SB 91’s eviction moratorium expires on June 30th. This puts at risk over 14,000 households in San Mateo County and over 1 million in California of being unhoused. Read on for a brief explanation of what’s happening and steps you can take right now to help.
California launched Housing Is Key, a rent relief program which reimburses landlords 80% of an eligible renter’s unpaid rent as long as they waive the remaining 20%. [Learn more here] Yet, once this moratorium expires, the program will also be lifted.
Faith in Action Bay Area conducted phone calls to tenants and landlords who hold or owe rent debt in San Mateo County and found:
There is not enough outreach about this rent relief program. To put into perspective, 49 phone calls out of 58 were not aware of the program, that’s 87%.
The program is not accessible due to lack of access to technology and/or language support.
Money is being dirbured too slowly. Pacific Tribune reported that only 1.6% of the money requested in San Mateo County has been paid out.
There have been improvements with this debt relief program, but they are meaningless without the extension of the extinction moratorium. As perfectly stated by HLC, “The debt relief program needs to be improved AND given time to work”. To read HLC’s full newsletter, click here.
Here is what you can do, reach out to your representative:
Contact your State Senator, Josh Becker by clicking here and Assemblymember, Marc Berman here, in support of a state-wide eviction moratorium extension. When asked to “Select an issue” choose COVID-19, Bill/Legislation, or what most closely relates to your comment.
Ask the Menlo Park city council to prioritize rent relief and other covid financial assistance with a new grant to Samaritan House in the budget
Ask the city to fund outreach by local organizations with trusting connection to hard-to-reach residents (BHA, BCDF) and legal services (CLSEPA, Legal Aid SMC)
You may also contact Senate President Toni Atkins, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, or Governor Newsom in support of a state-wide eviction moratorium extension.
Identify yourself as a leader in your organization (e.g. Marin Organizing Committee) and a member of your institution (e.g. your place of worship, nonprofit affiliation, etc.)
More than a million CA families are at risk of eviction if the state does not act now to expand and extend protections for renters.
We must extend the eviction moratorium until the end of 2021, or we will see an explosion in our state’s homelessness crisis.
Amend SB 91 to expand eligibility and allow more flexibility in distribution. Senate Bill 91 only provides relief to tenants who owe back rent directly to their landlords. Many renters borrowed from payday lenders, family, friends and others to keep their rent current, or sublease from others.
In order for families to get back to work and repay their debts, tenants need the flexibility to use rental relief funds to prepay rent for at least 6 months.
SB 91 must be expanded to include families who sublease.
Budget comments from Menlo Together, 2021/22 – Agenda M1
Honorable City Council Members,
Thank you for considering plans with this year’s budget to help the city restore services and recover from the impact of the pandemic. Following are updated comments from Menlo Together regarding the city budget based on the city’s community meeting and additional research.
Menlo Together is a group of Menlo Park and area residents who envision a city that is integrated and diverse, multi-generational, and environmentally sustainable. We advocate for an accessible and inviting downtown Menlo Park with housing at all affordability levels, and with pedestrian and bike-friendly spaces, developed to be carbon free.
We are glad to see more optimistic projections taking into account high vaccination rates, declining Covid prevalence, and increasing economic activity.
With this, we urge City Council to consider budget decisions that advance * progress on transportation and climateprogress on transportation and climate * reimagining public safety * recovery for vulnerable community members
Progress on transportation and climate
The Public Works section of the budget notes that Covid recession cuts impacted a wide range of services including park maintenance, the heritage tree program, fleet maintenance, street maintenance, review of new development proposals, customer service, neighborhood traffic management, planned transportation projects, transportation demand management, and the holiday tree.
The staff recommends restoring 5 FTEs for the heritage tree program and maintenance, restoring staffing for neighborhood traffic management, and adding 1 FTE to advance the Climate Action Plan. The Climate Action Plan implementation is a top priority for City Council, and the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is transportation.
The city has recently approved a Transportation Master Plan that identifies numerous projects and programs that provide safe, convenient, and climate-friendly alternatives to driving. For the coming year, the Capital Improvement Plan budget includes work on several projects that improve safety on high injury corridors and reduce driving, notably El Camino Real crossings, and Middlefield repaving, which has the potential to be bundled with bike safety improvements and several pedestrian crossings. This is in addition to the Caltrain undercrossing and Middle Avenue improvements that are already called out as a top Council priority.
