Dear Council, I urge you to halt the Willows Village proposal in its current form, along with all major development in District 1 that can be legally halted. That will give you time to evaluate and respond to the serious concerns with this project and related matters. If you don’t want to halt the project outright, you could consider asking Cecilia Taylor/Betsy Nash to evolve their plans for a Belle Haven Library Advisory Committee into a District-1 resident-led working group tasked with developing a master plan for Belle Haven. The Belle Haven residents have called for a community-led area plan. The Working Group could start by determining what makes sense for the 59-acre section of land, in a flood zone, with such pretty views of the Bay. More office buildings would extend the current wall of offices that block the views of the Bay and tower over all else, like guard towers in a prison. More importantly, more office buildings will only exacerbate MP’s serious jobs/housing imbalance and traffic gridlock. Trying to address our housing/jobs imbalance seems the most realistic approach to staving off the worse impact of SB50. So, I suggest NO OFFICE but instead a Willows Village focused around housing with a mix of residents’ most requested amenities such as a grocery store, pharmacy, ATM and resident-requested types of shops and restaurants. You could also ask District 1 voters to decide on the project. *Serious Problem #1: Connect Menlo Not a Legal Update to MP’s General Plan * The Willows Village project stemmed from the Connect Menlo process that increased the already higher zoning density in Belle Haven. (If the already existing higher density was fair, is another question.) The Connect Menlo documents called it an update to MP’s general Plan. However, this seems at best misleading and at worst illegal. I’ve been self-studying CaliforniaGeneral Plan requirements http://www.opr.ca.gov/planning/general-plan/ > (2017 update) and Chapter 2 spells out the requirements. These don’t seem to have fundamentally changed since Connect Menlo was approved by Council. In other words, these requirements applied during the Connect Menlo planning process. As I understand Chapter 2, when a City updates its General Plan, there must be “consistency between elements.” In other words, if the zoning changed in Belle Haven it should have also changed in Sharon Heights, etc. The Connect Menlo update also failed to provide feasible remedies for the predicted traffic congestion that has followed. (We continue to not address them in the Willows Village proposal). The City did not address: issue comprehensiveness, internal consistency, equal status among elements, consistency between elements, and consistency within elements. In many areas, Connect Menlo cannot be considered an update to MP’s General Plan. If MP had conducted an authentic general plan update, an Area Plan could have been developed for the Belle Haven/M2 area. However, any Area Plans for the Bayfront Area (Belle Haven/M2) would also need to be consistent with the broader General Plan update. I urge Council to review Chapter 2 of the Calif. General Plan Guidelines and to also get outside legal advice on this matter. I think we need a second opinion as our current City Attorney (and others from his law firm) were involved in the prior Connect Menlo legal opinions. Based on the answer from outside Counsel, Council will likely identify further next steps. *Serious Problem #2 Council Needs Time to Consider Impact of SB1000 * Belle Haven is a disadvantaged community for the purposes of SB1000, the Planning for Healthy Communities Act https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1000 >. Former Governor Jerry Brown signed this law into effect on Sep 24, 2016 -- so it became Calif. Law shortly before the prior Council approved Connect Menlo. I stress the timing because I’m very puzzled as to why I have yet to see references to SB1000 in recent Connect Menlo-related documents such as the March 28, 2019 Staff Report (19-053-CC) titled, “Initiate Connect Menlo General Plan Two Year Review. I suggest at least a quick skim of the SB1000 toolkit https://caleja.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SB1000_Toolkit_Final_rev_2018July_web.pdf?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email > along with reviewing the law. The Willows Village Study session topics also omit SB1000. I believe that a staff focused on serving residents should be aware of applicable laws that apply to major groups of residents in our town, such as the community of Belle Haven. Anyone spending much time in Belle Haven soon sees the disparity between that area and the rest of MP. I learned about SB1000 from my own research. Surely we need a better training plan, and a way of keeping current with new laws. I point out that other cities have already had training on SB1000. Why not MP? When I recently brought SB1000 to their attention, three council members told me that they hadn’t heard of SB1000. Staff and our legal