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Home My WebLink About2025-02-24 City Council EmailsDOCUMENTS IN THIS PACKET INCLUDE: LETTERS FROM CITIZENS TO THE MAYOR OR CITY COUNCIL RESPONSES FROM STAFF TO LETTERS FROM CITIZENS ITEMS FROM MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBERS ITEMS FROM OTHER COMMITTEES AND AGENCIES ITEMS FROM CITY, COUNTY, STATE, AND REGIONAL AGENCIES Prepared for: 2/24/2025 Document dates: 2/18/2025 - 2/24/2025 Note: Documents for every category may not have been received for packet reproduction in a given week. 701-32 From:Aram James To:Barberini, Christopher; Enberg, Nicholas; Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; h.etzko@gmail.com; Gerry Gras;Dana St. George; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Bill Newell; Steve Wagstaffe; Sarah Wright; Dave Price; Ed Lauing;Council, City; Daniel Kottke; Reckdahl, Keith; Doug Minkler; Templeton, Cari; bos@smcgov.org;board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; swright@embarcaderopublishing.com; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Rosen;Rodriguez, Miguel; Damon Silver; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; board@pausd.org; Vara Ramakrishnan; WILPFPeninsula Palo Alto; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Pat M; Sean Allen; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Cait James; Tim James;Lewis james; Marina Lopez; Kaloma Smith; Human Relations Commission; Burt, Patrick;Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Stump, Molly;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Jessica Speiser; Josh Becker; Jose Valle; Linda Jolley; MickieWinkler; Emily Mibach; EPA Today; Braden Cartwright; Robert. Jonsen; Roberta Ahlquist; editor@paweekly.com;Figueroa, Eric; Afanasiev, Alex; cromero@cityofepa.org; Cribbs, Anne; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Lee, Craig; PaloAlto Free Press; planning.commision@cityofpaloalto.org; ParkRec Commission; yolanda; Sheriff Transparency Subject:Re: The Truth About Police K-9s Date:Monday, February 24, 2025 10:52:36 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Mon, Feb 24, 2025 at 10:38 AM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: From the archive of Aram James The Truth About Police K-9s https://youtu.be/cSbEj6RIoDE From:Antun Domic To:Council, City Cc:Antun Domic Subject:Fire Station Number 4, Engine and Staffing Date:Monday, February 24, 2025 10:26:52 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Members of the City Council: As residents of Cork Oak Way in the area served by Fire Station 4, we are writing to express our strong dismay with the past actions and current plans for this Station. It is imperative that Fire Station 4 has a FireEngine and full time staffing for the engine. Cross staffing with an ambulance is not acceptable. In many cases both capabilities are required simultaneously at the same location. Currently, to get to our large and densely populated area of the City, a fire engine has to cross active railroad lines or cross two heavily trafficked thoroughfares. Given the recent fires in urban areas of our State, we are all well aware of the requirements for full staffing and equipment stationed in all areas of the City. Our safety is at risk. We ask the City Council to increase focus and to take immediate action to remedy these shortcomings of essential services. Thank you and awaiting a positive outcome to this serious situation, Antun Domic and Mary Slocum 3404 Cork Oak Way From:Celina Tracy To:Council, City Subject:oppose exec orders! Date:Monday, February 24, 2025 10:24:37 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor and Members of the Palo Alto City Council, I am writing to express my strong support for the resolution opposing recent executive orders from former President Trump, as referenced in the Palo Alto Online article dated February 14, 2025. I urge you to take a firm stand in defense of our community’s values of democracy, inclusion, and human rights. These executive orders threaten the fundamental freedoms and protections that make Palo Alto a welcoming and just place for all. Now more than ever, it is essential that our local government acts decisively to protect our residents and push back against policies that undermine our shared values. I commend the City Council for taking a leadership role in resisting unjust federal actions and ensuring that Palo Alto remains a city that values equity, diversity, and the rule of law. Please continue to stand strong in the face of these challenges and do everything in your power to uphold the rights and dignity of all members of our community. Thank you for your commitment to justice and fairness. I respectfully urge you to pass this resolution and take further steps to shield our city from harmful federal overreach. Sincerely, Celina Tracy 671 Bryson Ave., Palo Alto From:Frank Hockeborn Subject:Venue Availability Inquiry for 2025 Wedding Date:Monday, February 24, 2025 10:05:17 AM Attachments:ATT00001.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi, I hope you’re well. I’m inquiring about your venue's availability for a wedding in 2025. Could youplease provide details on: Accommodation options and pricing Event packages (hall design, floral arrangements) Venue capacity and amenities Booking process for luxury boat cruises, dining, and other upscale activities We’re also interested in luxury cruise options and nearby dining for our guests.Thank you for your assistance. I look forward to your prompt response. Event Planner Frank Hockeborn From:Andrew Bianco To:Council, City Subject:City Council Meeting 2/24 -- Item 8 Comment Date:Monday, February 24, 2025 12:42:55 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hello, I live in Palo Alto, and I’m writing to express my support for Item 8 on tomorrow’s agenda, “Resolution Underscoring Council’s Commitment to Sustaining Palo Alto Values and Interests in the Face of Trump Administration Actions.” It's important to take an early stand against tyranny and remember to not comply in advance. There are real people in our community that are at risk of being impacted by flagrant and illegal abuses of power by the Trump Administration. Thank you, - Andrew Bianco From:Loran Harding To:Loran Harding; alumnipresident@stanford.edu; antonia.tinoco@hsr.ca.gov; David Balakian; beachrides;bearwithme1016@att.net; bballpod; fred beyerlein; Leodies Buchanan; boardmembers;carloslawnservice14@gmail.com; Cathy Lewis; Council, City; Doug Vagim; dennisbalakian;dallen1212@gmail.com; kdeem.electriclab@gmail.com; Scott Wilkinson; George.Rutherford@ucsf.edu;Gabriel.Ramirez@fresno.gov; huidentalsanmateo; hennessy; Irv Weissman; Sally Thiessen; Joel Stiner; jerryruopoli; karkazianjewelers@gmail.com; kfsndesk; Mayor; MY77FJ@gmail.com; margaret-sasaki@live.com;maverickbruno@sbcglobal.net; merazroofinginc@att.net; Mark Standriff; newsdesk; nick yovino;news@fresnobee.com; russ@topperjewelers.com; terry; tsheehan; vallesR1969@att.net; Steve Wayte Subject:Fwd: Delta"s Endeavor Air and NO WHITE MEN Date:Monday, February 24, 2025 12:20:00 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Loran Harding <loran.harding@stanfordalumni.org>Date: Sun, Feb 23, 2025 at 3:03 PM Subject: Fwd: Delta's Endeavor Air and NO WHITE MENTo: Loran Harding <loran.harding@stanfordalumni.org> Sunday, February 23, 2025 To all- Watch this. Endeavor Air, owned by Delta, advertises NO WHITE MALE PILOTS!! You decide whether to fly Delta or its Endeavor Air any more. I know I've decided. I hope Trump sees this. And the flying public does as well. Delta BUSTED pushing CRINGE all female DEI flights! Blames Trump for Toronto planecrash! Here's more about the Nazi program to ruin the lives of white men at Delta's Endeavor Air: They're just going to ignore this,.. L. William Harding Fresno, Ca. From:Annette Glanckopf To:Council, City; Clerk, City Subject:Item 8 on tomorrow council agenda - colleague memo. Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 8:11:19 PM Attachments:Memo to Palo Alto City Council Regards Colleague Memo item 8.docx CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Please read my comments attached. I feel the memo, in its present form, will do more harm than good. Please do not approve..... Annette Glanckopf Memo to Palo Alto City Council Regards Colleague Memo item 8 February 24, 2025 Dear Mayor Lauing and Council, I am very concerned about the colleagues memo and suggest not approving it or a more positive rewrite. Although I agree with the sentiments, I don’t think there are imminent actions that will directly effect Palo Alto on the table now that require a memo? I feel that the tone is confrontational and hostile. Trump has his eye on California and Silicon Valley. Do we really want to put a “bulls eye” on our city. Yes we do need to make sure that Palo Alto is protected, but is this the best route and best timing? Council needs to consider the timing and ask what funding could we possibly not get – I suggest that Public Safety funding is vulnerable especially for ﬁre ? I am not sure what this memo hopes to achieve, and I fear reprisals. I ask you to reject this memo – or consider a rewrite with a more positive tone. Annette Glanckopf From:Aram James To:Ed Lauing; Reckdahl, Keith; Lythcott-Haims, Julie Cc:Council, City; Josh Becker; Jeff Rosen; h.etzko@gmail.com; Marty Wasserman; Pat M; Sean Allen; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Bill Newell; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; EPA Today; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Doria Summa; Veenker, Vicki; planning.commision@cityofpaloalto.org; ParkRec Commission; Human Relations Commission; Friends of Cubberley; Cribbs, Anne; cromero@cityofepa.org; Templeton, Cari; Cait James; Tim James; Marina Lopez; Lewis james; Dana St. George; Palo Alto Free Press; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Steve Wagstaffe; Linda Jolley; Gerry Gras; GRP-City Council; Perron, Zachary; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Binder, Andrew; Robert.Jonson@shf.sccgov.org; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Lewis James; Diana Diamond; Damon Silver; Rodriguez, Miguel; Michelle Subject:Watch "Jewish Comedians Destroy Israel and Zionism [Hilarious]" on YouTube Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 7:41:21 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. https://youtu.be/vporw__qaaA?si=2gpvC9M_wtMVy2Go From:Rachaell Mondino To:Council, City Cc:Lauing, Ed; Veenker, Vicki; Burt, Patrick; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Stone, Greer Subject:Save Our Fields Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 7:33:38 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. To the Palo Alto City Council, I strongly oppose the Palo Alto City Council’s proposed ban on installing synthetic turf inathletic fields. This decision would drastically limit access to playable fields for youth sports, including soccer, flag football, ultimate frisbee, lacrosse, and many other activities.Palo Alto already suffers from a shortage of usable fields—banning new synthetic turf installations would exacerbate this issue and restrict opportunities for youth athletes. In ourarea, rugby is a winter sport and this would crush any chance of the continuation of the sport. Why Synthetic Turf is Essential 1. Year-Round Play for Youth Sports • Natural grass fields can only accommodate 30-50% of the playing hours that synthetic turfallows. • Palo Alto closes most natural grass fields from November to February, severelylimiting available space. • Synthetic turf provides a durable, all-weather surface, ensuring continuous play andrecreation. 2. Safety & Health Benefits • Claims that synthetic turf increases injuries are not supported by evidence—in fact, poorlymaintained natural grass (sprinkler heads, gopher holes, uneven surfaces) poses greater risks. • Lack of field access contributes to childhood obesity, which affects over 20% of childrenaged 6-19 nationwide. Restricting outdoor sports will worsen this issue. 3. Environmental & Sustainability Impact • Water Conservation: Synthetic turf saves up to 1.2 million gallons of water per yearcompared to natural grass (Source: Synthetic Turf Council). • Lower Maintenance: Unlike grass fields, synthetic turf requires no pesticides, fertilizers, ormowing, reducing harmful runoff and carbon emissions. • Efficient Land Use: Given Palo Alto’s high field demand maximizing playtime per field iscritical. The Bigger Picture: Youth Development & Community Well-Being Sports provide a foundation for youth to stay active, build teamwork, and develop leadershipskills. By preventing synthetic turf installations, we risk depriving children of these critical life experiences and weakening our community’s commitment to accessible, high-qualityrecreation. Thank you. -- Rachaell MondinoRegistered Nurse 510.292.5810 rachaell.mondino@gmail.com From:Sheri Furman To:Council, City Subject:Re: Item 8 Colleagues Memo Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 7:25:52 PM Some people who received this message don't often get email from sheri11@earthlink.net. Learn why this isimportant Dear Mayor Lauing and Council Members, Sorry to be so blunt, but this action is totally unnecessary and simply smacks ofvirtual signaling. We have enough issues to focus on rather than wasting your and staff’s time. Please don’t proceed with this. Respectfully, Sheri Furman From:hglann@gmail.com To:Council, City Cc:david@evcl.com; "Andrea Eckstein Gara" Subject:Please Make Cycling and Pedestrian Infrastructure a Higher Priority Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 6:44:51 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor and City Councilmembers, 52 volunteers from 350SV Palo Alto Climate Action have signed on to David Coale’s letter on Bike and Ped Infrastructure. Bike and ped infrastructure needs to be at a higher priority. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan (BPTP) is two years late and the last plan spanning over 12 years is only 30% built-out. We need to do better than this. In reading through the packet for 2025 City Council Priority Objectives I have some suggestions on how to make Palo Alto a leader again in serving our community with better bike/ped infrastructure. 1) The BPTP needs to be at a higher priority. Consider bringing this before the Council in Q3 (ASAP). Objectives #23 and #24 are not time sensitive and can be done in Q4 to make room for the BPTP in Q3. 2) There needs to be a better review of the BPTP. This should be done at a ½ day workshop with the PABAC and PTC committees. The BPTP is a complex plan and needs the expertise of these two groups. One workshop for this with both groups would make best use of Staff time and committee members. 3) The BPTP should have tick marks in both the Climate Action and Public safety priorities. It could be argued that good bike/ped infrastructure should be in all the city's priorities as our housing plans will be inadequate without it, and good bike/ped infrastructure is essential for local retail and adding to the vitality of our community. 4) Make sure the Safe Streets for All Safety Action plan is not delayed as this is essential for the BPTP. How many more lives do we want to lose to poor design of our streets and crossings? The SS4A also needs to be listed as a Public Safety priority as well as a Climate Action priority. 5) Add the east-west bicycle and pedestrian crossing project, as noted in the Rail Ad Hoc Committee, as its own objective with timelines and reviews. This should go under the Climate Action and Public Safety priorities. This is a must build item before any rail crossings are built and has been a priority of the Rail Committee for a while. This will reduce congestion and increase safety for our school children and others and could be a real game changer for how Palo Altans get around our city. 6) All of the above measures are needed if we are to reach our SCAP goals of a 20% increase of bike/ped mode share in the next five years; from 19% now to 40% by 2030. The SCAP has done pretty well in many categories but has not yet addressed this mode shift, and it needs attention if we are to meet our goals. This could also help make up the 9% shortfall in the SCAP 80 by 30 GHG reduction goals. It is interesting that there is no mention of bike/ped or even transportation in any of the objectives regarding housing. Without good bike/ped planning and transportation integrated into our housing plans, they will fail miserably. These items must be included and called out as such to make sure it really happens. If you build it they will come, so let’s make sure we build the right things, no more parking garages that promote car use and congestion while increasing GHGs at a very high cost. We need more bike/ped infrastructure, which reduces congestion, parking problems and GHGs while making our community more healthy, resilient, and supports our local businesses. This is the most cost-effective way to reduce our GHGs as noted in Project Drawdown that studied the top 100 actions that can be done to reduce GHGs. Thanks for your consideration of these changes to make Palo Alto more livable, vibrant and safer for all road users. Sincerely, David Coale, Carbon Free Palo Alto (CFPA), Bike Palo Alto, and SVBC Palo Alto team Elaine Uang Nils Angliviel de La Beaumelle Joel Davidson Michael Slinger Cynthia Chinlee Jay Whaley Steven Atneosen Virginia Tincher Mary Lou Meeks Ava Kwok Marilyn Keller Tobias Wolff Edward Miszkiewicz Tom McCalmont Aiden Miao Michael Saunders Santiago Olvera Kelly Miller-Sanchez Jordan Briskin Nancy Krop Aditee Kumthekar Sheila Gholson Gail Price Guoping Su Tom Malzbender Barbara Peters Sean van Dril Leticia Gonzalez-Ratchev Dirk Hoekstra Mel Kronick Myrna Rochester Nancy Martin Kevin Coleman Steve Eittreim Luke Beckman C Ruth Celeste Crystal McGurl Carl Trumello James Felix Cook John Van Horne Margaret Rosenbloom Ezra Kainz Emily Zurcher Matt Schlegel Peter Cross Scott Mellberg Mark Hoffberg Andrea Gara Hilary Glann Lawrence Garwin Lynnie Melena Jane Gwin-Kerr From:Kat Snyder To:Council, City Subject:Public Comment: Item 8 Resolution Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 6:19:18 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear City Council, I appreciate you for crafting this resolution. I particularly appreciate the data privacy section. Things have been moving very quickly on a national scale. We now know ICE is not justarresting and deporting criminals, but often folks that are just easy to locate via surveillance technology (e.g. folks wearing ankle monitors as they wait for asylum hearings). So, I'd askfor more emphasis on the surveillance technology part of our Surveillance and Privacy Protection Ordinance within this resolution. In my December 2nd public comment on the Police Department's Flock contract, I think someof my concerns may have seemed hypothetical. I'm copying that email below for