Palo Alto Weekly October 2, 2020

Palo Alto

Vol. XLI, Number 52 Q October 2, 2020

City dismantles auditor’s office, shifts to national firm Page 5

w w w. P a l o A l t o O n l i n e.c o m

Read up-to-the-minute news on PaloAltoOnline.com Q Upfront Elementary schools to begin reopening Q Spectrum Weekly endorses 4 in council race Q Living Well Pandemic exposes inequalities among aged

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different world, safer care “We now know a lot more about the virus and how it’s transmitted.

We are confident that we can deliver great care, without risk of infection, and get back to routine procedures.”

—W. Ray Kim, MD | Chief of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Stanford Medicine

The world is ever-changing. At Stanford Health Care, we’re adapting to safely deliver the same, excellent care you have always relied on. Whether you need primary care or our world-class specialty services—including cancer care, cardiovascular health, neuroscience, and orthopaedics—we’re here for you.

We’re taking every precaution to protect your health: U.S. News & World Report recognizes Stanford Health Care among the top hospitals in the nation. Ranking based on quality and patient safety.

• Testing for COVID-19 before most procedures and to track the health of our workforce • Rigorous standards, including COVID-19 health screenings at entrances, comprehensive PPE use, enhanced air filtration, and application of chemicals and UV light to sanitize spaces • Convenient care, with expanded access to remote video visits and contactless check-in/check-out available through our MyHealth app when visiting our facilities in-person To learn more and book an appointment, visit: stanfordhealthcare.org/resumingcare

Page 2 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 3

Peninsula Volunteers, Inc.

Thanks to you, PVI’s Critical Senior Care programs continue uninterrupted!

PVI is onsite and now online!

SENIORS ON THE PENINSULA HAVE ACCESS TO PROGRAMS THEY NEED DURING COVID - 19 AND BEYOND

We are STILL six feet apart, yet remain shoulder to shoulder in caring for at risk seniors!

Fall is upon us and the COVID-19 pandemic continues to reshape our lives and profoundly upend all we have known.

Peninsula Volunteers, Inc.’s essential services for seniors are more critical now than ever. We are here for you, your loved ones and your neighbors.

We hope that you and your families are staying well and safe throughout this extraordinary time. Even with California’s tiered blueprint for counties and the criteria for the safe progression to resume business and activities, COVID-19 remains a daily concern for you and those you know and love.

This is the season for giving thanks and we are deeply moved by your generosity which makes it possible for us to sustain our vital services to seniors. Our dedication to our mission is enduring - provide daily, nutritious meals, adult day care for those with Alzheimer’s and dementias, and vital health and wellness activities to seniors living on the Peninsula.

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“It’s because of PVI’s support programs that I feel like I’m being watched after during this crisis.� — (tears) Diane, 92 years old

Chi, Zumba and other exercise classes, or join audio book club series and memoir writing classes and more. Ongoing client wellness and check in calls relieve isolation and loneliness.

Rosener House, Adult Day Services for Alzheimer’s: New virtual online activity and support programming, client and caregiver check-ins and activity package deliveries serve seniors and their caregivers at home. Clients and the community can participate in a variety of vital stimulating music, art, travel, tango, brain games and other activities for those with dementia, as well as ongoing group support for caregivers.

PVI’s enhanced on demand transportation services provide rides to seniors for medical appointments and grocery store visits with protective protocols in place, supporting healthcare and food access and for other daily supplies.

We are grateful for the remarkable support of our communities.

PVI’s COVID-19 Critical Care Fund continues so that we can support seniors during this extended site closure period and beyond. Your gift will help us sustain our vital programs in the new environment. For more information visit www.penvol.org and www.penvol.org/donate

PVI is onsite and also online for older adults and others who rely on us for their well-being. You have made this possible.

Thank you! We have gone virtual with two of our core programs to ensure current and new participants and their families are still able to connect, be active, stimulated and safely supported.

PVI’s Meals on Wheels onsite program continues uninterrupted and with contactless delivery and safety protocols in place in its daily mission to provide more nutritious meals and supplemental care packages than ever before. We are doing all we can to meet the skyrocketing needs of those who cannot shop or cook for themselves, including personal wellness, social and resource need check-ins. Microwave ovens are supplied to those who need them.

PVI’s Little House, Senior Activity Center: New virtual online health and wellness classes are open for you or a loved one. Book online personal training, sign up for Pilates, Yoga, Tai Page 4 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

LITTLE HOUSE, THE ROSLYN G. MORRIS ACTIVITY CENTER, MEALS ON WHEELS/SAN MATEO COUNTY, ROSENER HOUSE

-VY TVYL [OHU `LHYZ 7LUPUZ\SH =VS\U[LLYZ 0UJ K\S` YLJVNUPaLK UVU WYVĂ„[ J has demonstrated a profound legacy of caring for seniors, a commitment of providing high quality and nurturing programs so seniors are engaged, cared for and respected as vital community members. PVI’s three core programs, Meals on Wheels, Rosener House Adult Day Care for those with Alzheimer’s and other dementias and the venerated Little House, The Roslyn G. Morris Activity Center, address the most pressing issues of aging adults by VɈLYPUN JYP[PJHS ZLY]PJLZ [V Z\Z[HPU [OLPY KHPS` WO`ZPJHS U\[YP[PVUHS LTV[PVUHS HUK TLU[HS health while achieving dignity and independence in their lives.

Upfront

Local news, information and analysis

Reopening plan OK’d over teacher, parent concerns District to begin phased reopening of elementary schools on Oct. 12

by Elena espite mounting concerns from some teachers and parents about the safety of returning to schools in person, the Palo Alto school board voted unanimously late Tuesday evening to begin a staggered reopening of campuses in two weeks.

D

Kadvany The board’s decision came after lengthy public comment, including from many teachers, staff members and parents who urged the members to delay the reopening. The teachers union circulated an open letter this week asking the board and Superintendent Don Austin to

continue with full distance learning until at least January, citing “gaps” and unanswered questions in the district’s reopening plan.

More than 300 parents signed a separate letter asking the board to postpone its decision on a plan they argue “hurts the quality of education while increasing risk, all without parent and teacher support.”

The district will first bring transitional kindergarten, kindergarten

and first-grade students back to campuses in a hybrid model on Oct. 12, then second- and thirdgraders on Oct. 26 and fourth- and fifth-graders on Nov. 9. Middle and high school students will not return until January. Elementary parents are being asked to commit to either hybrid or full-distance learning for the rest of the school year, a decision with which some parents took issue and asked for

more flexibility around.

As of Tuesday evening, 66.5% of transitional kindergarten through first-grade parents had chosen the hybrid model, while 33.5% had selected full-distance learning, according to the district. Parents of children in these grades had until the end of day on Wednesday to make their choice. (continued on page 12)

CITY HALL

Palo Alto dismantles City Auditor’s Office City signs two-year contract with Baker Tilly US for auditing services

Owicki, a Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District docent and naturalist.

August to October is tarantula mating season in the Bay Area.

Along trails and in fields, dozens of the arachnids seek out mates in the late afternoon and through the night. They prefer the cooler hours and, perhaps, the cover of darkness.

That’s when Owicki, a retired scientist, finds them. In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, he led, on behalf of the open space district, a nighttime spider hike called “Arachnophilia,” during

by Gennady Sheyner fter years of complaining about internal strife and subpar performance in the Office of the City Auditor, the Palo Alto City Council moved on Monday to cut every position in the small office and to outsource its operations to the Chicago-based consulting firm Baker Tilly US. The move represents a dramatic shift for an office that voters created in 1983. The council’s unanimous vote to sign a two-year contract with Baker Tilly includes a cost to the city of $750,000 a year (prorated in the first fiscal year to $550,000) and the option for renewing the deal for up to three additional years.

The council also cut all four of the city’s internal auditing positions, effectively dismantling an office that had a budget of about $1.2 million. These include the three senior auditors as well as the city auditor, a position which has been vacant since City Auditor Harriet Richardson resigned at the beginning of 2019 after a prolonged conflict with three of her employees.

The face of Baker Tilly in Palo Alto will be Kyle O’Rourke, a senior consulting manager whom the council appointed Monday as the city auditor. A certified internal auditor, O’Rourke has worked with more than two dozen state and local government clients over

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A

Magali Gauthier

Moonlight Run takes a turn For the first time in 36 years, there won’t be thousands of runners convening under the full-harvest moon at the Palo Alto Baylands on Friday night to compete in the annual Moonlight Run & Walk, shown above in 2019. This year, because of the pandemic, the event has gone virtual. Read more details about the fundraiser run on page 6.

ENVIRONMENT

It’s mating season for the hairy tarantulas in the Santa Cruz Mountains As males seek their brides, a dilemma arises: Will they be eaten?

I

n the waning sunlight near the Stanford Dish and in the open fields in the hills, a hairy spectacle is taking place. In the ground under the tawny grasses, male California tarantulas are emerging from their underground lairs in search of mates.

The large, fuzzy spiders slowly

by Sue Dremann crawl along the ground seeking the nests of equally hairy females, guided by scent. When he finds one, the male will tap the ground seductively with long, front legs outside her burrow. Sensitive to vibrations in the ground that might signal the presence of prey, danger or a suitor, the female will

tap back a reply.

She’ll emerge from her bedchamber to inspect her suitor. If she is agreeable, she’ll let him mate.

But suitor beware. If she doesn’t like him, the larger — and usually hungry — female will likely eat him, said Jack

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 5

Upfront Meet and hear these acclaimed authors!

450 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306 (650) 326-8210

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

PUBLISHER William S. Johnson (223-6505) EDITORIAL Editor Jocelyn Dong (223-6514) Associate Editor Linda Taaffe (223-6511) Sports Editor Rick Eymer (223-6516) Arts & Entertainment Editor Karla Kane (223-6517) Home & Real Estate Editor Heather Zimmerman (223-6515)

Daniel Mason

Deborah Madison

Gene Luen Yang

Stanford Psychiatrist and Novelist

Chef and Cookbook Author

Graphic Novelist

Express & Digital Editor Jamey Padojino (223-6524)

Thank you to our sponsors PLATINUM Rachel and Simon Segars Stanley E. Hanson Foundation

Editorial Assistant/Intern Coordinator Lloyd Lee (223-6526) Contributors Chrissi Angeles, Mike Berry, Carol Blitzer, Peter Canavese, Edward Gerard Fike, Yoshi Kato, Chris Kenrick, Jack McKinnon, Sheryl Nonnenberg, John Orr, Monica Schreiber, Jay Thorwaldson

Around Town

ADVERTISING Vice President Sales & Marketing Tom Zahiralis (223-6570) Courtesy Carol Munch

GOLD Anonymous (2) Laurie Jarrett Christina Kenrick Susan and Sanjay Vaswani Patty and Jim White

—Teri Baldwin, Palo Alto Educators Association president, on reopening of district schools. See story on page 5 .

Staff Writers Sue Dremann (223-6518), Elena Kadvany (223-6519), Gennady Sheyner (223-6513) Chief Visual Journalist Magali Gauthier (223-6530)

Our fourth author will be announced soon!

Teachers don’t feel heard.

Multimedia Advertising Sales Elaine Clark (223-6572), Connie Jo Cotton (223-6571) Real Estate Advertising Sales Neal Fine (223-6583), Rosemary Lewkowitz (223-6585) Legal Advertising Alicia Santillan (223-6578)

SILVER Breaking Glass Forums Claudia Claussen Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Foundation

ADVERTISING SERVICES Advertising Services Manager Kevin Legarda (223-6597) Sales & Production Coordinators Diane Martin (223-6584), Nico Navarrete (223-6582) DESIGN Design & Production Manager Kristin Brown (223-6562) Senior Designers Linda Atilano, Paul Llewellyn

abilitypath.org/authors

Designers Kevin Legnon, Amy Levine, Douglas Young BUSINESS Assistant Business Manager Gwen Fischer (223-6575) Business Associate Suzanne Ogawa (223-6543) ADMINISTRATION

OF PALO ALTO PRESENTS

Courier Ruben Espinoza EMBARCADERO MEDIA President William S. Johnson (223-6505) Vice President Michael I. Naar (223-6540)

Election Events for Nov. 3, 2020 General Election

Vice President & CFO Peter Beller (223-6545) Vice President Sales & Marketing Tom Zahiralis (223-6570)

CANDIDATE FORUMS PALO ALTO SCHOOL BOARD Thursday, October 8 — 6:30-8:30 pm (Co-sponsor: PTA Council)

PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL Saturday, October 10 — 4-6 pm

SCC BOARD OF EDUCATION AREA 1 Sunday, October 11, 4-5 pm

Register to attend any of the above forums, all on Zoom: LWVPaloAlto.org/candidate-forums.html After registering, you will be able to submit questions.

Pros and Cons Join a Zoom webinar presentation and discussion of the pros and cons of state and local measures appearing on the Palo Alto, November 3, 2020 ballot.

• Wednesday, Oct. 7 — 7 p.m.

• Sunday, Oct. 11 — 2 p.m.

Director, Information Technology & Webmaster Frank A. Bravo (223-6551) Director of Marketing and Audience Development Emily Freeman (223-6560) Major Accounts Sales Manager Connie Jo Cotton (223-6571) Circulation Assistant Alicia Santillan Computer System Associates Chris Planessi, Mike Schmidt The Palo Alto Weekly (ISSN 0199-1159) is published every Friday by Embarcadero Media, 450 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306, (650) 326-8210. Periodicals postage paid at Palo Alto, CA and additional mailing offices. Adjudicated a newspaper of general circulation for Santa Clara County.

The Palo Alto Weekly is delivered to homes in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley, East Palo Alto, to faculty and staff households on the Stanford campus and to portions of Los Altos Hills. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Palo Alto Weekly, 450 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306. ©2020 by Embarcadero Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited. The Palo Alto Weekly is available on the Internet via Palo Alto Online at: www.PaloAltoOnline.com Our email addresses are: editor@paweekly.com, letters@paweekly.com, digitalads@paweekly.com, ads@paweekly.com Missed delivery or start/stop your paper?

Email circulation@paweekly.com. You may also subscribe online at PaloAltoOnline.com. Subscriptions are $120/yr.

• Wednesday, Oct. 14 — 11:30 a.m.

• Saturday, Oct. 17 — 2 p.m.

Register to attend any of the above forums: LWVPaloAlto.org/pros--cons.html

QUESTIONS: lwvpaloalto.org, OZYSDRI¼FH#JPDLO FRP RU Page 6 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Become a Paid Subscriber for as low as $5 per month Sign up online at www.PaloAltoOnline.com/join

SOARING DEBUT ... On Sept.

26, the Palo Alto Disaster Airlift Response Team (DART) made its first flight at the city’s airport since its formation this summer. The new group transported 100,000 KN95 masks plus wildland fire kits, trundle beds, shampoo, hair conditioner and other items from Santa Barbara to Eugene, Oregon to aid firefighters battling wildfire blazes. The all-day delivery mission was arranged with assistance from the larger CalDART team and in partnership with Angel Flight West, the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Air Squadron, the nonprofit Direct Relief (which provided the PPE) and Reach Out World Wide. A total of five Cessna planes were involved in the operation, according to Carol Munch, who helped form the Palo Alto group currently composed of 10 members, including representatives from the Palo Alto Airport and the city’s Office of Emergency Services. “I thought this (DART) would involve both things that I’m interested in — flying and medicine,” the retired physician said. “I thought it was worthwhile. Somebody had to do it.” Anyone interested in volunteering with the team donating PPE can contact Munch at camunch@gmail.com.

NAME THAT CITY ... While the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented many people from planning a vacation to see attractions like Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty or other world landmarks, a virtual game by a Gunn High School student could help people visit new places while staying at home. City Guesser, a creation

by Paul McBurney Jr., 14, drops players into a video of a place and challenges them to guess the city by placing a marker on

a map. “The game is pretty hard actually. You have to use the clues from the surroundings ... what language they’re speaking, signs, flags, you have to utilize all those clues to figure out your location,” he said. Inspired by the video game GeoGuessr, Paul started working on his own game in April, putting in an hour or two each day during his free time. The game launched in August and quickly grew popular through a post he published on Reddit that led to 16,415 unique page views. As of Sept. 29, that number grew to 92,919. To play City Guesser, visit virtualvacation. us/guess.

EMBRACE THE MOONLIGHT ... The 36th annual Palo Alto Weekly Moonlight Run & Walk is scheduled for Oct. 2, but runners and walkers in Palo Alto, New York and even Germany have been submitting their times for the last two weeks thanks to the new virtual format. Hundreds of participants and the event’s 10 sponsors have already helped raise thousands of dollars, and there’s still time to join in! All proceeds support the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund, which awards grants to nonprofits that serve children and families in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Last year’s fund collected $458,525, the largest amount since its launch in 1993.

Registration ends Oct. 2 at 11:59 p.m., but participants have until Oct. 4 to walk or run the 5K, 10K or half marathon races wherever they choose. All top finishers and fundraisers will be listed in the Weekly. Anyone who takes part in the event is encouraged to take photos and send them to moonlightrun@paweekly.com for a chance to be featured in next week’s paper. Participants are welcome to choose their own race course or visit the Moonlight Run website and select from suggested routes in the Baylands (as long as they visit before 7:30 p.m., after which time trails are closed and staff has taken off for the night). The event may be virtual, but the results are real. To support local community nonprofits, reserve a Moonlight Run shirt or find more information, visit PaloAltoOnline. com/moonlight_run. Q

Upfront

News Digest City Council incumbents maintain cash edge The two incumbents in Palo Alto’s crowded race for City Council seats are leading the 10-candidate field in campaign contributions, while six of their challengers have received more than $20,000 in donations, new campaign finance disclosures show.

The disclosures, which cover contributions up until Sept. 24, show Councilman Greg Tanaka with a strong lead in campaign cash, with $83,250 in contributions. A large portion of the funding is from local developers.

Councilwoman Lydia Kou reported $50,628 in contributions, most of them consisting of smaller donations from city residents.

Of the eight challengers, attorney Steven Lee and Planning and Transportation Commission Chair Cari Templeton received the most contributions. Lee’s report, which covers the period that ends on Sept. 19, shows him receiving $43,600. Since that date, he said he received additional funding and reached his self-imposed limit of $45,000, at which point he stopped accepting donations.

Templeton reported $40,109 in contributions.

Campaign documents show that former Mayor Pat Burt had raised $32,574 as of Sept. 19. However, he has since submitted an additional filing disclosing a $5,000 contribution that was made on Sept. 23 by G. Leonard Baker, a venture capitalist from Sutter Hill Ventures, raising his current total to $37,574.

Planning and Transportation Commission member Ed Lauing raised $30,000 as of Sept. 19, the reports show. Engineer Raven Malone and teacher Greer Stone raised $26,496 and $25,864, respectively.

Attorney Rebecca Eisenberg raised $15,482, while Ajit Varma, who works at WhatsApp, has opted not to accept contributions to his campaign. Q —Gennady Sheyner

Deaths from wildfire smoke could top 3K

2021 EDITION IS COMING

Living Well The Peninsula’s resource guide for seniors and their families

Smoke from wildfires on the West Coast may have been responsible for more heart attacks, strokes, asthma and other conditions in the past few weeks, and the numbers could continue to rise as the massive blazes impact air quality, according to new Stanford University research.

According to one estimate, the recent wildfire smoke may have caused 1,200 excess deaths — which would not have happened otherwise — and 4,800 additional emergency room visits among people ages 65 and older throughout California, said researchers Marshall Burke and Sam Heft-Neal, an associate professor of earth system science and research scholar at the Center on Food Security and the Environment, respectively.

These numbers, while admittedly “back-of-the envelope” estimates, may just be the tip of the iceberg. Small particles of toxic substances beyond smoke, the length of exposure and concentration of the smoke, and the increasing frequency of pollution caused by more and larger wildfires are contributing to health hazards for Bay Area residents and throughout the West, the researchers said.

When looking at how much one day of these additional amounts of smoke increases mortality over 30 days starting from Aug. 1, the estimate rises to 3,000 deaths, they said, adding that these numbers could be conservative. It’s likely that smoke pollution is having adverse health impacts on the very young and other populations with chronic medical conditions, they said. Q —Sue Dremann

Living Well is a comprehensive source of local information with a directory of services offered by not-for-profit organizations and other agencies.

Listings will cover subjects from nutrition counseling to financial planning, home care to hospice, recreational activities to computer training and more.

