There’s a running joke among Los Altos Hills City Councilmembers concerning how often the words “rural” and “character” are recited at council meetings: If frequency were measured by a drinking game, all participating parties would surely end up drunk.
But “facts” nearly eclipsed the competition last week during a specially scheduled ad hoc committee meeting called to address residents’ concerns about a preliminary proposal for construction of a $4 million, 6,000-square-foot multipurpose building at town hall.
“Let’s get the facts,” resident Mark Breier said.
“We can get the facts,” Mayor Courtenay C. Corrigan said. “We can absolutely get the facts.”
“I think it’s vastly underused,” Breier said. “Let’s get the facts.”
Just the facts
Those elusive “facts” indicate how often the current council chambers is engaged with community activities like yoga and mahjong. Breier claims that the building is occupied less than 1 percent of the time and could be better used before the city considers constructing a building. Councilmembers and staff entertaining the idea of a separate, seismically safe space for classes, emergency operations and storage of historical town documents, disagree.
“The facts just simply don’t seem to bother you, Mark,” Councilman John Radford said. “That’s what I get a little concerned about, because you continue to misstate the facts. I’m not going to let you just keep misstating the facts.”
Breier, who lives on Esperanza Drive – directly behind town hall – commanded much of the ad hoc committee’s attention Thursday. In the early 2000s, he was a vocal opponent of the city’s proposed design plans for the current town hall (a Mission-style design some critics referred to as “La Quinta Motel Los Angeles”) and led LAH Outrage, a group of residents that fought for an alternative design.
A subsequent townwide poll suggested that residents preferred a “rural” design submitted by Palo Alto architect Barry N. Nathan, and the New Town Hall Committee ultimately selected architect Peter Duxbury of Los Altos to build the 8,000-square-foot structure for $3.5 million.
Breier insists that the city council never made good on promises to properly screen town hall from neighbors’ sight or to address drainage problems and complaints about noise pollution caused by groups that rent the property for functions.
“It feels similar, John,” said Breier, addressing Radford. “John, you’ve got a gleam in your eye that I’m scared of. You have a gleam in your eye that you want this thing to be built over there.”
Cost, implications
Some audience members scoffed at that observation, but Breier wasn’t alone in voicing his concerns. Approximately 20 residents with property near or adjacent to town hall attended the meeting, and several questioned the project’s cost, implications and priority over other town projects.
Esperanza Drive resident Karen Patou suggested instead that the council prioritize the concealment of unsightly utility lines underground.
“One of the main reasons we moved to Los Altos Hills was the rural character of the town, and we’d like to keep things as they are,” Patou said. “I have never heard that there’s been overcrowding here or clamoring for more activity here. I don’t want the extra noise. I don’t want the extra traffic. And I’m amazed that there’s that much surplus that we can, you know, be frivolous about how we spend it.”
So far, the ad hoc committee has spent an estimated $1,500 to cover expenses Duxbury incurred when drafting a preliminary design of the proposed multipurpose building. The committee has proposed hiring the San Mateo-based Godbe Research to conduct a formal town survey – the first in 17 years – designed to understand which town improvements residents consider most important. City councilmembers are expected to vote on whether to proceed with the survey, estimated to cost $30,000, at their specially scheduled meeting 5:30 p.m. today.
Until then, committee members will not take any other action, Radford assured after the meeting.
“I think we heard from a lot of residents and their specific concerns about moving forward,” he said. “It was a very well-attended meeting with lots of very committed residents who wanted to make sure we understood their points of view.”