reference, because I find those concerns even more pressing today. Thanks for your time,~Kat Snyder Palo Alto Resident --------------------I have concerns about expanding our use of Flock cameras, particularly in the current political climate. When the Trump administration takes over, we will have more surveillance aroundwomen's doctor appointments and around immigrants living their lives. As a Sanctuary city and county, I worry that setting up the infrastructure for this surveillance can easily lead to itbeing used for purposes we didn't choose. The ACLU warns against using Flock cameras - they note that the default use of Flock sets up a nationwide surveillance network that can be accessed by more than just law enforcement - infact, private entities can make their own "hot lists." Flock wants to become the default surveillance system for law enforcement across the country and sharing data with theircustomers all across the country is part of their competitive advantage. I'm grateful that we chose much more stringent data management than the default but I'm worried that it clashes with Flock's bottom line. How do we know that, when it comes down toit, they will respect our data privacy? I say this because a few years ago Palantir swore that their products were not used by ICE when, in fact, they were behind the largest immigrationenforcement workplace raid in US history. What verification systems do we have set up to make sure Flock is doing what they say? Once the cameras are in place, do we have a way to verify that the data they collect (license plate,make/model, color, bumper stickers) cannot expand beyond that to, for example, facial recognition? The company plans to enter into facial recognition and other AI/ML spaces, sothis is not just an idle question. There are many more concerns about Flock but in the interest of keeping this brief, I will justdrop a link to the ACLU's white paper on Flock in case it is of interest: https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/flock_1.pdf Take care,~Kat Snyder Palo Alto Resident P.S. According to an article that just came out 2 hours ago, Flock says they "don't entertainhypotheticals" when asked whether they would engage in a contract pertaining to mass deportations. From:a_m_mason@yahoo.com To:Council, City Cc:Lait, Jonathan; Shikada, Ed; Maggie Bening; Julie Baskind; Kevin Chung Subject:Fwd: PAR Zoning Text Amendment request - follow-up Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 4:31:28 PM Attachments:PAR Proposed Amendments to PAMC Sec 18.16.060 Dev Stds.docxPAR Proposed Amendments to PAMC Section 18.16.040.b.docximage001.pngimage002.pngimage003.pngimage004.pngimage005.pngPAR Proposed Amendments to PAMC Sec 18.16.060 Dev Stds.docxPAR Proposed Amendments to PAMC Section 18.16.040.b.docx CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Lauing and City Council Members, What day will the Planning and Development Department's 2025 Work Plan be an item on the CityCouncil’s agenda? In 2024 it was March 4. I am writing to reiterate Kristi Bascom’s letter to Director Jonathan Lait dated 12/3/2024, to ask whether the motionpassed unanimously by the City Council on November 13, 2023 will be placed on the Planning and DevelopmentDepartment's 2025 Work Plan? Quoting from Bascom letter dated 12/3/2024: At the City Council meeting on November 13, 2023, the Council unanimously supported a request from the Palo Alto Redwoods Homeowner’s Association to consider specific amendments to the City’s zoning code, and directed Staff to review the amendments that PAR proposed. The proposed amendments were written to ensure that higher density housing constructed on properties zoned for commercial uses are buffered from impacts created by commercial neighbors such as noise, reduction in access to daylight, and impacts to privacy. These are the protections that are provided to residentially-zoned properties throughout the City. In a letter to the City Council dated November 7, 2023, I outlined PAR’s request and provided the exact text amendments proposed for PAMC Sections 18.16.040(b) and 18.16.060 (attached to this email for reference). In February 2024, on behalf of PAR, I sent you the email below and asked when the proposed amendments were going to be reviewed by Staff and moved forward for City Council consideration. You responded that, due to other priorities, the work would not be undertaken in the near term and that the proposed amendments would not be added to the department’swork plan for the upcoming fiscal year. I am reaching out today with a relatively simple ask: to see if you’ll please add these amendments to the department’swork plan for FY 25/26. In calendar year 2023, for example, the City adopted five (5) amendments to Title 18. It is likely more are forthcoming in the near future. PAR’s proposed amendments are minor in nature, are completely drafted, and can simply be included in an upcoming Zoning Ordinance amendment initiated by the City. PAR is suggesting this citywide zoning text amendment (as opposed to a rezoning action that would benefit the PAR property only) since the issue of protecting high density residential uses from commercial impacts is not unique to our property. We believe it is an issue that all high density housing in commercial corridors would like to see addressed. Thank you,Anne Mason Begin forwarded message: From: Kristi Bascom <kbascom@smwlaw.com>Subject: PAR Zoning Text Amendment request - follow-upDate: December 3, 2024 at 10:29:57 PST To: "Lait, Jonathan" <Jonathan.Lait@CityofPaloAlto.org>Cc: "a_m_mason@yahoo.com" <a_m_mason@yahoo.com>, Sharlene Carlson <carlsonsharlene@gmail.com>, Julie Baskind <julie.baskind@gmail.com>, "ed.shikada@cityofpaloalto.org" <ed.shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>, "pat.burt@cityofpaloalto.org"<Pat.Burt@cityofpaloalto.org>, Lydia Kou <Lydia.Kou@cityofpaloalto.org>, Ed Lauing <Ed.Lauing@cityofpaloalto.org>, "Lythcott-Haims, Julie" <Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org>, Greer Stone <Greer.Stone@cityofpaloalto.org>,"greg.tanaka@cityofpaloalto.org" <Greg.Tanaka@cityofpaloalto.org>, "Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org" <Vicki.Veenker@cityofpaloalto.org>, "Laura D. Beaton" <Beaton@smwlaw.com> Dear Mr. Lait (copy to City Manager and City Council), On behalf of the homeowners at Palo Alto Redwoods (4250 El Camino Real), I am writing to request once again that the Planning and Development Department include the attached proposed zoning code amendments related to commercial impacts on residential uses in the department’s workplan for next year. At the City Council meeting on November 13, 2023, the Council unanimously supported a request from the Palo Alto Redwoods Homeowner’s Association to consider specific amendments to the City’s zoning code, and directed Staff to review the amendments that PAR proposed. The proposed amendments were written to ensure that higher density housing constructed on properties zoned for commercial uses are buffered from impacts created by commercial neighbors such as noise, reduction in access to daylight, and impacts to privacy. These are the protections that are provided to residentially-zoned properties throughout the City. In a letter to the City Council dated November 7, 2023, I outlined PAR’s request and provided the exact text amendments proposed for PAMC Sections 18.16.040(b) and 18.16.060 (attached to this email for reference). In February 2024, on behalf of PAR, I sent you the email below and asked when the proposed amendments were going to be reviewed by Staff and moved forward for City Council consideration. You responded that, due to other priorities, the work would not be undertaken in the near term and that the proposed amendments would not be added to the department’s workplan for the upcoming fiscal year. I am reaching out today with a relatively simple ask: to see if you’ll please add these amendments to the department’s workplan for FY 25/26. In calendar year 2023, for example, the City adopted five (5) amendments to Title 18. It is likely more are forthcoming in the near future. PAR’s proposed amendments are minor in nature, are completely drafted, and can simply be included in an upcoming Zoning Ordinance amendment initiated by the City. PAR is suggesting this citywide zoning text amendment (as opposed to a rezoning action that would benefit the PAR property only) since the issue of protecting high density residential uses from commercial impacts is not unique to our property. We believe it is an issue that all high density housing in commercial corridors would like to see addressed. We are happy to discuss PAR’s request further or provide any additional explanation if it would be helpful. As always, we appreciate your consideration of this request and hope that the City Council’s unanimous support of this issue means that these proposed amendments find their way into your department’s workplan for next fiscal year. Kind regards, Kristi Bascom Kristi Bascom, AICP Urban Planner Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP 396 Hayes Street San Francisco, CA 94102-4421 office: 415/552-7272 x 202 | direct: 925/872-6327 www.smwlaw.com | A San Francisco Green Business From: Lait, Jonathan <Jonathan.Lait@CityofPaloAlto.org> Sent: Monday, February 12, 2024 10:40 PM To: Kristi Bascom <kbascom@smwlaw.com>; Gerhardt, Jodie <Jodie.Gerhardt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: a_m_mason@yahoo.com; Sharlene Carlson <carlsonsharlene@gmail.com>; Julie Baskind <julie.baskind@gmail.com> Subject: RE: Zoning Text Amendment workplan - follow-up Thank you for the email, Kristi. The City Council is expected to consider department workplans for the upcoming fiscal year on March 4. Based on available long range planning staff resources and competing Council priorities, I do not anticipate this item being recommended for the upcoming year. As an alternative, your client could consider filing a text amendment, which would be processed by our current planning staff. @Gerhardt, Jodie can provide more information about the application submittal process if interested in pursuing that route. Otherwise you may provide comment to the City Council on March 4. You don't often get email from kbascom@smwlaw.com. Learn why this is important JONATHAN LAIT Director Planning and Development Department (650) 329-2676 | jonathan.lait@cityofpaloalto.org www.cityofpaloalto.org From: Kristi Bascom <kbascom@smwlaw.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 5:50 PM To: Lait, Jonathan <Jonathan.Lait@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: a_m_mason@yahoo.com; Sharlene Carlson <carlsonsharlene@gmail.com>; Julie Baskind <julie.baskind@gmail.com> Subject: Zoning Text Amendment workplan - follow-up CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. Mr. Lait, Following up on my email from last week regarding the question on timing to move forward thisrezoning analysis. Your insight is much appreciated. Thank you,Kristi Bascom Kristi Bascom Urban Planner Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP 396 Hayes Street San Francisco, CA 94102-4421 p: 415/552-7272 x 202 | c: 925/872-6327 www.smwlaw.com | A San Francisco Green Business From: Kristi Bascom Sent: Monday, January 29, 2024 1:33 PM To: jonathan.lait@cityofpaloalto.org Subject: Zoning Text Amendment workplan Mr. Lait, Our clients, the Palo Alto Redwoods Homeowners Association, received support from the City Councilat their November 13, 2023 meeting when they directed staff to review the zoning text amendmentswe proposed amendments to PAMC 18.16.040(b) and 18.16.060. I’ve attached the proposal to thisemail for easy reference. Can you please advise on Staff’s plan and timing to review these amendments and (hopefully) movethem forward to the City Council for their consideration? Thank you,Kristi Bascom Kristi Bascom, AICP Urban Planner Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP 396 Hayes Street San Francisco, CA 94102-4421 p: 415/552-7272 x 202 | c: 925/872-6327 www.smwlaw.com | A San Francisco Green Business From:jfleming@right-thing.net To:Council, City Cc:Clerk, City; "Ed Lauing"; Vicki@VickiforCouncil.com; pat@patburt.org; georgeglue@gmail.com; Julie@JulieforPaloAlto.com; Reckdahl, Keith; gstone22@gmail.com Subject:Over five hundred Palo Altans Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 4:00:58 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Lauing, Vice Mayor Veenker and Councilmembers Burt, Lu, Lythcott- Haims, Reckdahl, and Stone: I am writing to urge you to take immediate steps to redress the understaffing, and the absence of a fire engine, at Mitchell Park firehouse. Over five hundred Palo Altans have already signed a petition calling for city government to restore good fire/emergency response practices for every neighborhood in our town. Yet the City Manager temporizes. What we are all wondering is this: Is there something more important in Palo Alto’s budget—and on city staff’s to-do list—than protecting the lives and homes of residents? Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Jeanne Fleming Jeanne Fleming, PhDJFleming@Right-Thing.net 415-572-5151 From:Nichole Boaz To:Council, City Subject:City Council Meeting 2/24 -- Item 8 Comment Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 3:19:47 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hello, I live in Palo Alto, and I’m writing to express my support for Item 8 on tomorrow’s agenda, “Resolution Underscoring Council’s Commitment to Sustaining Palo Alto Values and Interests in the Face of Trump Administration Actions.” While this resolution is mostly symbolic, rather than substantive, it is still important. I am worried about my neighbors who have already been directly impacted by the Trump Administration’s illegal overreaches: federal workers; undocumented immigrants; and the myriad of industries that rely on federal grants for funding. It’s important for people who are living in fear to know that their local elected officials will do their best to support and protect them. I understand that some people may think this resolution is a bad idea because it will only serve to draw the negative attention of Trump administration officials. I think the opposite: it is now more important than ever to make it clear what we Palo Altans stand for, and what lines we will not cross. I would encourage you to think of a phrase I’ve been seeing a lot lately: “do not comply in advance.” This does not mean it will be easy to stand up to the Trump administration. There is a real risk of federal backlash to this kind of resolution. But that risk should not stop you from doing the right thing. In the future, I hope to see even more substantive action from the city council. In particular, I am concerned about Elon Musk and his “DOGE” task force, which has illegally gained unprecedent access to financial records. While this is a federal issue, the fact that Tesla’s engineering HQ is located in Palo Alto makes this a local issue as well. Elon Musk is an unelected official who is in charge of an illegal government takeover, and he should not be allowed to operate his businesses in our city. Thank you. -Nichole Boaz From:a_m_mason@yahoo.com To:Council, City Subject:Strong Support for Resolution Opposing Trump’s Executive Orders Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 1:45:42 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Lauing and Members of the Palo Alto City Council, I am writing to express my strong support for the resolution opposing recent executive orders from former President Trump, as referenced in the Palo Alto Online article dated February 14, 2025. I urge you to take a firm stand in defense of our community’s values of democracy, inclusion, and human rights. These executive orders threaten the fundamental freedoms and protections that make Palo Alto a welcoming and just place for all. Now more than ever, it is essential that our local government acts decisively to protect our residents and push back against policies that undermine our shared values. I commend the City Council for taking a leadership role in resisting unjust federal actions and ensuring that Palo Alto remains a city that values equity, diversity, and the rule of law. Please continue to stand strong in the face of these challenges and do everything in your power to uphold the rights and dignity of all members of our community. Thank you for your commitment to justice and fairness. I respectfully urge you to pass this resolution and take further steps to shield our city from harmful federal overreach. Sincerely, A. Mason a_m_mason@ieee.org From:Tasha Souter To:Council, City Subject:Strong support for resolution opposing trumps’s executive orders Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 1:26:50 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Lauing and Members of the City Council, I am writing to express my strong support for the resolution opposing recent executive orders from president Trump. I urge you to take a firm stand in defense of our community’s values grounded in democracy, inclusion, and human rights. These executive orders threaten the fundamental freedoms and protections that make Palo Alto a welcoming and just place for all. Now, more than ever, it is vital that our local government act decisively to protect our residents and push back against policies that harm our community and undermine our shared values. I commend the City Council for showing moral leadership for resisting unjust federal actions and taking steps to ensure that Palo Alto remains a place that values equity, diversity, and the rule of law. Please continue to stand strong in the face of these challenges and to do everything in your power to uphold the rights and dignity of all members of our community and to resist the current trend toward fascism, oligarchy, elitism, discrimination and greed. I respectfully urge you to pass this resolution and take further steps to protect our community and our values. Sincerely, Tasha Souter Baker Avenue, Palo Alto souter9000@gmail.com From:liz gass To:Council, City Subject:Fire Station 4 Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 11:45:43 AM Attachments:new fs 4.pages CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. From:Cindy Nelson To:Council, City Subject:I support the anti-authoritarian resolution Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 8:46:20 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Palo Alto City Council: As a 40 year citizen of Palo Alto, and a believer in resurrecting democratic America, I emphaticallysupport The City of Palo Alto's resolution to publicly state and engage in support for the rule of law andvalues that keep our city safe, peaceful, and in line with the United States Constitution. In the bay area, we have several billionaire elitists who seem to have concluded that it's okay to use theirfortune, forgetting that it was mostly earned off the back of many others' work, to