Coming this November Look for your copy of Living Well at over 100 locations throughout the Midpeninsula.

Pac-12 athletics are back, but not at Stanford Although the Pac-12 Conference announced last week that college athletics can resume in November, sports remain on hold at Stanford University under Santa Clara County public health guidance that doesn’t yet allow practices and competitions.

In a message to the campus community, President Marc TessierLavigne said the university is “having constructive discussions with the county about how to safely resume athletics at Stanford.”

“We deeply respect the thoughtful decision-making our county has undertaken to protect public health throughout the coronavirus pandemic, and we have a shared goal of providing for the safety of our community,” he wrote. “We look forward to continued discussion in the coming days that, we hope, will lead to the approval of athletic competition under rigorous health and safety standards.”

The Santa Clara County Public Health Department put out its own statement last week, writing that “we and other public health experts have ongoing concerns about the transmission risks associated with intercollegiate contact sports, particularly in light of the many COVID-19 outbreaks that have occurred on college and university campuses and on various sports teams.”

The county is now waiting for the state to release revised guidance that is expected to be modified to allow Pac-12 sports to proceed. Q —Elena Kadvany

Including:

Community Centers and Town Halls Hospitals and Health Centers Libraries and Senior Centers/Facilities

Be part of Living Well 2021 Contact your advertising rep for more information or call/email Connie Jo Cotton at 650.223.6571 ccotton@paweekly.com

Give blood for life! b l o o d c e n t e r. s t a n f o r d . e d u www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 7

Upfront

Tarantulas (continued from page 5)

which people could spot tarantulas.

Although sometimes thought of as denizens of the drier East Bay hills, tarantulas are equally common in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Nature enthusiasts can find them in many of the Midpeninsula Open Space preserves and in Palo Alto’s Foothills Park. Their burrows are lined with white spider silk, a corolla of the sticky substance extending out of their entrances. The holes range from the diameter of a dime to a quarter, Owicki said.

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Inside, the black, gray or brownish spiders can have a body length of up to 5 inches and a leg span of 4.5 inches, according to the advocacy group Los Padres ForestWatch. Males are smaller than the females. They reach adulthood when 8 to 12 years old, when they mate. The males will usually die within a year of adulthood and shortly after mating; females can live up to 25 years, according to SaveNature.org.

Often portrayed as jumpers and ferocious attackers in scary Halloween props, tarantulas, despite myths, are not aggressive. They won’t generally bite unless they are provoked and they won’t run after

Public Agenda A preview of Palo Alto government meetings next week CITY COUNCIL ... The council plans to hold a pre-screening hearing for a proposed development at 2951 El Camino Real, which includes 119 residential units, 1,000 square feet of retail and 5,000 square feet of office space. The council also plans to revise regulations on accessory dwelling units, consider extending the Residential Preferential Parking Program in Old Palo Alto and consider suspending the city’s One Percent for Public Art program. The virtual meeting will begin at 5 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 5. Those wishing to participate by Zoom can do so by dialing 669-900-6833 and using Meeting ID: 362 027 238.

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UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION ... The commission plans to consider a recommendation to update the city’s Carbon Neutral Gas Plan and discuss the adoption and integration of distributed energy resources. The virtual meeting will begin at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 7. Those wishing to participate by Zoom can do so by dialing 669-9006833 and using Meeting ID: 966 9129 7246.

people, Owicki said. The bite also doesn’t require significant medical attention, unlike that of the black widow spider. Still, a tarantula’s bite is likely to hurt on the magnitude of a bee sting, he said.

The myth of the dangerous tarantula might in part be derived from stories about another spider with a similar name. In southern Italy, the wolf spider, or “tarantula,” a large arachnid found near Taranto, was thought to give its victims a venomous bite that caused convulsions. Victims who performed a dance called the tarantella to certain types of music were said to be cured, according to the American Tarantula Society. The wolf spider isn’t a tarantula — it is in a different family of spiders — and its bite isn’t lethal.

It is said to be equally as painful to the tarantulas, though.

Tarantulas have another interesting defense besides the bite: “On the back of their abdomen they have spiky, barbed hairs that are attached loosely,” Owicki said. The spiders use these hairs quite effectively and lethally against mice that sometimes attack them. When the tarantula vigorously rubs its back legs on its abdomen, the hairs form a cloud.

As the mouse inhales them, “they are like nettles the mouse gets in their lungs and they die,” he said.

The hairs, while not deadly to humans, can cause discomfort.

“If they get on you, you’ll get a rash,” he said.

STOP CASTILLEJA EXPANSION DO NOT REWARD 18 YEARS OF ILLEGAL ENROLLMENT

The City of Palo Alto has failed to enforce Castilleja’s use permit which allows 415 students. The school has pocketed millions of dollars at the expense of residents.

Now the school wants to increase enrollment by 30% to 540 students, adding traffic and endangering bike safety along Bryant Bike Boulevard.

Castilleja operates on a 6-acre parcel and their current student density per acre already exceeds that of any school in Palo Alto operating in an R1 zone.

Castilleja is an excellent school but they would better serve the community by dividing their campus or finding a new location. Why insist on creating more traffic and building an environmentally unsound concrete garage?

Our residential neighborhood cannot absorb 125 more students along with additional staff, delivery vehicles, buses, daily visitors, and MORE THAN 100 EVENTS.

This project provides no benefit to Palo Alto, only Castilleja.

• 75% of students do not live in Palo Alto.

• 4-5 years of construction along Embarcadero, Bryant, Emerson, Kellogg.

• Protected oak trees removed and redwood trees threatened by root encroachment.

• Underground garage entrance on Bryant at Embarcadero; 1,500+ car trips per day.

• Castilleja consumes city services without paying any taxes to Palo Alto.

• Castilleja does not make their facilities available to charities or to the public.

Don’t let this happen to your neighborhood!

Please email City.Council@cityofpaloalto.org and ask them to enforce the 415 student maximum.

Paid for by Stan Shore, Palo Alto resident Page 8 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Upfront

Courtesy Jack Orwicki

A tarantula photographed on a night hike at Russian Ridge Preserve.

The U.S. has 29 distinct species of tarantulas, 10 of which are in California, according to literature from Los Padres National ForestWatch. They are found mainly in the southwest and some central states.

Since mating is a tricky business for tarantulas, the male, once

it appears he won’t be devoured by his potential mate, will tentatively stroke the female’s body.

He’ll use two short legs with what looks like boxing gloves, or pedipalps, to insert a wad of silk containing semen, he said.

Before that feat is accomplished, a male protects against being devoured by inserting thick spines on his front legs between the female’s fangs to keep her from delivering a deadly bite, he said.

Tarantulas maintain an important ecological niche, eating grasshoppers, beetles, plant-eating insects and sometimes small lizards. In turn, they become food for lizards, snakes, spider-eating birds, coyotes and foxes, according to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

Humans, too, can contribute to a tarantula’s demise through pesticides, development of land and farming.

Besides the tarantula, hikers might encounter another slightly smaller spider: the Calisoga, or

“velveteen tarantula.” It is not a true tarantula and is in a different spider family, Owicki said.

If encountered, Calisogas have a reputation of being a little more defensive, he added.

To the touch, Calisogas have a soft sheen. Tarantulas are a bit coarser, Owicki said.

The tarantulas are a popular fall attraction in some parks. In Santa Clara County, Henry Coe State Park has an annual Tarantula Fest this time of year. It’s been called off for 2020 due to the COVID-19 epidemic and the SCU Lightning Complex fires, which swept through the area, according to the park’s website.

There are plenty of opportunities to bump into tarantulas this month, but it’s best to just leave them alone.

“Watch it respectfully. Marvel at the very different way of living from a mammal’s way of living,” Owicki said. Q Staff Writer Sue Dremann can be emailed at sdremann@ paweekly.com.

CityView A round-up

of Palo Alto government action this week

City Council (Sept.28) Auditor: The council approved a contract with the firm Baker Tilly US to provide auditing services, eliminated all four positions in the Office of the City Auditor and designated Kyle O’Rourke, senior consulting manager at Baker Tilly US, as the city auditor. Yes: Unanimous

Board of Education (Sept. 29) Reopening plan: The board approved the district’s reopening plan with two amendments directing staff to form a teacher feedback committee and to provide a safety report on reopening schools at the next board meeting.

Yes: Unanimous

Planning and Transportation Commission (Sept. 30) Housing: The commission discussed pending 2020 legislation relating to planning and housing. Action: None Rent protections: The commission held a study session to discuss renter protections in Palo Alto. Action: None

Architectural Review Board (Oct. 1) Castilleja: The board discussed the proposal by Castilleja School to reconstruct its campus at 1310 Bryant St. and continued its public hearing to Nov. 5. Action: None

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 9

Upfront

Auditor (continued from page 5)

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Page 10 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

the past three years, according to the firm’s proposal. O’Rourke’s work includes review of policies at the Detroit Water and Sewerage D epa r t m ent, p er for ma nce of risk assessments for the city of Madison, Wisconsin, and audits of the public Kyle O’Rourke utility in the city of Riverside.

When the Santa Clara County’s shelter-in-place order ends, O’Rourke will be expected to be in Palo Alto every other week, said Councilman Eric Filseth, who led the council’s process in selecting the new auditor.

The council kicked off its effort to outsource city auditing services in February, when the council directed its Council Appointed Officers Committee to craft a request for proposals. The committee received six bids and narrowed down its search to two firms, Filseth said. After the full council interviewed both finalists twice in a closed session, it chose Baker Tilly US, which is the American affiliate of Baker Tilly’s international network.

The $1.3 million contract that the council approved is expected to generate at least six audits per year, which includes four major audits and two minor audits. The firm also will be charged with conducting a citywide risk assessment every year — a project that it planned to embark on as it started its new role on Thursday, Oct. 1.

In its proposal, Baker Tilly touted its large workforce of more than 300 audit professionals and a client list that includes more than 1,000 state and local government clients, among them the cities of Fargo, North Dakota; Plano, Texas; and Lincoln, Nebraska.

Its California clients include Burbank, Modesto and Richmond.

The firm’s proposal cites Baker Tilly’s expertise in utilities and in areas such as cybersecurity, fraud and financial management. The document lists case studies in which the firm tested the security of a client’s internal information technology systems and identified gaps in another client’s virus protection program.

Filseth said both Baker Tilly and another finalist were “superbly qualified and we were wishing we could hire both if we could.”

Not everyone shared his excitement. Sharon Erickson, who worked as Palo Alto’s city auditor between 2001 and 2008 and then took on the same role in San Jose, called the move “a stunningly bad idea.” For years, the city charter was interpreted to mean that the city auditor is a city employee with an office at City Hall, she told the council.

“This is not the time to reduce accountability and transparency

at any level of government,” Erickson said.

The council, for its part, unanimously agreed that it’s time to try the new approach. Over the past decade, the city has seen high turnover in the city auditor position, which was most recently held on an interim basis by consultant Don Rhoads.

The city’s last permanent city auditor was Richardson, whose tumultuous five-year tenure featured audits on the city’s animal services and code enforcement operations and internal conflicts inside her small office. Her stint was marred by an ongoing strife with three employees, who accused her of mismanagement.

Her predecessors in the positions, Mike Edmonds and Jim Pelletier, had also departed after short stints.

Employees of the office had opposed the city’s move. In January, an attorney representing one of the auditors, Houman Boussina, criticized the report that the council commissioned last year as part of its process of exploring alternate service models for city auditing.

The report from Kevin W. Harper CPA & Associates concluded that compared to other cities, Palo Alto has the lowest productivity (with 0.7 audits per year per fulltime position) and the highest cost per audit ($417,000).

Boussina’s attorney, Karl Olsen, argued that the Harper report had failed to acknowledge Richardson’s mismanagement. As such, it “unfairly exposed the office staff, who have not had a supervisor since November 2018, to direct criticism and blame for the report’s conclusions.”

In approving the shift away from in-house staff to an outside consultant, council members expressed hope that the new arrangement would yield a superior product at a lower cost. Councilwoman Liz Kniss called the search for an auditor “one of the longest processes I’ve ever gone through.”

“I’m looking forward to a wonderful new way to provide audits in the city of Palo Alto,” Kniss said.

Mayor Adrian Fine agreed and welcomed the city’s new partnership with Baker Tilly.

“I think that’s a real opportunity for us to sync up what audits are being done, what the expectations are, what the costs should be, what the outcome should look like and how can we pass audits on to other city departments to make changes to make our city better and safer,” Fine said.

O’Rourke told the council that he is “very humbled and honored for the opportunity to serve in this position.”

“There’s a reason that I work exclusively with public sector entities, despite working at a private company,” O’Rourke said, “It’s what I love, what I very much enjoy doing, what I’ve done for a number of years.” Q Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be emailed at gsheyner@ paweekly.com.

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 11

Upfront

Reopening

ELECTION 2020

(continued from page 5)

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The meeting further illustrated a disconnect between teachers and the district, with teachers voicing anxiety that their campuses lack the proper safety preparations or have yet to receive the personal protective equipment (PPE) for which they’ve asked. District leadership said that each elementary school has already received its allotted personal protective equipment, though the gear might not have been distributed yet to all classrooms. The district also has ordered additional face shields, portable hand-washing stations for classrooms without sinks, desk dividers and air purifiers and created a ticketing system to prevent safety requests or complaints from falling through the cracks.

Board members expressed concern and district leadership voiced some frustration at the inability to bridge the communication gap with teachers, despite 19 collective bargaining sessions over the last six months and a memorandum of understanding to which both the district and union have agreed.

Palo Alto Educators Association President Teri Baldwin said on Tuesday that 90% of elementary teachers who responded to a union survey are not comfortable going back to school in September, October or November.

Baldwin told the board that the reopening plan feels rushed, pointing to some Bay Area districts that have decided to stick with full remote learning through the end of 2020.

“Teachers don’t feel heard,” she said. “Please listen to them.”

The district plans to form a committee of teachers from each elementary school to provide feedback on what’s working and what isn’t as campuses reopen.

Some parents also worried that under the dual distance-learning and hybrid systems their child will lose their teacher since the district will have to reassign staff to meet the needs of students in the different models. Austin said giving families another point in the school year to assess and change their decision is up to the board.

Some board members expressed support for doing so while noting that the tradeoff for providing families with more decision points means less certainty that teachers and classes will stay together as families’ choices change.

“Should I choose to prioritize my child’s physical safety in the short term or should I give more importance to her mental wellbeing for the long term?” parent Roxanne Patel asked the board Tuesday. “Shouldn’t we be prioritizing safety over speed?”

Other parents backed the reopening plan.

“Distance learning has been a disaster for our family, not only for our son and his ability to learn but for us as parents in trying to support him while both working fulltime jobs. This can’t go on,” Ryan Elliott said. “You have the support

A

How would the candidates vote?

s part of the Palo Alto Weekly’s election coverage, we will be asking the non-incumbent candidates running for the Palo Alto Board of Education how they would vote — and why — on significant issues that the board takes action on before November.

This week, the Weekly asked how the candidates would vote on the district’s schools reopening plan.

Katie Causey: I would vote ‘no.’ We can’t expect a safe, productive learning environment if educators, students and families don’t feel safe. Months of changing guidelines shows there’s still a lot we do not know about COVID-19; we’ve struggled to communicate effectively as those guidelines have changed.

Jesse Ladomirak: I would vote to approve. I support giving elementary families another decision-point in January. I agree with creating a site-specific checklist for each school that details the safety measures

in place and, in the interest of transparency and accountability, I would also ask the district to commit to reporting weekly to the community on safety conditions and general progress of the hybrid model.

Matt Nagle: I would vote ‘no’ on the current plan because they are rushing ahead not fully prepared, and I would vote ‘yes’ on a revised plan that includes one or two pilot programs, such as the one that Nixon staff spoke about at the (Sept. 22) board meeting.

Karna Nisewaner: I would vote ‘yes’ because I believe that many elementary students want and need in-person instruction to learn and the district is implementing a plan to adhere to county safety guidelines. For the families who currently do not feel safe, they have the option of distance learning, while the administration continues to refine their plans so that all families and teachers feel safe and supported. Q —Elena Kadvany

In next Friday’s edition: the Weekly’s in-depth profiles of the candidates for Board of Education. of many of the parents who are afraid to speak out because this is such a politically divided issue.”

Board members said they were assured by the district’s work on the reopening plan. They also voted to direct staff to present a safety report at their next meeting and asked that every classroom that reopens have a checklist to ensure it’s meeting the guidelines for doing so.

“I do think we have a responsibility to open for the many, many families that have been waiting for this and are ready for it,” board member Jennifer DiBrienza said.

This week, after further negotiations with the teachers union, the district revised the elementary school schedule to include a daily, live Zoom meeting every morning that includes both the athome and in-person cohorts of the class. Also, teachers who usually provide lessons like art and music to multiple classrooms will only teach kindergarteners in person to reduce their exposure to multiple groups of students.

Some Palo Alto Unified campuses reopened in recent weeks to serve small groups of high-need students, and more special education students returned to school this Monday.

The district invited Monika Roy, an assistant health officer and communicable disease controller at the Santa Clara County Public Health Department, to answer board members’ questions Tuesday about stable cohorts, social distancing and procedures in the event of positive COVID-19 cases at schools. Member Ken Dauber asked Roy directly whether it’s safe for elementary schools to reopen,

following the guidelines provided by the Public Health Department.

“Our role and the guidance is meant to provide guardrails on schools that are considering reopening of how to do so as safely as possible and how to reduce risk of disease transmission as much as possible,” she responded.

School leaders are proposing the district partner with Stanford Health Care to provide regular testing to employees, a partnership that’s already in place in the Menlo Park City School District, which opened in a hybrid model this week. A representative from Stanford provided an overview at the board meeting about how the testing would work.

Board member Melissa Baten Caswell, who said she felt “uncomfortable” about approving a plan that teachers don’t fully support, also pointed to the fact that Menlo Park kindergarteners and first-grade students went back on campus this week.

“If we missed something they’re doing for safety that we think we need to do, let’s do it— but I don’t think moving this decision point to January makes it any better,” she said. “We’re going to have the exact same conversations in January. ... Let’s try it now while we have these ways to stretch out and see how we can get it to work.”

The school board’s next meeting is on Oct. 13, the day after elementary schools will reopen for the district’s youngest students. The board plans to meet in person for the first time since March. Q Staff Writer Elena Kadvany can be emailed at ekadvany@ paweekly.com.

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Bernetta Faye (Carr) Staehnke April 12, 1925 – September 25, 2020

Bernetta, beloved mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, passed away surrounded and comforted by family, at the age of 95 on September 25th, 2020.

Bernetta was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1925, daughter of John and Mabel. In her early life, Bernetta enjoyed drawing, fashion and singing. She attended Central High in Kansas City and moved to San Diego, California with her parents in 1943. There she met the love of her life, Donald F. Staehnke, the two were married on November 2nd, 1945 just after Donald returned from fighting World War II. She and Donald had one son, Richard, in 1947. Bernetta, Donald, and Richard, along with Donald’s parents Frank and Genevreau moved to the Bay Area in 1954 after their family home was taken out by the building of a new section of highway.

Bernetta and Donald settled in Palo Alto. There they helped grow an already established bakery distributorship until 1959, when the family decided to take on a new business called The Village Cheese House. The gourmet food store became famous throughout the area for having the largest collection of gourmet and international food products in the western United States. Bernetta often woke early before sun rise and would be in the store by 5:30 am to begin prepping for the day, ensuring deliveries and products were in order. The family store became further recognized for their delicious sandwiches like the Old-Fashioned, Saturday Special and their special Spread. Bernetta was most known and recognized as the fiery little lady behind the counter that you dare not ask for sprouts or lettuce on your old-fashioned sandwich or you’d hear at the least, a scoff.

Donald passed in 1989, proceeded by Genevreau that same year, and Frank some years before.

Bernetta, alongside her son, daughter in law, and grandkids continued ownership and operation of the family business with the help of so many helpful employees, family and friends, until deciding to sell the business in 2007.

Bernetta rarely missed a day of work in all those 48 years.

She dedicated her life to the business and was pivotal in The Village Cheese House’s success. Bernetta never remarried after Donald passed. She continued her retirement years independently enjoying her cat Puki, spending time with her family, basking poolside, watching Golden Girls and TV Land Game Shows. She greatly enjoyed her son’s gourmet cooking and shopping with her daughter in law.

