To the members of the Menlo Park City Council:
Do NOT make the mistakes made by other city councils.
The Mountain View City Council is effectively telling you to avoid their costly ERRORS!
(See the attached article in the Daily Post, June 26, 2025. Page 6. )
1) The "low cost" apartments that Mountain View built are still too expensive for the people that they thought would need them!
So now : the apartments are actually only affordable for high salaried people. (people with cars that need assigned parking spaces)
2) The "project" was spearheaded by what appears to be someone who had inadequate expertise in such complex real estate "projects".
So now : They need to "bring in a team of real estate professionals to TRY to make the project break even" . . . To avoid having to sell the project at a " fire sale". (Losing taxpayers money that was in their trust)
This sounds like a complete failure of the councils fiduciary duty to the voters.
The Mountain View project has just 143 apartments, on land paying an annual ground lease of $1.9 million . . . So, why is Menlo Park giving a developer all of our parking lot land for $1 dollar per year???
I believe this is a BREACH of YOUR FIDUCIARY DUTY to the people of Menlo Park.
So, learning from their mistakes, what should YOU do.
Ask yourself: When should you bring in real estate professionals?
A) Before mistakes are made? or . . .
B) After? . . . To fix the mistakes!!!
My advice: Before!
"Save Downtown" has many Real Estate Professionals who can give you FREE advice on this "Project", because I do NOT believe anyone on the council has the real estate experience necessary to avoid the mistakes I see ahead.
Do not be so prideful that you choose to make bad decisions, rather than admit you need advice from professionals, qualified for the task.
From some decisions there is no turning back. Once you sign a contract and break ground, you cannot "Save Downtown Menlo Park".
The 3,500+ people who signed the petition opposing your plan, and the over 2,200+ who are signing the ballot measure, are giving you good advice:
Abandon the project and build elsewhere.
Michael C. DeMoss, Resident
Commercial Real Estate Attorney
Sent from my iPhone