dominate others whodisagree with them. They unfairly grab power, money and influence for their own extravagant whims,ignoring their responsibility to now work even harder to further the ideals and laws of the United Statesof America, to preserve and improve the democratic system that allowed them to invent products andbring them to market, and therefore become extraordinarily wealthy. It has become clear that absolute power, money, and fame corrupts absolutely. Once-principled techbillionaires, with no one willing to question or resist their strange and hostile ideas and actions, often fallinto a society-damaging addiction to "more money, fame and power" at all costs, and a belief of one'sown superiority that justifies illegal and immoral decision-making. The current explicitly corrupt administration is led by a self-proclaimed "king," and a billionaire hackerwho wants to remove safety and environmental regulations that get in the way of his own companies'and his personal profits. The hacker, who at one time invented a revolutionizing car that offeredhuge potential benefits to the earth, has turned his back on democratic America that (in retrospectdangerously) allowed his accumulation of billions. Dismantling Democracy, Pretending to Save MoneyThis administration is illegally attempting to dismantle the US government without any oversight, and isdamaging our democratic system irreparably. They pretend to cut "waste," misrepresenting millions asbillions to lie to the public. Make no mistake, they instead are plotting to slash taxes as early as March 14on the wealthiest Americans, including themselves, so that they can become richer. Two yachts areclearly better than one, while the less-privileged masses work for pittance wages and try to keep theirchildren fed. This dominance by morally corrupt and money-addicted billionaires is exactly what our Founding Fatherswarned us against: they referred to it as tyranny. Advancing White Supremacist AgendasDonald Trump, Elon Musk, and his White-Nationalist packed cabinet and staff of Project 2025 architects,led by Russell Voght, Stephen Miller, and most recently, Darren Beattie, are attempting to destroy theAmerican ideal of liberty, equality, and freedom. They are supporting the firing of not just important andnecessary civil servants, like the FAA staff, the Nuclear Energy safety staff, but are now explicitly goingafter women and people of color who hold positions of power. Using Money to Win is Un-AmericanThey are not only dismantling important democratic voting laws in order to allow their minorityperspectives to dominate our country on an ongoing basis, they are holding Republican senators hostageto their demands for 100% alignment with the would-be king, and financing both existential and politicalprimary threats using an un-elected billionaire's cash donations. Colluding with them are severalcorrupted and dishonored, but still acting Supreme Court Justices who have proven themselves complicitin their attempts to steal democratic elections. The list of unlawful executive actions add up to an obvious attempt to curtail the balancing influence of the United States voting population, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Judiciary that wasso carefully crafted JUST to avoid the the selfish and society-killing unilateral governance of King George, and any who might try to follow in his footsteps. It is time to stand up and resist this regime with every bit of energy and commitment we can muster. Cynthia Nelson SECTION 1. The City Council of the City of Palo Alto, consistent with our statement of values, hereby •Supports the rule of law, in contrast to the Administration’s actions ignoring constitutional and other legalnorms; already necessitating the filing of numerous lawsuits to restrain such behavior. • Strongly opposesfreezing federal grant funding or cancelling federal contracts upon which the City government orresidents rely, such as Community Development Block Grants for local human services nonprofits, COPSfunding, and airport and grade separation grants. Palo Alto has recently received grants from HUD, DOI,DOJ, DOT, Treasury, NEH, HHS, and Homeland Security; • Supports federal workers providing valuableservices for the City and its residents, such as the critical safety services provided by the Federal AviationAdministration; and denounces attempts to subvert the civil service system with unlawful terminations;and further denounces disregard for the critical expertise of government workers; • Denounces reversingclimate action and environmental justice policies, such as pulling out of the Paris Accords and ramping upoil and gas production on federal lands, and opposes attempts to limit local authority to address climatechange; NOT YET APPROVED • Supports the safety of sensitive data of the City, our residents, and ourbusinesses, and objects to improper access to critical information that violates privacy rights and risksmisuse of valuable proprietary information; • Opposes threatening the safety of Palo Altans bydiminishing the ability of the FBI and CIA to respond to security threats, protect innovation, and preventdomestic terrorism; • Supports science and denounces replacing experts with lay decision makers onissues of scientific protocol and funding priorities; • Strongly objects to any illegal and inhumaneimmigration enforcement; and • Supports equity and racial justice and commits to continuing the City’sDEI efforts and priority to be a place of belonging for all. SECTION 2. In furtherance of these positions,the City will • Share this Resolution with our Congressional representatives and offer our support toadvocate for these principles • Communicate with residents about risks to the City and its residents dueto Administration activity inconsistent with these positions, and about the City’s response; • Seek Councilapproval to bring or join lawsuits or file or join in amicus briefs consistent with these positions, ourstatement of values, and council-approved legislative guidelines; and • Support other cities and countiestaking similar actions, and partner with others to build collective action. From:Douglas Moran To:Council, City Subject:RE: Colleague"s Memo, Item #8 on the 2025-02-25 City Council Agenda, Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 5:21:35 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Honorable City Council members: RE: Colleague's Memo, Item #8 on the 2025-02-25 City Council Agenda I strongly urge you to vote down the proposed resolution: It is entirely inappropriate to beendorsed as representing the City of Palo Alto and its residents. It is blatantly a partisan document, the sort that candidates issue as a reaffirmation of fealty to their national Party'sagenda and dogma. This proposed resolution seems little more than a regurgitation of Democratic Party talkingpoints. The source is not credible. Do you want to put the City adjacent to that reputation.Talking points are designed to be persuasive and can be expected to have a little sloppiness with facts. However, that's not what I hear: It's smears and too manystatements ranging from disingenuous to deceptive to ones long proven to be false (aka lies). Eventually the admonition kicks in: "Assume they are lying. It saves time." I don't see thought given to what message will be received by people "outside the filterbubble"/"true believers". Basic PR training is that it can easily be contrary to what was intended.I don't see positions that have been adapted to the news in the first month of the Trump administration.Some of the bullet points display rank hypocrisy beyond partisanship into cluelessness. The details (below) are very long and I have negligible expectation that Council members willhave time to read them. A goal is to have in the public record a sense of what was known at the time this resolution was debated. The tone of this letter is intentionally mocking, to illustrate a likely category of responses should this become an official resolution. Warning: The Republican Party is irrelevant to my discussion here. Nothing I say or don't say should be interpreted as flowing from my attitude toward that Party. Details related to the bullet points in Section 1 Bullet 1: "Supports the rule of law, in contrast to the Administration’s actions ignoringconstitutional and other legal norms; already necessitating the filing of numerous lawsuits to restrain such behavior."Message: Don't waste time reading the resolution! If you are interested in this topic, you willalmost certainly heard versions of the bullet points many times already. — OR —"Everything's been said, but not everybody has said it." - Congressman Morris "Mo" Udall (D-AZ, 1961-1991).Message: This is intended only as propaganda. Contrary to the desired inference, the filing of a lawsuit is not evidence that anaction was illegal/improper. Some of these lawsuits are being dismissed as frivolous. Is it credible that an entity that for years has engaged in non-stop lawfare as asubstitute for persuasion wouldn't continue to do so? It's so easy to go "judge shopping", that is, find a "friendly" judge — so much easier than winning elections.What is the credible basis for the claim that Trump has ignored the US Constitution? A partisan claiming a violation is hardly enough: It could be a smear or a display ofwillful ignorance. "Supports the rule of law" is rank hypocrisy. Where were the resolutions in response tothe many of the Biden administration? (crickets) An appendix lists some of the low-lights. Bullet 2: Opposes freezing grants or contracts. The initial examinations are finding massive fraud, with grants and contracts being used like shell corporations in classic money launderingschemes. Ask yourselves: "Just how are the reformers going to quickly distinguish the legitimateoperations from ones that are part of the frauds??" Examples: The US Treasury has thwarted oversight for decades by having incomplete andinadequate records of payments. US Agency for International Development (U.S.A.I.D. or USAID but not US AID) wascreated to primarily provide coordinated covers for covert and some overt activities by the CIA, State Department, Defense Department, ... This has not been a secret fordecades, but the lure of money intended to corrupt important people in target countries can be too much for those people to resist. It has large networks of "Non-Government Organizations" (NGO) whoseinterrelationships are similar to those in sophisticated money-laundering scheme. Funding does not simply go through a chain of pass-throughs. Money flows to thepass-throughs from multiple sources and is sent on to multiple other pass-throughs where it is intermingled with funds from other pass-throughs and sources.USAID has defied and thwarted attempts at Congressional oversight for years. Where there is that much money — $40 billion annually — sloshing around in suchcircumstances, is it only an invitation or an outright inducement for frauds, be they massive or more modest.USAID has funded media outlets in other countries as part of influence operations and as part of efforts to create events leading to regime change. As a result of thefreeze, it became public that USAID was the crucial funder for most media outlets in Ukraine. Also discovered was how much USAID was running "influence operations" in theUS. Politico and the NY Times are prominently mentioned as receiving moneys through channels in addition to grants. Question for City Council members: What if you discovered that City Staff diverting public moneys to support the election campaigns of opponents??The new head of the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) just announced finding a $2 Billion grant to Stacy Abrams, a prominent Democratic Party politician. That $2Bwas to be passed through to other groups. The EPA head claimed that the contracts with those secondary recipients were written to impede/prevent oversight of where the moneythen went and how that money was used. A long-time complaint has been that no matter how much money is spent on socialwelfare programs, the problem just keeps getting worse. No surprise: Such programs are designed with incentives to achieve these negativeresults. The programs are suppose to fail, but not so badly that they are terminated. This enables fat salaries and benefits for the CEO and staff as well as benefits to associates.Take a lesson from Mark Zuckerberg's attempt to improve the public schools in Newark NJ. He contributed $100M and raised another $100M. The assessment was that it madelittle difference, with virtually none of that $200M made it down to the level of the students.Message: Fiduciary Responsibilities/Duties are implicitly rejected. The Democratic Party talking point in response to a report of a discovery of $20B fraud was"It's only 1% of the budget." Being dismissive of this report strongly implies that there are many more multi-billiondollar instances of fraud, abuse and waste to come. The dismissive attitude underlying such excuses are not to be condone, regardless of thepercentage involved. The talking point is disingenuous, if not outright deceptive. The budget is dominated bynon-discretionary items: entitlements, interest payments, … Then remove defense spending from the calculation and the percentage becomes significant.Why "implicit"? It was licensed by the relationship/entwinement with other Democratic Party talking points included in this resolution. Bullet 3: Support federal workers: Again, unwarranted assumptions. The Democratic Party supports the primacy of professional staff/bureaucrats over electedofficials and by extension, the citizenry. Office holders can become hostages to the need for staff to make them look good at a cost of not pushing accountability from theprofessional/permanent staff. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is cited explicitly. The recent mid-air collisionover Washington DC killed 67 people. A nation-wide shortage of air traffic controllers was tentatively cited as a contributing cause. What caused that shortage? The Obamaadministration changed the application process to promote diversity. Having experience as an air traffic controller in the military or being a pilot no longer mattered. What did? Playingmultiple sports in high school, for example. The discrimination lawsuit is still working its way through the courts. Bullet 9: Support for continuing DEI. A viral moment during the LA fires came when a woman complained about firefighters thatlacked the strength to carry her husband out of a burning building. The Deputy Chief heading the Equity and Human Resources Bureau flippant reply was "He got himself in the wrongplace if I have to carry him out of a fire." Message: Did the bullet point give any hint of awareness of the major problems with DEI?The first step to solving a problem is to recognize what it is. I am personally appalled by the current version and practice of DEI: At its core is thesubordination of the individual to the identity group. However, I recognize that this area elects officials that campaign on these policies. Joe Biden was elected promising to revoke Trump's Executive Order #13950 "Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping" and hedid so on his first day in office. To understand my perspective, and probably that of many others, consider what was soimportant and urgent for Democrats to reinstate: Revoke Trump's ban on teaching "one race or sex is inherently superior to another racerace or sex."Revoke the ban on promoting within the Federal Government "divisive concepts" such as"an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex";"an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex";"meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race".I blogged about this after it was a topic in the first Presidential Debate (2020-09-29): https://www.paloaltoonline.com/blogs/p/2020/10/01/the-most-important-question-and-biggest-lie-of-the-presidential-debate--relevance-to-palo-alto Bullet 8: Immigration enforcement Solid majorities of Democrats in both houses of Congress and repeatedly voted against the Laken Riley Act — Laken Riley was the Georgia nursing student raped and murdered by anillegal alien (official legal term) who had previously been arrested. After horrific crimes by illegal aliens, some leaders of the Democratic can be expected to be all over the mediapronouncing the crime to be an isolated incident that shouldn't affect immigration policy. Since the current enforcement is directed at violent illegal aliens, the message of this bullet point is to leave these people roaming the US. Implicit is that the lives of their victims count for nothing. "How you spend your money reveals your priorities." Remember that the Biden administration paid to have these illegal aliens brought into the US— how many known violent criminals were among them? Remember that Latin American countries used this as an opportunity to empty their jails. Similarly FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) sent millions to New York City to house illegal aliens in a hotel. Who else needed that support? The victims of HurricaneHelene (2024-09-27) who are still struggling with basics, such as inadequate shelter. Bullet 6: "Opposes … diminishing the ability of the FBI and CIA to respond to securitythreats, … and prevent domestic terrorism" This clause is simultaneously outrageous and an embarrassment. It falsely implies acontroversy will ignoring what they actually are. For me, this crosses the line out of being disingenuous to being deceptive.Both the FBI and CIA have interfered in US elections, most notably the Presidential elections of 2016 and 2020 and some in 2024.The Hunter Biden laptop: The FBI had it in their custody for eleven months and revealed nothing. The CIA successfully discredited the story, but the super-expediting the approval of the letter from 51 former and current high-level officials. Polling after the election estimated that enough people would have changed theirvotes to have reversed the result. August 2022 raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago home: The FBI planted evidence — "TopSecret" cover sheets and rearranged the documents and document boxes for a photo- op.Shortly before the 2020 election, the FBI announced it had thwarted a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Whitmer. A local reporter sensed that something wasn't right:The 12 who had played significant roles were not indicted. Among the 6 who were was the purported leader who was dubbed "Captain Autism" and spent most of histime smoking pot in the basement of a sewing machine shop out of the generosity of the owner. Digging further, the 12 were found to be FBI assets and 2 FBI agents. Lesson: It's easy to break up a criminal operation if you (law enforcement) are its leaders, funders, recruiters, trainers, planners, reconnaissance, …In the past 10 years, the FBI has been actively interfering with Trump, both as a candidate