One of Bernetta’s greatest memories outside of her family and business life included spending time in Hawaii where she and Donald once had property and the intention of building a home prior to his passing, and where she once caught a 185 lb. Marlin that she proudly hung in her backyard. Bernetta’s passion for Hawaii, fishing, food, fashion, cats and family was evident in her style and in her home.

Bernetta’s wishes are to be cremated and her ashes to spread off the Kona coast of Hawaii. There are no planned services or memorials. Bernetta is proceeded by her beloved husband Donald, kin prior and grandson Andrew.

She is survived by her son Richard, daughter in law Claudine, grandchildren Anne, Jeff (granddaughter in law Irma) and Cynthia (granddaughter in law Lacy), and greatgrandchildren Kristina, Jake and Erick.

Bernetta regularly donated to animal and pet non-profit organizations, the family asks that in her memory, support your local animal or pet organization.

E ho’omaha me ka maluhia

PAID

OBITUARY

Page 14 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Pulse A weekly compendium of vital statistics

Palo Alto Sept. 23-Sept. 29 Violence related Pasteur Drive, 9/24, 10:34 a.m.; battery/ simple.

San Antonio Road, 9/25, 9:21 p.m.; arson.

University Avenue/Tasso Street, 9/27, 8:44 a.m.; domestic violence/battery.

300 block Lane 21, 9/28, 4:08 a.m.; arson.

Theft related Commercial burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Grand theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Identity theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Petty theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Residential burglaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Shoplifting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Vehicle related Auto theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Driving w/ suspended license. . . . . . . . 4 Hit and run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Theft from auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Theft from auto attempt . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Vehicle accident/prop damage. . . . . . . 5 Vehicle impound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Alcohol or drug related Drunk in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Possession of drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Possession of paraphernalia . . . . . . . . 2 Under influence of drugs . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Miscellaneous Found property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Misc. penal code violation . . . . . . . . . . 2 Missing person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Other/misc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Outside investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Psychiatric subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Suspicious circumstances . . . . . . . . . . 6 Trespassing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Marz John Garcia

February 16, 1937 – September 8, 2020 Marz J. Garcia, beloved father, grandfather, brother, uncle and dear friend to so many, died of complications stemming from a head injury at the age of 83 on September 8, 2020. He was the third of five brothers born to Francisco and Mariana Garcia in the Bronx, New York. He lived a unique story and left behind a multitude of friends and family whose lives he had deeply impacted.

He lifted himself from a hardscrabble upbringing on one side of the continent to a varied and highly successful career and personal life in California. Stops along the way included teenage reform school at Lincoln Hall in New York (where he later came back to speak as a success story), a US Army posting in Germany, undergraduate study at Ohio University (where he met his wife Nancy and formed life-long brotherhoods within the Phi Delta Theta fraternity), several graduate degrees in economics and law, and ultimately a move to California to begin a successful career in banking, finance and politics in San Francisco and Menlo Park, CA, where he raised his family. He served as a State Senator in the California Legislature representing San Mateo County from 1978 - 1982 and functioned proudly as a political outsider who followed his principles over political gain. After leaving the Senate he continued serving the public in high-level appointments within former California governor Pete Wilson’s administration for several years. After his time in public service he had a variety of entrepreneurial pursuits, as well as a stint teaching business classes at Menlo College.

He was an avid traveler, skier, tennis and pickleball player and draft beer enthusiast, who introduced his two sons Marz and Quin to many of these pursuits. He and Nancy enjoyed a decades-long passion for tennis both as rivals and partners - their career series as opponents has been declared a draw.

Throughout his life those who met him appreciated his unique, well-considered and principled views on almost any topic. In his 80’s he remained incredibly vigorous; traveling, maintaining friendships, exercising daily, actively investing, working on home improvement and enjoying his family.

He believed in self-reliance, but never failed to offer a helping hand to those in need, be they friends, family or strangers. In his final few days those people surrounded him and his family, sharing stories validating the impact he had on so many lives.

He is survived by his wife of 55 years Nancy, son Marz and daughter-in-law Ferol with grandsons Marz and Rhys, son Quin (expecting a daughter in Spring ‘21 with his partner Theresa Strawn), younger brother Mel and extended family in New York, and an array of deeply treasured friends from throughout his life.

Memorial service information: Planned for October 10, 2020 details pending.

PAID

OBITUARY

Vandalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Warrant/other agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Menlo Park Sept. 23-Sept. 29 Violence related 700 block Laurel St., 9/26, 5:07 p.m.; assault.

Theft related Burglary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Embezzlement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Fraud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Grand theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Petty theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Shoplifting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Vehicle related Bicycle theft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Hit and run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Lost/stolen plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Parking/driving violation . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Theft from auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Theft from auto attempt . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Vehicle accident/no injury. . . . . . . . . . . 1 Alcohol or drug related Driving under influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Drunk in public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Possession of drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Miscellaneous Coroner case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Disturbance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Found property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Lost property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Mental evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Misc. penal code violation . . . . . . . . . . 1 Suspicious circumstances . . . . . . . . . . 1 Vandalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Warrant arrest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Welfare check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

OBITUARIES A list of local residents who died recently: Judith Moss, 80, a Palo Alto resident since 1967, died on Sept. 6. Arthur A. Dugoni, 95, a retired orthodontist and Palo Alto resident, died on Sept. 23. Bernetta Faye Staehnke, 95, former coowner of the Village Cheese House and longtime Palo Alto resident, died on Sept. 25.

To read full obituaries, leave remembrances and post photos, go to Lasting Memories at PaloAltoOnline.com/ obituaries. Q

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Spectrum Editorials, letters and opinions

Burt, Lauing, Stone, Kou for City Council by the Weekly editorial board

I

t’s been two years since Palo Alto reduced the size of the City Council from nine to seven members, the result of a successful 2016 ballot measure.

Surprisingly, back in the 2018 election, only five candidates, including three incumbents, ran for the three available seats. Two of the incumbents, Eric Filseth and Tom Dubois, plus newcomer Alison Cormack were elected.

Incumbent Cory Wolbach and Pat Boone were defeated. It was one of the least competitive races in decades, and some wondered if this was the beginning of a trend toward a declining pool of candidates interested in serving. (Read our 2018 endorsement editorial at tinyurl. com/2018PAWendorsement for more analysis.)

Now, just two years later, 10 people, including incumbents Lydia Kou and Greg Tanaka, are vying for four seats. Councilwoman Liz Kniss is termed out and Mayor Adrian Fine decided against seeking reelection. This, and perhaps the pandemic, created a great opportunity for others to run. The result is what is undoubtedly the most diverse and capable group of candidates in city history.

Another unusual factor in this election is that City Manager Ed Shikada, appointed in June 2018 in an unprecedented closed process without any search or involvement of residents, stepped into his new role just as the new, smaller council was taking its seats in January 2019.

Thus the election is also indirectly an assessment of Shikada’s performance.

To some degree, the new smaller council turned away from the larger prior council’s chippy and unproductive behavior of 2017 and 2018 and focused on working more constructively together on issues, including the big three: housing, transportation and commercial development.

But the last two years have not been without their disconcerting and controversial moments. The staff’s opaque and manipulative handling of the President Hotel apartment conversion application and residents’ complaints about neighborhood traffic-calming measures and the various parking programs showed the council as weak and lacking leadership.

Two of the more dramatic and disturbing examples were the stonewalling by staff of a full and transparent report to the community on the shocking June 2019 delay of first responders to a 54-year-old resident suffering a seizure and Shikada’s declaration of a citywide curfew following George Floyd’s death without City Council approval.

In the first case, serious questions about the actions of police, including ordering paramedics to hold off responding, the lack of a required body cam on a police sergeant and an unauthorized police search of the victim’s house, remain unanswered by the city manager, police chief and City Council to this day.

In the second, Shikada improperly exercised emergency powers — granted to him months earlier by the council because of the COVID-19 crisis — and declared and imposed an astonishing tenday curfew (canceled after two nights) for an entirely unrelated purpose: fear that racial justice protests following Floyd’s killing might trigger widespread opportunistic crime.

These two examples of bad judgment, along with many others, point to governance problems and the need for stronger and more courageous leadership from the City Council to assert its rightful oversight role on behalf of Palo Alto residents. Among other things, the full range of policy options need to be presented on issues in front of the council, not just those that staff thinks will win majority support, and be provided in adequate time for full public discussion.

This year’s field of candidates offers unusually diverse choices for voters. There are four women (Eisenberg, Kou, Malone, Templeton), five renters (Stone, Malone, Lee, Kou, Eisenberg), and five candidates of color (Varma, Tanaka, Malone, Lee and Kou). There are seven candidates with city government experience (Burt, Kou, Lauing, Lee, Stone, Tanaka and Templeton).

Our recommendations reflect our desire to choose candidates who have the governance experience and knowledge of the community to successfully navigate the many challenges Palo Alto faces: recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, creation of

Page 16 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

substantial new affordable housing, implementation of a business tax on large employers, curtailment of new commercial development until we succeed with a housing strategy that will prevent a worsening of our jobs-to-housing ratio and maintain some economic diversity, reform of police and human services practices to reflect our values as a community of welcoming of people of all economic and ethnic backgrounds, and the need for strong oversight of a city manager who has made some concerning missteps in his first year and nine months on the job.

Of all the candidates, former Mayor and Councilman Pat Burt is best equipped to pursue these policy and governance goals. For the last four years, while off the council, he has remained deeply involved in city issues, especially in the areas of transportation, housing, finance and governance. He has never been afraid to voice concerns about city management and to push new and creative ideas. He has been a strong supporter of a business tax and increasing commercialdevelopment impact fees to fund affordable housing and the grade separation of rail crossings, and worked hard while on the council to adopt policies that would encourage more housing and limit new commercial development. He opposed state legislation that would have preempted local zoning to force the upzoning of residential neighborhoods.

Burt will be relentless in pushing for more transparency and responsiveness from city staff and better community outreach and engagement.

Ed Lauing shares most of Burt’s qualities and positions but has a softer and more collegial approach. Having served on and chaired both the Parks and Recreation and the Planning and Transportation commissions over the last decade, he matches Burt’s depth of understanding of city issues. When combined with his experience leading three software companies and as an executive recruiter, Lauing will bring valuable corporate leadership and HR perspectives as the council undertakes to improve staff performance and build better relations among its members.

He rightly calls the need for

affordable, below market rate housing an “emergency” and supports granting selected exceptions to the city’s 50-foot height limit and other zoning rules for such housing projects on a case-by-case basis. He favors a business tax on large companies and says the council needs to regain the public’s trust by improving its oversight of the staff and being more selective about major assignments so that work is accomplished efficiently. He will push for removing the binding arbitration provision in the police contract that makes terminating a police officer almost impossible.

Our third choice is Greer Stone, who is making his second bid for the council after coming in seventh in an 11-person race in 2016. With a strong focus on social justice and mental health needs, Stone serves as vice chair of the Santa Clara County Human Rights Commission and is the former chair of the Palo Alto Human Relations Commission.

He practiced law before deciding that teaching would be a more satisfying pursuit and now teaches history at Gunn. He criticizes past city policy that he says has favored commercial growth over needed affordable housing, supports a business tax to help pay for that housing, and as a renter has a personal understanding of the need for rent stabilization measures.

He opposed state housing mandates, including SB 50, to force residential upzoning in communities like Palo Alto, instead advocating strategies that would focus on targeting belowmarket-rate housing development rather than market-rate housing.

Stone sees the COVID-19 crisis and the racial justice movement as opportunities for a variety of reforms and initiatives, including the creation of a citizens policeoversight commission.

For the fourth seat we recommend incumbent Lydia Kou, who is a passionate advocate for maintaining the residential character of Palo Alto and preventing new commercial development that will only add to the city’s congestion and exacerbate the jobs-housing imbalance. As part of a frequent three-person minority on the council (along with Tom Dubois and Eric

Filseth), Kou has been marginalized and underestimated during the last four years. Unlike Dubois and Filseth, who were part of a council majority prior to Kou joining the council, Kou has been largely ignored and at times outright disrespected by some of her colleagues as she puts forth proposed amendments to improve staff recommendations. We challenge her to find ways to support, instead of oppose, the development of new affordable-housing projects by making necessary compromises to current zoning rules such as height, density and parking.

More than others, Kou has been a councilmember for the majority of those residents who don’t have connections at City Hall and who feel underrepresented.

The other incumbent in the race, Greg Tanaka, in spite of his intelligence, commitment to weekly meetings with the public, and penchant for pouring over staff reports looking for any detail he can question, has been neither disciplined nor effective as a council member. He has become best known as the one who takes up inordinate amounts of time asking questions on unimportant details and rarely constructively contributes to council deliberations. He has endless curiosity but doesn’t organize his thoughts well enough, take clear positions or rally support from his colleagues. But most concerning, he has unabashedly sought and accepted unprecedented amounts of campaign contributions from developers and other commercial property interests.

The remaining five candidates — Planning Commissioner Cari Templeton, former Human Relations Commissioner Steven Lee, attorney Rebecca Eisenberg, tech product director Ajit Varma and tech engineer Raven Malone — are each impressive, intelligent residents who have brought well-considered ideas and needed perspectives to the community during this campaign. We hope they will continue their engagement on local issues and service to the community. In 2022, two of the three incumbents will be termed out, providing another opportunity for whichever six candidates are unsuccessful this time to run again. Q

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Guest Opinion

Responsible track record deserves ‘yes’ on Measure O

F

or the past 19 years, Palo Alto schools have benefited from a locally controlled parcel tax. We cannot underscore enough how important this is to a thriving school district. The approximately $15 million in annual funding cannot be taken away by the state and is used to keep teachers in our classrooms, preserve outstanding academic instruction and provide important health support for our students.

For example, in the 2018-19 school year, $12.6 million in parcel tax funding was allocated to classroom teachers, teaching support staff, reading specialists, librarians, counselors, and middle and high school electives in subjects such as creative writing, engineering, technology and communication and leadership.

Over $1.1 million was spent on student health and wellness, including funding for school nurses, health technicians and school psychologists. Over $1.4 million was expended on specific academic enrichment areas, including middle school math intervention, Advanced Authentic Research and computer science curriculum. Over the duration of the current parcel tax, over $51 million dollars has been spent to support teachers in the classroom. Every school and every grade level is touched by this funding, and close to 60% of the parcel tax revenue is earmarked specifically for teachers to minimize class sizes, especially at the elementary school level.

The Palo Alto Unified School District’s parcel tax was renewed by voters in 2005, 2010

Letters Housing, not parking Editor, What a breath of fresh air David Hirsch’s guest opinion (“Housing over parking lots?”) was last week. The city of Palo Alto has been diddling with how to catch up with lower-cost housing and no one has come up with his idea. The biggest cost is land here. To get anyone to build, let’s do it on city-owned property and charge long-term land rental from developers. The perfect locations for such properties are the parking lots by California Avenue and University Avenue.

These places would still be able to provide parking, add businesses, and more importantly, create

by Megan Swezey Fogarty and Bhusan and 2015. Our education our most recent district is proparcel tax is viding for our now set to exstudents and pire at the end believe its imof this school portance to our yea r (Ju ne community 2021) unless calls on each renewed with of us to make approval from Megan Swezey Bhusan Gupta a difference at least 66.7% however we Fogarty of voters on the can. One of us Nov. 3 ballot.

(Megan) is a second-generation Voting “yes” on Measure O Palo Altan and graduate of the will extend this funding for Palo district who raised children in Alto schools at the current rate. PAUSD during a time that the Given PAUSD’s record of spend- parcel tax made so much possiing parcel tax funds responsibly, ble. The other (Bhusan) has been we owe it to our students to re- a district parent and committee new this critical source of local member since 2015. For Bhuschool funding. san, the committee experience How do we know it’s being has been particularly gratifying spent wisely? We are proud to due to the insight gained about serve as current members of PAUSD expenditures, as well PAUSD’s Parcel Tax Oversight as the opportunity to listen to Committee, a volunteer group different perspectives and work of nine residents charged with cooperatively to accomplish the reviewing the PAUSD expendi- mission of the committee while tures of our local voter-approved interacting with the PAUSD adparcel tax and reporting our ministration and board. findings to the Board of EducaThe Parcel Tax Oversight tion and the public. Every year Committee unanimously supsince the parcel tax was passed ports Measure O. Locally in 2001, the Oversight Commit- controlled parcel tax funding tee has found and reported that has been a vital component of parcel tax revenues have been PAUSD’s budget for almost two spent properly and in accordance decades, helping us weather ecowith the terms of the measure nomic downturns and implement approved by voters. We take critical programs to meet student our role seriously and ask hard needs. and detailed questions about the With all the uncertainties that use of funds to both the PAUSD lie ahead, now more than ever, chief business officer and the in- we need to continue this funddependent auditor. ing for our schools. If it is not Like the rest of the members renewed, PAUSD will have to cut of the Oversight Committee, over $15 million annually on top those of us who are writing this of the approximately $6 million op-ed are passionate about the in recent COVID-19 funding multi-story affordable housing.

Let’s get the council exploring this fresh approach to a problem that isn’t getting solved. Kudos to Mr. Hirsch.

Carol Gilbert Byron Street, Palo Alto

Zoom PE Editor, The Palo Alto school district superintendent writes that inperson schooling will be cut back because of the teachers union’s demands.

Watching my son’s video schooling, I’ve seen that the physical education and music teachers make significant use of cartoon videos to “teach.”

This gives us an opportunity to rethink the need for specialty staffing if they use videos to teach. If they show video to a

class of 20, they can do this with 200. Given our fiscal crunch, if video teaching is used, cut back on the teaching staff. I’d prefer my son be permitted to run outside for 20 minutes rather than sit in front of a screen and watch a cartoon about the soccer player “Pele.”

Nathan Szajnberg Duncan Place, Palo Alto

Not part of the plan Editor, In November 2017, the city council adopted a comprehensive plan called “Our Palo Alto 2030.” The plan includes two major themes: maintaining and enhancing community character and reducing reliance on the automobile.

According to the city’s

Gupta reductions. Cuts of this magnitude would require deep and damaging cutbacks, including: • Layoffs of more than 100 teachers • Significant increases in class sizes (especially at the elementary level) • Elimination of instructional programs, electives and other course offerings • Reductions in counselors, aides and other support staff These reductions would have a dire impact on the quality of education and would mean our schools would look very different than they do today. Voting “yes” on O prevents these cuts.

Measure O continues the exemptions for senior citizens and low-income people with disabilities. Residents who are already exempt from the parcel tax do not need to reapply if Measure O is approved. Measure O also continues the strict fiscal accountability protections that have ensured parcel tax proceeds have been spent properly to date. Every penny must stay local and no funds can be taken by the state.

Independent citizens’ oversight and annual audits are required.

All parcel tax funds are used to directly support children — no funds pay district administrator salaries.

Measure O provides the critical funding needed for Palo Alto schools to maintain high-quality education. Some of us know personally how important this funding is for our schools and community because we grew up here, attended PAUSD schools and our children have also successfully graduated and are thriving

adults. For others, we are newer to this community but chose Palo Alto to raise our family because of the outstanding reputation and track record of PAUSD schools. For all of us, we know that excellence in public education is central to property values and our quality of life.

Measure O is supported by many civic organizations and officials: Palo Alto Council of PTAs, the League of Women Voters, Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce, Palo Alto Educators Association, every member of the Palo Alto City Council, every member of the Palo Alto Unified School Board, every PAUSD principal, every candidate for the PAUSD school board and our state and county leaders, including Sen. Jerry Hill, Assemblyman Marc Berman and Supervisor Joe Simitian.

Let’s continue Palo Alto’s tradition of supporting quality education by extending this expiring local school funding. You can learn more by visiting SupportPaloAltoSchools2020.org.

Please join our community’s leaders and vote “yes” on Measure O. Q Megan Swezey Fogarty and Bhusan Gupta serve on the Palo Alto Unified School District Parcel Tax Oversight Committee. She is a graduate of PAUSD schools and the mother of three PAUSD graduates. He is a longtime resident of Palo Alto and has two kids, one a PAUSD graduate and the other a student at Palo Alto High School. Gupta can be reached at bhusan.gupta@gmail.com.

website, the plan reflects “the community’s priorities regarding land use” and entailed a more than two-year process of public engagement that included a summit gathering of over 350 “concerned citizens,” as well as a Citizen’s Advisory Committee of 25 community representatives.

