Dear Mayor and City Council Members: As a long time Menlo Park resident I have seen the downtown area evolve from very few businesses open on the weekend, to a vibrant, bustling city center. Accompanying this growth is the increasing shortage of parking places downtown. One source of this problem is all the restaurant street seating in what used to be parking places. This might have been an acceptable plan in quieter days, but with the increase in population and demand for parking, it is now a very bad idea to loose all this parking to unused outside street seating. On any given day, most of these areas are unoccupied, and only realistically usable during a few hours each day during the Summer and Fall. With the addition of many new residential units along El Camino, and other projects in town, we can no longer afford to loose these parking spots to dining areas that remain idle. It is essential that we return these parking spots to the residents of Menlo Park. Sincerely, Noel Smith 1015/1017 Florence Lane Menlo Park, CA94025 Received on Tue Nov 21 2017 - 18:54:30 PST