and as President.The FBI is a major participant in suppressing dissent by everyday Americans. The scariest of these is the FBI adopting tactics used by the secret police in authoritarianregimes. (see appendix).Bullet 7: "Supports science and denounces replacing experts with lay decision makers onissues of scientific protocol and funding priorities" Were you not paying attention during Covid and to the many revelations coming from FOIA and elsewhere. The "experts" turned out to be frequently wrong, or making pronouncements offact when there was not evidence and tout junk science over proper science. They rejected important discoveries from elsewhere such as Israel and Denmark. They sabotaged datacollection by incentivizing both over-reporting and under-reporting. And rejecting evidence that didn't fit their narrative. A biologist-commentator observed that the experts were soconsistently wrong that it being by accident was implausible. The history of science is so littered with instances of a field's establishment suppressing resultsand analysis that undermined their theories. "Science advances/progresses funeral by funeral" (many variations). It was outsiders — your "lay decision maker" who "got it right". It was statisticians, embalmers, scientists in related fields who read pre-prints from all over the world. It waseveryday people researching their medical problems and quickly discovering many others with similar issues that the experts were ignoring or dismissing figments of their imagination andsuch. In some cases, it was non-US reporters noticing that something didn't make sense and pursuing it. But the resolution advocates returning the decision-making to those who have financial, professional, reputational interest, who are driven by ego, and whose decisions are driven byfactors other than science. The US NIH circumvented the US ban on gain-of-function research and funded it at theWuhan lab that had been built to be BSL level 4 (BioSafety Level) but was operating only at BSL 2, which is roughly equivalent to your local dentist's office. Inspectors from the US StateDepartment reported this problem, but as far was what is public, nothing was done. Science requires observing, questioning and debating. "Established science" and "consensus"are politics, not science. The concentration of funding to a very small group has a distorting effect. In medicine, it isthe triumvirate of NIH (National Institutes of Health), Bill Gates (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) and the Wellcome Trust (Britain). The experts in virology and their funders conspired — by telephone and email — to suppress the likely origins of the COVID-19 virus and thereby hindering research into its creation andevolution. The cooperated in blocking effective treatments. And … The resolution advocates returning to a funding structure that failed so catastrophically,resulting in the deaths of millions. Appendix: Some highlights of the lawlessness of the Biden administration Biden issued and tried to execute multiple Executive Orders (EO) that he acknowledgedwere un-Constitutional. No adherence to equality before the law on political and ideological matters.Rejection of the social covenant in which the individual cedes to the state the administration of justice in exchange for the state's protection. Example: In the run-up to the overturning of Roe v. Wade demonstrators gather outside the homes of Supreme Court justices expected to vote to overturn. This was explicitlyillegal, intended to isolate justices from intimidation and other forms of influence. There was no attempt to enforce the law or even push back the demonstrators. One potentialassassin was persuaded by a family member (sister?) to surrender himself. Biden attempted to arrogate to himself the ability to amend to the Constitution.Suppression of free speech by pressuring social media to ban or de-rank opinions and discussions contrary to the Biden administration's own narrative.Hostility to religion both in worship and in rejecting religious-based exemptions that had been commonly granted.Biden was re-elected on the (fulfilled) promise to re-instate the policies of Obama's "Dear Colleagues" letter to colleges on the handling of sexual assault claims. MultipleFederal judges had denounced the process as an abomination. no right to be informed of charges against you.no right to confront witnesses against you. no right to bring your own witnesses.no right to counsel. no right to trial by jury, much less an impartial jury, or anything faintly resemblingthat. The investigator, prosecutor and judge could be the same person. no remedy to exclusion of exculpatory evidence.no presumption of innocence. The Obama-Biden process was variously acknowledged to be designed to produce"convictions, not justice." Innocent people lost careers and had their lives ruined, but those are sacrifices that ideologues don't hesitate to inflict on others to advance theirbeliefs. Appendix: FBI suppressing Dissent by Everyday Americans: Some Examples Suppression on Social Media: The Twitter Files revealed the depth and range of topics that the Biden administrationwanted social media companies to suppress, deleting and de-ranking individual posts and banning people. Among the many US departments and agencies making such request/demands, the FBI was prolific.Intimidation in real life: The FBI visiting your neighbors, your employer, your friends and others createssuspicions no matter how innocuous the questions. The message received is that you did something significantly wrong enough for the FBI to conduct those visits. Your employermay fire you, wanting to protect himself and the company from whatever it is you might be involved in.The FBI staged middle-of-the-night raids on some dissenters, a terror tactic used by secret police in authoritarian regimes. A justification is that it is timed to when the targetwill be disoriented when awoken, and thus more safely managed. News coverage periodically covers how such can go very wrong: The target and/or family members maybe killed, and occasionally someone in neighboring apartments when bullets go through walls or floors. As the number of officers in the raiding party increases, so too does therisk of sympathetic/contagious gunfire. Some psychological reaction causes other officers to join in the shooting, sometimes shooting at the same person or just shooting atwhatever. You might think that this risk would cause the FBI to use this tactic only in extremecircumstances. And you would be wrong. Several people found out they were being investigated and their lawyers went to the FBIoffering to bring their client into the FBI office to surrender and be officially arrested. The FBI ignored the offers and raided the suspects' homes with 20-30 officers in theraiding parties. What were their crimes? Social media posting that the FBI classified as threats ofviolence. Nothing I saw crossed the long-establish line between free speech and actionable threats. Sometimes the raids come with extras: One family was handcuffed and sat on the curb outside their house. However,despite the parent's pleadings, their infant was left unattended in the house. Is it unreasonable to think the FBI wanted the parents to become increasingly franticto the point where they could be charged with assaulting an officer, or violence could be used to "subdue" them?? Another family was similarly forced to sit on the curb handcuffed, but this time infreezing temperatures. The woman miscarried the next day. It seems to be standard practice for local police to put detained persons in one oftheir cars. The FBI raiding party had more than enough cars and officers to do this. So why didn't they?The FBI raided the home of a local police officer working undercover. Somehow he had enough time and presence of mind to recognize that this wasn't a hit squadcoming to kill him and butcher his family. You too can be investigated as a "potential domestic terrorist". How? In late summer 2021 there were multiple highly emotional issues such as whether to re-open the public schools and how/whether various social issues would be taught.By speaking at a school board meeting during the public comment period and continuing after your allotted time had been exhausted, orYou might be a father whose daughter had been raped in a school bathroom and you spoke up when the School Superintendent told the Board that there were no suchincidents. When the public comment period was abbreviated with many parents still waiting tospeak, you, along with others, might shout at the Board. In late summer 2021 there were multiple highly emotional issues such as whether to re- open the public schools and how/whether various social issues would be taught. In unacknowledged cooperation with the White House, the leadership of the National School Boards Association (NSBA) sent a letter to Biden and the US Justice Departmentasking for federal help to protect teachers and administrators from violence. However, the list of incidents attached to this letter didn't support any such need. The attachment was alist of links to media articles and online videos. My judgment was that there wasn't anything requiring more than a few local police officers, and the mere presence of a fewofficers might have sufficed. Nonetheless, over the weekend Attorney General Garland whipped out a directive to theFBI with the attachment from the NSBA seemingly meant to provide examples of what was to be regarded as "terrorism". Aftermath: Many school boards cancel their NBSA memberships and about half the states were critical of the AG Garland directive. From:Gerry Gras To:Aram James Cc:Sean Allen; h.etzko@gmail.com; Dave Price; Diana Diamond; Council, City; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Free Press; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Roberta Ahlquist; Mickie Winkler; Emily Mibach; Sheriff Transparency Subject:Re: Watch "Black Man Harassed by Black Cop in White Neighborhood" on YouTube Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 2:35:53 AM [Some people who received this message don't often get email from gerrygras@earthlink.net. Learn why this is important at https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification ] That is an amazing video. I think the harassed man handled himselfpretty well, under the circumstances. And the police clearly did notreally listen. I noticed the police car said "Cook County" so I guessit happened in a suburb of Chicago. I would like to know how the courtcase turned out. I have heard of men getting grief and worse for "driving while black",but I don't ever recall hearing of getting grief for "walking whileblack", but I have led a sheltered life. I assume it happens all the time. ... Clearly blacks are treated abysmally in this country. But I wonder howmany are aware that whites are not immune. The stories below involvewhites. - Once i was standing at the corner of El Camino and Embarcadero. Apedestrian wanted to cross El Camino. He took one small step off thecurb, stopped, then waited for the light to turn. A policeman saw itand ordered the pedestrian to get back on the curb. The pedestrianasked why. The policeman, with an edge to his voice, again ordered theman to get back on the curb. No explanation. The pedestrian got backon the curb. - Bicyclists, who are following the law, occasionally are stopped bypolice because police are not aware of what the laws are for bicyclists. - I was arrested twice in Washington D.C. during an antiwardemonstration for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Manyyears later the ACLU informed me that they had taken care of it. I donot know the proper terminology, but basically my name was finally cleared:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_May_Day_protests_against_the_Vietnam_War - One early morning I and two friends were walking on a sidewalk in Belmont, MA, I noticed a police car following us for awhile. So I wentover to the police car and asked if I could help them. A briefconversation ensued, i don't remember all of it. But I remember onepoliceman explaining that someone called and said they were expectingthree people who apparently resembled us. I think the story was bogus.At one point one asked me if i was as stupid as I looked. I said I didnot think so because I was an MIT student. They eventually left. I havealways wondered what would have happened if I had not approached them. - Ray Bradbury had an interesting experience while walking in LosAngeles which led him to write a short story:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pedestrian . The fact that so many whites have had bad experiences with police does not make the police behavior ok. It would be good if the police were toget better training. Whatever happened to "Officer Friendly"? Someone once said, fwiw:"A liberal is someone who has never been mugged. A conservative issomeone who has never been arrested." Thanks, Aram. Gerry On 2/23/25 00:05, Aram James wrote:> https://youtu.be/te9fRz3j2KI?si=Ot_1Snb1QvZsolb8 From:Aram James To:Julie Lythcott-Haims Cc:Binder, Andrew; Sean Allen; Pat M; h.etzko@gmail.com; Dave Price; EPA Today; Diana Diamond; Lewis James; Reifschneider, James; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley, Michael; Afanasiev, Alex; Enberg, Nicholas; Wagner, April; Baker, Rob; Jeff Rosen; jay.boyarsky@da.sccgov.org; Jeff Conrad; Gerry Gras; Council, City; Bill Newell; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Steve Wagstaffe; Sarah Wright; Gennady Sheyner; Ed Lauing; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Free Press; Kaloma Smith; Lu, George; Reckdahl, Keith; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; Rose Lynn; Roberta Ahlquist; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Stump, Molly; yolanda; Mickie Winkler; Emily Mibach; Marty Wasserman; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Sheriff Transparency Subject:Watch "Black Man Harassed by Black Cop in White Neighborhood" on YouTube Date:Sunday, February 23, 2025 12:06:15 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. https://youtu.be/te9fRz3j2KI?si=Ot_1Snb1QvZsolb8 From:Irina Beylin To:Council, City Subject:Save Fire Engine 64 Date:Saturday, February 22, 2025 9:09:51 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hello City of Palo Alto counsel members,please do not play with the fire. City of Palo Alto must comply with the current standard proposed by the National Fire Prevention Agency, NFPA, of 4-minutes. The fire station 4 should be fully stuffed for both fire engine and ambulance. You are responsible for Palo Alto residentssafety, it is your first and most important job duty. The current cross function plan is penny smart pound foolish, as inadequate emergencyservices result in lower house prices=lower property tax revenue. Please do your job to ensure adherence to NFPA standards. Irina and Boris Beylin771 Ames Avenue From:bretande@pacbell.net To:Council, City Subject:Regarding the 2025 priorities - Make Palo Alto great with bicycling and walking infrastructure! Date:Saturday, February 22, 2025 1:52:50 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor and Councilmembers, Thank you for the opportunity to comment during your deliberations on the 2025 priorities. I have the following comments on this item 10 on the February 24th agenda. Please raise the priority of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan. Facilitating active transportation is arguably the most effective way to make Palo Alto a more attractive, productive and engaged community. Pedestrian zones, safe and direct walking and biking connections are essential to addressing our housing, transportation and environmental problems. They also have important co-benefits of health and socializing that are withering in face of our increasingly isolated, on-line lives these days. Please also push to accelerate the east-west bicycle and pedestrian crossing project. I am a long- time Palo Alto cyclist and sorely miss a direct and safe route across the south area of town between Middlefield and the El Camino corridor. I hear year after year that the old Bryant Street bike boulevard is the best thing that ever happened to cycling in Palo Alto. So there should be room to save money and time with simple, utilitarian approaches that often serve better. Thank you for your consideration. Bret Andersen, Palo Verde, Palo Alto From:Aram James To:Ed Lauing; Reckdahl, Keith Cc:Vicki Veenker; Gerry Gras; h.etzko@gmail.com; board@valleywater.org; board@pausd.org; Bill Newell; Jay Boyarsky; BoardOperations; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Sean Allen; Pat M; EPA Today; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; Council, City; Josh Becker; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Jessica Speiser; Vara Ramakrishnan; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Conrad; Jeff Hayden; Michelle; Mickie Winkler; Rodriguez, Miguel; Damon Silver; Sarah Wright; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Enberg, Nicholas; Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley, Michael; Figueroa, Eric; Jensen, Eric; Friends of Cubberley; Palo Alto Free Press; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Lotus Fong; Gardener, Liz; Roberta Ahlquist; Lu, George; Freddie.Quintana@sen.ca.gov; frances.Rothschild@jud.ca.gov; Burt, Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; Patrice Ventresca; Steve Wagstaffe; Wagner, April; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Braden Cartwright; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; Stump, Molly; Van Le; Kaloma Smith; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; editor@paweekly.com; Gennady Sheyner; Templeton, Cari; Cribbs, Anne; Anna Griffin; yolanda; The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan Subject:Germany"s Obsession With Defending Israel and Criminalizing Speech Aided AfD"s Rise Date:Saturday, February 22, 2025 11:44:57 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. https://open.substack.com/pub/dropsitenews/p/germany-election-afd-israel-palestine-free-speech?r=fjmzt&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email From:Mark Stemm To:Council, City Subject:Please continue to allow artificial turf fields Date:Saturday, February 22, 2025 10:52:37 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. I'd like to comment on the proposed ban on/removal of synthetic turf for athletic fields in PaloAlto. My daughter plays on a local soccer club in Palo Alto. In her club, she practices on a mix of artificial turf and grass fields. The artificial turf fields are consistently in better conditionthan the grass fields, due to the higher maintenance costs for grass fields. This is especially true in the summer and early fall, where a lack of rain causes the fields to dry out. I think we should be encouraging the use of artificial turf fields, due to their lowermaintenance, and especially water, costs. This is