One year after the summit and midway through the Advisory Committee’s work, Castilleja School submitted a new conditional-use permit request to increase its enrollment to 540 students, replace its existing buildings and dig an underground parking garage.

So while the community worked on policies to maintain and enhance neighborhoods and reduce reliance on automobiles, Castilleja was working on a major expansion project at

odds with the plan. I am sure the Comprehensive Plan developers did not foresee the use of the conditional-use permit process as a tactic to skirt the plan.

Castilleja expansionists seem to believe that their history and mission are so important that they don’t have to operate within the plan’s policies. Using the “I’m too valuable” approach to community planning, Stanford University would be constructing 2,172 housing units today, and there would be a 10-story Palo Alto Clinic complex located at Waverley Street and Homer Avenue.

On the historical scale, Castilleja has earned and deserves its accolades. Its insistence on growth at the expense of its neighbors is a tragedy.

Wally Whittier Bryant Street, Palo Alto

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 17

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10 for City Council What you need to know about the 10 candidates and what they stand for

by Gennady Sheyner | photographs by Magali Gauthier

P

alo Alto voters will have a chance to dramatically reshape the seven-member City Council when they cast their ballots this fall.

With 10 candidates vying for four seats, the council will inevitably look different when new members are sworn in this coming January. Mayor Adrian Fine and Councilwoman Liz Kniss, two of the council’s staunchest housing advocates, are both concluding their tenures. Their replacements, as chosen by voters, will determine whether the council’s pro-growth-leaning majority will continue or whether political dominance will shift to the slow-growth-favoring “residentialists.”

The two different approaches are reflected in the two council members running for reelection: Greg Tanaka, who tends to vote with the more pro-growth candidates, and Lydia Kou, the staunchest of residentialists. Both of

them feel comfortable pushing back against staff recommendations, challenging their colleagues, and casting the lone dissenting vote on matters pertaining to finance (in the case of Tanaka) or land use (in Kou’s case).

In other ways, they are polar opposites.

Tanaka has supported relaxing limits on new downtown office space, reducing impact fees for new development and, most recently, easing ground-floor retail protections outside the city’s commercial cores.

He also opposed rent stabilization measures.

Kou has taken the opposite stance on each of these issues.

Vying against them is a field of eight that includes City Hall veterans, community volunteers and political newcomers. Pat Burt, a former two-time mayor with a history of being a swing vote on land use issues, is planning his return to the dais. Two members of the Planning and Transportation

Pat Burt

D

on’t call it a comeback.

Pat Burt concluded his City Council tenure in December of 2016 after nine years on the dais and two mayoral terms, but he never truly left.

Since leaving the council, Burt has remained active in the community, penning memos, writing letters, riding his bicycle to public hearings and joining other community leaders to proffer advice on Palo Alto’s proposed business tax, its housing policies and its response to COVID-19.

The local landscape has changed since he last held office.

Palo Alto is now facing a health emergency that is accompanied by an economic emergency, as well as unresolved questions about the city’s infrastructure, the future design of the rail corridor and changes to a Police Department that, he believes, has gone downhill when it comes to transparency and accountability.

Burt believes his years of council experience can help the city deal with these challenges as well as reverse several troubling trends in City Hall culture, where he sees a relatively inexperienced council that is being overly deferential to a city manager and the city attorney. As an example, he cites the city’s actions in March, when the council swiftly approved City Manager Ed Shikada’s request for emergency powers with little explanation of what that would entail.

“We had a real historic shift — a temporary shift — in authority and neither the city manager nor the city attorney have yet to fully explain those powers,” Burt

Commission, Chair Cari Templeton and Ed Lauing, are also making a bid for council seats. Each can point to a history of listening to both sides and achieving consensus.

Teacher Greer Stone and attorney Steven Lee, both of whom are former members of the city’s Human Relations Commission, are hoping to join the council so that they can help build more affordable housing and reform the police department. But while Lee, like Fine, supports state legislation that would loosen zoning rules in single-family zones and transit areas, Stone fiercely opposes both approaches, seeing them as ineffective and an affront to local control of land use decision-making.

The other three candidates, attorney Rebecca Eisenberg, engineer Raven Malone and WhatsApp product director Ajit Varma, have not served on any local commissions, but they hope their fresh ideas will help Palo Alto

address some of its most intractable problems.

Eisenberg, a vocal critic of the council’s recent budget cuts, wants to go big on housing and proposes that the city buy land and develop hundreds of affordable units. Malone talks about ending “exclusionary zoning” and allowing more multi-family developments throughout the city, including in single-family neighborhoods. Varma wants to bring Palo Alto back to its business-friendly roots by loosening regulations, streamlining approvals and encouraging new development — both commercial and residential.

The election will be starkly different from the one two years ago, when council members Tom DuBois and Eric Filseth were both easily re-elected and Alison Cormack was the only new member to join the council. This year, the turnover will be higher and change will be the only certainty. The big question facing the voters is: What kind of change?

BACK IN THE GAME said. “One of those powers that was dismissed as a very unlikely scenario was a declaration of a curfew.”

Unlikely, that is, until June 2, when Shikada ordered a citywide curfew until June 11 in response to expected looting at Stanford Shopping Center and downtown businesses around the same time that the city saw peaceful protests in response to the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

‘This is about big businesses paying their fair share to mitigate the impacts they create.’

The looting didn’t happen and Shikada rescinded the curfew two days later. But Burt saw the incident as an example of the heavyhanded tactics employed by the city’s administration, with the council’s explicit or implicit approval. He also noted that Shikada declared the citywide curfew based on powers that the council granted him because of the COVID-19 emergency, rather than declare a separate emergency based on expectation on civil unrest.

“We had a 10-day curfew declared citywide, it was a preventative measure, and the city attorney did not fully participate in that process, did not weigh in on

Page 20 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

whether that’s even a legally declared emergency.”

He said he believed the role they played was “very inappropriate” and “non-transparent.”

“And it was enabled by the mayor who overtly supported it and then, once criticism happened, threw the city manager under the bus,” Burt said.

In addition to trying to restore the traditional balance of power, where the council — rather than city staff — sets policy, Burt is eager to make progress on some of the cities top priorities, most of which he had worked on as a council member. This includes promoting more housing, instituting a business tax and restoring funding for community services by temporarily deferring big-ticket infrastructure projects such as the public-safety building.

“I’m not interested in putting it off anywhere near indefinitely,” Burt said of the proposed police headquarters. “I think a six-to-12month (delay) would be prudent.

We’re in a crisis where we need to be putting people first.”

In a field of 10 candidates, Burt stands out for his length of experience, which in addition to nine years on the council includes nine years on the Planning and Transportation Commission. He believes his civic resume will be useful for both restoring the council’s proper role in setting policy and for bridging the gap between those in the community who want to see “unrestrained growth” and those who are opposed to any substantive change.

On a council that has historically split between members favoring

slower or faster city growth, Burt generally remained in the center.

While often siding with the residentialists on land-use issues (he joined, for example, a 5-4 vote in 2015 to require a major redesign of a contentious development at 429 University Ave.) he occasionally joined the more pro-growth camp (as he did in 2016 when the council by a 5-4 vote permitted a block-long mixed-use project at the former Olive Garden site on the 2500 block of El Camino Real).

As a mayor in 2010 and 2016, he was also known as a forceful and detail-oriented presence on the dais, occasionally helping to craft lengthy motions that were more than a page long (the motion on 429 University Ave. was so long that it wouldn’t fit on the overhead screen). When he says he doesn’t like to see the council defer entirely to staff, he means it.

Much like in his prior council term, Burt remains a staunch (continued on page 33)

Cover Story

Rebecca Eisenberg

W

hen the Palo Alto City Council voted in March to suspend its effort to place a business tax on the November ballot, members agreed that the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic makes this a uniquely bad time to impose a new tax.

Rebecca Eisenberg strongly disagreed.

A corporate attorney and frequent critic of council actions, Eisenberg believes the council’s decision effectively lets the city’s largest corporations off the hook and disproportionately burdens residents with the costs of paying for the recovery. She sees this as the latest example of council members kowtowing to the rich and the powerful at the community’s expense.

“I am furious. We all should be furious,” Eisenberg said in a recent interview with the Weekly. “When the City Council and when every single one of my opponents says we should wait until after the recovery to tax businesses, they are condemning all residents to the fate of paying for the recovery and watch as more and more of our small businesses, our retail and restaurants, are going out of business.”

Eisenberg believes the city should go full speed ahead with a new tax, one that exempts small businesses and retailers and targets corporations with more than 500 employees and $300 million in revenues. She also supports imposing a moratorium on new office development until commercial developers are contributing to the city’s bottom line, either through taxes or

Lydia Kou

O

ver her four years on the City Council, Lydia Kou championed protections for renters, worked to address airplane noise and led the effort to establish Palo Alto’s first safe-parking program.

But she is perhaps best known — both to her supporters and detractors — as someone who knows how to say no. No to attempts by Sacramento’s legislators to loosen zoning standards to allow more housing construction. No to commercial developers who want to build more offices in Palo Alto.

No to a car dealership that wanted to set up shop in the Baylands. No to a hotel developer seeking to convert an iconic downtown apartment building into a boutique hotel. And no to telecommunication companies who want to install equipment in neighborhoods over objections from residents.

On these last three issues — the application for a Mercedes dealership, the transformation of President Hotel, and recent revisions to wireless communications rules (which she felt weren’t stringent enough) — and on many others, Kou represented the sole no vote. Much like her colleague and

SWINGING FOR THE FENCES

adequate housing-impact fees.

A resident of Old Palo Alto, Eisenberg attended Stanford University in the 1980s and then lived in San Francisco before moving to Palo Alto in 2013. She was drawn to the city by its strong public school system, she said, and she was put off by the council’s decision in June to revise its lease of Cubberley Community Center space with the Palo Alto Unified School District to reduce the city’s payments to the district.

‘When the City Council and when every single one of my opponents says we should wait until after the recovery to tax businesses, they are condemning all residents to the fate of paying for the recovery.’

She also took issue with the council’s recent approach to budget reductions, which included (among many other things) significant cuts to recreational services, art programs and libraries. The council should have shifted some funding from the Police Department budget to other community programs, as she noted in a recent questionnaire from Palo Alto Neighborhoods.

“As the City Council told

Children’s Theatre it can achieve its goals with half its budget, we must tell the PAPD the same,” Eisenberg wrote.

Like most of the candidates in the race, Eisenberg believes the city needs to do far more to build housing, institute police reform and regulate campaign finance. Her solutions, however, tend to to go well beyond those that are proffered by others. She strongly supports, for example, building housing at Cubberley Community Center, but she is the only candidate who believes the city should buy the 27 acres owned by the Palo Alto Unified School District to make that happen.

Eisenberg also wants the city to pursue what’s known as “Alternative M,” a proposal by a group of residents in which the city would buy the Ventura neighborhood site that includes Fry’s Electronics and add hundreds of units of affordable housing, as well park space and other community amenities.

While the proposal has gained supporters in recent months and has been endorsed by the umbrella group Palo Alto Neighborhoods, it’s far clear where the city would get the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to make the purchase, particularly at a time when the property owner has no interest in selling.

It’s also not clear whether the business tax Eisenberg proposes would really raise more than $100 million annually as she claims (the tax that the council had contemplated earlier this year was expected to bring in about $15 million) or

how she would go about building and funding more than a thousand of units of transitional housing for people in the lowest income categories, as she had proposed to do at a Sept. 15 forum sponsored by the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce forum.

Eisenberg’s proposal for campaign finance reform also goes well beyond anything any other candidates have proposed, both in cost and ambition. She wants to see public financing for council campaigns, and she wants council terms to become full-time paid positions,

moves that she believes would result in more diverse representation on the elected body, given that most people literally can’t afford to serve under the current system.

She rejects the “arms race” over cash that characterizes today’s campaigns.

“The amount of money a candidate raises on the way to being a council member has zero — zero — relationship with how good of a city councilperson they will be, how effective they may be in their

active YIMBY community who call her out of touch.

As one of three council members who favor slower city growth, Kou distinguishes herself from the other two “residentialists” — Councilman Eric Filseth and Vice

Mayor Tom DuBois — as less likely to compromise, particularly on issues pertaining to growth.

She has a record of initially resisting denser developments:

(continued on page 34)

PLAYING ZONE DEFENSE competitor Greg Tanaka, she often challenges staff’s recommendations and occasionally criticizes her colleagues. But while Tanaka focuses on waste in spending and generally votes with the council’s more pro-growth wing, Kou’s overarching focus has been on protecting neighborhoods from impacts of city growth.

‘We’ve seen the overdevelopment of offices, and today we constantly hear … ‘We have a housing shortage, so let’s go ahead and build, build, build.’ Well, we can’t build our way out of this.’

This doesn’t just mean fighting proposed developments. Last year, Kou cast the only vote of dissent when the council approved a policy recommended by the Utilities Department that allows the installation of pad-mounted electrical

equipment in a neighborhood where utilities are otherwise underground, siding with residents who argued that such equipment would be unsightly. And she argued that the city should not change its policy on letting non-residents into Foothills Park without a vote of the people.

These positions have made her one of the council’s most polarizing figures. To her supporters, she is the community’s most steadfast defender of “quality of life,” whether the battle is over traffic congestion, budget cuts to community services or airplane noise, an issue on which she has been the council’s most vocal advocate. To her opponents, she is an uncompromising defender of the status quo whose actions impede what they say is urgently needed progress on easing the city’s housing shortage.

A Realtor who recently sold her Barron Park home and moved to a Midtown rental, Kou is broadly supported by neighborhood groups and longtime residents who have lobbied the council for more stringent regulations against developers who want to densify Palo Alto. She is also frequently derided by housing advocates, including Twitter’s

(continued on page 33)

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Cover Story

Ed Lauing

E

d Lauing feels comfortable in the middle chair on the dais.

Lauing has been paying his civic dues at City Hall for the past decade, first on the Parks and Recreation Commission, where he served for seven years, and then on the Planning and Transportation Commission, where he is now in his fourth year.

In four of those 10 years, Lauing had been chosen by his colleagues to serve as chair, a nod to both his moderate positions and his low-drama disposition. As a former CEO who currently works as an executive recruiter, Lauing believes his business background and his city background give him the perfect platform to steer the city.

“I know what the job is,” Lauing said, referring to his decade of interactions with city staff and council members.

He also knows the issues. While serving on the parks commission, Lauing took part in reviewing and approving the city’s new parks master plan, the creation of a dog

Steven Lee

S

teven Lee likes to push for reform, even if that means ruffling a few feathers at City Hall.

Well before protests over police brutality and racial injustice spread across the country in June, Lee had been advocating for more transparency in the Palo Alto Police Department and more funding for mental health and homeless services.

As a member of the city’s Human Relations Commission, for which he concluded his term in August, he helped revise police policies to comply with the 8 Can’t Wait Campaign and lobby the city to ban sales of vaping products, which it did last December.

Lee has demonstrated, again and again, that he is comfortable fighting the status quo, whether it’s challenging police brass over the department’s policies on deescalation (which he played a leading role in revising in July), criticizing city staff for downplaying allegations of misconduct and discrimination against the nonprofit Downtown Streets Team (which he argued demand more scrutiny), and admonishing the City Council for its failure to aggressively address the city’s housing shortage.

Unlike Templeton, who prizes collegiality and collaboration, Lee believes tense, difficult conversations are necessary for real progress. One idea that he has championed is construction of affordable housing, particularly teacher housing, at Cubberley Community Center, a concept that

A STEADY HAND park at Peers Park (and exploration of other parks elsewhere) and the reconstruction of the municipal golf course, now known as Baylands Golf Links.

‘I don’t think the city manager and the city (staff) are trying to set policy. I think they end up setting policy because they don’t get enough specific direction from council on a number of issues.’

As a planning commissioner, Lauing had worked on updating the city’s Comprehensive Plan, revising its zoning code and reviewing specific development proposals. He has frequently advocated for a cautious, data-driven approach and sporadically clashed

with commissioners who favor moving faster and more aggressively on policy changes.

At times, this view has put him at odds with the council, as when he was part of a 4-3 majority in 2018 that voted against creating a new “affordable housing overlay” district that would give developers zoning incentives to build belowmarket-rate units. Lauing recommended that the zone change, which was proposed to facilitate the construction of the 59-apartment Wilton Court development on El Camino Real, be further refined before it can be applied citywide. He also, however, supported moving ahead with the Wilton Court project under a “planned community” zone, which gives developers and the city more leeway on negotiating zoning concessions and public benefits (the council overruled the commission and approved the housing-overlay district).

His conditional support for housing was also on display last (continued on page 27)

PROUDLY PROGRESSIVE has garnered some community support and plenty of opposition.

“If we fail to provide housing for our teachers, we are doing a great disservice to ourselves, our kids and future generations,” Lee wrote in a Weekly opinion piece in May 2019. “Teacher housing isn’t just a perk or benefit, it’s a community resource that benefits us all, and it doesn’t have to come at the expense of recreation and community space.”

‘I think Palo Altans are ready for bold, progressive, responsive leadership.’

Lee also wants the city to spur more housing construction by rezoning commercial areas and transit corridors to allow more height and density and by allowing property owners in singlefamily zones to build duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes.

“These are housing options that actually blend quite well into our neighborhoods and most people probably wouldn’t even notice any differences from the street,” Lee told the Weekly.

A big obstacle to progress, he says, is a City Hall culture that he believes resists change and takes far too long to get anything done.

He was pleased to see the City Council approve Palo Alto’s first

Page 24 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

“safe parking” program for vehicle dwellers this month, which will offer space for up to 12 vehicles at a parking lot near the Baylands. He notes, however, that his commission had been pushing the council to increase its support for the city’s homeless population since at least 2017 and that other cities have proceeded much faster.

“It has taken us three years to get to a 12-spot pilot program,” Lee said. “In the meantime, we’ve seen programs in Mountain View, East Palo Alto and Redwood City.”

The program in Redwood City, he noted, took just seven months to put together.

The city’s tendencies to move slowly rather than act quickly, and to favor small steps over comprehensive solutions, are problems that Lee says he would like to address.

“That’s a frustration that I sense, not just from myself but from members of the community,” Lee said. “That’s why I’m running. I think Palo Altans are ready for bold, progressive, responsive leadership.”

Police reform is a key area of interest for Lee, an attorney who currently works at Playstation.

The council’s work on 8 Can’t Wait reforms, he said, is just a first step. He wants to remove the “binding arbitration” clause from the city’s contract with its main police union, which is up for renegotiation this year. The clause, which is common in police contracts, has hindered the ability of cities across the nation to

discipline or remove officers for misconduct. Lee said he would not vote for a contract that includes binding arbitration.

Rather than hire more officers, the city should invest in social services and address the “root causes of crime,” including homelessness and mental health programs.

He wants to see a system in which an officer would be accompanied by social workers and mental-health professionals when

responding to nuisance calls and low-level crimes, a strategy on which other council candidates concur.

“Public safety is not about how big our Police Department is and how many officers we have,” Lee said. “That’s very much a limited and reactionary approach to public safety.

“The discussion needs to (continued on page 31)

Cover Story

Raven Malone

R

aven Malone is relatively new to Palo Alto, having moved here in the beginning of this year, but her campaign has struck a chord with those who believe the city is lagging on addressing its housing crisis.

Malone, an electrical engineer who lives in an accessory dwelling unit in the Triple El neighborhood, says she wants to see more such units built but argues that the city should go further. She’d like the city to have more duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes, Malone said at the Weekly’s Sept. 24 City Council candidates’ debate.

“I know there are people who don’t want, for example, fourplexes next to their single-family homes,” Malone said. “It makes sense, I respect that and I acknowledge that. But where would we be OK with building them?

These units need to happen. There is a housing crisis.”

Malone also said she supported the recent Senate Bill 1120, which would have allowed property owners to subdivide their parcels and build duplexes. (The bill failed to advance on the frantic final day of the Legislative session.)

Malone is philosophically aligned with those who believe the city should loosen zoning rules in downtown and commercial areas to facilitate more housing construction. Mayor Adrian Fine, who is concluding his term this year, and former Councilwoman Gail Price, who is now board president at Palo Alto Forward, have both endorsed her candidacy.

