Editorial
Project creep at City Hall $4.5 million lobby ‘refurbishment’ tough to swallow
A
project that was intended to be a renovation of the cramped conference room next to the City Council Chambers has somehow mushroomed into a glitzy redesign of the entire Hamilton Avenue-facing lobby of City Hall.
Like the minor home-remodeling project that keeps expanding beyond the intended scope and sends costs soaring, the city staff quietly turned this relatively minor renovation into a major and complex project designed to change the entire experience for visitors to City Hall. It also created a cascade of other impacts, including the relocation of staff members in four different city departments. And it happened largely in stealth mode, slipping through on the consent calendar at the City Council’s June 16 meeting without discussion as the council focused its time and energy that night on ballot proposals for reducing the council size and extending term limits. Unfortunately the media, including the Weekly, was guilty of missing this item in advance of the meeting, although Weekly reporter Gennady Sheyner picked up on it and last week dug into the story and the city staff’s explanation. With contracts signed and work starting immediately, there is apparently no turning back on this project. It is a great example of how a lot of money can get spent with little, if any, public scrutiny and how years of prioritizing and lamenting about needed infrastructure projects can be bypassed by a simple budget amendment placed on a consent agenda. The entire council, which approved the items on the consent calendar by a 9-0 vote, is complicit in not raising questions about how this expansion came about and why it was not given the chance to approve it prior to the bidding process (which, by the way, only attracted a single bidder.) For years, the city’s leadership has undertaken a painfully detailed process, including establishing a blue ribbon citizens commission, to identify the city’s most urgent needs for infrastructure improvements. At the top of the list is the need for a new public-safety headquarters, followed by renovation of two fire stations; street, sidewalk, park and bike transit improvements; upgrades at Cubberley and many more. At a price tag that has grown to $4.5 million, the renovation of the City Hall ground floor should have had to compete with these other city infrastructure needs. It is inconceivable that most Palo Altans would have put this project ahead of the ones already identified, and its approval undermines the city’s credibility as it wrestles to find funding for projects that are more important than this one. So what is in store for the public when these improvements are complete? By the staff’s description, it will rival the lobby of a high-tech company. Visitors will enter a lobby equipped with an “interactive digital media public art element on the wallâ€? and a new glass-walled community meeting room with multiple LCD screens, high-definition cameras and sliding doors so the room can be opened to the lobby for overflow crowds. “Open government and technology are the key principlesâ€? of the project, according to the staff report, and City Manager Jim Keene says the focus is to make the lobby “welcoming to the public and also work for the public’s business.â€? The utility department’s customer service staff will move downstairs, which conveniently allows some of the costs of the project to be charged off to the utilities. Elevator interiors and bathrooms will be spruced up and new signage will help direct the public. City Hall is 44 years old, poorly designed and compares horribly with that of neighboring cities. The city has already invested millions of dollars in other upgrades to the building, and these improvements solve identified problems. We don’t dispute that. But that is no excuse for how this project and expenditure received council approval. Presenting an expansion to the original project in the form of a budget amendment after the project had been bid and a contract negotiated is not good government, particularly with all the rhetoric about our infrastructure needs. For a project whose goal is stated as achieving a “more open atmosphere to encourage public participation and community access to City Hall,â€? it is ironic that public participation was so neglected in deciding if this was a good way to spend $4.5 million. Perhaps when the project is complete, the new environment will somehow enable the kind of discussion this project deserved. Page 18ĂŠUĂŠ Ă•Â?ÞÊ££]ÊÓä£{ĂŠUĂŠ*>Â?ÂœĂŠ Â?ĂŒÂœĂŠ7iiÂŽÂ?ÞÊUĂŠĂœĂœĂœÂ°*>Â?Âœ Â?ĂŒÂœ"˜Â?ˆ˜i°Vœ“
Spectrum Editorials, letters and opinions
Thousands of gallons Editor, I recently noticed several construction projects in Palo Alto where the house has been completely demolished, and apparently, the new home on the site will have a basement as a deep hole has been dug. The projects are pumping water from the sites to lower the water table to make the basement possible. The water is pumped to the storm sewer 24 hours a day, seven days a week for months. A rough estimate is that 150,000 gallons per month per site are lost. This is equivalent to the normal water usage from about eight to nine homes. California is currently in a historically severe drought, and we have been asked to conserve water. The City of Palo Alto put extra information in the recent utility bills encouraging residents to conserve water. Yet these sites are pumping water down the drain. I am appalled at the practice of pumping down the water table in Palo Alto so that new homes can be constructed with basements. I have seen this practice at several other construction sites in recent years. The new hotel to replace Ming’s restaurant proposes to do the same thing. I recently brought this issue to the attention of the City Council. The response was essentially, “Don’t worry about it, the water is not potable.� Even if the water is not potable, other uses can be found in severe drought conditions. William Brew Greer Road, Palo Alto
Not broken, but ‘fixed’ Editor, So “to better serve the community,� the Page Mill YMCA is closing after 35 years in the same location. Three thousand members are sent to far-flung and/or badly overcrowded branches because of “no natural light or room for expansion� at Page Mill. This makes no sense.
