Reader Wire Reader Wire (April 04, 2003)

Helpful City Hall

I don't usually go to City Hall, but on March 17 I had to get some documents.

I had trouble finding what floor and what office the papers were in, so I had to ask many people for directions. Everyone had a smile, they were more than friendly and very helpful.

Something's right there. A good feeling. Paula Kirkeby Ely Place, Palo Alto
Referendum rights

More than 3,000 Palo Alto voters have qualified a referendum petition against the ordinance approving the 800 High St. project. Palo Alto's Charter requires the council to either repeal the ordinance or submit it to the voters.

Three council members -- Hillary Freeman, Yoriko Kishimoto and Nancy Lytle -- voted to repeal the ordinance. The other six council members failed to vote either to repeal the ordinance or to submit it to the voters. Instead, the council decided that the developer compromise with somebody to enable a majority of the council to adopt a different project immediately after the council majority repeals the ordinance that had been referended.

Various council members suggested that the developer negotiate a compromise with the referendum's sponsors, with the local neighborhood association or with the association's president.

None of these has the authority to compromise on behalf of the voters who signed the petition. The referendum sponsors had the right to circulate the petition and submit the signed petitions to qualify the referendum, but California law prohibits the petition signatures being used for any other purpose.

The neighborhood association endorsed the petition, but that does not give it standing to negotiate a compromise on behalf of the petition signers. The association president can represent the association only on matters approved by its board of directors.

The developer can negotiate with the council in a properly noticed, open meeting, but I doubt the council will approve a substantially different project that has never been reviewed by the appropriate city boards and commissions. Herb Borock Colorado Avenue, Palo Alto
Enlightening statistics

It is enlightening to look at some statistics from the latest census when addressing the issue of whether or not Palo Alto is facing an anti-housing movement.

Consider the following:

1) 76 percent of the working residents of Palo Alto fall into the management/professional category. This same category represents 33 percent of the workforce nationwide.

2) 42.8 percent of the households of Palo Alto rent rather than own.

3) 30.9 percent of the rental households spend 35 percent or more of their gross household income toward their rent.

One more statistic: The median for single-family detached homes sold in Palo Alto in the first two months of this year was $865,750.

Regardless whether there is an anti-housing movement afoot or not, I believe these statistics should be troubling to Palo Altans for the following reasons:

If two-thirds of the jobs in Palo Alto are filled by less than 25 percent of the working residents, it guarantees that many of those jobs will have to be filled by workers who will commute from somewhere else. This would continue to be the case even if there were a one-to-one jobs-to-housing ratio. The only difference would be that more than half of the management/professional residents would have to commute out of town as well to find work.

If Palo Alto is going to truly address its housing needs, it is critical that it encourage rather than discourage housing options within that economic reach of those who make a critical contribution to the livability, vitality and well being of this community.

One more point. The census also points out that four out of five residents get to work by automobile. If the automobile is the overwhelming choice of Palo Altans, then it is only reasonable and prudent to accommodate those who come here the same way to make the contributions they do to Palo Alto. Mark Sabin Alberta Avenue, Sunnyvale
Cycle or shuttle?

This responds to the letter from Michele Miller in the March 26 issue, asking for shuttle service to Paly, saying that bicycling for her teenagers is not feasible and would take too long. I'm happy she's interested in non-driving transportation, but more shuttle service is not the best solution for her children.

Try bicycling. A shuttle along Middlefield Road and Embarcadero Road to Paly (if there were one) would take about 10 minutes. Add about five minutes walking and five minutes waiting, totaling 20 minutes. At a leisurely cycling pace of 8 mph, bicycling would take about 17 minutes. Call it a tie.

Even the city's efficient shuttle service costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Bicycling costs almost nothing -- nothing at all if the Millers already own bicycles. Excellent infrastructure is already there. Bicycling is the healthiest, most efficient, least expensive and least polluting form of mechanized transportation.

You can travel whenever you want and do errands or visit friends using any route you want. Try that on the shuttle! After some practice, the kids would beat the shuttle timewise.

I enjoy my daily bike commute and doing local errands. For such simple things, and for going to school, why drive or take the bus when you can bicycle? Carl Stoffel Richard Court, Mountain View