SEEKING SOCIAL JUSTICE

Malone said in an interview that she wants to end “exclusionary zoning,” referring to R-1 or single-family zoning. In that sense, she differs from candidates like Pat Burt, who at the Weekly debate rejected the term and argued that because of new laws that ease restrictions on accessory-dwelling units and junior ADUs, allowing one of each per property, Palo Alto no longer has true singlefamily zoning.

‘I got to the point where I felt like the people who wanted change were outnumbered by people who didn’t.’

She also believes that Palo Alto should try to strike racial exclusion clauses from old deeds, which prohibited Black and Asian people from owning homes in the city. While these deeds haven’t been legally enforceable for decades, Malone noted on her campaign platform that “they are a painful reminder of the ways Palo Alto has not always welcomed diversity.”

Like Fine, she also believes that Palo Alto should repeal a long-standing policy that restricts access to Foothills Park only to residents and their guests. The city is now facing a lawsuit from a

Greer Stone

P

alo Alto’s housing crisis hits close to home for Greer Stone, a Gunn High School teacher who is making his second bid for a City Council seat.

In a recent interview, Stone said it’s a “real struggle” for him and his wife, a teacher at MenloAtherton High School, to make monthly rent payments on their one-bedroom Midtown apartment. One of his colleagues at Gunn recently packed up and left the Bay Area because she can’t afford to live in the area, he said.

“I think we’re going to continue to see that loss of talent and professionalism not only within our school district but with other essential employees within the community if we can’t start to really grasp this issue,” Stone said.

Yet his approach to housing differs markedly from that championed by other housing advocates in the race for four council seats.

Unlike Steven Lee and Cari Templeton, who supported recent legislative proposals that loosen zoning regulations in single-family neighborhoods to encourage more

duplexes and triplexes, Greer sees such bills as blunt tools that will not deliver the types of affordable housing that the community really needs.

‘Blunt upzoning not only does not accomplish the objective of lowering housing prices, but it also leads to gentrification in communities where upzoning occurs.’

“Blunt upzoning not only does not accomplish the objective of lowering housing prices, but it also leads to gentrification in communities where upzoning occurs,” Stone said, citing examples in San Francisco, Chicago and Harlem, where a housing boom resulted in both an influx of residents and a decrease in the

coalition that includes the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP San Jose/Silicon Valley over that policy.

“We should have opened it a while ago,” Malone said at the Weekly debate. “We’re neglecting other kids who live in other places whose cities weren’t even well established when Foothills Park was opened in Palo Alto,” Malone said.

A native of Mobile, Alabama, Malone spent two years in San Jose before moving to Palo Alto with her fiancé. They had long set their hearts on Palo Alto, she said, where they would come for the restaurants and farmers markets.

“Unfortunately, we had a hard time finding something we can afford in our budget,” Malone said.

Now, she says she is committed to helping those who support change and who believe the city needs bolder actions. This includes easing regulations for residential developers, moving faster with implementing bike improvements and making real progress with Fiber to the Home, the city’s decades-long effort to expand its dark fiber network and make high-speed internet more broadly available to the public.

The shelter-in-place order has only underscored the critical importance of access to high-speed internet, she said.

“I got to the point where I felt like the people who wanted change were outnumbered by people who didn’t,” Malone said.

“And if not me to go out there and

help try to create this change that is long overdue, then who? And if not now, then when?”

Malone said she envisions a safer and more welcoming Palo Alto. In forums and interviews, she’s talked about the need to encourage denser new housing developments and improve accountability within the Police Department, positions she shares

with candidate Steven Lee. The two diverged, however, when asked at the Weekly debate whether Palo Alto should allow a cannabis dispensary.

While Lee, who strongly supported the city’s ban on vaping products, said he wouldn’t want to see the city “waste its time” on (continued on page 31)

KEEPING IT LOCAL African American population.

Stone wants to create more affordable housing by using the city’s zoning powers and the proceeds from a new business tax. To make housing development more competitive with office development, he wants to increase impact fees for commercial growth (and use the proceeds to support below-market-rate housing), restore the city’s limit on new downtown office space that the council abolished in 2018, and refurbish some existing office space as housing — an effort that he hopes could become more viable as telecommuting cements itself as a new norm for many employees.

Stone also wants to raise the city’s “inclusionary housing” requirement (the percentage of units that a housing developer needs to designate for below-marketrate units) from the current level of 15% to 20%. He also wants to implement what’s known as the “Palmer fix” and extend the inclusionary-housing policy to (continued on page 32)

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 25

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PAW_10.2

Cover Story

Greg Tanaka

G

FOLLOWING THE MONEY

reg Tanaka proudly wears the mantle of Palo Alto’s leading fiscal hawk.

Year after year, he is the sole council member who votes against the city budget. Even during a year in which the council cut $40 million in spending, Tanaka believes his colleagues and city management are too wasteful. He repeatedly admonishes them for spending too much on public relations, for raising utility rates willy-nilly, for pursuing too many infrastructure projects and for not stashing enough cash in reserves.

At a September 2018 meeting, he lamented the fact that he is the only person who votes against big-ticket items and accused the city of “burning future generations” with all that waste and of having “no backbone” when it comes to staying within its means.

“We are hollowing out the city now by not sticking to the budget,” Tanaka said.

Tanaka’s positions have often made him an outlier on issues that otherwise had broad council support. In 2018, for example, the College Terrace resident fought a proposal to assist East Palo Alto with a water shortage that forced the city to halt development.

While everyone else supported shifting to East Palo Alto an allotment of half-million gallons per day, Tanaka insisted that the city charge East Palo Alto for the water rights, a suggestion that Councilman Eric Filseth called “offensive.”

Tanaka also stood alone last December, when the council tried to pass an urgency ordinance to protect renters from extreme rent hikes just before the state’s own proposal, AB 1482, was set to kick in. Because the urgency measure required support from all participating six council members (Liz Kniss recused because she owns a rental property), Tanaka’s dissenting vote required the council to delay the implementation of the measure by another week

to satisfy his desire for more outreach.

He was the sole dissenting vote last year, when the council approved additional severance payments to employees whose jobs were to be terminated as part of the city’s outsourcing of animal services to the nonprofit Pets In Need.

But notwithstanding his budget hawkishness, Tanaka was also the only council member who opposed in June a new lease agreement with the Palo Alto Unified School District that reduced the city’s contribution to the district from $5.4 million to $2.7 million annually. In explaining his opposition, Tanaka said that he wanted to see a more “collaborative” approach between the city and the school district and that he would have preferred to see the city reduce its spending on capital projects and City Hall management costs.

Ed Lauing (continued from page 24)

month, when the commission was voting to rezone commercial properties along San Antonio Road to allow housing construction, including a 102-unit mixed-use development at 788 San Antonio Road. While others argued for swift approval, Lauing insisted that the motion also include a recommendation that the city conduct an analysis of land use and transportation along the San Antonio corridor to identify and predict future traffic patterns and problems.

The transportation analysis, he argued, needs to be an “integral” part of the motion supporting the zone change. The commission ultimately agreed and voted 6-1 to

Tanaka’s positions occasionally rankle his colleagues. Earlier this month, as the council was preparing to approve a “safe parking” program for vehicle dwellers in the Baylands, Tanaka launched into a series of questions about the value of the land and the potential for leasing it out for a profit. Vice Mayor Tom DuBois, who championed the new program, responded by saying he rejects the idea that the city’s filter should be “maximizing money without taking care of people.” Tanaka ultimately joined the council in approving the program.

Tanaka’s frugal stance on city finances stands in stark contrast with his approach to his re-election campaign, which has amassed an early and commanding lead in

cash raised, thanks in large part to donations from local developers. By late September, his campaign had received more than $70,000 in contributions, which includes $10,000 from developer Roxy Rapp, $5,000 from developers John McNellis, Charles “Chop” Keenan and Brad Ehikian and $2,500 from the California Real Estate Political Action Committee.

Tanaka rejected in a recent interview any suggestion that he is in the pocket of the development community and pointed to his support for the recent closures of University Avenue and California Avenue to traffic to promote outdoor dining during the pandemic and support for the “Uplift Local” campaign (formerly known as “Summer Streets”). Some developers, including John Shenk of Thoits Brothers (which also donated to Tanaka’s campaign), have vocally opposed the street closures, he noted.

Yet when it comes to broader land-use questions, the former planning commissioner has invariably sided with the council’s pro-growth faction, having been part of the council majority in 2016 that reversed the prior council’s decision to significantly raise housing impact fees for commercial developments and that approved a divisive downtown development at 429 University Ave. in 2017. Since then, he has opposed exploration of rent-stabilization measures, voted against a plan to lower the citywide cap on non-residential development (the council moved to slash the cap in 2018 despite his opposition) and joined the council’s pro-growth members in scrapping a limit on nonresidential development in the downtown core.

Another position that is likely to endear Tanaka to local developers, property owners and corporations is his opposition to a business tax.

While the council suspended its multi-year effort to adopt a tax

based on employee headcount in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic downtown, Tanaka voted against the proposal in January, when he admonished staff and consultants for a survey on the tax that he deemed “misleading.”

An entrepreneur whose company, Percolata, offers data services to the retail industry, Tanaka hasn’t completely ruled out supporting a business tax, though he told the Weekly in a recent interview that he believes it should be the “last resort.” The city, he said, should look at its own spending habits before considering a tax.

“Do we need to have such a large city manager’s office?” he asked in a recent interview. “Do we need to spend on this many managers in the city? ... We should start looking at ourselves first in terms of, ‘Are we spending

money wisely?’”

Even though his campaign has reaped large donations from the developer community, Tanaka frames himself as a protector of constituents who have fallen on hard times. He holds weekly office hours to get feedback on major community issues and posts videos of the meetings on his Facebook page. He has routinely opposed increases to utility rates, and he chided his colleagues in June for approving raises to city employees during an economic downtown.

“There’s this perception that everyone who lives in Palo Alto is super rich,” Tanaka told the Weekly. “And there are super rich people here. ... There are also people like myself, other people who live in the city, who are scraping by. They are taking a payout; they lost their jobs. It’s tough times.” Q

move the project forward.

Like most of the 10 candidates in the field, Lauing believes affordable housing should be the city’s primary focus when it comes to residential construction — a view that naturally aligns him with the more slow-growth camp that includes Councilman Eric Filseth and Vice Mayor Tom DuBois (both of whom have endorsed his campaign) and Lydia Kou, who is now seeking a fresh term. That said, he believes that the community, much like the council and the planning commission, has become too polarized.

“One of the ideas that I think is really important is to get out of the poles,” Lauing told the Weekly, “Polarization is OK to begin a debate on an issue but at some point you have to close the ranks

if we want to get it done. That’s been the problem, fighting in the community, fighting on the council, fighting in its commission.”

Affordable housing, he said, is one area on which there appears to be community consensus. He supports passing zone changes to facilitate it and using funds from a business tax to support it. Unlike Kou, who strongly supports the city’s 50-foot height limit, Lauing said the limit should be a “guideline” — strictly enforced in single-family neighborhoods but open to adjustment in places like Palo Alto Square at El Camino Real and Page Mill Road.

“If you show me a project at, let’s say, Palo Alto Square, that will put up 300 to 400 housing units over the next three years and it has to go to 75 feet instead of 50,

I’d be at that meeting in a nanosecond, listening to what’s going on.”

Like other council members, he believes city staff have taken too large a role in shaping the city’s policies. But unlike Pat Burt, who attributes this trend to a heavyhanded approach from the current city manager and city attorney, Lauing believes the council is largely at fault. By setting too many priorities, by failing to give staff clear direction and by not following up in a timely fashion, the council has created a situation in which staff has a hard time making progress on its many assignments.

“I don’t think the city manager and the city (staff) are trying to set policy,” Lauing said. “I think they end up setting policy because they don’t get enough specific direction from council on a number of issues.”

The city budget is one area in which Lauing wants to see clearer priorities. The budget, he said, should reflect the city’s values, with the priority given to ensuring public safety, followed by essential services such as utilities and street paving and then spending on parks and community services such as programs for youth mental health.

By contrast, capital spending, such as for a new public safety building, can be delayed into future years, he wrote in a Palo Alto Neighborhoods questionnaire.

“The push into the future doesn’t work forever,” Lauing said. “Eventually parks need to be redone, tennis courts need resurfacing and a public safety building needs to go up. But ‘wish-list’ items need to be distinct from ‘must-dos.’” Q

‘We are hollowing out the city now by not sticking to the budget.’

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 27

Cover Story

Where the candidates stand on the issues by Gennady Sheyner BURT

EISENBERG

KOU

LAUING

LEE

City should purchase school district land at Cubberley Community Center and build housing there, along with a park and a community center. City can build hundreds of units of affordable housing in the Ventura neighborhood at the former Fry’s Electronics site by buying the land. Reduce minimum lot sizes in single-family neighborhoods, ban conversion of residential areas for commercial use and impose a vacancy tax on “ghost houses.”

City should focus exclusively on affordable housing. Strongly opposes most development proposals with commercial space or that involve zoning exemptions. Voted against creation of an “affordable housing zone” in 2018 but later voted to support the Wilton Court housing development.

Championed rent stabilization measures and creation of a “safe parking” program for vehicle dwellers. Strongly opposed SB 50 and SB 1120. “Land use and zoning belongs to individual cities because ... we live here and we know what is essential and what is not.”

Palo Alto has an affordable housing “emergency”; city should focus its limited staff time on below-market-rate housing (“workforce” and market-rate housing are lower priorities). Maintain city’s 50-foot height limit as a “guideline” but OK to exceed it in commercial areas around Stanford Research Park. City should pursue corporate partnerships for developments with major housing components. “I think affordable housing is something that appeals to (companies’) business needs, as well as their need to be good community neighbors.”

Supports adding housing, particularly teacher housing, at Cubberley Community Center and relaxing height limits and parking requirements in commercial corridors such as El Camino Real, University Avenue and California Avenue. Supported SB 50 and SB 1120, which would have loosened zoning standards in single-family zones. “Housing is so inextricably linked to many of the issues we care about in our community. Our city’s failure to get serious about housing has negatively impacted our quality of life.”

Ramp up the delivery of free COVID-19 testing to get people back to work. City should move ahead with a business tax, even during the pandemic, so that residents won’t have to foot the entire cost of the recovery.

Supported creating a $500,000 grant program to help small businesses during the shelter-in-place and voted to close University Avenue and California Avenue to traffic to help restaurants there. Supported deferral of capital projects during budget hearings and preservation of some community services that the council voted to cut. Supports hiring an economic development manager with an expertise in retail to help the city’s businesses recover. Voted against removal of ground-floor retail protection outside of the city’s commercial core.

When it comes to spending city funds to aid businesses during the pandemic, the council should prioritize “locally serving businesses.”

City should provide more education, outreach and enforcement of health orders and social distancing guidelines. Utility fees should be waived for struggling small businesses and funding for the city’s small business grant program should be expanded.

Strongly supports a new business tax; says council should have placed tax measure on November ballot.

City should buy land at Cubberley Community Center and in Ventura to facilitate construction of affordable housing. Disagreed with council’s cuts to community services in June to address a budget deficit. “In slashing more than $40 million of essential public services ... the City Council intentionally chose to subsidize Tesla and Palantir, while depriving our community’s most vulnerable residents of services they relied on, and often even, their jobs.”

Supports instituting a business tax on large corporations. During the last budget season, she supported deferring some capital projects to limit cuts to community services such as libraries and art programs.

Believes the city budget should clearly reflect the city’s values, with public safety on top of the list, followed by essential utility services and then community services. City should defer major capital projects and review the budget on a quarterly basis during the pandemic, given the significant fluctuations in city revenues. “‘Wishlist’ items need to be distinct from ‘must-dos.’”

Supports instituting a business tax to pay for affordable housing and increasing the city’s spending on grants to nonprofit social service providers. “We need to ask larger businesses that are still doing quite well, even during the recession, to step up just a little more and pay more of their fair share during these difficult times.”

City should revisit the idea of putting the Caltrain tracks in a tunnel underground, which the council had previously considered and rejected.

Wants city to invest far more in transit options, including exploring the launch of an electric shuttle, and pursue more bike lanes and pedestrian/bike bridges.

With traffic congestion as the city’s biggest problem, limiting office growth is her preferred solution.

City needs to do more commuting outreach before selecting designs for the grade separation of the train tracks. Has supported the City Council’s efforts to expand the city’s bike network.

City needs to relaunch and expand its local shuttle system after the COVID-19 pandemic (Palo Alto shut down its shuttles in June because of budget cuts). Wants to see the city’s businesses contribute toward the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association, the nonprofit that offers services to reduce commuting by solo drivers.

Opposes any grade-separation alternative that would require people’s entire properties to be taken. Believes the most important way to address the city’s traffic problems is to build more housing so that fewer workers would have to commute.

Consistently supported policies that limit commercial development, including the downtown-specific cap and the 2018 effort to reduce the citywide limit on nonresidential development. Favors placing “a moratorium of any new office construction.”

Supported as a planning commissioner the rezoning of commercial sites along San Antonio Road to encourage housing construction. Says that, with more people working from home during the pandemic, there is now a “glut” of vacant office development, some of which can be rezoned for housing. Believes the city should promote work-from-home initiatives within its own workforce.

Believes Palo Alto doesn’t need any new office space, though he would be willing to compromise if the only way to obtain housing is by allowing some office development. Says city should update its zoning laws to “prohibit, limit or disincentivize office construction.”

HOUSING Rezone certain areas from “office” to higher-density “residential.” City should collaborate with Stanford Research Park to add housing in the research park. Raise impact fees on new offices to fund housing projects. Allow affordable housing above city-owned parking lots.

Opposed to state legislation to loosen zoning standards, including SB 50 and SB 1120. “Affordable housing needs sites and reasonable land costs.”

PANDEMIC City needs to expand COVID-19 testing to allow more businesses to function during the pandemic and to help outdoor businesses “winterize” so that they can continue to serve customers when the weather gets colder. Services for youth should be retained during the pandemic (particularly services that support their social and emotional needs) and funding should be expanded for community services to economically disadvantaged residents.

FINANCE City should temporarily delay some of the biggest infrastructure projects, including the proposed public safety building, until the city begins to recover from the economic impact of the pandemic.

“We’re in a crisis where we need to be putting people first.”

Supported, as a councilman, the city’s increases to the hotel tax and its efforts to pursue a business tax to fund transportation projects and affordable housing.

TRANSPORTATION City should explore “work from home” as a major component of its transportation-demandmanagement plan. Supports moving ahead with installing a “smart signal” system, pursuing more bike improvements and improving transit. On grade separations, city should further explore the “partial underpass” options that were developed by residents for rail crossings at Churchill Avenue, Charleston Road and Meadow Drive.

COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT Supported the establishment of the city’s annual 50,000-squarefoot limit on office developments in downtown, California Avenue and El Camino Real. Also supported maintaining the downtown office cap (which the council voted to abolish in 2019) and reducing the citywide limit on nonresidential development (which the council agreed to in 2018).

Supports requiring far more concessions and public benefits from companies that seek to grow in Palo Alto. For example, she believes that if Tesla wants to expand its headquarters, the city should request that the company help fund the construction of a citywide tunnel for the Caltrain tracks. Supports “emergency rezoning of all properties that can be rezoned to ‘residential,’ unless there is as compelling public interest otherwise.”

Page 28 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Cover Story

Where the candidates stand on the issues MALONE

STONE

TANAKA

TEMPLETON

VARMA

“Inclusionary housing” requirement for below-market-rate units in new ownership-housing developments should be raised from 15% to 20%.

Inclusionary requirement should apply to new rental developments too. Increase housing impact fees to fund affordable housing projects and adopt a “no net loss” policy that requires builders whose projects eliminate housing to construct as many or more units. Wants business tax that in part funds affordable housing once the city recovers from the COVID-19 economic fallout. Strongly opposed SB 50 and SB 1120.

City should do more to encourage construction of small units that are inherently more affordable. Voted in favor of relaxing zoning regulations for affordable housing and workforce housing and supported approving residential developments at 2755 El Camino Real and the affordable housing complex at 3705 El Camino Real (Wilton Court).

Has generally favored city growth by approving developments and supporting zone changes. Doesn’t believe city should focus exclusively on below-market-rate housing.

Ease restrictions in single-family zones to allow duplexes and rezone some commercial areas for residential use. Supported as a planning commissioner a recent plan to allow multifamily residential developments on San Antonio Road, including a 102-unit project. City needs to invest more in constructing affordable housing and in making the approval process more predictable and costeffective. “Just getting more creative and being open to suggesting ways to remove barriers would be an earnest, good start.”

