This is great news! Mr laying has the back ground and temperament to be a fantastic city council member.

He is ethical, smart and familiar with how the city works. he has been very generous with his time on boards and commissions.

His thoughtful mature attitude will be a real benefit to the people who live and work in Palo Alto!!!!!
I am thoroughly happy to hear this news!!

Congratulations on entering the race for City Council, Mr. Lauing!. I have enjoyed serving with you on the Planning and Transportation Commission, and look forward to seeing you on the campaign trail this year. - Cari

Fantastic news. This gentleman is smart, thoughtful and civic-minded. He will be a great council member just as he has diligently and effectively served and led Parks and Rec, and Planning and Transportation. Can’t wait to cast my vote.

Excellent news for Palo Altans - not only a Planning Commissoner running for city council with an actual track record of invaluable experience with land use and planning, but also someone who cares deeply about the most vulnerable among us - the homeless and those needing affordable housing.

I first became aware of Ed Lauing when he volunteered with the Urban Ministry when it was the main group in town that served the homeless. He is a wonderful caring man whose concern about low-income people is deeply felt.

Lauing is super smart but not over-bearing. He will be a good addition to the council for all who want a strong but calm voice for what is best for all residents in Palo Alto.

What is his perspective on police and policing? In particular, what are his thoughts on the video evidence from 17 February 2018 (the Alvarez case), and on the decrease in departmental oversight, and in public transparency, reflected in the new contract with OIR Group from December 2019?

Mr. Lauing’s got my vote.

I have followed Ed's work for some time and he has always had an extremely positive impact on the city of Palo Alto and the residents. Excited to see Ed take over a seat from these comfortable incumbents.

Congratulations Ed on your decision to run. It looks like already you have lots of sympathy.

Great to see Mr. Lauing enter the race! Thoughtful, responsible, non-ideological leaders at the council dais will serve our whole community well as we tackle the major challenges before us.

Thank you Mr. Lauing for running. I've observed you on both Parks & Rec as well as the Planning Commission - you are polite, thoughtful and conscientitous. We will be lucky to have you on our City Council.

Thanks to Ed for running.
He’s been a valuable city commissioner, always informed and thoughtful, and an effective problem solver.
We could use his sound business executive experience through the current financial challenges. Glad to see that he is focused on preserving city services.

Mr. Lauing was ALSO the president of Palo Alto Babe Ruth and was heavily involved in Palo Alto Little League for many years. It might be small bullet point on his vast resume at this point, but i'll always remember how well run those leagues were. His role in Palo Alto Youth Athletics while my son was growing up contributed to some of the best years of his life and some of my favorite early memories of Palo Alto.

Excited to see Mr. Lauing on the ballot and happy for the opportunity to have a familiar face represent the heart of Palo Alto!

Ed Lauing is a seasoned and civil public servant. I have watched many PTC meetings where he had to rein in Alchek and Riggs whose endless tantrums and monologues prevailed. His CV is deep and he will provide our community with fairness and professionalism. In essence he represents the constituents.

To me, their position on SB50 will be the litmus test. I'm really tired of having to figure out what's really behind the rhetoric (e.g., lying developer shill, naive co-opted ideologue, etc). I want to hear what he has to say about SB50, that will help me appreciate whether he is real or just another means for developers to continue ruining this place for residents, at residents' expense.

I also want someone who is firmly looking into the future, not rooted so strongly in the past that it's as if they think another month or two and it will be business as usual. The earth fundamentally shifted on the wisdom of mindless densification for the sake of tech companies who don't even contribute here.

I looked, but didn't really get answers to any of the above in the article.

This would be a mistake. This guy is always asking for more time. He can’t make tough decisions. He worries too much about optics. He seems like a great neighbor - nice old white man. But running this city is way out of this guys wheel house. I remember his year running the planning meetings as being the worst in all my decades of living in Palo Alto. Excruciating would be the right adjective. Nice smile though.

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Bright side of SB50: get dense enough we can declare ourself one household.

Really? You are banning political speech or anything of a satirical manner? Why would you be protecting a candidate like this that definitely downgrades him in many peoples eyes did Ed ask you to take those comments down. This is how translated my metaphor as I disseminated it myself:
Kind of a cold, cold light; Functional, tiny ubiquitous or common.

To:nice guy but .....
Actually I’ve lived here for decades too and think that Ed Lauing is by far the very best chair of the planning commission
Since Eduardo Martinez.
He has it all ; smarts , good values, does his homework and knows how to behave with decorum.

He is a definite maybe, but, I need to understand what he means by this"

>> Addressing this could mean contributing more money to building affordable housing or forging partnerships with local corporations that are willing to help address the problem.

What local corporation has an incentive to partner to contribute to housing unless it seeks a deal to build more office space? Time and time again, we've seen various ploys, and the city jobs/housing imbalance always gets worse. We just don't need any more office space. What we need is for existing local corporations to start acquiring office space near where East Bay employees live, so that they don't need to commute over here. Some combination of working from home and satellite offices to get the number of employees per square foot in this down reduced.

If Ed Lauing has been a part of the Planning and Transportation Commission responsible for the Charleston/Arastradero Road and Ross Road fiascos that have damaged our city's ability to handle even ordinary traffic, misread our needs for through-passage for commuters, promoted social engineering for the bicycling minority, ignored the transportation needs of senior citizens and made these streets into obstacle courses ... HE DOES NOT DESERVE TO INFLICT MORE DAMAGE ON US!

Midtown senior, Ed Lauing was not a member of the Planning and Transportation Commission when these plans were reviewed by them.

Sounds good. But I'd like to see any new candidates for City Council take a pledge not to receive campaign contributions from developers. I do NOT want to see another episode of donations being made public after the voting is done and investigations by the Fair Political Practices group in California (sorry, don't know if I've used the correct name for the committee that investigated Liz Kniss).

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I have known Ed for 35 years and he will bring his experiences as a resident of this city to ensure the city evolves to meet the needs of the continually changing profile of its residents. In addition to knowing how the city works from his past roles, he has been an entrepreneur and high tech CEO who understands how to solve problems and who gets to the desired goals through consensus. He is smart, gracious and ethical. He has my vote!

Of all the "newcomer" candidates, Ed Lauing seems to be one of the most experienced and balanced. How can I learn more?

He's absolutely right in his criticism of the city's recent budget process where services but not big capital expenditure projects were cut.

Learn More, candidates aren't allowed to post their websites on here. Try his name and the office he is running for.