At the Community Budget Workshop, we learned that important TMP projects that enhance safety and provide alternatives to driving may be at risk with the proposed staffing levels.
We urge City Council to fund Public Works staffing at a level that can reliably achieve the CIP projects that improve safety on high-injury corridors and enable reduced VMT.
With regard to the Climate Action Plan, we understand that there is analysis under way that is likely to recommend specific actions and staffing requirements to implement high priority CAP items this fall. In addition, we see that there are uncertainties in the budget with regard to the speed of recovery of tax revenues, and the budget includes conservative assumptions. Given high vaccination rates and low Covid rates in our area and the State, we are hopeful of positive economic news.
Therefore, we would recommend that the Council do a mid-year budget check. If there is revenue available, we would recommend using funding to implement specific CAP recommendations including staffing where needed.
Lastly, in contrast to the TMP, which plans to proactively improve safety in high-injury areas based on citywide outreach, data about safety issues, and needs across the city, the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program is designed to be reactive. It places a heavy burden on both residents (to gain the support of a supermajority of their neighbors) and staff (to support this process), and does not address the greatest safety risks of death and serious injury.
As the city moves forward with initiatives to pursue racial equity, we urge the Council to consider that residents neighborhoods with greater wealth and security are more likely to have the discretionary time to file NTMP requests and pursue the laborious effort to marshall a supermajority of neighbors to support traffic calming.
Also, during the pandemic, many places in the Bay Area and the world shifted to a “quick build” model where slow streets and safety improvements were made with a rapid and iterative approach with community feedback based on flexible implementation. We urge Menlo Park to pursue newer, faster approaches to safety improvements.
Reimagining public safety
The City Council has identified reimagining public safety as a top priority for the city.
Meanwhile, the budget recommendation is to rehire 5 FTEs to the police force before the process to assess and reimagine policing and public safety.
A recent analysis shows substantial activities currently handled by Menlo Park Police for which other public strategies may be appropriate.
We urge the City Council to hold off on substantial increases to staff levels while the city considers the most effective ways to use the budget to advance public health and safety.
In addition, we are hearing from our friends and neighbors that members of MPPD are seen in neighboring communities behaving harshly. If this is the case, we do not support this taking place in the name of our city and with our city’s funding.
Currently we do not receive data on police interactions that do not require further action such as detentions and citations. We would like to see data showing the location of stops, and race/ethnicity of the people stopped by MPPD in Menlo Park and in neighboring communities including East Palo Alto and North Fair Oaks. We support full staffing of the data functions that allow these reports and other information that will enable residents and the Council to assess how best to use funds and resources to improve public safety.
Data source: MPPD. Analysis source: SVDSA
Recovery for vulnerable community members
Menlo Park is receiving $6.53 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan.
The draft budget recommends using this funding to increase city services before the city has full certainty about the pace of post-pandemic recovery of tax revenue.
By comparison, we have observed that the City of Mountain View plans to use its ARPA funds for measures addressing the impacts of the pandemic on vulnerable residents and businesses, including rent relief, displacement prevention, homelessness services and downtown revitalization.
We would encourage the city to take an approach similar to Mountain View with the ARPA funds.
In addition, the staffing cuts to city services disproportionately impacted low-income and part-time staff who are community residents. We urge the city to prioritize rehiring if these community members are available. This may be an opportunity to rehire for full-time jobs and elevate long-time workers.
Lastly, budget analysis reveals that community services workers earn less than 40% of police department workers. While Menlo Park alone cannot solve the undervaluing of community services workers in American society, we would urge the city’s internal equity assessment to consider wage scales across departments, considering lenses of race and gender.
To address the uncertainty about the pace of revenue recovery, we urge the city to do a mid-year check and identify spending to resume at that time if revenue recovery continues in a positive direction.
In summary, we are grateful that this year’s budget will enable the city to start to recover from the impacts of the pandemic. We urge that recovery not just to return to the previous conditions, but to focus on forward-looking priorities of climate, safety, health and equity.
Menlo Park City Council is considering its budget for the 2021/2 fiscal year. Thankfully, the budget is based on optimistic projections that take into account the high vaccination rates, declining Covid prevalence, and increasing economic activity.