City should add housing in areas like San Antonio Road, El Camino Real and other commercial corridors, where height limits, density restrictions and parking requirements can be loosened.

City should let businesses develop commercial space with housing components to address housing shortage. Opposes densifying R-1 neighborhoods; opposed SB 50 and SB 1120. “We have more than enough space in areas that are underdeveloped where we can build much denser housing and office space that can accommodate all our needs well into the future.”

More money should be invested in the city’s grant programs for small businesses to keep them from closing because of the economic recession. Supports hiring an economic development manager who can help bring new businesses to town and enhance Palo Alto’s retail core.

Supported closing California Avenue and University Avenue to traffic during the pandemic.

Advocated for supporting small businesses through a grant program and by reducing their utility rates. Voted to remove ground-floor retail protections outside the city’s commercial core to give property owners more flexibility at a time of growing vacancies.

City ought to do more to provide businesses with personal protective equipment and free COVID-19 testing. Supports adopting measures to delay evictions and working with regional partners to “take advantage of financial and mental health relief programs that benefit the community.”

Supports making permanent the street closures on University and California avenues during evenings and weekends and streamlining the building-permit process to make it easier to attract businesses during the economic downtown.

Supports a business tax to pay for affordable housing. Opposed the council’s decision in June to cut funding for community services and public safety and says his priorities would have focused on areas that can be temporarily suspended, including paying down city pensions, freezing salary increases and relying less on consultants.

“Businesses should pay their fair share through a business tax for the imbalance in jobs-to-housing that has allowed corporations to thrive at the expense of our community.”

As councilman, has consistently opposed salary raises for employees and utility rate increases.

Also opposes the proposed business tax, at least until such time as the city significantly reduces its spending. Has also routinely voted against the city budget and was in most cases the only dissenting vote.

“When we look at new taxes, to me they should be the last resort.”

Believes Palo Alto’s traditional revenue sources are unreliable and supports exploring a headcount tax on local businesses. “I’d like to make sure we take the opportunity to work with our business leaders to understand what makes sense from their perspectives as well.”

City should focus on growing revenues rather than cutting the budget. Doesn’t want to see a new business tax. City should invest all of its efforts in encouraging more businesses and residents to come to Palo Alto. “This will not only cover current needs but also expand the benefits and improvements that we provide within our city.”

City should invest in more public transportation and create new bike lanes and walking paths to encourage alternatives to solo driving. City should promote ridesharing apps and partner with the Palo Alto Unified to provide school shuttles.

Has advocated as councilman for expanding and enhancing the city’s bike network. On grade separation, says he would need to get the input of Palo Alto’s residents before making a comprehensive decision.

“Given the COVID-19 pandemic, the cost of the project should be scrutinized and discussed.”

Supports constructing more dedicated bike lanes. As a member of the Expanded Community Advisory Panel, which is considering the future design for grade separations, her preferred solutions minimize acquisition of private property and support the council’s goals of improving public safety and minimizing environmental impacts.

City should bring back the idea of building a tunnel for Caltrain, a project that the city can pay through a long-term bond, he says.

Also wants bike improvements at intersections that have been identified as the city’s most dangerous.

Opposed as a councilman further restricting office growth. Voted to repeal the downtown cap on office development in 2019 and opposed a citizen petition to cut the citywide limit on non-residential development in 2018.

Believes any new office development that would draw significant commuting traffic would be best built near transit hubs.

Wants to encourage building more office space and bringing more jobs and opportunities to the area.

“We can work with future office developments to be mixed-use and include housing aspects to the development so that people can live and work in close proximity to each other.”

HOUSING City should encourage construction of more duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes throughout Palo Alto, as well as denser housing in commercial corridors. Supported SB 1120, which would have loosened zoning restrictions in single-family neighborhoods, and wants to end “exclusionary zoning.” Supports relaxing the city’s height limit, parking requirements and density restrictions for multifamily housing developments.

“The problem is we made it so hard in Palo Alto for (developers) to build housing that they don’t want to.”

PANDEMIC Rather than simply distribute $500,000 in grants to small businesses to assist them during the pandemic, the city should have launched a program, like a comprehensive marketing plan, to help the wider community.

FINANCE Supports looking into a business tax on the city’s largest employers, with a percentage allocated for affordable housing. Her proposed tax would fluctuate based on company size, with larger companies paying a higher rate.

Also supports deferring some of the city’s largest infrastructure projects, including the public safety building and a new fire station at Mitchell Park. “I’d like to make sure (firefighters) have proper funding that they need, even if it means waiting a little for the new fire station.”

TRANSPORTATION Strongly supports investing more in bike safety improvements. “Every time I bring up wanting to improve the ways that we can bicycle safely, someone has a story. Someone they know got hit by a car.” Has no preferred alternative for grade separation, saying she needs more input from residents.

COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT Believes that with companies like Palantir reducing their local footprint, the city should look to rezone office areas to allow mixeduse or housing projects.

Supports requiring new commercial developments to pay more in impact fees to fund housing. Wants to remove from the city’s annual 50,000 sq. ft. office cap in downtown, California Avenue and University Avenue a provision that allows unused square footage to carry over to the next year. Opposed council’s decision in February to eliminate the cap on downtown office development.

“We cannot get serious with our housing production if we continue to allow developers to build office space, because office space is far more lucrative for the developer than housing.”

Sources: Palo Alto Weekly interviews, Palo Alto Neighborhoods questionnaires, Friends of Cubberley debate www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 29

Page 30 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

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Cari Templeton

C

READY TO LISTEN

ari Templeton wants to turn down the temperature in Palo Alto’s heated debates about housing and growth policies.

For the past two years, as a member of the Planning and Transportation Commission, she has had a front seat at the table as residents debated housing projects, transportation improvements and, most recently, Castilleja School’s divisive expansion proposal. Templeton also serves on the Expanded Community Advisory Panel, which is exploring changes to the city’s four rail crossings, and has previously served on the North Ventura Community Advisory Panel, which is coming up with a new vision for a 60-acre area anchored by the Portage Avenue campus that until recently housed Fry’s Electronics.

A former technical program manager at Google, who retired in 2017 after 10 years at the company, Templeton is undaunted by complex projects with conflicting viewpoints. To help move the city along with its rail project, she had recently created a dynamic matrix that allows the panel to easily rank options according to the City Council’s criteria. Now, as chair of the Planning and Transportation Commission, she has worked to change the historically rancorous tenor of discussions. In a recent interview, she recalled an “amazing moment” earlier this year when commissioners agreed to improve how they interact with one another.

“One of the challenges we have in Palo Alto is that sometimes our framing isn’t productive,” Templeton told the Weekly. “Sometimes, certain ways we phrase things are triggering, for lack of a better word.”

Templeton joined the planning commission in 2018 and won a big vote of confidence from her colleagues earlier this year, when they unanimously elected her chair. On a panel that has traditionally split into political camps, she tends to vote with those who support more growth — including Willian Riggs and Michael Alcheck — and she supplied the

swing vote that made Riggs and Alcheck the chair and vice chair of the commission in 2019. Unlike other members in that group, however, she seems more comfortable as a facilitator than as an advocate for a particular position, opting to listen to others before weighing in.

While she often speaks in favor of broad goals such as improving bike amenities, building more af-

fordable housing and listening to the community, her open-minded approach sometimes makes it hard to figure out where she stands on specific details. During a Sept.

9 meeting on Castilleja School’s contentious expansion proposal, Templeton smoothly navigated the procedurally complex public hearings but offered little in the way of commentary on a project that had undergone four years of analysis.

Rather, she largely echoed her colleagues’ comments about the adequacy of the project’s environmental analysis before voting to approve it.

In a recent interview, rather than answer questions about where she stands on the city’s 50-foot height limit or on recent state efforts to relax zoning restrictions to singlefamily zones, she described her general philosophy about encouraging more housing and finding creative solutions but did not say how she would vote about removing or modifying specific zoning policies.

She similarly did not express any discernible opinions about recent attempts by the state legislature to

create new mandates that would allow more density in single-family neighborhoods (the most notable of these, SB 50, and SB 1120, failed in January and in August, respectively), only saying that she would support discussing ways to give property owners more leeway to redevelop their properties.

When asked in a Palo Alto Neighborhoods questionnaire about whether she would support “ending single-family (R-1) zoning” — something that Minneapolis did last year — she called the question an example of “fear-mongering rhetoric from Washington” and said she “reject(s) this line of thinking.”

“We will not have important city business used by some politicians to escalate fear and disrupt discussion of zoning changes that may be beneficial for the neighborhood and the city,” Templeton answered. “There are times when zoning changes make sense, and there are times when it may not make sense. I prefer to make zoning decisions based on the needs of the neighborhood and the city.”

She told the Weekly that her preferred approach to encouraging housing is “getting more creative and being open to suggesting ways to remove barriers,” an answer that is more a statement of values than a specific proposal.

“Right now I don’t see those discussions happening. I’m seeing a lot of polarization and factoring,” Templeton said. “What I hope we can do over the next couple of years is change how we’re engaging and find a way to actually hear different sides and find a solution.”

When asked whether she supports a business tax, she suggested that Palo Alto’s traditional revenue sources (namely, sales- and hotel taxes) have proven unreliable and pointed to Mountain View’s recent success in adopting a headcount tax for large businesses with buy-in from the business community. But when asked at a Chamber of Commerce forum about the tax, she called it an “intriguing idea” but stopped short of fully endorsing it.

“I’d like to make sure we take

Raven Malone

A supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, Malone declared her council candidacy at a June rally in downtown Palo Alto. She said she wants to see trained civilians, rather than armed officers, respond to calls for issues like homelessness and mental health emergencies. Police officers, she said, should be asked to focus on serious criminal incidents, a strategy on which the other council candidates generally agree.

“I just want to ensure that everyone is safe,” Malone said.

“It’s hard to do that when you ask someone with a gun to report to a situation that may be unfamiliar territory and that may

force them to react in a way that may not have been in their best judgment.”

She believes that in addition to highlighting racial injustice, the Black Lives Matter movement has had the positive effect of getting more residents engaged in local issues. Malone wrote in her Palo Alto Neighborhoods questionnaire that she hopes the engagement continues and that her candidate will “inspire others like me to get more involved locally.”

“If elected, I want to bring to the table residents who have either felt neglected by local government or felt that (local government) doesn’t matter,” Malone wrote. Q

(continued from page 25)

discussing the topic, Malone noted that regulations on operating dispensaries are already very strict and that banning dispensaries is not keeping cannabis out of the community.

“Why not make it a source of revenue?” she asked. “Especially now, during COVID. We need more sources of revenue.”

(For the record, candidates Pat Burt and Ajit Varma suggested that a dispensary could be allowed in the city’s industrial area, while the rest said they would oppose a dispensary.)

‘What I hope we can do over the next couple of years is change how we’re engaging and find a way to actually hear different sides and find a solution.’

the opportunity to work with our business leaders to understand what makes sense from their perspectives as well,” Templeton said.

One issue that she has made a centerpiece of her campaign is racial justice and inclusiveness. She has spoken out about the need for police reform in June, when the nation and the city saw weeks of protests over police brutality and racial inequality. Templeton said she would like to see the city’s commission better represent the broader community. She would also like to see some of the calls for service currently handled by police officers shifted to mental health professionals and social workers. She also wants to remove the long-standing policy that bars non-residents from going to Foothills Park unless accompanied by a resident, according to her campaign website.

When it comes to police reform, Templeton wants to create an oversight commission made up of community members, especially those from historically marginalized groups, to oversee police conduct and practices, according to her campaign site. She also supports campaign reform to make it easier for residents to run

for council and “reduce the outsized influence of big money on our local politics.”

Her positions, much like her conciliatory approach, has won her endorsements from numerous former mayors and present council members, including Mayor Adrian Fine and council members Liz Kniss and Alison Cormack, all of whom vote with the council’s more pro-growth camp. The Barron Park resident and mother of two hopes her recent experience in listening, facilitating discussions and forging compromises will give her campaign a boost come November.

She stressed in a recent interview that while she supports more housing, she does not have a “housing agenda.” Rather, she has a “community agenda” and she wants to have productive discussions with residents about ways to remove existing obstacles to progress.

“Right now, I don’t see those discussions happening,” Templeton said. “I’m seeing a lot of polarization and factioning.

What I hope of the next couple of years is to change how we’re engaging and find a way to actually hear different sides and find a solution.” Q

Steven Lee

corporations.

On Sept. 21, Lee made an unusual announcement that he is no longer accepting campaign contributions, having reached his goal of raising $45,000. In a statement, he said that he wants to begin a trend of spending less money on Palo Alto council races.

“No one should be able to buy disproportionate influence by donating thousands of dollars to a City Council candidate,” Lee said in a statement. “If we are serious about campaign finance reform and beginning a trend of less money being spent in local races, it starts with each one of us and with me.” Q

(continued from page 24)

include ... How do we invest in low-income, minority communities? Lee, who lives in Midtown, is also interested in reducing the influence of money on local politics. While he enjoys a list of endorsements that includes Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez and school board members Ken Dauber, Shounak Dharap and Jennifer DiBrienza, his campaign has capped contributions at $1,000 and has not accepted any donations from developers, law enforcement associations or for-profit

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 31

Cover Story

Ajit Varma

W

ALL BUSINESS

hen Ajit Varma moved to Palo Alto from Texas two decades ago, he was a 19-year-old with a car, a dream, a degree in electrical engineering and little else.

“I was basically living in a car for three months because I couldn’t afford to find a place,” Varma said.

Big tech was his ticket to success. He had stints at Google and Square and now works for Facebook, where he is product director for WhatsApp. He lives in Crescent Park with his wife and two children and he’s making a bid for City Council because he wants others to have the opportunities that he had.

Varma has been troubled by Palo Alto’s business climate for some time. While most other candidates bemoan the city’s high jobs-housing imbalance and see a clampdown on office development as part of the solution, Varma believes the city should embrace its tech roots, get rid of its onerous restrictions on development, abandon its plan for a business tax and make small businesses feel welcome again.

“We went from a time when every business wanted to be in Palo Alto to a time when everyone wants to leave Palo Alto,” Varma said at a Sept. 15 debate sponsored by the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce. “This is not the time to raise taxes on business.”

Varma was troubled by the recent announcement by Palantir that it is moving its headquarters to Denver and he is concerned about the prospect of other major companies, including Tesla, doing the same. The loss of such companies, he believes, represents stifled opportunities for today’s and tomorrow’s generations.

“I got lucky because companies like Google existed here, that companies like Facebook existed here, that companies like Square were in the area,” Varma told this

publication. “If those companies (don’t) exist here, I think it means we won’t have the same opportunities that we had 10, 20 or 30 years ago.”

The ability of these companies to remain can, in his view, have global ramifications. Tech giants that are born here adopt the values of Stanford University and Palo Alto, which he sees as a good thing. Notwithstanding Palantir’s work with ICE to identify undocumented residents and Facebook’s role in allowing the spread of misinformation, Varma believes both companies are good, if imperfect.

Greer Stone (continued from page 25)

newly developed rental properties.

A primary component in his housing plan is preservation of existing residences. He wants to institute a “no net loss” policy on housing, which would prohibit destruction of below-market-rate units unless the housing will be replaced with an equal or greater number of units. He would also support giving residents who would be displaced by such projects the right of first refusal on the new housing as well as rental assistance during their time of displacement.

“The most affordable housing we have is in our existing housing stock,” Stone wrote in a Palo Alto Neighborhoods questionnaire.

“Had this policy existed, we never would have lost the affordable

“It’s easy to criticize the negatives of companies. ... I’d rather these problems be solved by people in Palo Alto with our value system rather than in communities that have influences with maybe different value systems,” Varma said.

As someone who works with businesses around the globe, Varma believes he is ideally suited to help the local business world recover from the devastating impacts of COVID-19. He wants to cut red tape, speed up the approval process for zone changes, make the recent closures of University and California avenues to car traffic permanent and drop the plan for a new business tax.

Among his ideas for creating more housing, he supports

working with large companies on office developments that include housing, though he opposes the idea of asking smaller businesses to build housing to offset the impact of their employees on local housing stock.

In addition, he believes the city should promote housing by relaxing development standards such as height limits, parking requirements and density limits along major corridors such as El Camino Real, Page Mill Road and San Antonio Road. By focusing new office and housing construction in these areas, the city can avoid the loosening of zoning standards in single-family neighborhoods.

Unlike other candidates who supported a recent state effort to allow homeowners in R-1 neighborhoods to split their lots and build duplexes, Varma is no fan of state mandates. He believes the city can solve its development problems; it just needs the will to do so.

But in contrast to Councilwoman Lydia Kou, who similarly opposes recent Sacramento housing bills, he believes the city should do more negotiating with developers. The city’s success is intertwined with that of its business community, he said, and it’s important for the city to start saying “yes” to requests from developers for zoning adjustments that would facilitate growth.

“The reason that it’s so important to say ‘yes’ is because that’s what makes it feasible for developers to create housing,” Varma said.

Like Mayor Adrian Fine, who is concluding his first term this year and who is not seeking reelection, Varma believes the city needs housing for all income levels, including affordable and market-rate housing. But Palo Alto is unlikely to meet any of its housing goals unless it becomes more flexible with its zoning and permitting, he said.

“A lot of times we hope for

things to happen,” Varma said.

“We need to do more than hope.

We need to have a plan.”

While Varma’s views on commercial growth make him an outlier in the candidate field, most of his other positions align with those of his opponents. He supports repealing the binding arbitration provision from the city’s contract with the police union, providing more cultural and community amenities in places like Cubberley Community Center and, as an avid bicyclist, expanding the city’s bike network.

He also supports, somewhat begrudgingly, expanding access to Foothills Park to nonresidents.

Given the hit that Palo Alto has taken to its reputation because of the exclusionary policy, he said, the city has “no choice but to open it now,” Varma said at the

Weekly’s Sept. 24 debate of City Council candidates.

Varma’s views on campaign finance stand in sharp contrast to those of the other nine candidates.

Several candidates in the race have pledged not to accept contributions from developers (Steven Lee and Greg Stone) or to limit individual contributions to $1,000 (Lee). Others, including Pat Burt and Cari Templeton, said at the Weekly debate they would support setting a cap on campaign spending. Varma goes a step further and believes the money has no role in politics. He is the only candidate who hasn’t accepted any contributions for his campaign.

“I’ve been offered a lot of money and a lot of donations, but I said no. ... I believe people should win upon their views,” Varma said at the Weekly debate. Q

housing and vibrant community at the President Hotel.”

Stone, a former attorney who served on the city’s Human Relations Commission and currently is vice-chair of the Santa Clara County Human Rights Commission, said he was disappointed to see the city approve in June a proposal to convert the President Hotel, an apartment complex at 456 University Ave., into a luxury hotel. While the council had publicly opposed the conversion project, it was advised by the city’s legal staff to approve the project to avoid litigation (while the council directed City Attorney Molly Stump in June to release a public document explaining the deeply unpopular decision, that explanation has not been provided as of late September).

Stone saw that decision as

nothing short of capitulation by the city.

“It’s so critical to be able to have the conviction and understanding that we will fight for certain things that we think are important enough,” Stone said at a Sept. 12 forum sponsored by Palo Alto Sensible Zoning, a political action committee that supports slow-growth policies and that has endorsed Stone.

Stone, who chairs the county Human Rights Commission’s Justice Review Committee, also believes the council hasn’t done enough to address recent incidents of police misconduct in Palo Alto. He supports reversing the council’s December decision that internal Police Department conflicts should not be reviewed by the independent police auditor (the change, which appears to have been spurred by an incident

in which a high-ranking white officer used racist language against a Black officer, now directs such incidents to Human Resources, effectively shielding it from public disclosure).

Stone also wants to follow the example of Eugene, Oregon, where mental-health professionals and social service workers rather than police officers respond to calls that involve mental health issues. The Eugene program, which is known as CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On the Streets) and which has been in place since 1989, also saves Eugene about $15 million annually, Stone said.

“If we can save money through that and reinvest it back into better training, as well as getting the traffic enforcement team up and running again, and make sure the streets are safer — I think that’s all going to be key,” Stone said.

