"Why do I want to be on the Council?" I want to serve my community as effectively as possible. As an individual seeking to minimize my impact on the environment, the best I can hope for is to do no harm, and to help a few others along the way. But in city governance, I have the opportunity to help an entire community achieve that ideal, by providing it with the necessary infrastructure, tools, and knowledge. "What do you hope to achieve while on the Council?" While on the Council, I hope to help the city become more environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable. I'm very happy with what I've read in the Comprehensive Plan, it excites and energizes me because it contains many principles of sustainability, so I would seek to speed its implementation. Where these efforts stall, I'd like to find out why, get the community involved where appropriate, and quickly overcome our difficulties. I would seek to get the public's involvement and keep it informed on our progress in implementing the Comprehensive Plan.
In addition, I would seek to
- improve
- Promote balanced growth and increase the supply of affordable housing near transit and retail,
- curb the loss of locally owned businesses,
- reduce the environmental impact of development, and
- further a sustainability policy for the city
"What kind of 'thorough research' did you perform before coming to this interview?"
I read portions of my Ecocity Conference book, the staff report on sustainability, the Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan, newspapers for additional issues; I searched the web for information (i.e. city's budget, Description of departments, what SF's Environmental Department does.)
VIEWS ON ISSUES:
Topics Covered:A) Expand to 24 hours of operation, or at least ensure a looser network of routes at all hours, as they do in San Francisco with the Owl Service.
1. This can be done in part by expanding upon the bus routes which VTA and Samtrans operate in Palo Alto.
B) Increase the frequency of bus and train routes.
C) Minimize the number of transfers and amount of walking necessary to complete a trip.
D) Fund according to what you want the usage to be (not just what it is), maybe even more to get PT kick-started.
1. I examined Palo Alto's budget on the web (
http://www.city.palo-alto.ca.us/budget/) to find out how Palo Alto spends its transportation dollars. The information was not always clear, but it seems we are spending about- 1.5 million on alternative transportation, 1.2 million of which is paid for by grants.
- and between 1.5 and 3 million on street maintenance (depending on whether the alternative transportation spending is included in this figure).
E) Encourage VTA to not waste money, time, and energy on freeway and road widenings, and to invest instead in solutions which reduce car use:
1. VTA study shows county traffic has worsened considerably and has already worsened a few months after the study.
2. Studies show & VTA's comments agree that widened freeways simply bring more cars.
- County road boss Michael Murdter says we are spending $100M just to tread water.
- $100 million will be spent to widen Montague to 8 lanes and build several overpasses, "but in 20 more years the road is expected to be just as crowded as today."
3. Suburban sprawl, single use development, and continuous road widenings have failed us completely.
SOLUTIONS:
- a frequent, efficient, well integrated, multi-county public transportation system which operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- compact mixed use development along transit corridors,
F) Put bike racks on the Palo Alto shuttle, when it becomes permanent, if not before.
Traffic
- The city must provide people with the ability to reduce their reliance on their cars, such that they can conveniently walk, bike, or ride public transportation to where they want to go.A) Improve public transportation (see above)
B) More walkable/livable community projects
1. Insure access to local shops, services, and entertainment.
2. Increase safety
C) Get input from the community: why do they drive? What would get them to walk, bike, or take public transportation?
D) Balance jobs, affordable housing, and commerce -
A) In the short term we need to slow or stop the loss of local shops in neighborhoods.
B) Walk-and Bike-ability is aided by the availability of PT.
C) In the long term we should promote urban villages. No neighborhood should be too far from a grocery store. Like in Paris, a bakeries, restaurants, metro and bus stops can be found a few blocks or less from any residence. - The lack of Affordable Housing is a symptom of our region's economic and social non-sustainability. If teachers, police, and restaurant workers can not live here, then either our children will not be educated, protected, and fed, or those workers will--given the current defeciencies in public transporation--drive to work from distant homes, clogging our streets with traffic and our lungs with smog.
A) Commercial and housing development should be balanced,
B) I support higher density mixed use development near public transit.
1. Much of El Camino Real could be redeveloped in the Parisian style with shops on the streets and housing above.
C) I am developing an idea which I call a Garden Apartment building which would triple housing density (over a typical block of single residences) while retaining ample gardens for each residence, and including office and retail space.
Homelessness
- Homelessness is a symptom of our region's economic and social non-sustainability.A) Cooperative work programs may be a way to offer more services and incomes to the homeless, while keeping costs down.
B) The homeless community garden is valuable and shouldn't be lost if the downtown transit center is built.
C) We should loby the county, state, and federal governments to improve services and safety nets to minimize homelessness, otherwise we get the effect of every agency minimizing their benefits for fear of drawing all the homeless to their jurisdiction.
D) We may benefit from looking at other cities solutions and seeking to adapt them to Palo Alto.
E) We could host a community forum including homeless people and aid workers, government staff, and other interested parties to get at the root causes of their problems and try to craft solutions.
Office space for non-profits
- Kleinberg's been working on this. Non-profits typically have underpaid staffers coordinating volunteers to provide services to the community such as helping the homeless or protecting open spaces, or planting trees. They provide great service virtually for free, as well as promote community building and civic participation. Therefore we should do our best to house them in our city.A) Just as we require housing developers to make a certain percentage of their units affordable, so could we require the same of office space developers.
