Wait a second. On May 9, Gennady Sheyner wrote an article titled "Ballot measure could overturn Palo Alto's new business tax". The proposed measure is called the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act. Per Kiely Nose "it would impact potentially everything from community services, development center charges for permits to impact fees and our two new revenues that are critical to maintaining the current stability."

Now may not be the time to be "emboldened by a brightening economic outlook". How much does the budget rely on revenue from the new tax and the utility transfer? One of the public speakers, John Kelley, mentioned the economic uncertainty that the nation is facing and was starting to comment on Palo Alto budget provisions for City salaries when he was (rudely, I think) cut off by the clerk b/c he was out of time. Another few seconds might well have given CC some valuable points for consideration.

I think Tanaka was right to suggest keeping spending down and think it makes sense to take a conservative approach to the budget at least until the outcome of the ballot measure is known.

I am pleased to see that our City finances appear to be so healthy.

I would like to see serious money invested in our electrical power infrastructure. We have too many outages to make it reliable and spare utilities money should be going on improving our supply rathr than being put into the general fund. Can we get some indication as to which area is presently getting its powerlines underground? Is there a calendar published annually for this and can we ask when our own area will be done?

"Maintain" Cubberley?... as though the city has EVER done that? How about fixing it? The city has neglected Cubberley for so long, it is blighted, depressing, literally no longer secure from water intrusion, rats, mold, and other blight. The gyms have been closed for so long, I've lost track. Ugly prefab portable buildings proliferate. Fix it! The city built a new Junior Museum, added a history museum in north PA, renovated every single one of the north Palo Alto's community service facilities, and used Cubberley for construction storage while you did it, leaving behind a mess. Cubberley continues to ROT. It is as though the city is deliberately thumbing their noses at this part of town. We are not your dumping ground.

The grade separation options for south PA are awful--across the board, and south PA still has ZERO existing grade separations, compared to the existing FIVE in north Palo Alto. We need TWO dedicated, grade sep bike/ped crossings in south Palo Alto in addition to multi-modal crossings at Charleston and Meadow before we put more in north Palo Alto. Recognize and address existing inequity. Don't make it worse. The city always spends in north PA first and then has no money left for south PA. (Excellent example of this: Undergrounding electrical lines started in north PA and never made it to south PA. )

All of this, while south PA gets the lion's share of new higher density, mandated housing. Does that sound like good planning (or fair distribution of resources) to you?

Create fair and balanced distribution of resources. Prioritize Cubberley. Give us a fair share of grade separations and fix San Antonio Road to make it livable as you add thousands of new residents to this part of town. Is anyone looking at the big picture?

"Hotel revenues are also now booming, with staff now projecting $27.3 million in transient-occupancy tax revenues, well exceeding the 2023 budget estimate of $18.2 million."

Really? Booming? All the articles I've read about hotel revenue for San Francisco, Silicon Valley and maybe San Jose talk about a 50% decline in business business travel in part because of the number of remote workers, in part because of the tanking high tech industry that reduce business travel and in part because of the trend for high tech to continue holding more meetings and product demonstrations via Zoom.

And, anecdotally, an acquaintance at the Stanford Garden Hotel on ECR reports a huge decline in the number of visitors.

Whoa...step back and wait...and even challenge those revenue sources. You can spend it when you get/have it...but not before. Drinking champagne on what might be better labeled as a beer budget is fraught with risks.

Since we have funds, I would love to see the city take on and operate the animal shelter again.

On Mother's Day my son and I drove down El Camino. We debated who should be fixing it. If we pay a tax on gas at the station that tax is suppose to be devoted to improving the roads. He believes that the county is responsible for fixing El Camino, as it is in good shape in other locations.

So that is just a part of the bigger picture - we have paid in for fixes that just aren't happening. Is it a county job or state job? I am very serious about this - I don't want to buy a new car and drive it down our horrible streets. WE have to dig into who is responsible for common sense fixes and start pushing to make it happen. How does a person ride a bike down that street?

When there is a budget surplus, doesn't the City of Palo Alto and its city council members ever think of saving money by reducing frivolous expenditures or is it merely viewed as just another opportunity to spend (aka waste) taxpayer money?

El Camino Real is a STATE highway, controlled by Caltrans, a STATE agency that citizens fund with STATE tax revenues. Repaving planning is slated to get underway (I have seen the plans), and will get underway this year.

Repaving is the STATE's responsibility, not the city's. Write to Senator Becker and Assembly Member Berman and Governor Newsom to complain. Caltrans only listens to electeds who control their purse strings. Any messages you send to their customer contact address goes into a black hole, as far as I can tell.

"Write to Senator Becker and Assembly Member Berman and Governor Newsom to complain. Caltrans only listens to electeds who control their purse strings. Any messages you send to their customer contact address goes into a black hole, as far as I can tell."

Indeed the messages do go into a black hole. A bunch of us tried to get answers from them and failed but we finally did get an answer from Joe Simitian which is that ECR repaying will start in Milpitas maybe around December and start moving north with an ETA for PA TBD.

As they said during their housing "listening sessions" they were still trying to "wrap their minds around the issues" which prompted a local wit to quip that we should send them turbans.

This is in part a tax issue. WE pay taxes at the pump to get road issues resolved. We need the state auditor go in and follow the money from the tax paid in to WHO? Who is the WHO and what are they doing with our money? We need names and titles. WE are being taken to the cleaners in this state and it has to stop. That money is going somewhere and we need to know where it is going.

I refer all readers to the article about the recent violence in a classroom at JLS. The reporting makes clear that, like it or not, spending priority for both the City and the PAUSD needs to be on resources that establish and maintain a safe environment at every school in the district.

What good does it do to have safe routes TO school if students and teachers are not safe AT school?

@resident 1-Adobe meadows. “ This is in part a tax issue. WE pay taxes at the pump to get road issues resolved. We need the state auditor go in and follow the money from the tax paid in to WHO? Who is the WHO and what are they doing with our money?” First. Take a breath here. Two: Prop 13 locked up in a Cali induced debtors prison much of our infrastructure. And it’s crumbling as we post. A tax here, a bind there... yet an overall tax would supply the plenty. A few now have the beauty of a minimum property tax while the many are dealing w an infrastructure melt-down. The first to go in the way back machine were library funding then immediately following was public school sports & art— I mean like overnight . The pump tax came way later. Of course since unlucky 13 it’s been a pay as we go tax system. Which is very bad for everyone. Gas Tax, Cigarette tax, soda tax, sales tax, business tax, transient tax... instead we got a draconian property tax that’s robbing our cities, towns, regions of anything forward !!! Believe you me, I was one child who was caught in a mid ‘70’s property tax based snare economy. Where a property here was taxed higher for here and then over there it was less and consequently — all of my 10 years of age could fathom was that here was 100’s of thousands of dollars in additional costs per year and not mortgage percentage points of 5% or less. And I rank snd file moved to crisis mode. Two years later. No art, or music and my city library? It was a county entity. My reading went way down because my age could not grasp a city to county rank and file staffing. reorganization.