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Los Altos official blasts Palo Alto planning commissioner

Original post made by My Nguyen, Old Palo Alto, on Dec 9, 2014

Palo Alto planning Commissioner Michael Alcheck is perhaps the city's most strident advocate of growth, but his pro-development message proved to be a hard sell at the Dec. 4 meeting of the Los Altos Planning and Transportation Commission, which was reviewing a mixed-use development in the Loyola Corners area where he works. After more than a dozen speakers criticized the proposal, Alcheck said the opposition "is exaggerating every angle here because they oppose change." "They hear the word 'developer' and they start picketing,'" Alcheck said. In response, Commissioner Ken Lorell said it was "really amusing to me that a member of the Palo Alto planning commission would come here and lecture us on how we should build our buildings when the stuff that has been going on in Palo Alto is absolutely amazing." The commission ultimately turned the project down.

Comments (3)

Posted by Online Name
a resident of Embarcadero Oaks/Leland
on Dec 9, 2014 at 9:15 am

Online Name is a registered user.

Good for Los Altos for recognizing what a disaster Palo Alto has become. Ugly new buildings, mass approvals for under-parked office buildings that destroy our retail base, ridiculous gridlock, 10 years to shovel together boilerplate into an RFP to change one lousy traffic light, commissions on how to cut traffic while still approving under-parked buildings, a ridiculously expensive redecoration of the rarely visited first floor of City Hall....

But hey, at least our officials keep granting themselves raises and "extra pay" that are much higher than in surrounding communities.


Posted by Online Name
a resident of Embarcadero Oaks/Leland
on Dec 9, 2014 at 9:41 pm

Online Name is a registered user.

PS: Mr. Alcheck is not only one of the strongest proponents of high-density, he's also a real estate developer!


Posted by SWE
a resident of Green Acres
on Dec 9, 2014 at 11:15 pm

SWE is a registered user.

What a gift from the good people of Los Altos!

Now every time some developer shill like Kate Downing or Michael Alcheck says some ridiculous thing about how anyone who doesn't like some giant ugly underparked proposal is just a [fill in the blank] who hates growth, we should just carry this quote around with us on a little card and repeat it back:

"really amusing to me that a member of the Palo Alto planning commission would come here and lecture us on how we should build our buildings when the stuff that has been going on in Palo Alto is absolutely amazing."
-- Los Altos Commissioner Ken Lorell before denying a development proposal

Please copy that into your mail program or you notes somewhere and just copy and paste it liberally everywhere it's needed. Thank you Los Altos :-)

(For the benefit of those Palo Alto commissioners: when Ken Lorell used the word "amazing", he was using what's called irony. Among other things.)


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