especially true going forward as we all have to deal with a drier world due to global warming. I hope you will consider this feedback when you make your decision. —Mark From:LWV of Palo Alto To:Council, City Subject:Re: City Council meeting, Feb. 24, action item 8, Resolution opposing executive orders Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 10:38:29 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. To: Mayor Lauing and City Council members Re: Council meeting Feb. 24, 2025, action item 8, Resolution on executive orders The League of Women Voters of Palo Alto supports Councilmember Veenker and Lauing’sResolution dissociating the city from support of Trump’s recent executive orders freezingfederal funding already appropriated by Congress or threats to freeze such funding to pressure states and localities to comply with policy goals that violate state or local laws.The Resolution also opposes the firing of federal workers without due process anddismantling efforts to increase representation of women and minorities in the workforce.The League agrees. The Resolution reserves the city’s right to join as amicus curiae in lawsuits against theorders to inform the courts of impacts the unlawful orders have on cities like ours, or to joinlawsuits to protect the rights of our city and its citizens. The freezing of already appropriated federal funds would cause great harm to the publichealth, safety and welfare of our city and residents, as set out in the Resolution. The League believes that executive orders freezing funds undermine democracy byviolating the separation of powers in our Constitution. Once Congress decides to spendmoney, the president cannot unilaterally substitute his judgment for that of Congress. TheLeague opposes the freezing of federal funds to cities and states that have elected to limitlocal officials' role in federal immigration enforcement, including the sharing of personalinformation. Limiting entanglement in federal immigration enforcement conserves localresources and avoids a deterioration of trust in public institutions like public schools and thepolice. Collaboration with ICE is associated with housing instability, student absenteeism,and negative child well-being. The executive orders would arbitrarily cut off funding forstates and localities simply for adopting reasonable policies which enhance public safetyand community well-being. Palo Alto depends on this funding for essential services that benefit all residents. Blockingthese funds would undermine residents’ access to critical services including Department ofEducation grants, School Lunch programs, Emergency Medicaid, Emergency FoodAssistance programs, nutrition programs that support food banks, Emergency SolutionsGrants which provide funds to prevent people from becoming homeless and help peopleexperiencing homelessness; Department of Transportation grants, and Violence AgainstWomen grants supporting violence crisis centers. Sincerely,League of Women Voters of Palo AltoKaren Kalinsky and Lisa RatnerCo-Presidents -- League of Women Voters of Palo Alto 3921 E. Bayshore Road Palo Alto, CA 94303 Phone: (650) 903-0600 Web: www.lwvpaloalto.org Facebook: www.facebook.com/PaloAltoLeague/ Twitter: www.twitter.com/lwvpaloalto From:Jim Kozelka To:Council, City Cc:Jim Kozelka Subject:VOTE YES TO OPPOSE TRUMP"S EOs Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 9:18:24 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Lauing, Vice Mayor Veenker and Members of the Palo Alto City Council, As this country hurtles towards autocratic tyranny, I am writing to express my strong supportfor the resolution opposing recent executive orders from former President Trump, as referenced in the Palo Alto Online article dated February 14, 2025. I urge you to take a firmstand in defense of our community’s values of truth, justice, equity and human rights. These executive orders threaten the fundamental freedoms and protections that make Palo Alto a welcoming and just place for all. It is now more important than ever that our localgovernment acts decisively to protect our residents and push back against policies that undermine our shared values. I commend the City Council for taking a leadership role in resisting unjust federal actions andensuring that Palo Alto remains a city that values equity, diversity, and the rule of law. Please continue to stand strong in the face of these challenges and do everything in your power touphold the rights and dignity of all members of our community. Thank you for your commitment to justice and fairness. I respectfully urge you to pass this resolution and take further steps to shield our city from harmful federal overreach. Sincerely,Jim Kozelka Proud PA resident for 45 years --jk not jk "Be truthful, gentle and fearless." - Gandhi From:Linda Baker To:Council, City Subject:Strong support for resolution opposing executive orders Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 7:38:53 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Lauing and Members of the Palo Alto City Council, I strongly support the resolution opposing recent executive orders from former President Trump, as referenced in the Palo Alto Online article on February 14, 2025. I commend the resolution and urge you to take a firm stand in defense of our community’s values of democracy, inclusion, and human rights. These executive orders threaten the fundamental freedoms and protections that make Palo Alto a welcoming and just place for all. It is so important for our local government to act decisively to protect our residents and push back against policies that undermine our shared values. I commend the City Council for taking a leadership role in resisting unjust federal actions and ensuring that Palo Alto remains a city that values equity, diversity, and the rule of law. Please stand strong in the face of these challenges and do everything in your power to uphold the rights and dignity of all members of our community. You are setting a powerful example for other cities on how to do what is right, and I hope that your example inspires others across the region and the country. I am grateful to you for your commitment to justice and fairness. I respectfully urge you to pass this resolution and take further steps to shield our city from harmful federal overreach. Sincerely, Linda Baker From:Stephanie Compton To:Council, City Subject:Please pass resolution opposing Trump Exec Orders Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 5:50:27 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor and Members of the Palo Alto City Council, I am writing to express my strong support for the resolution opposing recent executive orders from former President Trump, as referenced in the Palo Alto Online article dated February 14, 2025. I urge you to take a firm stand in defense of our community’s values of democracy, inclusion, and human rights. These executive orders threaten the fundamental freedoms and protections that make Palo Alto a welcoming and just place for all. Now more than ever, it is essential that our local government acts decisively to protect our residents and push back against policies that undermine our shared values. I commend the City Council for taking a leadership role in resisting unjust federal actions and ensuring that Palo Alto remains a city that values equity, diversity, and the rule of law. Please continue to stand strong in the face of these challenges and do everything in your power to uphold the rights and dignity of all members of our community. Thank you for your commitment to justice and fairness. I respectfully urge you to pass this resolution and take further steps to shield our city from harmful federal overreach. Sincerely, Stephanie Compton Sent from my iPhone From:Lisa Heitman To:Council, City Subject:I support resolution opposing Trump"s executive orders Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 3:30:19 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Lauing et al - I heartily support the resolution opposing Trump's executive orders and the purging of the US government by DOGE. Please put up the good fight and do whatyou can/must to Trump-proof Palo Alto! Thank you. Lisa Heitman 2869 Bryant St. From:Gabi Koehler To:Council, City Subject:Strong Support for Resolution Opposing Trump"s Executive orders Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 2:33:43 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Lauing and Members of the Palo Alto City Council, I would like to express my strong support for the resolution opposing recent executive orders from President Trump, as referenced in the Palo Alto Weekly article on February 14, 2025. Iurge you to take a firm stand in defense of our community's values of democracy, inclusion, and human rights. These executive orders threaten the fundamental freedoms and protections that make Palo Altoa welcoming and just place for all. I think it is essential more now than ever that our local government stands firm in protecting our residents and pushing back against policies thatundermine our shared values. I commend the City Council for taking a leadership role in resisting unjust federal actions and ensuring that Palo Alto remains a city that values diversity, equity, inclusion, and the rule oflaw. Please continue to stand strong in the face of our current and upcoming challenges and do everything in your power to protect the rights and dignity of all members of our community. Thank you for your commitment to justice and fairness. I respectfully urge you to pass thisresolution and take necessary steps to shield our city from harmful federal overreach. Sincerely, Gabi Koehler(177 Monroe Drive, Palo Alto) From:Greg Schmid To:Council, City Subject:Comments for Meeting on February 24 Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 12:33:58 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Comments on Item #9 Council Meeting February 24, 2025 Council Members: It's time for the City to publicly address the issue of how we pay for HCD's mandates on the City. The City has accepted HCD's mandate that the City add over 20% new housing units by 2031 to meet their aggressive forecast for new jobs in the area. Yet the current budget presented for discussion on February 24 shows that the City cannot adequately meet the needs of the current populations plea for the most basic fire protection today without serious budget adjustments. With the City's acceptance of HCD's very aggressive longer term new jobs andhousing mandates, it is time to have an open public discussion of how the City budget will deal with increased need for the most vital City services and who should pay for them. It is clear that the bulk of money spent on fire and police protection come from residents. The numbers presented in tonight's budget analysis show that the bulk of new taxes needed will be paid by residents not businesses with the vast majority of revenues from property taxes, sales taxes, transit occupancy tax and utility users taxpaid by residents. (Note that the share of SC County property taxes paid by businesses fall each year). The residents need a strategic look at the budget that deal with HCD's mandates andassurance that the most vital needs will be met and that businesses and the state will pay their fair share. It is your duty to protect local democracy from the outdated assertions of HCD. Greg Schmid Palo Alto The City should share information on new taxes and spending needed not just fortoday's population but how the cost of HCD's added jobs and housing costs will be met. And what share of those taxes will be paid by residents rather than businesses. HCD not only mandates the City accept their forecasted jobs and housing numbers but that they forbid any public discussion of lowering those numbers. At the least, the City should present to the public in their budget discussion the future costs that the residents will bear.to cover fire, police, road and transit, utility, infrastructure, housing and school needs implicit in the HCD mandates. The current pubic call for discussion on today's emergency fire response clearly shows the need for strategic longer term budget planning. HCD cannot be allowed to override local democracy by forbidding public discussion of their billion dollar budget mandates that fall not on the state or businesses but on local residents. Greg Schmid Palo Alto CA From:Julaine Rosner To:Council, City Subject:Support for Colleague"s Memo (Item #8 on Monday"s agenda) Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 12:02:08 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Palo Alto City Council, I support the resolution standing up to Trump's policies regarding federal employees, federal grants, ICE, and more. The Council should commit to sustaining Palo Alto's values and interests in the face of the Trump administration actions. Thank you! Sincerely, Julaine Rosner 786 Matadero Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94306 From:Linda Frommer To:Council, City Subject:Support for Proposed Adoption of Resolution Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 11:33:14 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. City Council Members, I am writing to express my support for the "Proposed Adoption of a Resolution UnderscoringCouncil's Commitment to Sustaining Palo Alto Values & Interests in the Face of Trump Administration Actions". Unfortunately, I will be out of town for the Council discussion thisMonday, otherwise I would have attended in person. As a retired Federal employee (at VA Palo Alto Health Care System), I very much appreciate the City Council adopting thisresolution and stating its commitment to such important values for our community. Sincerely, Linda Frommer 1525 Walnut Dr Palo Alto, 94303 From:Ken Joye To:Council, City Subject:Sustaining Palo Alto Values Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 10:14:50 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. I see that Mayor Lauing and Vice-Mayor Veenker have authored a colleague’s memo for your consideration at the council’s 24 February 2025 meeting (agenda item #8). I am heartened to read the sentiments articulated in the draft resolution and ask that you support it. thank you for your service, Ken Joye Ventura neighborhood, Palo Alto From:Ken Joye To:Council, City Subject:2025 City Council Priority Objectives Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 10:10:35 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Item #10 for the 24 February council meeting is "Approval of the 2025 City Council Priority Objectives” I ask you to direct staff to prioritize work on our active transportation efforts, which will beinstrumental in meeting our SCAP goals. At the annual kickoff meeting of Emergency Services Volunteers on 20 February 2025, Mayor Lauing and others talked about the PAFD mutual aid offered to the communities in LosAngeles hit by Santa Ana driven wild fires. We must do what we can here in Palo Alto to diminish our contributions to the climate crisis. Please:(1) have the BPTP emphasize mode shift for those commuting within, into and out of our city and focus on that plan update in the Climate Action and Public Safety priorities (2) ensure that the Safe Streets for All and South Palo Alto Bike/Ped Connectivity projects are both reflected in the Climate Action and Public Safety priorities (3) see to it that new housing built along the San Antonio Rd corridor has adequate pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure thank you for your service,Ken Joye Ventura neighborhood, Palo Alto From:SamTransTo:Council, CitySubject:New hydrogen buses, cultural celebrations, Ride Plus update & a new board member!Date:Friday, February 21, 2025 7:51:51 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. • Winter Edition 2025 | View online • Shift to hydrogen-powered buses is underway New audio blog: The first hydrogen fuel cell electric busses to serve public transit customers along the peninsula are now in service, with many more on the way. Hear experts explain it Supervisor Jackie Speier joins SamTrans Board The former U.S. Congresswoman is a longtime advocate for public transportation and infrastructure investments. Learn more New Ride Plus app improves booking experience The on-demand vans serving East Palo Alto/Belle Haven and Half Moon Bay/El Granada are the hassle-free way to travel! Get the new app • • • Get Next Stop sent to your inbox | Subscribe• • • Black History Month See how we celebrate Lunar New Year Check out more photos UPCOMING EVENTS Feb. 23 - Public Hearing/Measure W Audit - Get all of the details March 18 - National Transit Employee Appreciation Day - Thank your drivers Month of March - Women’s History Month - Learn about women in transit This Spring - Join the Citizens Advisory Committee - Apply now Join our team! Drive with us Gear up Summer internships See more openings Forward Next Stop to your friends, so they can subscribe too! Editor: Randol White WhiteR@SamTrans.com Copyright (C) 2025 San Mateo County Transit District. All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 1250 San Carlos Ave. San Carlos, CA 94070 Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe From:Loran Harding To:Loran Harding; alumnipresident@stanford.edu; antonia.tinoco@hsr.ca.gov; David Balakian;bearwithme1016@att.net; boardmembers; bballpod; fred beyerlein; Leodies Buchanan; beachrides; Cathy Lewis;Council, City; carloslawnservice14@gmail.com; Doug Vagim; dennisbalakian; dallen1212@gmail.com;kdeem.electriclab@gmail.com; eappel@stanford.edu; Scott Wilkinson; George.Rutherford@ucsf.edu;Gabriel.Ramirez@fresno.gov; huidentalsanmateo; hennessy; Irv Weissman; Sally Thiessen; jerry ruopoli; JoelStiner; karkazianjewelers@gmail.com; kfsndesk; Mayor; MY77FJ@gmail.com; margaret-sasaki@live.com;maverickbruno@sbcglobal.net; merazroofinginc@att.net; Mark Standriff; newsdesk; nick yovino;news@fresnobee.com; russ@topperjewelers.com; Steve Wayte; terry; tsheehan; vallesR1969@att.net Subject:Fwd: Why the Toronto plane flipped over Date:Thursday, February 20, 2025 10:11:46 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Loran Harding <loran.harding@stanfordalumni.org>Date: Thu, Feb 20, 2025 at 9:57 PM Subject: Fwd: Why the Toronto plane flipped overTo: Loran Harding <loran.harding@stanfordalumni.org> Thursday, Febuary 20, 2025 To all- Re the Toronto crash: Here are two men who understand what flipped the plane over. Once the right wing wasgone, the left wing was still generating lift and it rose up, got vertical, went on over, andcaused the plane to flip completely over. Here's What Likely Caused Shocking Plane Crash in Canada Where Everyone MiraculouslySurvived We've all studied those gun camera films from the US fighter shooting down a German fighter in WWII. In one, one of the German plane's wings comes off, and then the plane startspin-wheeling. That's because the remaining wing is still producing life, as in Toronto, and so it causes the plane to turn