As your Sept. 24 article, “Bold Questions,” summarized, the Los Altos City Council recently received a presentation from city staff on actions Los Altos could take to encourage home electrification.
Staff’s presentation was based on the Environmental Commission’s recommendations but did leave out details and analysis the commission conducted. After the presentation, Councilmember Neysa Fligor stated she was underwhelmed by the recommendations and expressed her view that the city needs to take bold action if we hope to catch up on progress toward meeting our CAAP goals. She is right.
Unfortunately that is not the direction the commission has received. In fact, the actions taken by staff and council over the past year have sent the opposite message.
The clear message has been the commission should stay in a very narrow lane with little autonomy and fewer resources.
Many ideas are dismissed by staff out of hand often due to lack of resources or perceived legal concerns. Information flow between the Commission and Council often seems to be interrupted by staff and on multiple occasions the commission hasn’t even known when a work plan item is going to council, let alone had the opportunity to review or comment on staff’s presentation of the item.
Perhaps some of this disruption is just temporary after the council’s restructuring of commission and maybe operations will settle back into a more functional state. But I can personally say that my last year on the commission was the most ineffective and frustrating of my eight-year term.
I hope for the sake of the city’s progress, as well as the remaining dedicated, knowledgeable, hard working commissioners and the city’s very capable sustainability coordinator, that this changes.
You asked a very prescient question of candidates during the city council forum last week – who is running the show in the city; staff or council?
I would encourage every voter who cares about the city’s sustainability efforts to ask every candidate what he or she is going to do to really move the needle on the CAAP – is the candidate prepared to set a bold direction and direct staff to follow it, allocate the resources, and empower the commission to work cooperatively with staff toward that goal?
Teksler of Los Altos is a former environmental commissioner.
