opposing them. I don’t see any comment attributed to Tanaka. The vote was 4-3, with Tanaka voting with the “pro-growth wing.”
On this controversial matter, as on the question of a referendum to overturn the Foothills Park settlement, Tanaka seems to have avoided notice rather than exercise leadership. Where does he stand? For whatever one chooses to make of it, it’s interesting to note that, according to the Daily Post, Tanaka led all candidates with $88K in campaign contributions in the recent election, Kou was second with $67K. and six others clustered around $45K.
Cute that the NIMBY clowns are skipping their duties together! Nothing gives me more confidence in government than skipping meetings of the job you ran to get!
Cute that the YIMBY clowns and lame ducks had their shameless political ploy stymied. Nothing gives me more confidence in government than having leaders representing their constituents.
For a change.
Fine: “But by golly, folks, the rank hypocrisy and bad faith involved in this process truly astounds me. It’s really below Palo Alto’s standards. I hope we all reflect on that.”
Mayor Fine, I hope you do reflect on Your words & actions. You reap what you sow, Mayor Fine. To be mad at people because they have different thoughts than yours appears to be your tactic. I’ve seen it in several settings & situations. Doesn’t fly here. (Bet it doesn’t go well with your kids either!). Bye bye now!
If Councilwoman Cormack can’t take the heat she should get out of the kitchen.
Good leadership entails creating a shared vision and then working with one’s constituents to figure out, together, the best way to accomplish that vision. What the pro-developer majority on the City Council has done is to state their own ‘vision’ and then try to cram it down everyone’s throat. They and the city manager that they hired in a closed door session without a search process have not even tried to work with the diversity of resident groups — those who agree with them and those who do not — to try to work through the issues and come up with solution that all of us can buy into. As a result, there has been little progress. Then, they are surprised that the voters finally have had enough and voted for a change.
The biggest, latest example of this is the ‘planning’ for the Ventura neighborhood. A working group that included residents of that neighborhood has labored long and hard to create a plan that would include additional housing but not destroy the neighborhood. The City Council then engaged a consultant, at great cost, to come up with other plans that did not take the working group’s thinking into account at all. No surprise that there has been opposition.
I hope the new Council appoints a set of thoughtful and balanced Planning and Transportation members who are not affiliated with the real estate developer community that will help the Council work with residents and professional planners to come up with plans that we can all get behind — and then find developers willing to partner with us to help achieve them. The high-handedness of the outgoing Council majority is hopefully something we can put behind us.
Rereading the article, I see that that the reason for not having a comment from council member Tanaka was not because he didn’t take a position but because he wasn’t present. There was no 4-3 vote, that’s just what the alignment on this issue had been earlier. “The council agreed” implies a 6-0 vote.
I’ll let my second paragraph stand.
Jerry,
So you are saying that Council member Tanaka abstained, or left the meeting when this item came up for one or more votes?
Can someone else verify this?
Ignoring pleas of colleagues and the public …and then pretending dismay and embarassment when the situation she created through stubborness is met with political resistance. While the words CM Cormack chooses create a facade of politeness, her dismissiveness of viewpoints that differ from her own is neither courteous nor helpful to productive discourse.
CM Cormack, this is not how one brings people together. You are capable of better. Please show us your better self. Listen more. You are an elected representative. You can’t represent us if you won’t hear us.
I was watching almost the entire meeting last night and Tanaka was there for the entire meeting, unless he had stepped out of the room for a minute.
Jerry,
Council member Tanaka didn’t speak on the motion (and, as such, wasn’t quoted) but he was present and he voted with the rest of his colleagues to defer appointments to the PTC and HRB until January 2021. It was 7-0.
Cormack’s behavior will not endear her to the new council. She may come to wish she hadn’t gone along with her mentor, Kniss, in trying to schedule last minute interviews to ram P&TC appointments through during the final meeting of the year. On the other hand, it makes very clear who Cormack is primarily representing as a council member which voters can remember should she decide to run for reelection.
The fact that Tanaka has evaded comments here is a plus to his choice to avoid the lime light when the taxpayer herd is snorting and ready to stampede. He knows who his constituents are and is not trying to corral them into positions they have no interests – or investment in.
Look at the people that were running for the PACC job – telling us we were stupid, not “progressive”, needed bee-hive housing – at a time when major companies are now moving to Texas – up to three at this count. Palantir moved to Colorado.
Our Mayor provided a lengthy commentary on his childhood in College Terrace and the complaint about a giant dirt hole not being converted to housing. The giant dirt hole was bleeding off toxic chemicals. We have the USGS and SU Earth Sciences Department here who know where the problem areas are – residual toxic waste.