counsel should be up on all applicable laws that MP needs to follow and then show leadership in having these laws followed. SB1000 has clearly been designed to protect the public good. Our part-time Council and residents are putting our trust into the expertise of our professional organization. Is this trust warranted? SB1000 requires that cities (and counties) adopt an environmental justice (EJ) element or integrate EJ goals, objectives and policies into other elements of their General Plans. SB1000 was developed with the intent to create healthier cities (and counties) by protecting sensitive land uses and prioritizing the needs of disadvantaged communities. SB1000 adds to the required elements of the general plan an environmental justice element, or related goals, policies and objectives integrated into other elements. There are other requirements. As I understand SB1000, when MP updates its Housing Element or two or more elements of its General Plan, we are required to address the provisions of SB1000. MP needs to better understand the legal ramifications of SB1000 before we further erode the quality of life in Belle Haven through another massive, mostly office, development in Willows Village. A related law, SB 535 Calif. Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120SB535 >: Greenhouse Gasa Reduction Fund, also applies to disadvantaged communities such as Belle Haven. There is also state grant money available to help these communities who are disproportionally burdened by multiple sources of pollution and with population characteristics that make them more sensitive to pollution. I believe that MP also needs to better understand SB535 and what this means for Belle Haven and MP. *Problem #3 Connect Menlo Process alone was seriously flawed * The overall Connect Menlo process, just evaluated on its own, was seriously flawed. The General Plan Advisory Committee included David Bohannon, a developer who stood to profit from decisions to increase zoning in Belle Haven/M2. Residents from the Belle Haven, the affected area, had no Council or Planning Commission representation. The Guiding Principles were clearly not met and there were no benchmarks, metrics and general accountability for meeting these guidelines. Instead, they stand like empty promises to the people of Belle Haven. The Willows Village project, toward the tail end of the development in Belle Haven, is also the first time that we are starting to hear some talk about the community amenities that residents thought they would get years ago in the form of a grocery store, ATM, etc. There are other reasons why this project was flawed. The Connect Menlo project illustrates a fundamental problem in Menlo Park's local governance. I urge Council to consider the general dysfunctional in our local government that led to today. We have two parallel organizations with the City Manager and staff not directly accountable to residents. Council is supposed to represent our interests, but Council’s part-time role makes this difficult. So Council relies on staff reports and policy recommendations when Council doesn’t have the time to obtain deep knowledge of an issue. While some staff reports are clearly written, objective, balanced and thorough, I've seen some with a pronounced bias towards getting Council to agree with what Staff wants done. In parallel, large developers and companies have a clear, outsized influence in Menlo Park. Adding to all this, the general lack of transparency, accountability and oversight in MP makes corruption a very real possibility. (I'm not saying it's already occuring, but we have created the conditions where it could relatively easily occur.) Residents and Council also need assurance that all California laws, designed to protect the public's interests, will be followed. Unfortunately, I know of several that we are not currently following - despite my bringing these laws to the attention of our City Attorney. The law is also the floor, not the ceiling. It's time to take our governance and general City culture to a higher level with more safeguards for the public's interests. Our lack of diversity in the professional organization also contributes to the problems. One doesn’t have to attend too many meetings to realize that our senior staff consists mostly of white men. We need a management-level staff that reflects the diversity in MP. so this staff can better understand and relate to all types of people living in Menlo Park. We also need better safeguards to protect against possible corruption via improved transparency, public engagement and a strong information structure. As Menlo Park continues to grow, I think it’s time for Council to consider making the Council roles full-time jobs with competitive salaries. That would give our Council more time to research issues to lessen their current dependence on the Staff. There are other reforms that I would suggest, but they are outside the scope of this email. Lynne Bramlett Received on Sat May 04 2019 - 18:22:03 PDT
