What are the priorities you would like to see the City Council adopt for 2019?

Palo Alto City Council : please make Gender Equality one of your priorities this year. We need to make Gender Equality a priority in the Bay Area, and I vow to work with you and other cities for the greatest impact. IdaRose Sylvester, Mountain View Human Relations Commission.

Night train noise is definitely affecting our quality of life in Midtown Palo Alto. The commercial train horn at night is so loud that our entire family is regularly awaken in the middle of the night. The city of Palo Alto should makes a priority to create a tunnel to reduce noise nuisance and increase safety for the residents. I understand that the cost is high but it is a measure to take now for future generations.

I’m writing to ask for city authorization to do a gender analysis and make Gender Equality a priority for 2019.

I want one thing for Palo Alto -- I want us to share space. To share physical space, to share space with other genders, backgrounds in City government, in the tech companies, in our community, to cultivate a sharing spirit.

Housing: Want us to allow more small housing in R-1, tiny homes, allow RVs, shared housing, 2 kitchens, dividing a big home into 2 flats, whatever we can do to alleviate the intense stress people feel in how much they pay and how far they commute.
Gender Equality: make sure gender equality is important.
Public Space: Protect and grow public space for our community. Do not allow tech companies to take over any retail, expand retail/resto zones especially Cal Ave could extend several streets.

Assuming Palo Alto lines up with national statistics, every 4th resident here has a visible or invisible disability. As a parent who thoroughly benefited from various programs, camps and music classes with my older daughter, I have yet to find any city-run service which my other daughter can take part in. Ava, who is now 16, spends her (long!) summer months and weekends going to Target, Lemo’s Farm and the SF Zoo while I private pay for various sitters to keep her busy while I work. Other neighboring cities have adaptive recreation programs, camps and many services which underscore the importance of each member of their community. I invite Palo Alto to please include everyone’s needs in creating programs, camps and activities. If you need a helping hand doing so, your friends from Magical Bridge Foundation would be happy to help. You wouldn’t only be serving those who have the disability, but would be serving their entire family.

In random order!....
1. We need more meaningful places for our teens to go, with at least 2 more youth centers besides the Mitchell Park teen center. Barron Park would be a great location as there isn't anything on the south west side of the city, and I would imagine having something closer to midtown would also be desirable. These places might have ping pong/pool tables, card/game rooms, perhaps some snacks, opportunities for live music, perhaps job boards, etc. Enlist some teens to help develop some ideas, and look at some of the German models for youth centers as well. These could bring our community closer, reduce the isolation from internet/phone use, and reduce car trips for entertainment. They need to be more human, and not over-regulated.

2. Along with number one I would like to see the city share its school resources more with the community. There are many communities which open up the school pools, basketball courts, and fields to let kids use them in the summer. There could be some small fees if needed. Many families cannot afford to join the Eichler Club, Foothills Tennis Club, or YMCA. It seems there are too many assumptions of affluence.

3. Climate Change--we've done some good things but we need to do more. Could we have the city promote and facilitate roof-top solar water systems for homes [perhaps offer an incentive]. Could the city expand its solar generation by purchasing and installing solar on willing homeowners who get free/reduced utilities while generating extra for the city? Could we drastically reduce the fees for ADUs while seeking to limit car parking/trips? Could we rethink some of our bus routes such that people could get to Midtown from Barron Park, or from the el Camino 22 bus line to side streets more easily. Could we have some regular forums for ways we can all reduce our footprint, including food choices, product consumption, travel, and water use. And could we apply this filter to our commercial sector as well as our residential one? I have suggested including data on utility bills of the the lowest utility consuming household [with their permission] for others to compare their own consumption against. We need to compare ourselves with others doing a better job so we can all improve.

4. Any programs to get more people biking. It is so odd to have such an educated community which continues to drive so much despite emissions being a significant contribution to climate change.

5. Do we have enough services for elderly who are living at home, possibly alone?

Thanks for asking.

Palo Alto City Council : please make Gender Equality one of our priorities this year - full stop.

I would like to see City Council prioritize equality in 2019, right now we've taken a lot of actions in our school district to prioritize equality it only makes sense that we match those efforts in our community. Taking steps to prioritize equality will strengthen us economically and make us a more attractive city on the peninsula and an annual analysis (or analysis every few years) on how discrimination/harassment is occurring in the community would give us a foundation to take steps toward a more inclusive community.

For 2019, a priority for the Palo Alto City Council should be Fiber To The Premises (FTTP) for our city. There are many reasons to make this a priority (among them to satisfy community demand, meet increasing data needs, and attract and retain businesses). We have several means at our disposal to fund FTTP (among them the City Fiber Fund, the Calaveras Funds, installation fees, and bonds). We want to keep Palo Alto on the leading edge -- FTTP is one of the few means at our disposal to do just that.

1. Develop a set of measures of quality of life that can be monitored and standards that can be adhered to. Such a list might include measures of congestion on streets, number of acres of park and open space, amount and quality of public transportaton, etc.

2. Infrastructure needed to maintain a quality of life in Palo Alto as we add potentially thousands of new residents. E.g., Peers Park in Evergreen Park is a lovely park, but is it sufficient if we add thousands of new residents in dense, multifamily, multi-story buildings along California Ave.? Stop ignoring the effects on infrastructure and start planning realistically for them. These include libraries, schools, parks, recreation facilities.

3. Work with Sky Posse to reduce airplane noise. Airplane noise has had a significant, negative effect on the quality of life. Try being outside in your garden during summer evenings and trying to carry on a conversation. Try sleeping beyond 4 a.m. when the weather calls for open windows.

4. Develop processes to involve residents in the decision making process early so that they can contribute to the formation of solutions. Do not keep residents in the dark -- working only with other "stakeholders" who aren't even Palo Alto residents -- so that they can only come to Council to complain when recommendations are finally made public. This is a terribly inefficient and unfair way to govern. If we have to develop campaign finance limitations in order to limit the effect of outside interests on elections and on subsequent Council decisions, then so be it. Tired of developers who live in Los Altos having a greater say about how Palo Alto operates than residents who live here.