B) The city could promote and/or invest in the creation of an office park for non-profits.
Loss of Local Shops
- A dollar spent at a locally owned business is recycled through the community many more times than one spent at a chain store.A) Relates to the walkability of a neighborhood.
1. Residences should have groceries, services, cafes, restaurants, and entertainment within close proximity.
B) Retail spaces redeveloped to add offices should include locally-owned retail shops.
Development
- Many homes are being torn down and replaced. Given the high volume of construction projects under way in Palo Alto,A) The city needs to more strongly encourage or require the reuse of materials, use of materials obtained without environmental degradation, and the incorporation of features which reduce the resources needed to maintain these structures,
such as:
1. Passive solar design: natural day lighting, greenhouse rooms to capture heat, deciduous trees which shade in the summer and lose leaves to let through light and warmth in the winter, Southern facing windows, natural ventilation (depending on which vents are open, air is circulated to cool or heat the home)
2. Capture rainwater, use gray water treatment to provide irrigation.
3. Orient roofs southward to facilitate effective photovoltaic energy production and solar water heating.
Sustainability
- Sustainability means "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations." Palo Alto should seek to become a model of sustainability for the nation and the world, but first we have a lot of catching up to do with cities like Portland, Oregon; Curitaba, Brazil; & Bergen, Norway, to name just a few.A) A human community can only be sustainable if it is sustainable:
1.
Environmentally- e.g. Using more energy than we create is neither Environmentally nor Economically sustainable because we are sending money out of the city to produce pollution elsewhere (see section on
Utility Crisis).2.
Economically- e.g. It is not economically sustainable to subsidize auto use through road widenings, parking structures, cheap oil, etc. and spend money to fix the problems cars create, because such subsidies only encourage more auto use, thus requiring more investments.
- e.g. It is not economically sustainable to subsidize mining, which encourages more metal use rather than recycling.
3.
Equitably (Socially)- e.g. Our problem of lack of
Affordable Housing is a symptom of our city not being socially sustainable. If teachers can not afford to live here, then our children will receive a poor education. The same applies to all those who provide needed services in the community: Police, fire, restaurant workers, etc. While it is true these people can always live in other comunities and drive to work in Palo Alto, that model increases Traffic congestion and pollution.B) Eco footprints of Americans are huge, and if all the world lived like us, we would need many Earths to support everyone. Therefore it is our responsibility to reduce our impacts. We must use our resources as a rich nation and city to intelligently and courageously reshape our cities and the way we behave, in order to provide sustainable models for the rest of the world to follow.
C) I believe the City should factor sustainability in its decisions and use of materials, and I will freely bring such a perspective to the Council even before we officially adopt a sustainable factoring procedure.
D) We could create an Environmental Department, or an Environmental Division within the Planning and Community Environment Department, modelled after the one in San Francisco to help the city collect information, educate the public and the city, initiate programs, reduce waste, etc.
1. What San Francisco's Environmental Department is in charge of:
- Reviews current programs and practices, producing The Environmental State of the City Report, and coordinates community strategic planning with The Sustainability Plan for the City of San Francisco.
- Conducts public education and outreach to the community on environmental issues.
- Reviews and makes recommendations on policies proposed for adoption by other City agencies regarding conformity with long-term plans for environmental sustaina-bility (building and land use excepted).
- Investigates and makes recommendations to all City agencies related to operations and functions, such as solid waste management, recycling, energy conservation, natural resource conservation, environ-mental inspections, toxics, urban forestry and natural resources, native habitat restoration, hazardous materials, and environmental justice.
E) We could also create an Environmental Forum or Commission composed of city staff, residents, businesses, and non-profits to facilitate the interchange of ideas, and solutions to problems. I don't have all the answers, no one does, so a forum would help us gather, sort out, and evaluate all our ideas. The Romans did it, and their democracies lasted for centuries!
Utility Crisis
- Some people blame our environmental regulations for the energy crisis, while Governor Davis encourages us to conserve 7% of our energy. But if environmentalists had their way, all new buildings would be constructed, using known techniques, in such a way that they naturally require 70-90% less energy to maintain themselves.A) The city should increasingly promote passive solar design, photovoltaics, and gray water irrigation to reduce demands placed on our utilities.
B) We could plate one or two faces of city hall with photovoltaics.
C) We could increase funding for the city's PV Partners rebate program.
Flooding
- In large part, flooding is caused by the loss of soils and plants to absorb rain water. With all our buildings and pavement, water can not seep into the ground and runs into our overflowing channelized creeks.A) Rooftop gardens or cisterns collecting rain for irrigation would reduce urban runoff.
B) If our creeks had permeable sides (or were permeable only above the water table) perhaps excess water could seep into the ground, especially as regions under pavement probably don't get much water.
C) We could examine the feasibility of more permeable road, driveway, and sidewalk surfaces.
School Overcrowding
- If new schools are needed, safely designed multistory school buildings could reduce overcrowding.Pesticides
- Pesticides and fertilizers kill beneficial insects and animals, poison children and pets, and damage stream ecosystems. The city should use Integrated Pest Management techniques.Child Care
- Child care is especially important to working families and single parents. It should be available to all who need it, and be in close proximity to all neighborhoods.A) Perhaps we could coordinate and train stay-at-home-moms and dads to create neighborhood daycares.