Dear Mayor Combs and City Council members,
In case you haven’t seen the Palo Alto Daily Post today, here’s the text of my letter that was published in the paper today.
Downtown Housing
Dear Editor,
Kudos to Menlo Park Mayor Combs for his valiant attempt during the January 28th meeting, to slow down our City Council from recklessly proceeding with its plan to put 10-story, high-density low-income housing projects in three of our busy downtown parking lots.
Sadly, his attempt failed.
Two Council members protested that a pause to consider alternative sites, listen to the newly awakened community, and give our two new Council members time to study this major issue, would significantly slow the process.
Well, that was the point!
They argued they need to see developers’ plans to know whether the project is feasible. Apparently they expect developers to do the due diligence that the Council and city staff have steadfastly neglected to do themselves.
News flash: developers are in business to make money. They’ll want to sell the city on whatever they propose, and could care less about our community. Fortunately, however, our residents and business owners have stepped up to the plate and provided many key facts demonstrating that this project is not feasible.
Here’s a brief cost/benefits analysis:
Costs: Putting over a hundred of our Mom & Pop stores and restaurants out of business. Creating massive gridlock downtown. Overcrowding our schools. Straining our infrastructure. Creating potential fire hazards.
Benefits: Enabling the City Council to virtue signal. They’ll be able to kowtow to Sacramento and its “affordable housing” mandate. And they might score points with the local billionaire whose well-funded organization supports this housing regardless of its disastrous impacts on our community.
Cherie Zaslawsky
Menlo Park