We are grateful that this year’s budget will enable the city to start to recover from the impacts of the pandemic. We urge that recovery not to simply return us to previous conditions, but to instead, focus on forward-looking priorities of climate, safety, health and equity.
The City Council has opportunities to restore services and recover from the impact of the pandemic with budget decisions that provide * progress on transportation and climate * reimagining public safety
* recovery for vulnerable community members
Community members will have a chance to weigh in on the city’s budget at several upcoming meetings including a community meeting on June 1, and Council meetings on June 8 and June 22.
If you have thoughts for City Council (after reading this blog), send a note to city.council@menlopark.org
The community meeting on June 1 from 5-8pm is a good time to ask questions of staff: https://www.menlopark.org/855/City-budget Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/91271920424
If you have to choose one time to make spoken public comment to the City Council, join the June 8 City Council meeting (by Zoom/dial-in). The agenda and dial-in information is expected to be posted on Wednesday, June 3 and we will share it as well.
Read on for some overview information on the budget, and ideas for recommendations to refine the budget to support Menlo Together’s values.
Budget overview
The City’s General Fund, where the City Council has the most spending discretion, represents about $58 million dollars. If we are reading the city’s budget data correctly, the city’s General Fund budget was about $70 million. However, this year the city made some accounting changes moving about $4 million into other funds, leaving $66 million for an apples to apples comparison to the pre-Covid General Fund.
So the city’s revenue is projected to still be more than 10% down, but that may change based on the pace of economic recovery. .
The bulk of the city’s resources, over 60% are used for personnel pay and benefits. The largest share goes to police, followed by the library and community services, and public works (see chart.).
For more information, check out the city’s budget website and this helpful presentation put together by Council Member Wolosin for her constituents and all city residents.
The Public Works section of the budget notes that Covid recession cuts impacted a wide range of services including park maintenance, the heritage tree program, fleet maintenance, street maintenance, review of new development proposals, customer service, neighborhood traffic management, planned transportation projects, transportation demand management, and the holiday tree.
The staff recommends restoring 5 full time equivalent staff for the heritage tree program and maintenance, restoring staffing for neighborhood traffic management, and adding 1 full time equivalent to advance the Climate Action Plan.
The Climate Action Plan implementation is a top priority for City Council, and the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is transportation. The city has recently approved a Transportation Master Plan (TMP) that identifies numerous projects and programs that provide safe, convenient, and climate-friendly alternatives to driving.
In the Covid recovery budget, we urge the City to prioritize proactive measures to implement TMP projects and programs and advance the Climate Action Plan.
Reimagining public safety
The City Council has identified reimagining public safety as a top priority for the city.
Meanwhile, the budget recommendation is to rehire 5 full time equivalent staff positions to the police force, before the process to assess and reimagine policing and public safety.
A recent analysis (see below) shows that there are substantial activities currently handled by Menlo Park Police for which other public strategies may be appropriate.
We urge the City Council to hold off on substantial increases to staff levels while the city considers the most effective ways to use the budget to advance public health and safety. We do support full staffing of the data functions that allow these reports and other information that will enable residents and the Council to assess how best to use funds and resources to improve public safety.
Data source: MPPD. Analysis source: SVDSA
Recovery for vulnerable community members
Menlo Park is receiving $6.53 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan.
The draft budget recommends using this funding to increase city services before the city has full certainty about the pace of post-pandemic recovery of tax revenue.
By comparison, we have observed that the City of Mountain View plans to use its American Rescue Plan funds for measures addressing the impacts of the pandemic on vulnerable residents and businesses, including rent relief, displacement prevention, homelessnes services and downtown revitalization.
We would encourage the city to take an approach similar to Mountain View with the ARP funds.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, cities in the Bay Area and across the US, are exploring ways to provide traffic enforcement and safety improvements without armed police. Berkeley has already approved such a measure, and similar measures have been under consideration in Oakland.
According to the article in The Appeal below, “Of all the functions that could be separated from the police department, one of the most significant would be the removal of traffic enforcement. Over 24 million people each year come into contact with police during a traffic stop, according to data from the Department of Justice. And traffic stops can be especially dangerous and discriminatory for people of color: Black drivers are 20 percent more likely to be stopped than white drivers, and as much as twice as likely to be searched, according to a study of 100 million traffic stops conducted by the Stanford Open Policing Project. And 11 percent of all fatal shootings by police in 2015 occurred during traffic stops, according to a Washington Post database of police killings.”