Stone believes Palo Alto is at an “inflection point,” with the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic recession and the social unrest over police brutality converging to create an opportunity for fundamental change. In April, one month into the COVID-19 shutdown, he penned a guest opinion for the Weekly that urged city officials to address the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on Black and Latino communities, recapped some of the darkest chapters of world history, and expressed his hope that a “shared humanity” that will help the community overcome the virus.

“Few moments in history have brought humanity together better than this crisis, and there is some strange beauty in knowing we’re all fighting these struggles together as a global collective,” Stone wrote. Q

‘We went from a time when every business wanted to be in Palo Alto to a time when everyone wants to leave Palo Alto. This is not the time to raise taxes on business.’

Page 32 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

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Lydia Kou (continued from page 21)

She fought the Maybell Avenue senior-apartments project in 2013 and a zone change in 2018 that paved the way for a planned 59-apartment complex for lowincome residents and adults with disabilities (though she later supported that project, which is now known as Wilton Court).

But Kou does have her own ideas about housing. In September 2019, she and DuBois submitted a memo to their colleagues that encouraged a greater focus on the people making below 80% of the area median income. The memo proposed raising housing-impact fees paid for by commercial developments; requiring developers of rental housing complexes to set aside a certain number as affordable housing (currently, the city requires only residential developers of ownership homes to designate 15% of their units for affordable housing, known as “inclusionary housing”); ensuring that density bonuses for mixed-use projects are devoted to the residential component; and exploring regulations to prevent housing from being converted into commercial space.

Kou and DuBois also have been the council’s chief advocates for rental stabilization measures, though their efforts to explore such measures have so far failed to sway the council majority. They had far more success in championing the adoption of “safe parking” programs for vehicle dwellers, which combine a secure location to park with social services. Last month, the council approved Palo Alto’s first such program at 2000 Geng Road.

Kou said her biggest disappointment with the council has been a discrepancy between the words of her colleagues and their actions.

She cites as an example the recently approved conversion of President Hotel, a 75-unit apartment building on University Avenue, into a

Pat Burt (continued from page 20)

supporter of a business tax, particularly one based on employee headcount. He rejects the notion that a tax would spur an exodus of businesses from the city. At a Sept. 15 forum sponsored by the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce, he pointed to East Palo Alto’s recent experience with a new business tax.

“Far from discouraging businesses, they’ve had an avalanche of new development since then,” Burt said “This is about big businesses paying their fair share to mitigate the impacts they create.”

On housing, he supports rezoning some commercial areas for residential use and working with Stanford University on creating a housing plan for a portion of Stanford Research Park close to the California Avenue area.

“Because they’re far and away

boutique hotel that will have 100 rooms. Even though city staff had initially ruled that the project violates numerous zoning provisions and the council had passed a law explicitly banning the conversion of residential properties to nonresidential use, the council voted in June to approve the conversation based on a threatened lawsuit from the property owner. Kou was the sole dissenter in the 6-1 vote.

Council members often say they “want housing,” Kou said, but their decision to approve the conversion belies that assertion.

“There was so much behindthe-scenes work in order to make sure that codes were changed in order to accommodate the change of the use,” Kou told the Weekly.

While most council members believe zoning exceptions are sometimes necessary to make housing projects pencil out economically, Kou argues that such concessions amount to subsidies to developers. Her bar for projects that she would support under the new “planned housing” zone is higher than that of her colleagues. When asked in an interview what type of affordable-housing project she would support, she described a two- or three-story building with plenty of light and open space — one that would “respect the dignity of the people living in subsidized housing.”

It’s the kind of project that would undoubtedly get the council’s unanimous approval. It’s also the kind of project that would probably not get proposed by a developer, given the city’s exorbitant land costs and the high subsidies needed to build housing for residents at or below 80% of area median income. Even the 59-apartment Wilton Court project, which has significantly more density and height than Kou’s ideal project, required $10 million in public funds before it could advance.

A consistent proponent of slowing down commercial growth, which she believes contributes to the largest landowner in the city, we can develop a joint planning effort on how to really design nodes of the Research Park that are well designed for housing communities,” Burt told the Weekly.

He also believes the city needs to do more to reform its police operations. He opposed the council’s decision in December to revise the scope of the independent police auditor to remove the auditor’s ability to investigate internal conflicts. He also wrote in his Palo Alto Neighborhoods questionnaire that he wants to renegotiate the police union contract to get rid of the “binding arbitration” provision and to adopt a “holistic public safety program prioritizing mental health and social service professionals as default city responders to nonviolent mental health, homelessness, and domestic emergency calls” — an opinion shared by the other nine council candidates.

the city’s traffic problems, Kou said she would generally oppose approving an office component as part of such a development, though she might make an exception for businesses that provide community services. She opposes raising the 50-foot height limit for new developments, which some see as a serious barrier to constructing affordable housing, though she would support letting the voters decide the issue.

Kou often clashes on the topic of housing with Mayor Adrian Fine, who supported Senate Bill 50 (which she vehemently opposed) and who believes that supporting “affordable housing” to the exclusion of everything else is a formula for getting no housing at all. The two also clashed last month over protections of retail space, with Fine and the more pro-growth council members voting to explore removing the city’s requirement that reserves ground-floor space for retailers in areas outside Palo Alto’s commercial core (Kou, DuBois and Filseth all dissented).

In a recent forum sponsored

by Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning, a political action committee that leans toward slow-growth policies and that endorsed Kou’s campaign, Kou said she is running for a second term because she believes Palo Alto needs to address its housing and business challenges in a “sensible and responsible manner.” This, to her, doesn’t just mean building enough housing to match the city’s jobs. It also means ensuring that the city continues to have enough parks, libraries, community centers and infrastructure to serve both existing residents and new ones.

“In the past couple of decades we’ve seen the overdevelopment of offices and today we constantly hear the narrative of, ‘We have a housing crisis, we have a housing shortage, so let’s go ahead and build, build, build,’” Kou said.

“Well, we can’t build our way out of this.” Q Burt has also been one of the council’s leaders on sustainability, having championed the city’s adoption of a carbon-free electricity portfolio, its increased spending on bike improvements and flood-control improvements around the San Francisquito Creek. A key challenge in the coming years, he told the Weekly, will be determining how we can have “a sustainable evolution as a community and as a region of housing and job growth and transportation services in an environment that leads to future generations having comparable opportunities to what we’ve had.

“That’s really the definition of sustainability,” Burt said.

“And now, we have overlapping with that, the drastic impacts of the COVID emergency and the economic emergency. Guiding us through that challenging period will be one of the most difficult things we’ve encountered in decades.” Q

ELECTION 2020

Tips and resources for the local election Where can you find information to help you vote? Read on

by Palo Alto Weekly staff

Mail-in ballots Under Santa Clara County’s Voter’s Choice Act, all registered voters will be sent mail-in ballots for this election starting Monday, Oct. 5. The ballot will come with a pre-paid envelope so the voter can send it back. Mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Election Day. For people who do not trust sending their ballot through the U.S. Postal Service, the Registrar of Voters will deploy about 90 drop boxes throughout the county. County staff, not the Postal Service, will collect those ballots and bring them back to be counted.

Voters can also drop off their ballots in person at one of about 100 vote centers, which will open on Oct. 31 for four days, up to and including Nov. 3, Election Day. People also can come to vote in person at a vote center then if they’ve misplaced their mailed ballots, need language assistance or require accessibility accommodations.

If you have any questions about voting, go to the Registrar of Voters’ site at sccgov.org/sites/rov

Debate and more debates So that voters can hear from the City Council candidates directly, local organizations are offering debates and forums online.

On Sunday, Oct. 4, 4-5:30 p.m., Walk Bike Palo Alto and the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition will host the “Green Transportation Forum.” Register at patransportforum.eventbrite.com. On Tuesday, Oct. 6, 7-9 p.m. the 350SV Palo Alto Climate team and 12 local environmental organizations will host a debate on issues that impact the environment. Register at eventbrite.com by searching for “Palo Alto climate forum.”

On Thursday, Oct. 8, 6-8 p.m. SV@Home Action Fund and California YIMBY will offer a forum on affordable housing, COVID-19 recovery efforts and calls for racial equality. Register at bit.ly/3kGYh1j. On Saturday, Oct. 10, 4-6 p.m. the League of Women Voters of Palo Alto will mount its candidate forum.

Register at lwvpaloalto.org.

For a full schedule of election events, including those for other races, got to PaloAltoOnline.com and search for “Want to get to know your local candidates?”

Video: Palo Alto Weekly debate If you missed the Weekly’s Sept. 24 forum with all 10 candidates, you can watch the two-hour video at YouTube.com/ paweekly. For a quick summary, read Gennady Sheyner’s recap of the debate by going to PaloAltoOnline.com and searching for “Candidates diverge on housing.”

The Weekly’s endorsements Want to know which four of the City Council candidates are being endorsed by the editorial board of the Palo Alto Weekly?

Go to the Spectrum section on page 16 of this week’s paper.

Other election news Next week, the Oct. 9 edition of the Weekly will include profiles of the candidates for Palo Alto Unified Board of Education along with the newspaper’s endorsements in that race. We also plan to run an op-ed about Proposition 15, the split roll tax.

Our upcoming coverage will also include the races for East Palo Alto City Council, Ravenswood City School District Board of Trustees, Santa Clara County Board of Education, Measure O (PAUSD parcel tax renewal) and Measure S (Water Valley District). In last week’s paper, we published profiles of the candidates for the Foothill-DeAnza Community College District Board of Trustees. Endorsements in those races will also be published in the coming weeks.

Stay up to date on the latest news about local election issues by going to PaloAltoOnline.com or by subscribing to the free daily news email, Express, at PaloAltoOnline.com/Express. Q www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 33

Cover Story

Eisenberg 995 Fictitious Name Statement BRUNER’S CHEESECAKE FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No.: FBN667847 The following person (persons) is (are) doing business as: Bruner’s Cheesecake, located at 1249 W Washington Ave. #1, Sunnyvale, CA 94086, Santa Clara County.

This business is owned by: An Individual.

The name and residence address of the registrant(s) is(are): CHRISTOPHER J. BRUNER 1249 W Washington Ave. #1 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name(s) listed above.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Santa Clara County on August 31, 2020.

(PAW Sep. 18, 25; Oct. 2, 9, 2020) APTLY FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No.: FBN668296 The following person (persons) is (are) doing business as: Aptly, located at 1931 Old Middlefield Way, Suite K, Mountain View, CA 94043, Santa Clara County.

This business is owned by: A Limited Liability Company.

The name and residence address of the registrant(s) is(are): SOPHOS PRODUCTIONS LLC 1931 Old Middlefield Way, Suite K Mountain View, CA 94043 Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name(s) listed above.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Santa Clara County on September 11, 2020.

(PAW Sep. 25; Oct. 2, 9, 16, 2020) DeLeon Realty Platinum DeLeon Platinum Realty DeLeon Realty Team DeLeon Platinum Team DeLeon Team Platinum FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No.: FBN668571 The following person (persons) is (are) doing business as: 1.) DeLeon Realty Platinum, 2.) DeLeon Platinum Realty, 3.) DeLeon Realty Team, 4.) DeLeon Platinum Team, 5.)

DeLeon Team Platinum, located at 1717 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303, Santa Clara County.

This business is owned by: A Corporation.

The name and residence address of the registrant(s) is(are): DeLeon Realty, Inc. 1717 Embarcadero Road Palo Alto, CA 94303 Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name(s) listed above.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk-Recorder of Santa Clara County on September 18, 2020.

(PAW Oct. 2, 9, 16, 23, 2020)

997 All Other Legals NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: LUCILLE CHAN SEARLE Case No.: 20PR188469 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of LUCILLE CHAN SEARLE. A Petition for Probate has been filed by: KATHRYN CHAN in the Superior Court of California, County of SANTA CLARA. The Petition for Probate requests that: KATHRYN CHAN be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court.

The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give

notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held on October 28, 2020 at 9:01 a.m. in Dept.: 13 of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, located at 191 N. First St., San Jose, CA, 95113.

If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

If you are a creditor or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58 (b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner: Bruce A. McDermott Ogden Murphy Wallace, 901 5th Avenue, Ste. 3500 Seattle, WA 98164 (206) 447-7000 (PAW Sep. 25; Oct. 2, 9, 2020) AMENDED NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: JOHN CHRISTOPHER PURVIS Case No.: 20PR188129 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of JOHN CHRISTOPHER PURVIS. A Petition for Probate has been filed by: LAUREN J. PURVIS in the Superior Court of California, County of SANTA CLARA. The Petition for Probate requests that: LAUREN J. PURVIS be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court.

The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held on November 2, 2020 at 9:01 a.m. in Dept.: 13 of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, located at 191 N. First St., San Jose, CA, 95113.

If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

If you are a creditor or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy

to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58 (b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner: Adam W. Ferguson 1886 The Alameda San Jose, CA 95126 (408) 296-3700 (PAW Sep. 25; Oct. 2, 9, 2020) NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: CONSUELO GOINGS Case No.: 20PR188652 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of CONSUELO GOINGS. A Petition for Probate has been filed by: MARY ANN WARREN, Public Administrator of the County of Santa Clara in the Superior Court of California, County of SANTA CLARA. The Petition for Probate requests that: MARY ANN WARREN, Public Administrator of the County of Santa Clara be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held on October 28, 2020 at 9:01 a.m. in Dept.: 13 of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, located at 191 N. First St., San Jose, CA, 95113.

If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

If you are a creditor or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58 (b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner: Mark A. Gonzalez, Lead Deputy County Counsel 373 West Julian Street, Suite 300 San Jose, CA 95110 (408) 758-4200 (PAW Sep. 25; Oct. 2, 9, 2020)

Call Alicia Santillan at 650-223-6578 or email asantillan@paweekly.com for legal advertising.

Page 34 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

(continued from page 21)

job,” Eisenberg said in an interview.

Money, in fact, may have the opposite effect. Time after time, she said, “We see the City Council bend to the needs of the wealthiest few.” For examples, she points to the city’s recent approval of President Hotel’s conversion from an apartment building to a hotel, despite city staff earlier declaring that the project would violate various local laws (the council agreed in June to approve the project after the city was threatened with a lawsuit). She also cites the city’s failures to hold accountable Castilleja School, an all-girls school whose campusreconstruction proposal is now under city review.

She referred to Castilleja in an interview as an example of where the council has “failed to enforce its own law and its own conditional use permit with a party that’s extremely wealthy and carries a lot of political weight.” During the Planning and Transportation Commission’s public hearing on the Castilleja project on Aug. 26, Eisenberg rejected the notion that supporting the project amounts to supporting girls’ education. She said she was “offended and appalled by irrationality and duplicity of Castilleja’s official position (that) requiring it to comply with the law like the rest of us is somehow an

attack on women in STEM.” Though she frequently criticizes corporate giants like Palantir and Tesla for not paying their fair share, Eisenberg’s tendency to think big is rooted to some extent in her decades of experience in dealing with tech companies. She helped take PayPal public in 2002 and she worked to spin off Reddit from its corporate parent and launch it as an independent startup, as she noted in her Palo Alto Neighborhoods questionnaire.

“I was told some of my plans are pie-in-the-sky, but I am the person who convinced the SEC that PayPal has a business model that allowed the SEC to take PayPal public,” she wrote.

Eisenberg strongly believes in the power of negotiation and in taking giant steps that seem impossible, until they don’t. One such idea, which she pitched during a recent interview, was partnering with Tesla to launch a fleet of electric shuttles for the community.

“I’m a negotiator,” Eisenberg said. “I believe the best agreements help everyone at the table.” Q Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be emailed at gsheyner@ paweekly.com.

About the cover

Ten candidates compete for four seats on the Palo Alto City Council.

Photos by Magali Gauthier. Design

by Douglas Young.

Answers to this week’s puzzles, which can be found on page 43.

LivingWell

Senior Focus NEW LIFESTYLES ... Former Silicon Valley communications executive Lyn Christenson will present a free webinar on non-financial retirement planning Tuesday, Oct. 6, from 11 a.m. to noon. Christenson, now a certified retirement coach, says non-financial aspects are “the most overlooked part of planning for retirement.” She will discuss how to envision a new lifestyle — engaging in part-time or volunteer work, maintaining health and wellness, choosing meaningful leisure activities and more. To register for the webinar, go to Avenidas.org, click on “classes” and search for “non-financial retirement planning” or contact Christenson at lyn@retirementlinkages.com.

A monthly special section of news

& information for seniors

ONLINE REHAB ... The 31-year-old Palo Alto stroke-rehabilitation program REACH, with a therapy gym and studio at Cubberley Community Center, has moved its services online in response to COVID-19 restrictions.

Small group classes are taught by licensed physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech pathologists. “The REACH program helps those with strokes and brain injuries get moving physically, emotionally and socially,” according its website. For more information, go to reachprogram.net.

ART AND SCIENCE ... Retired Palo Alto Medical Foundation physician Lawrence Basso says Leonardo da Vinci “represented the perfect balance between art and science.”

Basso will explore Da Vinci’s legacy as painter, sculptor and physiologist and speculate on the organization of his brain in a free Zoom presentation on Tuesday, Oct. 13, from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. To register, go to avenidas. org/programs, scroll to “classes,” click on “all classes and activities” and search for Leonardo da Vinci.

WISE OWLS ... The Wise Owl Players, a senior theater group, will present “TenMinute Plays and 100 Laughs” on Friday, Oct. 16, and Sunday, Oct. 18, 3-4:30 p.m.

Rated for ages 16 and over, play titles include “Polly,” “Maid Service,” “Infant Morality” and “Do-Overs.” The Wise Owl Players offers adults 50 and over the opportunity to act before live audiences by producing dramatic staged readings. “The plays and classes are a cultural benefit to the greater community and demonstrate the richness that older adults bring to our society,” says director Enid Davis.

Tickets are $4 per viewing device. For more information, go to Avenidas.org and scroll down to “Upcoming Events.”

LGBTQ CONFERENCE ... Experts in areas of critical concern for the LGBTQ community, including housing, legal issues and overcoming discrimination will be sharing their knowledge and experience in a free Zoom conference hosted by Avenidas on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2-4:30 p.m. “By shining a spotlight on some of the challenges facing the LGBTQ community, we hope to bring about meaningful discussions and a path toward change,” said Thomas Kingery, Avenidas LGBTQ programs coordinator/community liaison. Kingery will kick off the conference, followed by Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, an advocate of the Avenidas’ LGBTQ Initiative, who will provide his insights into the significance of the LGBTQ movement.

Dr. Fred Luskin of Stanford’s Forgiveness Project will provide the keynote address on “Staying Sane in these Crazy Times,” followed by four workshops: “LGBTQ Inclusive Housing,” “Legal Issues,” “Overcoming Discrimination and “Build Your Own Village.”

For more information, go to avenidas.org. Q

Item s for Senior Focus m ay be emailed to Palo Alto Weekly Contributing Writer Chris Kenrick at ckenrick@paweekly.com.

Seniors pick up bagged lunches distributed at Stevenson House in Palo Alto by the nonprofit La Comida. During the pandemic, the food program has pivoted from serving sit-down lunches to distributing pre-packaged food to go.

Pandemic reveals inequities among aging populations Researchers: U.S. response to seniors lags behind other countries Story by Chris Kenrick | Photo by Magali Gauthier

T

he COVID-19 pandemic has revealed which countries are best at dealing with aging societies and which ones are failing.

The U.S. is behind many other countries in its response to seniors during the pandemic, according to an international panel of scholars from Stanford University, Columbia University, the London Business School and the National University of Singapore, which the Stanford Center on Longevity convened virtually on Sept. 17.

Singapore and Germany are looking good while the U.S. and the United Kingdom have lagged, though it’s still early to determine what the final outcome might be, said Andrew Scott, professor of economics at the London Business School and author of “The 100 Year Life.”

In general, countries that experienced the SARS epidemic in 2002-2003 — mainly in Asia — seemed to have better public health systems in place to fight COVID-19, Scott said. “Those who have done well have focused on public health and access to health care.”

The devastating COVID-19 death toll tied to U.S. nursing homes — more than 40% of the nation’s total by some counts — underlines the need for a “complete

redesign” of America’s long-term care system, said John Rowe, a physician and former chairman and CEO of the health insurance giant Aetna. He is now a professor of health policy and aging at Columbia University.

The current long-term care system “is not designed, funded, staffed, operated or regulated in such a way as to provide safety and supportive care,” Rowe said.

