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The City Council plans to spend half a million dollars on a “Gold-Level Sponsorship” for the 2009 National Senior Games.
The event is expected to bring about 12,500 athletes over 50 to venues in Palo Alto, San Mateo County, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, Redwood City and Sunnyvale. About 35,000 visitors are expected to attend.
Mayor Larry Klein and Councilmen John Barton and Jack Morton had written a colleagues memo last week, requesting a conceptual approval of the sponsorship.
“Although the city is facing uncertain economic times, this sponsorship should be considered an investment,” the memo stated. “We will have the opportunity to showcase Palo Alto and to gain national exposure.”
The 2009 Senior Games Local Organizing Committee had requested the sponsorship and had indicated that it would be willing to accept $250,000 in cash and $250,000 in in-kind services, including police and other safety services, the memo stated.
On Monday, the council voted 5-4 in favor of the conceptual approval. Council members Yoriko Kishimoto, Sid Espinosa, Pat Burt and Yiawey Yeh voted against the resolution.
Mind-numbing.
There are so many critical needs in the City; and the City faces an uncertain economic future.
Prudence is a virtue; unfortunately, there’s little in evidence here.
If the City must spend $250k, why not, as an example, take a portion of the $250k cash and devote it to a solution to the speeding problem along Embarcadero?; as readers know, there are many forum posts here in the past several days in reply to the PA Weekly story about the recent death at the intersection of Cowper and Embarcadero.
Thanks to Ms. Kishimoto and Messrs. Espinosa, Burt, and Yeh for their ‘nay’ votes on the games’ sponsorship.
As Larry says:
“”We will have the opportunity to showcase Palo Alto and to gain national exposure.”
Once these visitors find out that PA is the location of the only shopping center IN THE WORLD designed by Eichler, they will be flocking back to Palo Alto for that.
Plus we have the largest concentration of historic homes anywhere in the US (remember anything older than 50 years is historic in PA).
I only hope all these visitors do not create too many traffic problems in Palo Alto
“Although the city is facing uncertain economic times, this sponsorship should be considered an investment,” the memo stated. “We will have the opportunity to showcase Palo Alto and to gain national exposure.”
Umm, the event is at Stanford. It is happening whether we sponsor it or not. So we get “exposure” whether we pay the $500,000 or pay nothing. All this does is get our name on banners and programs as a formal sponsor. Is the idea that people don’t know our name?
This is real a sad and troubling one – the level of thought that went into a very large investment was less that what anyone would want.
Uh, REALLY?? Does Palo Alto need to do ANYTHING to gain national exposure anymore??
Wow. This redefines stupidity.
Well, they got their library money, and they are grifting us with shady funding mechanisms for the police station money. I guess they figure there’s nothing they can’t get away with when it comes to wasting taxpayer money. Why not waste half a million on another silly pet project of one of the council members? If they need more, they can always trump up some new excuse for a bond, or jigger the accounting so they can raise utility rates and slush a little more money into the general fund.
I’m afraid if the city gets more exposure even more of my distant friends will laugh at me for living in what’s fast becoming another looney left coast city a la’ Berkeley and San Francisco.
My emails to the Council on this topic, before and after the vote, have so far generated one response (from a council member who voted against). So much for civic engagement! I guess they are only interested if you happen to agree with them!
“My emails to the Council on this topic, before and after the vote, have so far generated one response (from a council member who voted against). So much for civic engagement! I guess they are only interested if you happen to agree with them!”
Why should they bother responding to you, or even paying any attention? They have more important things to think about than the petty concerns of residents and taxpayers.
Just pay your taxes, shut-up, and don’t ask questions.
The City is sponsoring these Senior games because athletes may stay in destination Palo Alto. Meanwhile, Stanford has said that since it’s Summer vacation, athletes can use dormitory rooms for half the price.
What’s to stop visitors from staying in equally good hotels in Menlo Park or Mountain View? Those Cities didn’t contribute any of the $500,000.
Palo Alto City Council has far too much money to throw around.
What a waste of taxpayer money.
How about putting that money into long neglected street and sidewalk repairs and while they are at it fix the deplorable sewer system. It took the city over three months to get out to fix the city’s broken lateral sewer connection at my house. In the meantime we had the pleasure of dealing with backups.
I’m sure that many citizens can think of much wiser ways to spend this amount of money, especially in these uncertain economic times.
How I wish we had a city council election this year. It can’t come too soon.