Prior to Covid, the staff reports notes that Menlo Park had relatively high collision rates, so the solutions we were using before Covid weren’t delivering safety.
Improving safety for people using roads is important, and there are many needs for which armed police are not the most effective or cost-effective strategy.
To protect the safety of children going to school, crossing guards would be helpful
To help children learn to bike and walk safety, education specialists would be helpful
And, in the long run, improving streets for safe driving speeds and safer walking and bicycling will have the greatest impact.
As the nation rethinks how best to provide public safety, Menlo Park should review investments in roadway safety beyond policing.
Here are some resources on the issue and other cities:
In July 2020, Menlo Park adopted a new climate action plan (CAP) that included groundbreaking measures phasing out fossil fuel use throughout the city, and prioritizing racial justice. This was the boldest of any city in California, with a zero carbon target by 2030, through a combination of 90% greenhouse gas reductions and 10% carbon removal.
Although we are in the midst of a global pandemic and resulting economic turmoil, the impacts of climate change have not slowed. The climate crisis continues, and Menlo Park is uniquely vulnerable with residents in Belle Haven disproportionately impacted by significant flooding from sea level rise expected to worsen in the next few decades. There is scientific consensus that if we want to avoid the very worst and irreversible impacts of climate change, we must dramatically reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 through rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented measures.
The City of Menlo Park, aided by many experts on the Environmental Quality Commission, has stepped up as a climate leader. In 2019, Menlo Park adopted innovative all-electric, clean construction standards for new homes and buildings that at least a dozen other cities have since adopted, creating a movement for zero carbon development. The 2020 Climate Action Plan continues that leadership with four core strategies to dramatically reduce carbon pollution:
Phasing out Fossil Gas use in homes & buildings (through clean, zero emission heaters, water heaters and appliances as they are replaced), with a target of a 95% transition by 2030;
Supporting and advancing a transition to electric vehicles (EVs) with reduced gasoline sales, expanded EV charging, and City Fleet leadership;
Reducing traffic through measures making the City easier to navigate without a car, and increasing housing downtown; and
Eliminating the use of fossil fuels from municipal operations.
This Tuesday, March 23, the City of Menlo Park will hear an update on the Climate Action Plan, and consider 6 key measures. The staff report gives some options including halting some measures or reconsidering the CAP. Over the past year most City Council Members have been very supportive of climate action, so this new proposal is a disappointing turn that is out of step with city leadership. And the vast majority of residents in Menlo Park understand that climate change is happening, and most would like to see our city leaders take more action (according to Yale Climate Opinion Research).
Your voice matters! The City needs to hear from you that our Climate Plan can be done equitably, affordably, and to everyone’s benefit. It is so important to keep the CAP goal intact (Zero Carbon by 2030), maintain the core measures, and continue with the highest impact measure on building electrification (CAP Measure #1). As the world warms, now is not the time to get cold feet on climate action. Reducing our fossil fuel use is the most important thing Menlo Park can do to address the climate crisis. And you all know this can’t wait.
Here is what a sample message to city council could look like:
Dear Mayor Combs and City Council Members,
Thank you for your ongoing commitment to addressing the climate crisis. Adopting the Climate Action Plan (CAP) in July 2020 was a major milestone that cemented Menlo Park as a true leader. Please don’t let up on this important effort – we need all of the actions that were approved in the CAP to meet our 2030 target. The sooner we get started with equitable measures to reduce pollution across every community in Menlo Park, the more we will all benefit. In particular, Menlo Park’s leadership to phase out polluting fossil fuels from our homes and buildings is critical.
I care about addressing the climate crisis because (please add something personal about your concern with wildfires & hazardous air quality from smoke, wanting to leave a livable world for grandchildren, or being personally impacted by fossil fuel pollution if you have asthma or another health condition).
I support the recommendations of the Environmental Quality Commission and the Complete Streets Commission, and urge you to direct staff to continue working with these Commissions to implement the CAP with the appropriate sense of urgency that the Climate Crisis calls for.