By contrast, Singapore has minimized nursing home deaths by keeping patients and staff within strict operational bubbles so that any exposure is confined to a limited group, said John Eu-Li Wong, senior vice president of health innovation and translation and professor in medical sciences at the National University of Singapore.

Staff is not permitted to cross between facilities and is given an adequate supply of personal protective equipment, Wong said. In addition, staff members are given special overnight accommodations to reduce their exposure to the community, he said.

The few U.S. nursing homes that took similar measures — such as one where the owner leased RVs for staff members to sleep in when they were off shift — also have had zero or minimal COVID-19 counts, Rowe said. In

another program, in which people are cared for at home, there also has been essentially no mortality from COVID-19 even though patients are of the same age and clinical status as people in nursing homes.

The pandemic has highlighted social inequalities in the United States that are long overdue for attention, said Laura Carstensen, professor of psychology and founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity.

“We have two pandemics happening here, one for the affluent and one for the poor,” Carstensen said. “The added lesson in the pandemic is that it matters to all of us that some people — actually, most people — aren’t managing well. It matters to us if essential workers can get to work. It matters to us if they are sick — it matters to all of us as a society.”

Panelists criticized common stereotypes of older people as generally sick and frail.

“We do have that frail woman in a nursing home bed, but also picture Anthony Fauci, Warren Buffett, the Supreme Court justices,” Carstensen said.

“We should have fewer stereotypes and think of older people as just people.” Q Contributing Writer Chris Kenrick can be emailed at ckenrick@paweekly.

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 35

Living Well

LGBTQ Conference

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Empowerment & Connectionsâ&#x20AC;?

Saturday, October 17, 2020 2:00pm-4:30pm Zoom Conference Join us for an inspirational, FREE, online conference designed for members, friends and supporters of the LGBTQ Community!

KEYNOTE BY STANFORDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DR. FRED LUSKIN: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Staying Sane in these Crazy Timesâ&#x20AC;?

WORKSHOPS WILL INCLUDE: â&#x20AC;˘ HOUSING â&#x20AC;˘ OVERCOMING DISCRIMINATION â&#x20AC;˘ LEGAL ISSUES â&#x20AC;˘ BUILD YOUR OWN VILLAGE

With support from the County of Santa Clara, Office of LGBTQ Affairs

Call (650) 289-5445 for more information or sign up at www.avenidas.org For complete schedule or info about Avenidas events, call 650-289-5400

OCTOBER 2020

Oct 1 Annual Moon Festival and Culture Learning Virtual Event 10-11am, presented in Chinese and English via Zoom.

RSVP for log on info to pfung@avenidas.org. Free Introduction to Social Media Explore Tech Lecture 10-11am, Senior Planet @Avenidas. RSVP to rsvp@ seniorplanetavenias.org for log on info. Free.

Lesbian Social Group via Zoom Every 1st & 3rd Thursday, 3-4pm via Zoom. Email jenn@ seniorshowerproject.com for info and to register. Free.

Oct 2 Tech Tutoring with Verizon Volunteers 12-1pm, every Friday. RSVP required. Email rsvp@ seniorplanetavenidas.org. Free.

Oct 5 FREE demo! Breathe, Move Your Body, and Be Happy: Gentle Yoga 9:30-10:15am, presented in Chinese and English via Zoom. RSVP for log on info to pfung@avenidas.org.

Free Oct 6 Webinar: Jumpstart your next life chapter: Make it EQWPV YKVJ PQP Ć&#x201A;PCPEKCN TGVKTGOGPV RNCPPKPI Presented by Lyn Christenson, 11am-noon via Zoom.

RSVP for log on info to register@avenidas.org. Free Navigating these Uncharted Frontiers Presentation 10-11am, Senior Planet @Avenidas. RSVP to rsvp@ seniorplanetavenias.org for log on info. Free.

Oct 7 Webinar: Medical Decision Making and Patient Advocacy in a Crisis: Being Prepared *Ă&#x20AC;iĂ&#x192;iÂ&#x2DC;Ă&#x152;i` LĂ&#x17E; Â&#x2C6;VÂ&#x2026;>iÂ? >Â&#x2DC;` >Ă&#x20AC;Â&#x17D; Â&#x2C6;Â?wĂ?] ÂŁÂ&#x2021;Ă&#x201C;ÂŤÂ&#x201C; Ă&#x203A;Â&#x2C6;> <Â&#x153;Â&#x153;Â&#x201C;° RSVP for log on info to register@avenidas.org. Free Oct 8 Learn about Aging in Place: Avenidas Village Coffee Chat 10-11am. RSVP required. Email dgreenblat@avenidas. org. Free.

The â&#x20AC;&#x153;New Normalâ&#x20AC;? of Virtual Connection Presentation 2-3 pm, Senior Planet @Avenidas. RSVP to rsvp@ seniorplanetavenias.org for log on info. Free.

Friendly Menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Walking Group Every 2nd & 4th Thursday, 3-4pm. Email tkingery@ avenidas.org for more info. Free.

Oct 9 International Beer and Pizza Day We thought this was everydayâ&#x20AC;Ś Oct 12 LGBTQ Senior Empowerment & Connections Group 2:30 to 4pm via Zoom, every Monday. Email tkingery@ avenidas.org with subject â&#x20AC;&#x153;Connectionsâ&#x20AC;? for log on info. Free.

Calendar of Events

Oct 13 Leonardo da Vinci: The Perfect Balance of Art and Science Presented by Lawrence Basso, MD 11am-12:15pm via Zoom. RSVP for log on info to register@avenidas.org.

Free Protecting Your Personal Information Online Explore Tech Lecture 10-11am, Senior Planet @Avenidas. RSVP to rsvp@ seniorplanetavenias.org for log on info. Free.

Oct 14 Webinar: Multi-Generational Planning for Quality Long Term Care *Ă&#x20AC;iĂ&#x192;iÂ&#x2DC;Ă&#x152;i` LĂ&#x17E; Â&#x2C6;VÂ&#x2026;>iÂ? >Â&#x2DC;` >Ă&#x20AC;Â&#x17D; Â&#x2C6;Â?wĂ?] ÂŁÂ&#x2021;Ă&#x201C;ÂŤÂ&#x201C; Ă&#x203A;Â&#x2C6;> <Â&#x153;Â&#x153;Â&#x201C;° RSVP for log on info to register@avenidas.org. Free Webinar: Conversations about Dementia Presented in Chinese and English via Zoom, 11am12pm. Pre-registration required. Email pfung@avenidas. org. Free.

Book Club: Empty Mansions by Paul Clark Newell 2:30-4pm. RSVP for log on info to register@avenidas. org. Free Oct 15 Caregiver Roundtable Discussion 11am-12pm via Zoom. For more info and to register contact Paula at pwolfson@avenidas.org. Free Tinnitus Support Group 6:30-8:30pm via Zoom. RSVP for log on info to register@avenidas.org. Free Messaging Apps Explore Tech Lecture 10-11am, Senior Planet @Avenidas. RSVP to rsvp@ seniorplanetavenias.org for log on information. Free.

Oct 16 9GDKPCT /GFKECTG 9KVJ %QPĆ&#x201A;FGPEG Presented by Matthew Sohn and Bobby Giorgetti, 11am-noon. RSVP for log on info to register@avenidas. org. Free Live streaming performance: Avenidas Wise Owl Players Ten-Minute Plays and 100 Laughs, 3pm $4/ticket available at Â&#x2026;Ă&#x152;Ă&#x152;ÂŤĂ&#x192;\Ă&#x2030;Ă&#x2030;Ă&#x153;Ă&#x153;Ă&#x153;°Ă&#x192;Â&#x2026;Â&#x153;Ă&#x153;Ă&#x152;Â&#x2C6;Ă?{Ă&#x2022;°VÂ&#x153;Â&#x201C;Ă&#x2030;iĂ&#x203A;iÂ&#x2DC;Ă&#x152;Â&#x2021;`iĂ&#x152;>Â&#x2C6;Â?Ă&#x192;Ă&#x2030;{äääĂ&#x2021; Oct 17 LGBTQ 2020 Conference: Empowerment and Connections 2-4:30pm via Zoom. RSVP for log on info: mdavis@ avenidas.org or 650.289.5445. Free Oct 18 Live streaming performance: Avenidas Wise Owl Players Ten-Minute Plays and 100 Laughs, 3pm $4/ticket >Ă&#x203A;>Â&#x2C6;Â?>LÂ?i >Ă&#x152; Â&#x2026;Ă&#x152;Ă&#x152;ÂŤĂ&#x192;\Ă&#x2030;Ă&#x2030;Ă&#x153;Ă&#x153;Ă&#x153;°Ă&#x192;Â&#x2026;Â&#x153;Ă&#x153;Ă&#x152;Â&#x2C6;Ă?{Ă&#x2022;°VÂ&#x153;Â&#x201C;Ă&#x2030;iĂ&#x203A;iÂ&#x2DC;Ă&#x152;Â&#x2021; `iĂ&#x152;>Â&#x2C6;Â?Ă&#x192;Ă&#x2030;{äääĂ&#x2021;

Oct 19 Introduction to Hosting on Zoom 10-11am, every Monday. Senior Planet @Avenidas.

RSVP to rsvp@seniorplanetavenias.org for log on info.

Free.

Oct 20 Learn about Aging in Place: Avenidas Village Coffee Chat 2-3pm. RSVP required. Email dgreenblat@avenidas. org. Free.

Podcast Explore Tech Lecture

10-11am, Senior Planet @Avenidas. RSVP to rsvp@ seniorplanetavenias.or for log on information. Free.

Oct 21 Town Hall Meeting: Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Go It Alone 11am-12:30pm via Zoom. RSVP for log on info to register@avenidas.org. Free Cruise of a Lifetime 10:30am to noon, via Zoom presented in Chinese and English via Zoom. RSVP for log on info to pfung@ avenidas.org. Free Oct 22 Book Club: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

By Patrick Rodden Keefe, 2:30-4pm. RSVP for log on info to register@avenidas.org. Free Dr. Ruth O. Saxton Presents: Stories That Defy Expectations of Old Women 10-11am, Senior Planet @Avenidas. RSVP to rsvp@ seniorplanetavenias.org for log on information. Free.

Oct 23 Webinar: Early Retirement and Working Past 65: Health Insurance and Medicare Options presented by Matthew Sohn and Bobby Giorgetti, 11am-noon via Zoom. RSVP for log on info to register@avenidas.org.

Free Oct 26 Tech and Innovation Discussion Group via Zoom 12-1pm, every Monday. For info or to register email rsvp@seniorplanetavenidas.org. Free.

Oct 27 Virtual Museum Tours 10-11am, Senior Planet @Avenidas. RSVP to rsvp@ seniorplanetavenias.org for log on information. Free.

Oct 28 Mindfulness Meditation Every Wednesday, 2-3pm, via Zoom.

Visit www.Avenidas.org for log on information. Free.

Oct 29 Podcast Explore Tech Lecture 10-11am, Senior Planet @Avenidas. RSVP to rsvp@ seniorplanetavenias.org for log on information. Free.

Oct 30 National Candy Corn Day. Sweet!

Trusted Home Care Kendraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dedication to clients is just one of the many reasons why weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re the Bay Areaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading Kendra Benisano, RN, BSN Director of Homecare and Nursing Services

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In fact, over 16,000 Bay Area families trust us to take care of family and loved ones in the comfort of their own home.

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Page 36 â&#x20AC;˘ October 2, 2020 â&#x20AC;˘ Palo Alto Weekly â&#x20AC;˘ www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Living Well ELECTION 2020

Get Peace of Mind with a Private Nurse Families across the Peninsula call on NurseRegistry for the peace of mind that accompanies working with a licensed medical professional. Rest assured that your loved one is in good hands with a private nurse.

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Barbara Gordon, a 96-year-old resident of Channing House, adds her personal comments to a get-out-the-vote letter headed to Georgia.

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Seniors take up their pens to get out the vote

Call (650) 523-9149 for private nursing.

Channing House residents set to mail 20,000 letters to swing-state voters

by Chris Kenrick A group of residents from Palo Alto’s Channing House is preparing to mail 20,000 hand-addressed, first-class letters to registered voters in swing states urging them to vote.

About 75 residents of the senior living community have been working since January with the organization Vote Forward, which targets Democratic-leaning voters who live in swing states but are considered “relatively unlikely to vote.”

Letters addressed by the Palo Alto seniors — ranging in age from 70 to 96 — will go to people in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas.

“One of the things that’s most interesting to me is that hand-written letters are more effective than door-to-door canvassing,” said Channing House resident Mary Munter, one of the organizers.

The letters make no mention of specific candidates or political parties. They are pre-printed but leave space for personal, hand-written comments from the local senders about the importance of voting.

In a test he ran on the efficacy of letter-writing, Vote Forward founder Scott

Forman told The Atlantic magazine that turnout rates were 3 percentage points higher in a 2017 Alabama special election among the 1,000 people who received his letters compared to people who did not. Forman’s 2020 goal is to get hand-addressed, first-class letters mailed to 10 million swing-state, likely Democratic, voters.

This year’s Channing House project started with about 40 residents and grew to 75.

“When we started, we had these things called writing parties — we’d have lunch together,” Munter said. “Then along comes COVID-19. So, of course, we can’t gather any more, but we can still write in our apartments.”

The cost for postage, envelopes and paper was covered by the volunteer letter-writers themselves, along with about $6,000 in donations from family and friends, Munter said.

Also coordinating the letter-writing project were Channing House residents Ann Clark, Nancy Flowers, Sue Gilbert, Marlys Keoshian and Marcia Pugsley. Q Contributing Writer Chris Kenrick can be emailed at ckenrick@paweekly.com.

2 0 2 1 E D I T IO N IS C O MIN G IN NOVEM BER

Living Well

The Peninsula’s resource guide for seniors and their families

Living Well is a comprehensive source of local information for seniors with content including nutritional counseling, financial planning, home care hospice, recreational activities, computer training and more.

To advertise: contact Connie Jo Cotton at 650.223.6571.

NurseRegistry.com

Your Realtor & You REALTORS® Share Tips to Protect Yourself from Wildfire Smoke Bay Area residents already beleaguered by the coronavirus pandemic are still facing wildfires that continue to erupt around the region. The heavy smoke from the fires continues to endanger the health of residents.

Mary Kay Groth, president of the Silicon Valley Association of REALTORS® (SILVAR), called on residents to take steps to protect themselves from the wildfire smoke. "Our hearts go out to our brave firefighters and the victims of the fires across the state. Breathing the unhealthy air from the fires is dangerous, especially for children whose lungs are still developing, and for those who have heart or lung diseases or asthma and other high health risks."

SILVAR shares the following tips from various agencies, including the Center for Disease Control and Protection and the Environmental Protection Agency, to protect families from wildfire smoke.

Pay attention to air quality alerts. Stay informed by visiting www.sparetheair.org.

Sign up for Spare the Air Text Alerts on the website.

Stay indoors with windows and doors closed. Now is not the time to do outdoor activities, like mowing, trimming bushes, or running and other strenuous activities.

Protect yourself from smoke. If you need to be outside, use a N95 mask or greater that fits

snugly on your face. N95 masks are precious protective equipment for frontliners treating coronavirus patients, so to conserve their use, please heed advice to stay indoors.

Run the air conditioner. Keep your air conditioner’s fresh air intake closed and make sure your air filter is clean. If you do not have an air conditioner and it is too warm to stay inside with the windows closed, seek shelter elsewhere.

Do not add to indoor or outdoor air pollution. Do not burn candles or use gas or propane. Do not fry or broil meat, smoke tobacco products, or vacuum. It is illegal to use fireplaces, woodstoves, outdoor fire pits or any other wood-burning devices during a Spare the Air Alert.

Reduce smoke in your vehicle. When on the road, close your car windows and vents. Run the air conditioner in recirculate mode.

Conserve on energy. To prevent service interruptions, reduce your energy usage, including use of major appliances during peak hours of 3-10 p.m. Keep air conditioning at 78 F degrees and turn off all unnecessary lights. ******* Information provided in this column is presented by the Silicon Valley Association of REALTORS®. Send questions to Rose Meily at rmeily@silvar.org.

www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 37

A benefit event for local non-profits supporting kids & families

MULZH[VUPOb[ Half Marathon 10K Run 5K Run & Walk lto Wee A o kly P al

Moonlight Run and Walk

Run or walk with your whole family!

Follow our Baylands routes (or create your ownŏ.+10!ŏ anywhere) and run b5ŏāāčĆĊŏ,ċ)ċŏ0+*%#$0 ĨOct. 2ĩ. information and registration

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Page 38 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

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www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 39

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www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 41

WHY SUPPORT

LOCAL JOURNALISM? Our subscribing members say it best...

“

You are doing yeoman’s work in the face of an unprecedented rush of news and stress. THANK YOU for all that you do ... I am grateful to have you in our community and to be a subscriber.

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- Maria A.

Will you join the thousands of others supporting local journalism?

Now’s your moment to step up when we need you the most.

Subscribe now at PaloAltoOnline.com/join You can also subscribe for one year by mailing a check for $120 ($60 for seniors and students) to us at 450 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto 94306.

Page 42 • October 2, 2020 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com

Across 1 ___ Bator (Mongolia’s capital) 5 Part of a war plane 11 Italian or Swiss summit 14 Fantasy sports option 15 Qatar’s leaned 16 ___ Paulo (Brazil’s most populous city) 17 Bathrooms brimming with lawn clippings?

19 Fashion world star Anna 20 Words prior to “touche” or “tureen” 21 Obvious disdain 23 Wheat bread Pitt took in 2020 26 Appomattox initials 29 Country musician Axetone 30 Just ___, skip and jump away 31 Scandinavian fans of Wiggum’s kid (in Simpsons-iana)?

34 Quantity of bricks?

35 Two from Tijuana 36 Stir (up) 37 British artist William with a 1745 portrait of him and his pug dog 39 Hands out 43 Bangkok bankroll 44 Utmost ordinal 45 Wood that flavors bourbon 46 Thousand-dollar bills that fly and roost?

50 1052, to Tacitus 51 Last half of a tiny food contaminant (first half is, um, you know ...)

52 “Two Virgins” musician Yoko 53 Folks who Owen Meany films, say 54 Pang or misgiving 56 Military turndown 59 Big poet for java 60 Location of what you’ll ditch from all long solutions (and from Across and Down listings) for this all to work 66 Yahoo’s was in 1996, for short 67 Start to unite?

68 Pinocchio, notoriously 69 Brand Ides

“Eeeeeevil” — what can I say, it’s #666. [#666, Mar. 2014] by Matt Jones

Answers on page 34.

70 “Grande” Arizona attraction 71 Vigorous Down 1 It usually starts with “wee wee wee” 2 Hawaii’s Mauna ___ 3 Off-road transport, for short 4 “Ixnay” (or a conundrum in a tube?)

5 POTUS known for his feat 6 Jason’s mythical craft 7 Road tripe quorum 8 “I dunno,” in day books 9 ___ for “igloo” 10 Mama of 1960s pop 11 Part of ASAP 12 Hill who sang “Doo Wop (That Teeheeing)”

This week’s SUDOKU

Answers on page 34.

13 Toepieces of discussion 18 “___ Gang” (film shorts with kid “Rascals”) 22 Potful at cook-offs 23 “Right hand on holy book” situation 24 “Buzz off, fly!”

25 Capitol Hill gp.

27 Took a jump 28 Bad guys pursuing peace, man 31 Latvian-born artist Marek 32 Mila’s “That ‘70s Show” costar (now husband) 33 Code and sea-lemon, for two 35 Transylvanian count, informally 38 Bubbling, in a way 40 Pro tour sport 41 Unworldly sort

www.sudoku.name

42 Things worn to go downhill fast 46 Fined without fault 47 Hour for a British cuppa, traditionally 48 Gaucho’s grasslands 49 How you might wax nostalgic 50 Works of art on walls 53 Auction node 55 Meanly, in nouns (abbr.)

57 City full of fjords 58 Prompt jaws to drop 61 UFC fighting classification, for short 62 Holm of filmdom 63 Quick shot of brandy 64 Williams with a “Mortal City” album 65 Cook bacon, in a way ©2014, 2020 Matt Jones (jonesincrosswords@gmail.com)

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Working together, we can start bringing customers and employees back to work.

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www.PaloAltoOnline.com • Palo Alto Weekly • October 2, 2020 • Page 43

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