Subject: A better deal for Menlo Park residents ! Who interest does the City Council represent? Dear City Council, Please negotiate a better deal on behalf of Menlo Park residents on the Stanford Middle Plaza project. Stanford's Current Proposed Agreement: - does not meet Stanford's own traffic reduction and monitoring standards in Santa Clara county - does not meet Stanford's own environmental sustainability standards on campus *- does not meet standard payments in lieu of taxes of universities their host cities . * *Understanding that Stanford is a so - called non-profit entity, they enjoy many advantages that other business do not , such as not paying their fair share for all of the costs of police, fire, utility, common space and upkeep that other tax paying businesses pay and also not paying for the cost of the zoning, building, planning and other departments who will expend many many thousands of dollars on this project. They do not contribute to those city worker's pensions through sales tax or other tax revenue, but enjoy the perks of a ready made town and ready made services and amenities. How is it possible that Menlo Park will even consider accepting just $ 100,000 per year for these services, when the cost of a single traffic control person is a $70,000 per year salary plus benefits? How is possible that we will give away the costs of monitoring this project from start to finish to Stanford? Can an ordinary business or person get the same terms on development? What about " equal protection" or equivalency issues? Local business would be taxed but Stanford is not and not even charged equivalent use fees? * So the question of " what price development" is one that needs to be considered. The east coast has a variety of projects that have given sweetheart deals on taxes and costs to "lure" business, only to force the costs onto the community who, now years later, do not enjoy benefits equal to those costs but who years later must still endure paying for municipal services. Time for MP to wake up and understand that big is not always better, that our town is becoming a business and transit corridor lacking in transit infrastructure, which is pricing local businesses out of the market as well as impacting local residents while crowding our roads. I see no mention of a mandatory local transit fix m like community small buses, as one way to offset the transit challenge. Stanford , which has huge endowment funds, surely can find a way to pay an appropriate " use" or facility tax to our community. Harvard provides $4.5 million per year to the City of Cambridge. Yale pays $7.5M to New Haven per year. Currently Stanford only proposes to *provide $100K per year to the City to offset the impact to local public schools) ) . What is Stanford paying the rest of us for the inconvenience that this will cause, each resident caught in increase traffic can put an economic value to their time in traffic that could be put to better use. Why is this not important? * Please ensure that Stanford MEETS or EXCEEDS the above standards. Why would the minimum standard not be at least what Stanford requires on their own campus? Sincerely, Thank you , Barbara Rosasco 1300 Hillview Drive Menlo Park Received on Tue Sep 26 2017 - 09:59:21 PDT