Sincerely,
[Your Name & any affiliation you’d like to add]
Emails should be sent by 4pm at the latest on Tuesday to city.council@menlopark.org
Thank you for considering it! Your voice means a lot to city leaders.
This is not an easy time to advance a bold climate goal and yet we must move forward and accelerate action. As many of you may be feeling the impacts of climate change already intensifying, with 2020 being the hottest on record and with the worst wildfire season, there is no time for delay. Where several decades ago, climate change was impacting the Arctic and more about polar bears than people, now we are all polar bears.
At the Menlo Park City Council goal-setting meeting on March 9, Council Members refined their priorities for the coming year.
The overall summary of top priorities included:
Covid response and recovery, focusing on addressing inequities
Meeting the state’s Housing Element requirement, with a robust scope to address housing affordability
Implementing the city’s Climate Action Plan
Also, with regard to transportation, City Council maintained a priority to complete the bicycle / pedestrian undercrossing of the Caltrain tracks at Middle Avenue, paired with complete streets and traffic calming on Middle Avenue, providing safer trips for people of all ages across town to the Community Center, schools, and downtown.
The City Council’s direction for the upcoming year’s priorities closely resembled the items that Menlo Together identified from the beginning of the Council goal-setting process in January. Thanks to everyone who has communicated with City Council in writing and in public comments.
See this blog post for more on the recent revelations about Covid disparities and how you can help
Other items
In response to resident feedback, the Council added exploration of rail quiet zones to the queue. A summary of the resource / CIP implications is expected to come back on the 23rd. Also, the request from a number of residents for a ban on gas leafblowers is being referred to the Environmental Quality Commission.
Summary and Next Steps
There will be an important milestone meeting on April 13, when City Council will identify top priorities and take action to adopt 2021 priorities and work plan. A summary of the meeting by city staff can be found here and the timeline for next steps are listed below.
It will be important to continue to pay attention to the consequences of the priorities in the City’s Capital Improvement Plan and Budget. One item to watch out for is the potential impact of proposed additions to transportation priorities, including quiet zones, on the pre-existing CIP queue that had good projects for safety and climate, including important safety improvements in Belle Haven.
An eye-opening new investigative report from community organization Belle Haven Action uncovered stark disparities in rates of COVID-19 in the Belle Haven neighborhood of Menlo Park, whose residents include a large majority of people of color who are more likely to be essential workers, mirroring COVID-19 disparities around the nation. The research revealed that Belle Haven residents, who account for 15.6% of the city’s population, have experienced 50.3% of Menlo Park’s total number of COVID-19 cases.
These disparities in the rates of COVID-19 across Menlo Park had been invisible for a year because the county only reported data by city until recently.
Given the legacy of residential segregation and disinvestment in Menlo Park, and in many San Mateo County cities, it should have been an immediate priority to gather data by census tract. Thankfully, we have the data now – and it’s clear why we needed it from the start. Since the statistics for Belle Haven, in census tract 6117, were averaged together with the wealthier, whiter neighborhoods of Menlo Park, Belle Haven did not emerge as a hot spot. Yet the infection rate there is 14%, as compared to 2.7% in the rest of Menlo Park. These impacts were not made clear until Belle Haven Action published its report.
Belle Haven Action recommended that to address the disparities, San Mateo County must use trusted messengers to bring the resources directly to the communities with the highest infection rates, which are communities of concern with high shares of households with minority or low-income status, seniors, and people who have limited English proficiency. Serving as known and trusted messengers, Belle Haven Action has set up testing sites and, most recently, a vaccination clinic in the community. To locate a testing and/or vaccination site in the Belle Haven community please visit: https://www.bellehavenaction.org/testing.html
In addition, Belle Haven and nearby communities of concern in East Palo Alto and North Fair Oaks have been excluded from eligibility for COVID-19 vaccine prioritization targeted at communities of concern, on the basis of data is reported by city and zip code instead of finer-grained census tracts.
Demanding a City Council Priority
The Belle Haven Action report helped to strengthen advocacy by Belle Haven residents, supported by Menlo Together, for the City of Menlo Park to set COVID-19 response and recovery as a City Council priority. The city can provide funding, resources, and communication assistance to connect Belle Haven residents to services provided by the county and state, by partnering with trusted neighborhood-based organizations and leaders. Local elected officials and trusted messengers must be at the table when planning testing and vaccinations in the communities of concern.
