December 31, 2003

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Palo Alto Online

City on edge

by Bill D'Agotino, Rachel Metz and Don Kazak

When historians look back at Palo Alto, circa 2003, they'll see a community that was so tense, it created a ruckus over seemingly trivial issues.

After all, 2003 was the year so fraught with irritation a man was arrested for barking angrily at a police dog.

The size of a neighbor's home, the configuration of new school tennis courts, a proposed housing project, the chemicals in the water, blockages of neighborhood streets -- all generated angry letters, angry words and angry faces. It's no wonder the city debated adopting guidelines for council members' behavior.

The City Council received much of the criticism for acting out, but at times it seemed like the entire city's decorum was thrown out the window.

There were also times when the community came together to preserve the same high quality-of-life standards that bitterly divided them.

When the state threatened to snag basic-aid school-district financing, residents banded together in a fury of protest letter-writing and e-mails -- to the point that a member of the governor's staff cried, "Enough!" Residents also rallied to keep city programs, such as the Brown Bag and Twilight Concerts series, amid a year of drastic budget cuts. But those were the exceptions, not the rule.

"I do think that, for a variety of reasons, people in this community are more demanding than they've ever been before," former Mayor Gary Fazzino said.

Chief among those reasons, Fazzino argued, is the extremely high cost of living in Palo Alto. People who paid millions for their homes expect a high level of service for their tax dollars, and those working two jobs only have time to be involved in a few special interests.

"People are less engaged in broader community activities than they were 10 or 20 years ago," Fazzino said.

othing embodies Palo Alto's conflict-ridden year better than the polarizing discord -- still raging -- over roadblocks in the neighborhood immediately north of downtown.

With some residents' approval, seven test-run "traffic calming" blockades were placed on three neighborhood streets in June by the city's transportation team, which hoped to stop the neighborhood from being used as a shortcut for commuters and make some streets safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.

But other citizens, who watched the cars on their nearby streets proliferate and experienced delays in their personal travel, were anything but calmed, and formed "Unblock!" to push for removal of the barriers.

A not-so-neighborly clash ensued. Oppositional groups formed. Signs and barriers were stolen.

"You're selfish!" one man shouted at his foe during a neighborhood meeting. At that get-together, hopeful -- or perhaps desperate -- moderators handed out a six-point sheet titled, "Behavior Guidelines for Public Meetings."

Below the surface of the barbs, the battle over the roadblocks illustrates the disempowerment all Palo Alto drivers seem to feel when they have to sit helplessly in traffic that snarls local streets.

A struggle to maintain or enhance quality of life played a big role in most city battles. The most gut-level reactions were over development and traffic issues.

At the heart of all of them was a basic question, Fazzino noted: "Should Palo Alto be a relatively sleepy Midpeninsula urban village or is it an important part of the economic engine that drives Silicon Valley?"

Ground zero for that debate was 800 High St. Voters went to the polls in November and narrowly approved the 61-unit condominium project proposed for location, even though the developer spent ten times more money than the thosewho fought the project. The controversy pitted long-time environmental allies against each other, amid a free-for-all of accusations. The campaign got so bitter that a leader of the anti-project group, Larry Hassett, the owner of a nearby hardware store, refused to sell a barbecue part to one of the developer's campaign managers.

"There were underlying differences about 800 High that probably had much less to do with 800 High itself than with other, larger-scale projects" awaiting city approval, Fazzino said.

On a smaller scale, but even more emotionally debated, a second-story addition to a home on Webster Street became so controversial that the homeowners received hate mail containing racial remarks.

Elizabeth and Jaime Wong engaged in a seemingly endless battle with neighbors over expanding their house into what neighbors considered a monster-size home. Caught in a circle of city hearings, denials, appeals and denials again, the Wongs finally got their project approved in October, more than a year after they first applied.

In November, voters also were asked to remove fluoride from the drinking water. Petitioners accused the city of adding a dangerous "toxic waste" byproduct to the water. But voters overwhelmingly refused to believe their claims, instead choosing to listen to dentists who praised the chemical's ability to fight cavities.

Even a reopening of a middle school caused controversy this year..

The school district welcomed a reopened Terman Middle School's its other 16 schools in August, after students and teachers spent two years in a temporary quarters at the former Garland School.

But local tennis aficionados who used the tennis facilities at the Terman Community Center park -- known as the Terman Termites -- fought for their favorite tennis courts, opposing new basketball courts that ultimately reduced the number of tennis courts at the site.

People engaging in government affairs in Palo Alto increasingly are refusing to find common ground with their opponents, officials observed.

"They don't come in committed to find a solution as much as they come in with a point of view," Councilman Jim Burch said. "Too many want both their say and their way. That dooms it to failure."

Yet it was the council itself that had the most friction -- and the least ability to find common ground -- this year.

Over the past few years, Palo Alto City Council politics have not always been pretty, but it was in 2003 that the public really got a front-row seat, starting with what was dubbed a "declaration of war" attack on Dena Mossar -- moments before she was elected mayor by unanimous vote -- at the first council meeting in January by Councilwoman Nancy Lytle.

"It was a year of a lot of drama," Mayor Dena Mossar recalled.