over. You see that in this video. Slide the slider to 8:35 here to seethis: * USAAF “Fighter Kills Over Europe” Gun Camera Films, 1944 (15:00- Restored) In the above video, "Here's what likely caused..." it is brought out that the pilots in theseregional jets do not have the hours required to move up to the big jets, and the bigmoney. THAT MEANS that the pilots in the DC crash IN THE DC CRASH also didnot have the hours to move up. I do not recall the NTSB making a point of that. Guessthey don't want to scare the public away from the regional jets. THE NTSB SHOULD BE MAKING A POINT OF THAT! The jet in the DC crash was a Bombardier CRJ-700. The jet in the Toronto crash was aBombrdier CRJ-900. The Toronto plane was Delta Airlines DL4819, but the regional airline has its own name, Endeavor Air in this case, Re the pilots flying the regional passenger jet at DC, we say they were blamless in thedisaster. True enough when the crash was really caused by the hilo being too high and the hilo waving off help from the ATC in seeing the passenger plane coming. ("Visual separationrequested" and the tower gladly granting that to the hilo). BUT, the pilots flying the regional jet at Reagan did accept the request by the tower to change from landing on RW 1 tolanding on RW 33. MORE EXPERIENCED PILOTS, THE KIND WHO FLY THE BIGJETS, MIGHT HAVE REFUSED THAT REQUEST AND MIGHT HAVE SAID THATTHEY WOULD GO AROUND AS MANY TIMES AS IT TOOK TO LAND ON RW 1. They were landing at night in a very congested airspace, and Reagan had had some close callslately. To that extent. the relatively less experienced pilots of the passenger plane at DC might be faulted for accepting the more dangerous RW 33 approach. Other analyses of this Toronto crash do not mention the left wing still producing lift afterthe right wing is gone (!). Recall the Colgan Air Crash in Buffalo. A Regional jet. AND those pilots were seriously sleep- deprived. The plane stalled, they pulled back on the yoke, and it went straight down intoa house. BTW Colgan and a couple of other airlines merged to form this airline,Endeavor Air. In the following video, we learn that the rate of descent in Toronto was too great. Therewas no flare. When the pilots saw the rapid rate of descent, they should have addedpower and gone around. By not flaring, they hit the runway hard, the right landing gearcollapsed, apparently, and the right wing hit the ground and was torn off. They say here thatwith the engines on the rear of the fuselage, the wings are low on the body of the plane. Ifthe engines are mounted under the wings, the wings are higher on the plane. In this video, we hear an ex-commercial pilot say that pilot error caused the crash: Too rapid rate ofdescent before the landing and failure to flare. Delta plane crash: Ex-commercial pilot weighs in on what could have happened The pilots in the Toronto crash: This man says the right landing gear might have collapsed due to a mechanical issue and so we should not assume that the method of landing caused it tocollapse. It seems as I write that it is unclear which person had control of the plane during thelanding. They had very different levels of flight experience. The TRUTH About the Delta 4819 Pilots! L. William Harding Fresno, Ca. From:City Mgr To:Council, City; Shikada, Ed Cc:Executive Leadership Team; City Mgr; Clerk, City Subject:City Council Bundle - February 20 Date:Thursday, February 20, 2025 5:32:23 PM Attachments:RE AB 413.msgFW Dumping on north side of complex COMPLAINT OF INACTION BY THE CITY OF PALO ALTO.msgRE Parking Permits.msgFW IndustrialTransportCommercial concerns.msgimage001.pngimage002.pngFW City of Palo Alto can fix this problem and Staff need to get together for a solution.msgRE Keep Turf - what is the date of the meeting where you will discuss this topic.msgFW Crosswalk Blinkers for Cambridge Avenue.msgRE Instead of a memo of protest why not take CONCRETE Action and....msgFW Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter Comment on Boulware Park and synthetic turf.msgFW Organizatioal . . ..msg Dear Mayor and Council Members, On behalf of City Manager Ed Shikada, please see the attached staff responses to emails received in the City.Council inbox through February 20, 2025. Thank you, Danille Danille RiceAdministrative AssistantCity Manager’s Office|Human Resources|Transportation(650) 329-2229 | danille.rice@cityofpaloalto.orgwww.cityofpaloalto.org From:Aram James To:Binder, Andrew; Reifschneider, James; Dave Price; h.etzko@gmail.com; Wagner, April; Perron, Zachary;Afanasiev, Alex; Enberg, Nicholas; Barberini, Christopher; Robert. Jonsen; Sheriff Transparency; Sean Allen;Raymond Goins; Pat M; Rodriguez, Miguel; Damon Silver; Braden Cartwright; Emily Mibach; EPA Today;jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; bos@smcgov.org; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations;Bill Newell; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Foley, Michael; Figueroa, Eric; Jensen, Eric;cromero@cityofepa.org; Josh Becker; Jose Valle; Ed Lauing; editor@paweekly.com; Shikada, Ed; WILPFPeninsula Palo Alto; Gerry Gras; Dana St. George; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Burt,Patrick; Patricia.Guerrero@jud.ca.gov; San José Spotlight; Senator Becker;assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Cecilia Taylor; Council, City; GRP-City Council;citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Vara Ramakrishnan; Human Relations Commission; Templeton, Cari; Cribbs,Anne; Henry Etzkowitz; Mickie Winkler; Michelle; Nicole Chiu-Wang; Sarah Wright Subject:Grand jury says police department should be "abolished" as 5 officers charged Date:Thursday, February 20, 2025 4:39:27 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Grand jury says police department should be 'abolished' as 5 officers charged Grand jury says police department should be 'abolished' as 5 officers charged Source: ABC News https://share.newsbreak.com/bmun6gxa?s=i0 From:slevy@ccsce.com To:Council, City Cc:Lai, Lauren; Nose, Kiely; Guagliardo, Steven Subject:item 9 budget update Date:Thursday, February 20, 2025 2:14:21 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Lauing and council members, I agree with the cautions expressed by the Finance staff in the item 9 staff report. While there is still uncertainty with the implementation of the administration agenda, the nearly unanimous opinion of economists is that higher inflation is likely and long-term interest rates will remain high or rise. In addition the tariff and immigration policies will hurt the Bay Area and state economies with the magnitude determined by the extent and duration of implementation. UCLA will release a forecast early in March, I have sent staff the invite and I will write to you and staff as things hopefully become clearer. In addition, as you know, the Bay Area economy is not adding jobs AND the revise issuedby EDD next month will include downward revisions to 2023 and 2024 estimates. I do not know how if at all that will affect Palo Alto. I think you are in good hands with current staff. Steve From:Aram James To:Lotus Fong Cc:Sean Allen; Raymond Goins; Pat M; h.etzko@gmail.com; Ed Lauing; assemblymember.berman@assembly.ca.gov; Josh Becker; Cait James; Tim James; Council, City; Dave Price; EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; editor@paweekly.com; Reckdahl, Keith; Gerry Gras; Gardener, Liz; board@valleywater.org; board@pausd.org; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; Jeff Conrad; editor@almanacnews.com; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Palo Alto Free Press; Roberta Ahlquist Subject:Cori Bush & Jamaal Bowman Launch New Zeteo Show! The ex-members of Congress will have a lot to say aboutWashington DC, corruption, AIPAC, and more on their new YouTube show. Date:Thursday, February 20, 2025 1:19:13 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Cori Bush & Jamaal Bowman Launch New Zeteo Show! The ex-members of Congress will have a lot to say about Washington DC, corruption, AIPAC, and more on their new YouTube show. https://zeteo.com/p/cori-bush-and-jamaal-bowman-launch From:CeCi Kettendorf To:Council, City Subject:Each Council Member"s Advocacy Date:Thursday, February 20, 2025 12:32:20 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Council Member; You must each step forward proactively supporting full funding for a new engine, to be ordered this year. You must step forward and loudly proclaim that the fire fighters should bethe professionals who dictate the best staffing model so they can safely protect the city. The model being used right now, from 2011 brought forward by City Manager Keene, ismeant for poor rural communities which are strapped for money and desperate to do the best they can with minimal funding. That does not describe Palo Alto! That fire protection model from a small, poor town in Virginia should not dictate best practice here in the wealthy city of Palo Alto. Shame on Mr. Keene for the harm he did, all to save money on fire protection! Take a large portion of the $900 million plus, left after the Reserve is funded, to staff the fire fighters abundantly and redundantly. Staff Fire Station 4 with five firefighters, 24/7,nothing less. Your first and overriding mandate from the citizenry is safety. Please embrace this issue andstep forward to advocate for millions and millions of more dollars for fire protection. The voters will love you for the love you show us. Protect us. CeCi Kettendorf 45 year resident of south Palo Alto3719 Grove Avenue Palo Alto, Ca. From:City Clerk To:City Clerk Subject:FW: Montague - Draft Property Appraisal Report *ACTION NEEDED: Review & Approval of Appraiser Recommended Values* - DUE 2/20/25 Date:Thursday, February 20, 2025 11:13:36 AM Attachments:FW Montague - Draft Property Appraisal Report ACTION NEEDED Review Approval of Appraiser Recommended Values - DUE 22025.msg Importance:High CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Please see attach, Ruanna Smith Interim City Clerk City of Montague Phone:530-459-3020 Email:clerk@cityofmonagueca.com 230 South 13th Street Montague, CA 96064 www.cityofmontagueca.com From:David Coale To:Council, City; Shikada, Ed Cc:Abendschein, Jonathan; Eggleston, Brad Subject:Please make Bike Ped infrastructure a higher priority Date:Thursday, February 20, 2025 11:01:12 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor and City Councilmembers, Bike and ped infrastructure needs to be at a higher priority. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan (BPTP) is two years late and the last plan spanning over 12 years is only 30% built-out. We need to do better than this. In reading through the packet for 2025 City Council Priority Objectives I have some suggestions on how to make Palo Alto a leader again in serving our community with better bike/ped infrastructure. 1) The BPTP needs to be at a higher priority. Consider bringing this before the Council in Q3 (ASAP). Objectives #23 and #24 are not time sensitive and can be done in Q4 to make room for the BPTP in Q3. 2) There needs to be a better review of the BPTP. This should be done at a ½ day workshop with the PABAC and PTC committees. The BPTP is a complex plan and needs the expertise of these two groups. One workshop for this with both groups would make best use of Staff time and committee members. 3) The BPTP should have tick marks in both the Climate Action and Public safety priorities. It could be argued that good bike/ped infrastructure should be in all the city's priorities as our housing plans will be inadequate without it, and good bike/ped infrastructure is essential for local retail and adding to the vitality of our community. 4) Make sure the Safe Streets for All Safety Action plan is not delayed as this is essential for the BPTP. How many more lives do we want to lose to poor design of our streets and crossings? The SS4A also needs to be listed as a Public Safety priority as well as a Climate Action priority. 5) Add the east-west bicycle and pedestrian crossing project, as noted in the Rail Ad Hoc Committee, as its own objective with timelines and reviews. This should go under the Climate Action and Public Safety priorities. This is a must build item before any rail crossings are built and has been a priority of the Rail Committee for a while. This will reduce congestion and increase safety for our school children and others and could be a real game changer for how Palo Altans get around our city. 6) All of the above measures are needed if we are to reach our SCAP goals of a 20% increase of bike/ped mode share in the next five years; from 19% now to 40% by 2030. The SCAP has done pretty well in many categories but has not yet addressed this mode shift, and it needs attention if we are to meet our goals. This could also help make up the 9% shortfall in the SCAP 80 by 30 GHG reduction goals. It is interesting that there is no mention of bike/ped or even transportation in any of the objectives regarding housing. Without good bike/ped planning and transportation integrated into our housing plans, they will fail miserably. These items must be included and called out as such to make sure it really happens. If you build it they will come, so let’s make sure we build the right things, no more parking garages that promote car use and congestion while increasing GHGs at a very high cost. We need more bike/ped infrastructure, which reduces congestion, parking problems and GHGs while making our community more healthy, resilient, and supports our local businesses. This is the most cost effective way to reduce our GHGs as noted in Project Drawdown that studied the top 100 actions that can be done to reduce GHGs.Thanks for your consideration of these changes to make Palo Alto more livable, vibrant and safer for all road users. Sincerely, David CoaleCarbon Free Palo Alto (CFPA), Bike Palo Alto, and SVBC Palo Alto team Additional signatories:Amie Ashton, Palo Alto Forward, SVBC-PA Debbie Mytels, long time cyclist and environmental educator LaurenWeston, Acterra ED Frank Viggiano, SVBC-PAGarrett Clark, SVBC-PA Bruce Hodge, CFPA Audrey Gold, Bike Palo Alto Ofer Ben-Shachar, SVBC-PABret Andersen, CFPA Zafarali Ahmed, SVBC-PA Roy Kornbluh, SVBC-PA Michael Regula, SVBC-PATim Oey, League Cycling Instructor, SVBC Jeralyn Moran, Wildlife Biologist, Palo Alto Mimi Wolf, Palo Alto Randi Bethel, SVBC-PASven Thesen, Project Green Home Palo Alto Kate Kramer, MD Palo Alto Jennifer Wells, Los Altos Lynn Hollyn, Palo AltoNincole Kenneny, 350 Silicon Valley Mark Hoffberg, CFPA Susan Chamberlain, Palo Alto Carol Muller, SVBC-PAShannon Rose McEntree, PAF Peter Phillips, PAF Joby B Bernstein, PAF James Cook, Palo Alto Marilyn Keller, Palo Alto From:Aram James To:h.etzko@gmail.com; Lythcott-Haims, Julie Cc:Council, City; Shikada, Ed Subject:Palo Alto looks to boost fire protection as budget outlook gets cloudier Date:Thursday, February 20, 2025 10:25:47 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Palo Alto looks to boost fire protection as budget outlook gets cloudier https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2025/02/20/palo-alto-looks-to-boost-fire-protection-as-budget-outlook-gets-cloudier/ From:Aram James To:Reckdahl, Keith; Lythcott-Haims, Julie Cc:Ed Lauing; Veenker, Vicki; Raymond Goins; Dave Price; Council, City; board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; boardfeedback@smcgov.org; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Rosen; Jeff Hayden; Cait James; Tim James; h.etzko@gmail.com; George for Palo Alto; Vara Ramakrishnan; Sean Allen; rabrica@cityofepa.org; Raj Jayadev; Raymond Goins; Michelle; Doug Minkler; Sarah Wright; Gennady Sheyner; Braden Cartwright; Bill Newell; Josh Becker; Senator Becker; Diana Diamond; Emily Mibach; Mickie Winkler; Linda Jolley; Josie James-Le; Perron, Zachary; Rodriguez, Miguel; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway; Human Relations Commission; ladoris cordell; planning.commission@cityofpaloalto.0rg; ParkRec Commission; EPA Today; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Steve Wagstaffe; editor@paweekly.com; Friends of Cubberley; Lotus Fong; Marina Lopez Subject:CAIR labels Stanford a "hostile campus" for stance on pro-Palestinian protests Date:Wednesday, February 19, 2025 9:59:54 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. CAIR labels Stanford a 'hostile campus' for stance on pro-Palestinian protests Source: ABC7 News Bay Area https://share.newsbreak.com/bmaj40zv?s=i0 From:Joe Penko To:Council, City Subject:Engine 64 Town Hall fact check and plea to fully staff Engine 64 Date:Wednesday, February 19, 2025 6:35:27 PM Attachments:Neighborhood Meeting Fact Check.pdf image002.