All the people clamoring for more housing have no clue concerning the area we live in and the extensive mining that took place here back in the day. ABAG has not figured that out either.
Political pressure does not recognize there are existing prohibitions in any location. That is why we have parks and open space – a lot of ways to use land in a protected manner. You cannot put housing on land that has inherent toxic mineral content. Example is the Cinnabar Golf Course in San Jose. Cinnabar is the mineral rock from which Mercury is derived. Highly toxic. That mine has been closed but residual toxic waste bleeds down to the bay.
@ Resident 1-Adobe Meadows
“extensive mining”
While the extensive abandoned mining shafts of the Alamada mine continue to leach large amounts of mercury and/or arsenic into the south bay to this day, I was unaware of any mining taking place in or near Palo Alto.
However, what Palo Alto does have are extensive superfund sites gradually leeching toward the bay mostly from what has now been renamed the Stanford Research Park but was was originally founded as either the Stanford Manufacturing Park or the Stanford Business Park.
Historical note. Gold was discovered in California in the mid 1800’s. A stampede of people then arrived in San Francisco and throughout the state to start their new life. The SF Chronicle has a series called Portals of the Past which talks to the great movements of people in the region. SU was a vision that started to be built. Above us is a dam that is over 100 years old at the headwaters of the San Fransquito Creek at Searsville Lake. Page Mill Road – Redwoods milled in the hills and moved down to the bay to build San Francisco. Much activity in those hills. People looking for anything that they could make money on. WOW – sitting on history. Take care of it. Do not lose it. No ticky-tacky homes.
A question of housing in the vicinity of Moffett field arises on a periodic basis. A number of companies had to move their production of certain products to other states due to the toxic level leaching in to the ground. At the golf course on the base there were small foxes that would sit in the bushes and not move when you went by. They were sickened by the water. The cover on Hanger One was removed because it had toxic residual impact. Lots on impact in this region for any number of activities which at the time were successful with no recognition of the long-term impact.
Thanks, Gennady. No comment from Tanaka on the item, but he was present for the discussion and voted the same as everyone else to back away from lame-duck appointments to the PTC. I was curious to see what position he had taken earlier, when the lame-duck proposal was initially approved Nov. 30 by a 4-3 vote. Luckily, your report in the Weekly had what I sought: “As in past discussions of the highly politicized appointment process, the council split into its familiar camps, with Mayor Adrian Fine and council members Alison Cormack, Liz Kniss and Greg Tanaka all supporting moving ahead with the Dec. 14 appointments.”
I’m so thankful for our local “journal of record”, the Palo Alto Weekly, that puts this information within our reach. Most cities have nothing like it. Please support local journalism!
Parks commissioner Mandy Brown is great-granddaughter of Vance Brown the builder. I’d like to pitch her nonetheless for a major park in Ventura — unless she should recuse since the family business is headquartered there.
I’d pick Doria and Rebecca for PATC. Rebecca over Ed, since she’s rising in leadership ranks and he has plateaued.
I’d have tapped Geoff Nichols my former BAA colleague for Parks.
>”residual toxic waste bleeds down to the bay.”
^ Not only from former mining endeavors but also from industrial wastes having emanated from Silicon Valley-related manufacturing.
>”I was unaware of any mining taking place in or near Palo Alto.”
^ Figuratively speaking, ‘goldigging’ can take many forms…just look around.
> “Gold was discovered in California in the mid 1800’s. A stampede of people then arrived in San Francisco and throughout the state to start their new life.”
^ Nowadays they arrive with gold.
Gennady’s article quotes Mayor Fine as saying: “But by golly, folks, the rank hypocrisy and bad faith involved in this process truly astounds me. It’s really below Palo Alto’s standards. I hope we all reflect on that.”
This from the man who wrote two letters earlier this year (one supporting SB-50 that would virtually eliminate Palo Alto’s local zoning control) ostensibly speaking on behalf of the City from his position as mayor. One was written on official City of Palo Alto/Office of the Mayor letterhead and the other was written on something that was made to look like official City/Mayor letterhead.
More importantly, however, neither represented City views on the subject matter written about, as neither had official approval of City Council. Both represented Fine’s personal views, as he had to admit afterward. Talk about hypocrisy. It’s good that he will no longer be in a position to represent our views.
“One (term) and done!”
>”Talk about hypocrisy. It’s good that he will no longer be in a position to represent our views.
“One (term) and done!”
^ And hopefully not embracing The Terminator’s closing words…”I’ll be back”.
PACC member Kniss managed an encore.
another community > CP