Pause the park
This week I attended a standing room only Los Altos City Council study session on the proposed downtown park and parking project. Many residents questioned why the city is spending millions to plan a new downtown park without evidence of clear, broad public support. The discussion revealed a concerning disconnect between city spending priorities and the needs of the wider community.
That disconnect is especially evident when compared to the condition of our existing parks. My daughter spent many years at Redwood Grove Nature Preserve and commented how sad it is to see the park in such disrepair, and the historic Halsey House, a wonderful nature center, has been closed since 2008 due to safety concerns, with no active funding allocated for restoration. Despite this, the council spent an hour reviewing multiple new downtown park concepts – one even borrowing the name “Redwood Grove”– while the existing Redwood Grove continues to languish.
What problem are we trying to solve by eliminating accessible downtown parking and investing millions in planning a new park?
This project seems to have been steam rolled without an unbiased assessment. City staff report “engagement” with about 1,200 people, with 65–70% expressing support. Even if this were a valid sample, it represents only ~2.5% of Los Altos residents, and even so, continued parking access remains the top concern.
The City Council should pause this project, rein in planning expenditures, and focus first on repairing existing parks while seeking broader, truly representative public input on citywide priorities.
Valerie Taglio
Los Altos
Disappointed by park discussion
I attended the special City Council meeting on February 24 for the update on the proposed park and parking. I was deeply disappointed that no council member questioned why the consultants’ engagement questions actually did not include any questions about whether or not the respondent wanted or thought there was a need for this proposed project. This was a massive breach of what a true open consultancy would do. Their questions positioned the park/parking as a fait accompli which it is not.
Similarly their community engagement numbers were disingenuous and blatantly misleading. Their approximate 1,000 respondents over 43 conversations, representing less than 3% of our population, did not discern whether or not these were actually discrete individual responses – they recruited responses at the farmers market five separate times but were those individuals actually different each time? Where was the consultant’s data to support this?
It came to light that their engagement included high school students; when are high school students who do not vote or pay taxes for these projects considered as viable input? Really, a candy hand out for those kids as was noted during the comments period!
Lastly all of the council glossed over the Performing Arts Center as though this was a done deal. Where is the major sponsor that has been sought for the past three years?
Has their already paid consultant actually found a fundraiser? Why are they promoting a very expensive (project) (note the consultants did not address this cost) that will benefit less than 1% of our population at any given performance? Simple math by using population and maximum proposed seating number of 300 per all former information put forward.
Instead of allowing the consultants to bulldoze over everyone with their broad generalities, the council should hold them truly accountable and challenge their findings or at the very least, make them support them with hard data and details.
This should be what our elected officials should be doing. It would truly benefit all of us.
Douglas W. Gruehl
Los Altos