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Honorable Mayor, City Council Members, and City Staff, We thank you for taking the time last week to address the concerns of the community inregards to the proposed cross staffed engine at fire station 4. On behalf of Palo Alto Firefighters Local 1319, I am writing to formally submit the attached Neighborhood MeetingFact Check document for your review ahead of Monday’s City Council meeting. This document highlights critical misrepresentations made about the proposed cross-staffing ofEngine 64 and outlines the urgent need for a fully staffed fire engine in South Palo Alto’s District 4. At the recent town hall, the community heard information about current staffing levels, emergency response capabilities, and fire department availability. The attached fact checkprovides clear evidence that: Cross-staffing has already failed and was eliminated due to its negative impact onemergency response. The Fire Department itself stated, “We went through greatlengths to move away from that model.”The claim that the current ambulance is only busy 20% of the time does not account for call surges, hospital turnaround delays, training, inspections, and otheroperational requirements that further reduce availability.Palo Alto’s firefighting force has been reduced by nearly 23% over the past 17years, despite increased call volume, population growth, and rising wildfire risks. The automatic aid agreement with Mountain View was canceled due to staffingreductions. Mountain View’s Fire Chief has indicated they are willing to reinstate this agreement—but only if Engine 64 is fully staffed. We understand the financial constraints the city faces, but public safety must comefirst. Measure K was passed to restore public safety services, and this is exactly the type ofinvestment those funds were intended for. We urge the City Council to take immediate action to fully staff Engine 64 as a stand-aloneunit. This is not a request for something new—this is about restoring essential emergency response resources to the level the community deserves. We look forward to discussing this further on Monday. Thank you for your time and your commitment to keeping Palo Alto safe. Sincerely, Joseph Penko Palo Alto Fire Department Local 1319 President C: 650.392.5589 | E: josephpenko@gmail.com PALO ALTO PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS Palo Alto Residents and Advocates, Palo Alto Firefighters Local 1319 would like to address key points raised at the recent town hall with city staff and the Fire Chief. While we believe city leaders want to provide the right level of service, they are currently prioritizing budget concerns over the public’s safety and needs. Act now to demand a fully staffed fire engine for south Palo Alto’s district 4. No compromises should be accepted. You deserve the same level of service as the rest of the greater Palo Alto community. The Current Options At the meeting, the Fire Chief presented several options for reinstating Engine 64, all of which are tied to adding an additional ambulance. While both are necessary, they do not have to be combined. Pairing them together is a budget-driven decision that would delay Engine 64’s return by more than a year while the city develops a new civilian ambulance division. However, the city has not considered or presented an option to simply restore Engine 64 now, despite its immediate impact on public safety. Cross-Staffing vs. Fully Staffing A question was raised about fully staffing Engine 64 versus cross-staffing it with an ambulance crew. The city’s response was, “You can only have one or the other.” This is misleading. While the current Station 4 is too small to house both crews, it is a non- issue as it is scheduled for demolition next month. The crew will be relocated to a temporary station at Cubberley Community Center. If the city fully funded Engine 64, there are multiple ways to staff both units on the south end of town, even if that meant the ambulance was relocated to a nearby station. Why does this matter? - Fire engines respond immediately to all emergencies, including medical calls, and provide paramedics for life-saving interventions. - Ambulances are for transport—but in the first 10-15 minutes of a crisis, an engine crew is more effective. They are strategically located to decrease response time and have an additional crew member for providing lifesaving treatment. - Fire engines return to service nearly three times faster than ambulances, keeping more emergency resources available. The Cross-Staffing Model Has Already Failed The Fire Chief is in the difficult position of defending a cross-staffing model while acknowledging its past failures. At a recent Finance Committee meeting, fire PALO ALTO PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS department leadership admitted, “We went through great lengths to move away from that model.” Now, they are proposing to bring it back purely as a cost-saving measure, even though it reduces the department’s overall resources and response capability. Cross-staffing means one crew doing two jobs. While they may be available for either the engine or the ambulance, there will be times when an emergency arises, and neither unit is available. This puts lives at risk. The Fire Chief’s Flawed Assumption on Ambulance Availability The Fire Chief stated that the current ambulance is only busy 20% of the time, implying that a cross-staffed Engine 64 would be available 80% of the time. This is a misleading and flawed assumption for several reasons: 1. Call Overlap – Emergency calls often come in back-to-back, meaning a unit that was just in service can be sent out again almost immediately. The 20% figure does not account for spikes in demand, which can leave an area unprotected. 2. Turnaround Time – After an ambulance transports a patient to the hospital, it remains unavailable while completing hospital transfer procedures, restocking supplies, and returning to its coverage area. This downtime extends beyond the actual call time. 3. Standby and Coverage Gaps – When a unit is unavailable, nearby resources must shift to cover the gap, reducing response capacity across the city. An engine may not be in service simply because it has been pulled away from its home district to provide backup elsewhere. 4. Other Operational Commitments – Even when not responding to emergencies, fire crews have required duties that take them out of service, including: o Mandatory training to maintain certifications and emergency response skills. o Fire safety inspections for businesses and apartments. o Public education and safety demonstrations at schools and community events. o Equipment maintenance and station duties, which must be completed to ensure readiness. PALO ALTO PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS These essential responsibilities further reduce the actual availability of an engine or ambulance, meaning the public cannot assume that just because a unit isn’t on a call, it’s available for an emergency. Misleading Staffing Numbers and Shrinking Resources It was misleading for city officials to claim that Palo Alto Fire has 114 personnel— because that number includes administrators and other non-emergency staff. The real number that matters is how many firefighters are on duty at any given time to respond to emergencies. Current Staffing (2025) Palo Alto currently has 24 firefighters on duty each day: • 5 engines (3 firefighters each) • 1 truck (3 firefighters) • 3 ambulances (2 firefighters each) • 1 battalion chief This totals 24 firefighters plus one shift supervisor. The city’s proposal to cross-staff Engine 64 would only add one additional firefighter per shift—barely increasing overall staffing. Past Staffing (2000’s) When many of today’s firefighters were hired, Palo Alto had significantly more resources: • 7 engines (3 firefighters each) • 1 truck (3 firefighters) • 1 rescue unit (3 firefighters) • 2 ambulances (2 firefighters each, with one operating only during daytime hours) • 1 battalion chief This totaled 31 firefighters plus one shift supervisor, meaning firefighting resources have been reduced by nearly 23% over the past 17 years. What does this mean? • Palo Alto now has fewer emergency responders despite a growing population and increasing call volume. • The ratio of firefighting apparatus to ambulances has changed significantly, prioritizing transport over rapid emergency response. PALO ALTO PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS • National standards recommend higher staffing levels for effective emergency response—and Palo Alto is far from meeting those recommendations (see attached report). Increased Fire Risks from Development A resident raised a critical question about fire risks from large-scale construction projects. The best answer? A fully staffed Engine 64 is essential to stop small fires before they become large disasters. While the Fire Chief described Palo Alto’s mutual aid agreements with neighboring cities, these agreements should be a backup plan—not the first line of defense. Mountain View's Aid Agreement and What Palo Alto Is Losing Before the pandemic, the city downsized the fire department despite a strong economy and implemented cross-staffing citywide. This led to: - Firefighters leaving for jobs in other cities. - Mountain View Fire cancelling its automatic aid agreement with Palo Alto. Before 2016, Mountain View would automatically send the closest fire engine into Palo Alto when our resources were busy—improving emergency coverage for South Palo Alto. Their Fire Chief has expressed interest in reinstating this agreement—but only if Engine 64 is fully staffed. If Palo Alto chooses cross-staffing instead, we will not meet their safety standards, and this critical partnership will remain lost. Make Your Voice Heard Thank you for advocating for public safety and demanding the city prioritize emergency response over budget cuts. We deeply appreciate your support in restoring the resources needed to keep your homes, families, and community safe. • Participate in the city’s midyear budget process on February 24th o https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting?meetingTemplate Id=15969 • Write your city council and let them know you will not accept this lower service level in your community o city.council@cityofpaloalto.org Palo Alto Firefighters Local 1319 From:Mark Shull To:Council, City Subject:Prioritizing and Improving BPTP in City"s Strategic Plan Date:Wednesday, February 19, 2025 2:27:47 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi, I would like to join and support David Cole's excellent letter below to Make Bikes a Priority in the City's strategic plan. I would also add three points to it: 1) Electric bikes are an absolute necessity if the city is actually going to reach its goal of 40% of trips by 2030. There is simply too low a ceiling if the city's bike plan is limited to non-assisted bikes. Electrics dramatically expand those who can or want to use a bike rather than a car. Firstly, this means a better understanding of the differences in eBikes -- pedal assist vs throttle -- and new motor vehicle laws related to types of eBikes -- eg. Class 2 riders must be 16 yo and must wear helmets. In other words, the state already has relatively nuanced eBike regulations under motor vehicle law, and the City should start form these, not a repeat of it legally questionable, under CA law, restrictions on eBikes. Related to this, the City is not allowed under CA law to restrict eBikes outside of '"trails and paths" in parks, but even in parks, not on roads. To the contrary, the City should encourage them, and look for opportunities, such as along major roads and in terms of parking or charging facilities (eg. in multi-tenant housing) to encourage them. E-bikes, love them or hate them, is almost certainly the most promising way to make a dramatic difference in the number of car trips vs alternative modes of transportation. 2) Don't Forget the importance of efficient inter-city and longer distance bike routes. Most of the draft bike plan seems to focus on intra-Palo Alto routes. Frankly, the current city bike paths within the city are pretty good, but extremely convoluted, poorly connected and unnecessary long for those who commute across cities. (It is frustrating to hear opinions like riders should take Park Ave if they want to ride from Menlo Park to Mountain View -- no one would take this meandering and clumsy route twice.) The new El Camino path will go a long way to alleviate this problem, but the BPTP plan should give much more attention to efficient inter-city paths. 3) The draft BPTP dramatically overstates bike parking facilities because much of the city's bike parking -- including on city property and garages -- is unusable. In many cases, the shapes are simply a poor design, are located too close to buildings to be usable -- as is the case in the city garage across from the new police station -- or place bikes too close together to work. The upside down U shaped installations are the most flexible. (Frankly, sign poles are the very best design, yet for some reason the only place they exist is when actually being signs, rather than bike parking facilities.) My point is, we need practical bike parking, not unusable installations, faked numbers, or art projects. Lastly, while I hope for these changes, I sincerely appreciate that I live in one of the few places in the US where I have the opportunity to use my bike as a primary mode of transportation for work, pleasure and shopping. Thanks, Mark Shull 2020 Tasso St. Palo Alto 301-466-9836 Dear Mayor and City Councilmembers, Bike and ped infrastructure needs to be at a higher priority. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan (BPTP) is two years late and the last plan spanning over 12 years is only 30% built-out. We need to do better than this. In reading through the packet for 2025 City Council Priority Objectives I have some suggestions on how to make Palo Alto a leader again in serving our community with better bike/ped infrastructure. 1) The BPTP should come before the Council in Q3 (ASAP). Objectives #23 and #24 are not time sensitive and can be done in Q4 to make room for the BPTP in Q3. 2) There needs to be a better review of the BPTP. This should be done at a ½ day workshop with the PABAC and SRTS committees. When I look at the reprocess for the BPTP listed on the transportation page, there is no review by the SRTS committee. The BPTP is a complex plan and needs the expertise of these two groups. One workshop for this with both groups would make best use of Staff time and committee members. 3) The BPTP should have tick marks in both the Climate Action and Public safety priorities. It could be argued that good bike/ped infrastructure should be in all the city priorities as our housing plans will be inadequate without it, and good bike/ped infrastructure is essential for local retail and adding to the vitality of our community. 4) Make sure the Safe Streets for All Safety Action plan is not delayed as this is essential for the BPTP. How many more lives do we want to lose to poor design of our streets and crossings? The SS4A also needs to be listed as a Public Safety priority as well as a Climate Action priority. 5) Add the east-west bicycle and pedestrian crossing project, as noted in the Rail Ad Hoc Committee, as its own objective with timelines and reviews. This should go under the Climate Action and Public Safety priorities. This is a must build item before any rail crossings are built and has been a priority of the Rail Committee for a while. This will reduce congestion and increase safety for our school children and others and could be a real game changer for how Palo Altan’s get around our city. 6) All of the above measures are needed if we are to reach our SCAP goals of a 20% increase of bike/ped mode share in the next five years; from 19% now to 40% by 2030. The SCAP has done pretty well in many categories but has not yet addressed and needs attention if we are to meet our goals. This could also help make up the 9% shortfall in the SCAP 80 by 30 GHG reduction goals. It is interesting that there is no mention of bike/ped or even transportation in any of the objectives regarding housing. Without good bike/ped planning and transportation integrated into our housing plans, they will fail miserably. These items must be included and called out as such to make sure it really happens. If you build it they will come, so let’s make sure we build the right things, no more parking garages that promotes car use and congestion while increasing GHGs at a very high cost. We need more bike/ped infrastructure, which reduces congestion, parking problems and GHGs while making our community more healthy, resilient, and supports our local businesses. This is the most cost effective way to reduce our GHGs as noted in Project Drawdown that studied the top 100 actions that can be done to reduce GHGs. Thanks for your consideration of these changes to make Palo Alto more livable, vibrant and safer for all road users. Sincerely, David Coale From:Jo Ann Mandinach To:Council, City; City Mgr Cc:Dave Price Subject:Instead of a memo of protest, why not take CONCRETE Action and... Date:Wednesday, February 19, 2025 1:30:23 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor, City Council Members and City Manager, I read your Colleague's Memo re the Trump Administration's actions and know it will fall on the same deaf ears as the many other similar letters, lawsuits and protests. Instead, since they're so concerned about money, why not hit them whereit hurts: in their wallet. If you REALLY wanted to send a message, how about taking CONCRETE ACTION and cancelling Tesla's contract to run the PA Link shuttles and rescindpermission to use our streets as a testing ground for Tesla's autonomous cabs? You'll note the Tesla folks have been using the Palo Alto partnerships for bragging rights as the first of many partnerships across Silicon Valley, Is this the type of leadership for which Palo Alto wants to be known? I'd hope not! And I'd hope that in cancelling future dealings you'd stress the reasons why. Tesla may test ‘Cybercabs' in Palo Alto By Audrey Asistio • Published October 23, 2024 • Updated on October 23, 2024at 9:33 pm https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/tesla-may-test-cybercabs-in-palo-alto/3687122/ Palo Alto Link, the city’s nascent rideshare service, will remain in operation at least until the end of June after the City Council extended its contract with the contractor that operates the system and left the door open for Tesla to supplement the small fleet with its new robotaxis. https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2024/11/05/palo-alto-link-gets-a-boost-as- council-extends-contract/ Palo Alto Link gets a boost as council extends contract New deal with Nomad Transportation leaves the door open for future Tesla partnership "In unanimously approving Palo Alto Link for eight more months, council membersagreed that the service remains popular and valuable, particularly for seniors, residents with disabilities and those who don’t have cars. Very sincerely, Jo Ann Mandinach Palo Alto, CA 94301 From:Nicholas Sazdanoff To:Burt, Patrick; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Stone, Greer; Council, City Subject:Support for keeping and expanding synthetic turf fields in Palo Alto Date:Wednesday, February 19, 2025 12:58:55 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. City Council Members, I am a Palo Alto resident and am writing to express my strong opposition to the proposed ban on synthetic turf fields in Palo Alto. As a Palo Alto resident with two children (ages 9 and 6) who actively use our city's turf fieldsand as a participant in an adult soccer league that relies on them, I have experienced firsthand the benefits of these fields. Synthetic turf fields provide a reliable, year-round playing surfacethat can withstand heavy use and requires minimal maintenance. This extended usability is crucial in an area with limited field space and a growing demand for athletic facilities. It would be a travesty to eliminate the turf fields in Palo Alto, and we actually need to bebuilding more as they are so heavily utilized. Thank you, Nick From:Postmaster To:Council, City Subject:You have new held messages Date:Wednesday, February 19, 2025 12:13:54 PM Logo You have new held messages You can release all of your held messages and permit or block future emails from the senders, or manage messages individually. Release all Permit all Block all You can also manage held messages in your Personal Portal. Spam Policy no-reply-255@utvtol.edu.mx Alternate times suggested: Interview request for you 2025-02-19 07:03 Release Permit Block Release all Permit all Block all © 2019 Mimecast Services Limited. From:Katie Sazdanoff To:Council, City Subject:Support for maintaining synthetic sport fields Date:Wednesday, February 19, 2025 11:40:22 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Good morning, Both of my children play soccer in Palo Alto, and we support maintaining synthetic turf for athletic fields. There is already a critical shortage of athletic fields. No longer maintaining synthetic