The year's politics really began last year, on Oct. 30, 2002, when three council members stormed out of a closed-door meeting where members were discussing a secret e-mail City Attorney Ariel Calonne sent complaining about a comment by Lytle.

Councilman Jack Morton wrote a memo that blew open three years of behind-the-scenes frustration with Lytle. Once the lid was off, council members had a hard time placing it back.

"... Additional training in ethics, management, interpersonal skills, conflict resolution and team building is required for this mayoral candidate as she enters her term as mayor," Lytle declared, to the shock of those in attendance.

Barely a meeting went by without a barbed or snide remark from one council member or another.

In February, the council settled a lawsuit with two newspapers (the Weekly and the San Jose Mercury), agreeing to release e-mails associated with the Morton memo, and all future council e-mails. The city also settled a separate Weekly suit claiming the Oct. 30 "personnel" meeting was illegal under the state's Brown Act open-meeting law.

A few months later, the council received worldwide attention -- including a mention on Rush Limbaugh's radio show and in the New York Times -- for a set of rules regulating council behavior, designed to minimize the sniping and the shrugs.

The public and the media mocked the council, perceiving it to be legislating their members' body language.

"You cannot enforce good manners and conduct," one e-mailer wrote. "It has to be taught and if your members do not know how to show respect, even in disagreeing, then I suggest the voters decide the matter."

That blow-up was the "poster child for how over the top the year became," Mossar said.

Perhaps the friendliest meeting of the year came when that proposal was dropped. Three local television stations sent cameras to cover the council's action, but council members oozed sweetness to each other throughout the meeting.

In November, 11 candidates vied for four seats in a contentious council election.. Lytle was replaced on the council by a relative newcomer to city politics, LaDoris Cordell, a vice provost at Stanford University and former Santa Clara County judge. The election outcome brought hope that the cup of chaos had finally run over, and pleasant times were coming.

Meanwhile a more significant and emotional fight took place over something that seemed more mundane -- funding. Both the school district and city engaged in major, and nearly unparalleled in recent years, battles to hold onto their budgets. The fight over state claiming of basic-aid school-district funds brought people who'd never been involved in politics before out the woodwork, like school board member Camille Townsend, who was elected to the board in November.

The city's deficit was $10 million in 2003, on top of an $11 million cut the city had made the previous year.

"That's an incredibly difficult conversation for a community to have," Mossar said of such large cutbacks.

With the pie getting smaller, community groups were pitted against each other. Firefighters battled against proposed staffing cuts supported by the fire chief and city staff.

The arts community rallied to meetings, and got the most concessions from the city officials. Even windsurfers, called Mud Dogs, unsuccessfully fought a fee for an improved parking lot -- they didn't want the improvements anyway.

The school district mobilized to fight a proposal from the state. Threatened by a 25 percent grab at its $108 million budget, the district rallied troops of parents and some students to fire off letters, e-mails and phone calls to the state. Dozens of parents huddled over coffee at the now-defunct Café La Dolce Vita. Some even programmed the governor's office into their speed dial.

"I think it was a great awakening for many people who had not been directly political before of their own power," Townsend said.

The proposal was eventually dropped. But the district still had to make $3.5 million in cuts, mostly to services such as counseling and campus maintenance.

Unlike many surrounding school districts, PAUSD decided not to pink slip teachers in the face of last spring's budget crisis. Superintendent Mary Frances Callan said it was the right thing to do -- because giving notice to the number of staffers necessary to comply with the district's share of the state deficit would have "ruined the morale and education that occurs."

Reflecing on the events of the year, even the good news (see sidebar), Fazzino summed up with the following: "I'm not sure anyone will look back at 2003 -- 20 and 30 years from now -- and suggest it was a watershed year in the city's history."

But the question remains: wWas all of the turmoil resolved in 2003 or was it merely a set-up for more conflicts in 2004?

Fights over growth may have only just begun, especially in south Palo Alto.

Hyatt Rickey's Hotel along El Camino has proposed renovating its property and adding up to 300 housing units. Vacant land near San Antonio Road is the designated future home for the Campus for Jewish Life, with a large community center, senior housing and 230 housing units.

The city placed a freeze on those developments in 2003 to study the way traffic could be affected on the Charleston/Arastradero roads corridor, but that moratorium ends in early 2004.

Both the city and school budgets are large unknowns for next year, as they are dependent on the local economy and whatever the state chooses to do to resolve its own crises.

"I would say the next couple, three years are probably going to be quite difficult. We're already discussing these issues, coming up with strategies and approaches, looking at the budget very critically," said Gail Price, a school board member.

The biggest open question may be the City Council. With Lytle off the council, can the remaining members put aside past differences to work more smoothly for the betterment of the community? Or will they continue to model bad-behavior for citizens who, in turn, throw it back at them?

"I have a sense that the community is feeling very hopeful about next year -- that we're done with the drama and ready for next year," Mossar said. "I think if the council doesn't deliver that, the community is going to be very disappointed. And I think they should be. Enough already."

She was quiet for a brief moment, then laughed.

"Mossar says, 'Enough already.'"

Bill D'Agostino can be e-mailed at bdagostino@paweekly.com. Rachel Metz can be e-mailed at rmetz@paweekly.com. Don Kazak can be e-mailed at dkazak@paweekly.com.

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