At a recent City Council discussion about priorities for the coming year, sharp questioning by Council Member Taylor revealed that the City had not previously identified a point person on staff to focus on COVID-19 response, and the perception of city senior staff was that because the County has primary responsibility for public health, the City does not have a major role to play. The meeting is recorded here, and the discussion runs from 4:26 to 5:30 in the video.
In response to Council Member Taylor questioning and resident demands, City Council demanded a higher priority for COVID-19 response by the city, with actions including:
assigning a staff person focused on COVID-19 response
listening for community needs
providing a bridge between state/county programs and Menlo Park resident needs
supporting community based organizations that are effective at communicating with residents in Belle Haven
allocating new federal relief funds to address COVID-19 disparities
supporting prioritization of vaccines for Belle Haven and neighboring communities in East Palo Alto and North Fair Oaks (see below).
Demanding a fair share of vaccines and relief funds
Local residents have recently received the support of state legislators Josh Becker and Mark Berman in calling attention to the need to allocate COVID-19 resources by census tract, instead of zip code or city, to ensure that low-income communities of color in the Bay Area receive vaccine priority and a fair share of relief funding. This is especially important for communities in San Mateo County zip codes– with high incomes and good health indicators relative to the rest of the state– as they have not benefited from the state’s strategy to prioritize vaccine distribution to the lowest-income, highest-risk areas of California.
The COVID-19 disparities echo the shocking but familiar stories of underinvestment and insufficient attention to low-income committees of color in our area and nationwide.
Action Steps:
Here are some steps you can take to reinforce the hard work of our local leaders in revealing the inequities and demanding attention and resources to address them.
* Let Menlo Park City Council know by their priority-setting meeting on April 13 that you support the participation and leadership of local community-based organizations in communities of concern, especially as more resources from federal relief funds become available for COVID-19 response. Send email to city.council@menlopark.org
Please join us by Zoom on Sunday, March 7 from 4:00 to 5:00pm for our first General Meeting. We will:
Connect and hear briefly about Menlo Together’s accomplishments and how you can get involved.
Hear a presentation from San Mateo County Health Equity leaders, Shireen Malekafzali and Belén Seara, on the Health Impacts of Housing, Environment, and Mobility. Q&A will follow.
Host optional post-meeting break-out groups to dive deeper into an upcoming activity of your choice.
Please extend this invitation to others who share our vision of a city that is integrated and diverse, multi-generational, and environmentally sustainable.
Covid-19 and the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and the countless other Black people killed by U.S. police have once again exposed the ongoing impact of America’s long history — and present-day patterns — of racist policies and actions. These events have inspired many Menlo Park residents to learn the truth — however uncomfortable — about our city’s past, and to build a more equitable future for all. Menlo Together’s The Color of Law: Local Edition workshops have met the moment by helping local residents face our history with honesty and by offering specific opportunities to act.
Before the racial reckoning of 2020, Richard Rothstein’s book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How our Government Segregated America inspired Menlo Together to learn more about how residential segregation played out in Menlo Park. The Color of Law: Menlo Park Edition was the result of a deep dive into our local library archives. Over a hundred local residents attended this in-person workshop in 2019. In 2020, Menlo Together brought the experience to Zoom starting with Housing Leadership Council’s Housing Leadership Day and the Menlo Park City School District Speaker Series, followed by events for the Ladera DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) Committee and the San Mateo Housing Department. In total, Menlo Together’s TheColor of Law: Menlo Park Edition workshops have reached almost 350 residents, with more workshops on the way.
What is the draw?
For many, the workshop’s power is in its local specificity. “It was about Menlo Park, where I live,” according to one participant. “[In the past,] learning about segregation was not about my home…” For another attendee, the most impactful part of the workshop was learning “the local history, how Belle Haven and East Palo Alto became isolated,” and “how certain [white] Menlo Park neighborhoods fled Ravenswood [school district].”
Other participants cited the impact of the personal stories of Menlo Together members Pam D. Jones and Deadra Lampkin, and member emeritus Karen Camacho, who shared how residential segregation has impacted their families. These stories made real what might have been abstract concepts before the workshop; for one participant, they “made the book come alive.”