turf fields would mean more grass fields would need to be built which is not feasible. As studies show, team sports are incredibly important for children. Kids need fields to play sports! Not maintaining synthetic turfs would hurt children by making it more difficult to play team sports. I ask that you support maintaining synthetic turf fields. Thank you, Katie Sazdanoff From:Cubberley Project To:Sherry Listgarten Cc:City Mgr; Council, City Subject:RE: One concern about the Cubberley renovation Date:Wednesday, February 19, 2025 10:41:21 AM Good morning, Sherry, We appreciate your input and have shared it with our consultant for the Cubberley Project, Concordia. Our first community meeting will be March 19, at 6 p.m. in the Cubberley Pavilion, please join us if you are available! Best, Cayla From: Sherry Listgarten <sherry@listgarten.com> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2025 2:32 PM To: Council, City <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Cubberley Project <CubberleyProject@CityofPaloAlto.org> Subject: One concern about the Cubberley renovation CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear City Council and others working on Cubberley, I live in Greenmeadow, the neighborhood abutting Cubberley, and am happy that plans to renovate the facility are making progress. I think an active community center would be well used here, especially with the planned growth, and that complements to facilities in North Palo Alto like Avenidas for seniors and the Rinconada Pool (for everyone) would be especially welcome. One concern I want to share with you is that, since South Palo Alto has been without a publicly supported pool and senior center for so long, membership-based clubs have sprung up to fill the gap. We have the Greenmeadow swimming pool, Oshman Family JCC, Eichler swim club, etc. The concern I have is that once Cubberley is renovated, with nice, modern public facilities, it will make it harder for these clubs, that have provided essential services in this part of town for decades, to survive. The Greenmeadow pool has been owned and operated by the neighborhood since the 1950s. It is no easy feat to own and operate a community pool, but we have managed and the pool has been a lifeblood for many in the community, a great way for kids young and old to play together, compete together, and mentor one another, and for people of all ages to make friends. This experience should be available to all, which is why I am in favor of a great public pool facility at Cubberley that doesn't require a membership fee and that has room for all. But I worry about how that pool will affect Greenmeadow's ability to attract members, to pay its bills, to maintain its facility. The large majority of our membership does not live in Greenmeadow, and it's not clear to me that those folks would retain their memberships in our small, membership-based pool vs swim at a publicly funded, lower-cost, and newer pool. I think the same is probably true for the JCC, and maybe for Eichler too, though it's a bit farther away. So I would encourage the folks working on Cubberley to put some thought into this, working with representatives from the affected facilities. I don't have any particular ideas right now, but I think it's important to consider this potential negative impact and think about ways to mitigate it. Thank you for reading, -- Sherry Listgarten View this email in your browser Visit us on www.lwvpaloalto.org, Facebook, and Instagram February E-Blast February 19, 2025 In this Issue LWVPA Updates LWV Study of Federal Judiciary Let's Use Social Media to Spread League of Women Voters' Messages Invest in the League of Women Voters of Palo Alto! Action Alert: Oppose the SAVE Act Events in the Community From:LWV Palo Alto (Eblast)To:Council, CitySubject:LWVPA February 2025 E-Blast: Study of Federal Judiciary and Many MoreDate:Wednesday, February 19, 2025 10:39:46 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. Join LWV of Palo Alto Bridging the Gap through Respectful Conversations New Administration, New Legal Landscape: Navigating Emerging Legal Issues Between California and the Federal Government LWV Bay Area - Death vs. Dollars Series Lecture by Dr. Ben Santer 2025 Annual League Day Climate with Tom Steyer LWV Celebrates 105th Anniversary LWVPA Updates LWV Study of Federal Judiciary Saturday, March 1, 2025 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm Peninsula Conservation Center Raptor Room 3921 E. Bayshore Rd., Palo Alto How important is an enforceable code of ethics to judicial legitimacy? How should such a code be enforced? What structural changes to the Supreme Court might reduce the perception of partisanship? Join us on March 1 to engage in these important discussions and help LWV develop its position. LWVUS has posted a study guide with policy briefs to help us understand the issues, and we highly recommend you read the policy briefs before the meeting. The LWVUS Federal Judiciary Study Committee also held a Town Hall on February 4 with leading experts in the field. You can hear the stimulating conversation by watching the recording of the Town Hall. We hope you will join us in this important and timely study of judicial accountability, transparency, independence, and ethics. Register Now Let’s Use Social Media to Spread League of Women Voters’ Messages By Hilary Glann What if we could use the technology that has caused local newspapers to go bankrupt and disinformation to flourish to save our democracy? The Pew Center tells us that 54% of US adults report that they get news at least some of the time from social media, so we can’t ignore it any more. The good news is that each of us can play a role to ensure that more social media users see accurate information from a reputable source on democracy and voting—the League of Women Voters—by using simple tips to tell the social media platforms’ algorithms to show more LWV posts. To start, please “follow” the LWVUS and LWV California, which have accounts on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, and TikTok. Then, whenever you login to your social media accounts, take a moment to see if anything has been posted by the LWVUS or LWV California. If yes, give the post a boost by either sharing the post to your account, or making a comment on the post. Whether you share or comment on a post, keep your message brief and simple. E.g., you can thank the League for sharing the information, mention a short personal anecdote, or call out something specific you liked in the post. You can even comment on someone else’s comment. Comments and shares tell the algorithm that this is an important post that should be seen by more people. Two things not to do on social media in any situation: Don’t engage with a troll who makes nasty or untruthful comments on a post. It’s a waste of time and you can get demoralized by the lies and anger. Don’t comment on posts from people who are sharing fake news. If you comment, you are telling the algorithm to show the post to more people! Instead, search for another post that tells the truth and make a comment or share that post. Please also consider following our congressional representatives and state representatives to keep up with what they are doing and comment/share if you have the time. Senator Alex Padilla, Senator Adam Schiff, and Representative Sam Liccardo are on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, and X/Twitter. Governor Newsom, Senator Josh Becker, and Assemblymember Marc Berman are on Bluesky, Facebook, and X/Twitter. Use their names and titles to find their accounts on social media. If you have additional ideas or questions about this campaign to promote accurate information from the League on social media, please contact me at hglann@gmail.com. Invest in the League of Women Voters of Palo Alto! Stressed about the state of democracy? Support local volunteers committed to providing fair and unbiased, nonpartisan voter information about elections, candidate views, ballot measures, the voting process, and public policy issues. Every week the League is working to engage our community in important public issues and advocating for policies that improve the health and safety of our town and region! Becoming a League Supporter is an easy, efficient way to make a difference in our community. Action Alert: Oppose the SAVE Act Act Now! Tell Your Members of Congress to Oppose the SAVE Act Americans do not need MORE obstacles to casting their votes. The so-called Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act is now before the House and Senate and will be voted on soon. While purporting to protect election integrity, SAVE is actually a threat to voting rights. SAVE would require citizenship documentation to register to vote even though voters in every state are already required to affirm or verify their citizenship status when registering. It is already illegal for non-citizens to register and vote in federal or state elections. Voting by non-citizens has been shown over and over to be a non-issue. It rarely happens. The bill’s requirement of a document to prove American citizenship to register to vote creates an unnecessary hardship for many eligible voters. SAVE would effectively end voter registration drives like those conducted by Donate Now the League and other good government organizations and online voter registration. SAVE is yet another barrier to voting supported by those who seek to divide us, to limit the franchise, and to prevent citizens from exercising their lawful right to vote. Learn more about SAVE at nonprofitvote.org. Protect the right to vote. Contact your members of Congress to register your opposition to the SAVE Act. Events in the Community Tell your members of Congress to oppose the SAVE Act Bridging the Gap through Respectful Conversations LWV Diablo Valley, LWV West Contra Costa County, CCTV, and Contra Costa County Library Thursday, February 20, 2025 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm Americans are concerned about the growing partisanship in our country and the difficulty this has created in communicating with one another. Whether it is with our families, neighbors, friends, or with community members, people are looking for tools to help them have civil and respectful conversations with one another. The speakers will offer resources, skills, and opportunities for individuals to help build bridges across divides in our families, communities, and country. Panelists include: Ellie Sears and Dick Patterson from Braver Angels Kristin Connelly, Clerk-Recorder-Registrar, Contra Costa County Cheryl Graeves from the National Institute for Civil Discourse The event is co-sponsored by LWV of Diablo Valley, LWV of West Contra Costa County, CCTV, and the Contra Costa County Library. Stanford Law School and State Senator Josh Becker to Host Symposium on New Administration, New Legal Landscape: Navigating Emerging Legal Issues Between California and the Federal Government Tuesday, February 25, 2025 8:30 am - 3:30 pm With the start of President Trump’s second term, a wave of executive actions and legislative proposals has already sparked legal and political pushback from California and other states. This symposium will examine how California’s leadership is responding to shifts in national policy; it will explore the evolving dynamics of federalism in the U.S. as the new administration takes office and discuss how the California government and legislature are likely to address four critical policy areas—immigration, reproductive rights, civil rights, and the environment. LWV Bay Area - Death vs. Dollars Series Adverse Childhood Experiences & Toxic Stress: What can be done to Register Now Register Now mitigate the lasting impacts on our health? Thursday, February 27, 2025 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm Speakers include Supervisor Sylvia Arenas and Dr. Rachel GiIgoff of the Office of the California Surgeon General. Don’t miss this public health event! Lecture by Dr. Ben Santer From 'Discernible' to 'Unequivocal': The Arc of History in Climate Change Attribution Science Tuesday, March 4, 2025 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm Stanford University CEMEX Auditorium 655 Knight Way, Stanford Join Students for a Sustainable Stanford to hear Dr. Santer, a distinguished scholar and world-renowned climate scientist who was the lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chang (IPCC) report that proved climate change was significantly influenced by human activities. Dr. Santer will discuss the history of climate science, including his contributions to the IPCC report and his work on climate fingerprinting, which is used to identify specific patterns of warming in the atmosphere, ocean, and land that can be directly linked to human activity. Register Now 2025 Annual League Day Saturday, March 8, 2025 10:00 am - 1:00 pm LWV Bay Area's annual issue education forum will focus on the inner workings of regional governance. Have you ever wondered how the regional government works and how it affects your daily life? How do decisions made by MTC-ABAG affect a local jurisdiction? The event will include a keynote address and an update on LWV Bay Area's regional government and land use study, currently underway. Climate with Tom Steyer Register Now Register Now LWV Climate Interest Group Thursday, March 27, 2025 4:00 pm -5:00 pm A longtime leader in the climate movement, Tom Steyer has spearheaded citizen campaigns, championed climate science, and advocated for bold legislation—even running for President to put climate first. Now, he is leveraging decades of experience as a world-class investor to drive climate solutions in the private sector. He’s the author of Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War, which was highly praised by Al Gore and Bill McKibben, among others. Come learn about the climate crisis and why local action is critical. LWV Celebrates 105th Anniversary On February 14, the League turned 105! Watch a virtual rally and Register Now celebration, honoring our legacy and our commitment to empower voters and defend democracy. Stay Informed! Sign Up for LWV California & LWVUS News & Alerts Click here to sign up for Email News and Action Alerts from LWVUS Facebook Website Instagram Copyright © 2025 League of Women Voters Palo Alto, All rights reserved. From Voter Recipient List Our mailing address is: League of Women Voters Palo Alto 3921 E Bayshore Rd Ste 209 Palo Alto, CA 94303-4303 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can unsubscribe from this list. From:Aram James To:Ed Lauing; Reckdahl, Keith; Reckdahl, Keith; Veenker, Vicki; gstone22@gmail.com; George for Palo Alto; Council,City Subject:From the archive of Aram James Date:Tuesday, February 18, 2025 11:03:00 PM Attachments:C40E0CD0-4279-473C-829A-27A0E396F419.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. From:Aram James To:Council, City; cromero@cityofepa.org; ladoris cordell; h.etzko@gmail.com; Shikada, Ed; rabrica@cityofepa.org;Raymond Goins; Lewis james Subject:Support for the movement to remove racist mural is growing. Date:Tuesday, February 18, 2025 7:46:20 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/advocates-calling-removal-mural-santa-clara-county- courthouse-palo-alto/3796420/ From:Mary Holzer To:Council, City Subject:Engaging with the process . . . Date:Tuesday, February 18, 2025 7:11:41 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Reading the boxes is impossible online . . .it is all very fuzzy. If it is possible to send out your results, I would really appreciate it. And I now have to sign off. Please let me know what the next steps will be in the process so I can participate in person next time. Mary From:Mary Holzer To:Council, City Subject:Fwd: Organizatioal . . . Date:Tuesday, February 18, 2025 7:04:31 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. From: Mary Holzer <mbholzer@gmail.com> This activity is really great . . . I was on the committee years ago that came up with the initial Cubberley Vision. It would be great to have the brainstorming session codified so that those of us who would like to participate down the road as this gets going have the content available to understand and work with the various vision statements. And yes, I would like to be involved. Thank you!! Mary Subject: Organizatioal . . . Date: February 18, 2025 at 6:35:21 PM PST To: Mary Holzer <mbholzer@gmail.com> For creative outcomes. . . the pieces which build the structures need to be Innovative, flexible and adaptable. They cannot be rigid because people and things will change over time. From:Mary Holzer To:Council, City Subject:Organizatioal . . . Date:Tuesday, February 18, 2025 6:33:11 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. For creative outcomes. . . the pieces which build the structures need to be Innovative, flexible and adaptable. They cannot be rigid and and unchanging because people and things will change over time. From:Aram James To:Reckdahl, Keith; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Gerry Gras; George for Palo Alto; Paul George @ PPJC; Council, City;paloaltofresspress.com; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Henry Etzkowitz; Mickie Winkler; Josh Becker; Senator Becker;EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Sarah Wright; Diana Diamond; Braden Cartwright; josh@joshsalcman.com;board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway Subject:Re: CAIR, CAIR-SFBA to Designate Stanford University a ‘Hostile Campus’ for Targeting Anti-Genocide Student Protestors Date:Tuesday, February 18, 2025 5:04:11 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 2:44 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote:CAIR, CAIR-SFBA to Designate Stanford University a‘Hostile Campus’ for Targeting Anti-Genocide StudentProtestors https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-cair-sfba-to-designate-stanford-university-a- hostile-campus-for-targeting-anti-genocide-student-protestors/ From:Aram James To:Reckdahl, Keith; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Gerry Gras; George for Palo Alto; Paul George @ PPJC; Council, City;paloaltofresspress.com; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Henry Etzkowitz; Mickie Winkler; Josh Becker; Senator Becker;EPA Today; Gennady Sheyner; Sarah Wright; Diana Diamond; Braden Cartwright; josh@joshsalcman.com;board@pausd.org; board@valleywater.org; BoardOperations; Don Austin; Yolanda Conaway Subject:CAIR, CAIR-SFBA to Designate Stanford University a ‘Hostile Campus’ for Targeting Anti-Genocide Student Protestors Date:Tuesday, February 18, 2025 2:45:14 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. CAIR, CAIR-SFBA to Designate Stanford University a‘Hostile Campus’ for Targeting Anti-Genocide StudentProtestors https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-cair-sfba-to-designate-stanford-university-a-hostile- campus-for-targeting-anti-genocide-student-protestors/