Me Too–did you really expect the city council to reply to your concerns–this “civic engagement” baloney is just another one of their smokescreens to make it appear that they actually care about what we want, while merrily going along doing whatever they please.
IMHO, our mayor, has shown this year that acting properly, in an ethical manner, is not something he considers to be part of his job. it is too bad that he is dragging along a majority of the council with him in wasting even more of our money
Fellow disgruntled Palo Altans:
It may be somewhat satisfying to air our gripes on this blog, but do you think anyone in the city government reads our comments? Me Too wrote to City Council. No surprise there was but one reply. Civic engagement is a joke! No one can even define it, yet it’s supposedly Council’s number one priority.
Kate wishes the election was this year. Does it matter? We got 4 new council members in the last election. Are they any different than the members we’ve had for the past 10 or more years?
The only people who have a chance of being elected are the ones who are part of the Fab 400. And as soon as they take office, they drink the “Palo Alto is special and wealthy and better than any other city on the peninsula” Kool-Aid. All they care about is patting each other on the back. Anyone who dares to challenge their perfection is labeled a disgruntled naysayer.
The ONLY way to be heard in this town is to organize. LOTS of people have to go to council meetings and demand to be heard. Individuals are easy to dismiss.
Think of all the lobbyist groups in Palo Alto, all supposedly speaking for us: PAN, PAGE, ALPA, and all the neighborhood organizations. As individuals, we’re invisible.
The waste of money on the Senior Games is trivial compared to the HUGE issues facing the city that affect all of us:
– High speed rail with the concerns about eminent domain
– Urbanization, proposed by John Barton and his “Alliance for a Livable Palo Alto.” Does his version of “livable” match yours?
– The misappropriation of our utility payments, as well as all the other wasteful spending.
Unless LOTS of residents band together to fight City Hall, we will get what we deserve by allowing our so-called representatives decide for us.
The expenditure is indeed ridiculous in view of other public needs. Does the city council post its agenda online in advance? And do they let attending members of the public be heard? Will this topic be considered again, or is this a done deal?
And: Are there any legal limitations on purposes/amounts of public expenditures? Would it be possible to get court review of this?
And: Should this event obtain greater funding that it needs, will the city get a refund?
Since the games are held at Stanford, don’t Klein and Barton have a conflict of interest? (again!)
Kate says: “How I wish we had a city council election this year. It can’t come too soon.” I am very disappointed with the two new members of our City Council Yeh and Espinosa. When I voted for them I thought they would be a counter balance to the old guys on the CC and have the courage to speak out and vote against some of their wasteful monetary decisions. Sadly, they have very quickly fallen into line.
Maybe this and the lousy credit markets will cause them to hold off on the police station.
Of course, they could apply to their hero Obama for WPA-type funding.
The College Terrace library was built by the WPA.
I’m in support of this magnificent expenditure that will further enhance the worldwide reputation of our city as cutting edge on the things that matter most.
Sure it costs money that some short-sighted residents would prefer be spent on mundane pothole filling projects, but this misses the point.
During the last two years under Mayor Kishimoto, Palo Alto made news everywhere with our Global Climate Change iniative and other similar policy innovations. She was invited to Washington to meet Al Gore who returned the favor by donating money to a local environmental group. Think of the favorable publicity – not only for the Mayor, but for all the council members and the city leaders in general.
Now with this Senior Games publicity, we’ll have our names on banners and brochures. Everybody interested in the Senior Games will know that Palo Alto spent money on them. What is that worth?!
Let’s continue to be a leader in public expenditures that broadcast our existence wide and far.
Speaking of banners and brochures, have you seen the latest? Several businesses have a rather tacky-looking sign that says: Downtown Palo Alto – a winter destination.
Destination for what? Who dreams up these stupid ideas?
well, there sure isn’t any money for American flags for the 4th of July, Memorial Day, Flag Day, and Veteran’s Day. Los Altos does it – so does RWC, Mt. View, Sunnyvale, and Los Gatos. But not here. I believe once there were United Nations flags years ago.
Is the city ‘ashamed’ to do it? or does it think it is so ‘cosmopolitan’ and one-world that somebody in this multicultural city would be offended. This is the United States. Love it or leave it.
As long as we vote in “Downtown Business” people and developers and people with no ethical standards what do you expect. So called enviromentalists are actually developers of high density projects in this city.
Think “Recall-election”.
Think “Boycott downtown chain stores and chain resturants”.