Correction In the June 27 issue of the Weekly, the final letter named “A cult of hubris� was inadvertently cut off three lines short, omitting the end of the letter and the writer’s name and street. The end of the letter should have read “What’s needed is accountability, a quality that has long been missing at every level at City Hall. Pat Marriott, Oakhurst Avenue, Los Altos.� The Weekly regrets the error. To request a correction, contact Editor Jocelyn Dong at 650223-6514, jdong@paweekly. com or P.O. Box 1610, CA 94302
In just a few days there were over 70 posts about this on Town Square, many distressed and angry. I’ll focus on the location question. Palo Alto sprawls out over several miles, with half an hour’s driving time from one corner to the opposite one. The Page Mill Y is right in the center of town, serving the population most conveniently. Without it, the members who rely on this gym for community, exercise and health education will have to expend more time and (fossil-fuel) energy going elsewhere. Many will give their business to private gyms or other organizations that are geographically closer to their homes. I sadly predict a large net loss of members to the Y (and not much gain, if any, to other branches). This is a situation where something that wasn’t broken was “fixed.� M.B. Phillips Old Adobe Road, Palo Alto
Why not have it all? Editor, Despite tremendous growth in population and industry since the second world war, Paris — the one in France — remains one of the most beautiful and habitable
cities on the planet. Dwellings, workplaces, gardens, shops and eateries blend seamlessly throughout walkable arrondissements that manage to retain a truly human scale. Of course, this kind of quality living doesn’t happen by accident. City planners had the foresight to designate a district on the outskirts of town known as “La DĂŠfense.â€? The area, readily accessible by public transport, is essentially an urban forest of skyscrapers. Most of the structures in this vicinity are purposed for office use. In addition, residential towers, hotels, restaurants, retail, parks and other amenities crisscross the quarter. Interestingly, high-profile design competitions attract local and long-distance property developers to vie for the glory of erecting steel and glass landmarks within this soaring sector. The Parisian solution suggests a best-of-both-worlds alternative that might make sense for Palo Alto. By creating a separate space for high-density buildings, and controlling expansion in the existing neighborhoods, ÂVÂœÂ˜ĂŒÂˆÂ˜Ă•i`ĂŠÂœÂ˜ĂŠÂŤ>}iÊÓä)
WHAT DO YOU THINK? The Palo Alto Weekly encourages comments on our coverage or on issues of local interest.
What do you think of plans for the City Hall makeover? Submit letters to the editor of up to 300 words to letters@paweekly.com. Submit guest opinions of 1,000 words to editor@paweekly.com. Include your name, address and daytime phone number so we can reach you. We reserve the right to edit contributions for length, objectionable content, libel and factual errors known to us. Anonymous letters will generally not be accepted. Submitting a letter to the editor or guest opinion constitutes a granting of permission to the Palo Alto Weekly and Embarcadero Media to also publish it online, including in our online archives and as a post on Town Square. For more information contact Editor Jocelyn Dong or Editorial Assistant Sam Sciolla at editor@paweekly.com or 650-326-8210.