Combined with these stories, Menlo Together’s use of the interactive tools available in Zoom made the workshop feel intimate, even with a large number of participants on an online platform. One attendee “liked most of all how everyone was encouraged to participate,” and appreciated “how anxieties about doing so were well addressed” and another “was … thrilled to find so many folks nearby who are passionate about this.”
A call to action
The Color of Law: Menlo Park Edition is not just a history lesson, it is a call to action. “I really appreciated the ways in which the workshop provided opportunities for engagement by the participants,” one participant noted. Even “more eye opening was the more recent ways in which discrimination continues to impact people of color’s access to housing or pushes them out of their neighborhoods when there is gentrification and displacement.”
Join – and invite others to join – the Menlo Together email list for timely information about when to make your voice heard in support of racial justice in housing, transportation and climate policies.
If you live in a high opportunity neighborhood in Menlo Park with few or no affordable homes, tell our city council that you support affordable housing of all types (not just single-family homes) in your neighborhood.
A robust Housing Element process to address opportunities to improve affordability and racial equity
A broader initiative to support people and businesses to endure and recover from the impacts of Covid
Continued focus on the Climate Action Plan, potentially including opportunities to improve walking, bicycling, and other alternatives to driving.
There were also a variety of other ideas that emerged from community members and Council members. Council will need to make important decisions to winnow the list of ideas that the city will focus on.
On February 23rd, City Council will return to the goal setting process to make decisions – this will be an important moment to steer the city’s priorities in a year that will have big challenges and opportunities for housing, transportation, sustainability and racial justice.
We will keep you posted on actions you can take to further these goals.
Read on for more background on what happened at the meeting.
Housing Element. With regard to the Housing Element, which is a legal requirement to plan for housing for people of all income levels, council members including Wolosin and Nash supported the perspective of going beyond the minimal requirements to address needs for housing affordability and repairing the city’s legacy of segregation. Staff noted that the Housing Element this year has new requirements to affirmatively further fair housing will will create momentum for these goals.
Covid Recovery. With regard to considering restoring city services within a broader frame of supporting people and businesses with the impacts of Covid, Council Member Mueller was a strongest voice for a robust response; there was a lot of dialogue about how much and what functions the city might take on, such as participating in the county COVID recovery table and make sure our most vulnerable communities receive the resources they need, and requesting disaggregated data to illuminate the disparate impact of Covid in the Belle Haven neighborhood.
Climate Action Plan (CAP). With regard to concerns raised by Council and community members that the Climate Action Plan did not appear to be highlighted as a priority in the staff report, staff reframed their recommendation, considering the project to apply for a Safer Bay grant to protect the Ravenswood electrical substation as a major focus of climate action. Several council members supported making sure that CAP implementation remains a priority including opportunities to focus on improving residents’ quality of life and reducing car traffic by improving alternatives to driving. This priority would also dovetail with the city’s Vision Zero policy to greatly reduce injuries and fatalities from traffic crashes.
There were a variety of other items that drew public comment and council discussion.
With regard to policing and public safety, there were multiple public comments in addition to Menlo Together and longtime community leader Pam Jones. Staff commented that the new police chief starting this Spring would focus on community outreach on the issues.
With regard to redistricting, which will use new US Census data to define the city council districts in Menlo Park, staff recommended early action in hiring a demographer since they will be in high demand.
A number of community members were interested in banning gas leafblowers, which cause annoyance and pollution. Council Member Mueller made a sensible recommendation to refer this item to the Environmental Quality Commission. While the EQC had declined to take the item up in 2019, battery technology has made rapid progress even in the last few years so the electric alternatives to gas leafblowers may be more ready for broad rollout.
A number of community members were interested in “quiet zones” – a policy initiative that the city would need to lead, to have Caltrain reduce horn noise. This project would require the installation of four-quadrant gates, which prevent drivers from getting onto the tracks as the train approaches, at the intersections where the Caltrain tracks cross surface streets. Atherton has already installed quiet zones and a Council Member from Atherton reported in the goal-setting session’s public comment on what that town had done. Menlo Park Council and staff discussed how this item might be advanced with some more planning.
As date of the Feb 23 meeing approaches, a staff report will be published with more detail for the Council’s consideration of goal-setting decisions. We will keep you posted on helpful ways to support the goals of housing, sustainable transportation, environment and racial equity.