Palo Alto could be renamed the “Chain Store and Chain Resturant” capital of Silicon Valley.
What about the other $500,000 given to the chamber of commerse to promote downtown Palo Alto?
Home owners wake up we are being “Scr—“
crisk says: “Maybe this and the lousy credit markets will cause them to hold off on the police station.” Probably not, but the bullet train will need the land the city just paid $10 Million for.
As soon as they build the new Public Safety Building it will be taken over by eminent domain for the bullet train. End of new Police Building.
The City has $43 million in the Utilities Reserves and still may raise our rates again next summer – or January. It paid over $1.2 million in employee bonuses because they ‘did their job’. (Any place else , not doing the job would mean out-the-door). Larry Klein ran on a platform of fiscal prudence and shaping up the budget. It isn’t happening, and Morton and Barton fall in line plus two more for majority. Then we’ll get Peter Drekmeier for mayor whose main concern is our carbon ‘footprint’. Come on! We’ve got more things to worry about. This Letters of Participation to pay for the new police building, doing an end run around the voters, is civically ‘criminal’. Has this bunch every heard of cities going bankrupt? Yes, a recall election – and let’s do it. Been done before and it worked. Lots of seniors in this town living on Social Security and ‘fixed’ income with almost non-existent interest rates. People are SCARED. And there are a LOT of vacant spaces at Town and Country after highly patronized more affordable stores, like the CookBook, Rojo’s, and the pizza store, and Stuart’s clothing were kicked out. Stanford Shopping Center’s big upscale plans may backfire. Who’s got the money all those expensive stores? EVen Penny’s isn’t that crowded. The ceiling hasn’t collapsed here yet, but read the newspapers. The sky IS falling, Chicken Little.
from Friday’s PA Weekly in the Around Town section, under the heading “A Modest Proposal?:
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=10044
Apparently Drekmeier in his zeal to force his social engineering efforts on everyone is anti-family:
Then on Monday the City Council will be watching a movie:
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=10049
obviously there are no problems in the city to deal with no wthat they have gotten the $500,000 for the Senior Games
I never heard of the “National Senior Games.” Why in the heck are we getting involved with this when we have pressing local needs?
Telling people to have fewer children (thats what he should have said) is not anti family. That is so simple minded! Less population growth is the most humane and best way to reduce the disastrous over-consumption around us and all over the world. Unfortunately starvation and disease do it for us if we don’t do it ourselves.
Conservationists are afraid of offending the right wing religions so they usually don’t say the obvious. But it is the truth and high time to say it.
Here’s an article about local government worker retirement fund
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/07/MN1314IRLO.DTL&type=business&tsp=1
Looks like the city may get hit up for more money in the next budget cycle – is the council thinking about this when they allocated the $500,000?
Conflict of interest–then we can agree that what Drekmeier said was wrong. Yes, we do need less population growth, but we obviously need to procreate.
Maybe Peter should think before he talks for a change
“Maybe Peter should think before he talks for a change…”
Isn’t this asking a little too much from a dogmatic self-righteous single-issue ideologue?
There’s a reason why Palo Alto is in the increasingly perilous situation we’re seeing now. And the election of people like Drekmeier to our council is the reason why.
Dave–I could not agree with you more. Wait until he becomes mayor in January!!!
Well…Drekmeier doesn’t have to be mayor, but look at the other choices. One’s as bad as the other – except Pat Burt.. Barton…no way. Morton…votes with the crowd. Espinosa and Yeh – too inexperienced. Kishimoto – once is enough. Klein – he ran on a platform of fiscal prudence and shaping up the budget. Short memory. The best choice is Burt for experience from years on the Planning Commission and long term residency. We must DEMAND that in this case, Drekmeier get passed over at this crucial juncture in Palo Alto’s future. Drekmeier is too radical. WE cannot allow Drekmeier to become mayor by tradition. The council did it before when it opted for Gary Fazzino over the then vice mayor in a crucial year. Get the letters going to the council. Or be prepared for a very bad year.
I for one am thrilled that PA is ponying up to sponsor. I will be competing in the Sr Games (aka Sr Olympics).
2009 is the first time the Sr Olympics have ever been held in Cali. It will be a big deal for Stanford and for PA. Just you wait and see. Competitors will spend so much $ in your town that the taxes will buy all of you new sewers or whatever else you need.
And y’all need to stop blogging and get off your fat butts and exercise so that one day you too can compete in the Sr Olympics!!