BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Resident Jeanne Fleming says she toured Palo Alto City Hall and saw very few employees in the areas she was allowed into, confirming her suspicions about why City Manager Ed Shikada closed off the upper floors to the public.
“That place is a tomb,” Fleming said after touring the building on July 18.
City Clerk Mahealani Ah Yun set some ground rules for Fleming’s tour: Don’t take pictures, keep to the reception areas and stay with the tour guide at all times.
“If a floor does not have a reception area, the tour guide will provide information about the department in the floor’s elevator lobby,” Ah Yun said in an email to Fleming the day before her tour. Fleming said she wanted to know how many employees were working in the office from each department.
For example, Fleming said she only saw five employees working in Planning and Development Services on the fifth floor, and only three employees in Utilities Division on the third floor.
Human Resources Nick Raisch said that “17 to 18” employees were in the office that day. This depart ment has 20 employees, so that’s 85% working in the office, Fleming said.
Fire administration had eight of nine employees in the office on the sixth floor, Fleming said.
City spokeswoman Jeanne Billeci said in an email that the percentage of full-time employees working from home varies from day to day. Around 7% to 21% of the city’s approximately 917 full-time employees work remotely, depending on the day, she said.
The locked floor
During her tour, Fleming said she wasn’t allowed on the eighth floor where City Attorney Molly Stump works. She said that Ah Yun told her the doors to that office are always kept locked and she couldn’t go to the elevator lobby.
“What are they hiding up there, a hookah lounge for senior staff?” Fleming asked.
Offices on the first and second floors were empty, Fleming said.
Fleming is aligned with Councilman Greg Tanaka, who has criticized Shikada for locking the elevators in the lobby.
“We need to make it easy for people to meet who they have to meet,” Tanaka said in a December interview. “Some stuff can be done online. But the city in general is a physical place, and not everyone is tech-savvy.”
Members of council’s Finance Committee also told Shikada that City Hall still feels empty and locked up after the pandemic.
“It’s valuable space, and anyone who goes up on our upper floors sees that we don’t utilize it like we used to,” Councilman Pat Burt said at a meeting on May 7.
Burt said he’s interested in bringing in nonprofits to work at 250 Hamilton Ave.
“I’m sort of concerned that we’re basically wasting a lot of dollars in the value of this space,” he said.
Receptionist proposed
Councilwoman Vicki Veenker said the city should consider having a receptionist on the first floor, so it’s not just an automated system.
“I do think that just optically, it’d be nice to see this building fuller, to feel like it was more heavily used,” Veenker said, raising air quotes as she said “fuller.”
Shikada said he decided to keep the elevators locked in the name of workplace safety. He told council about the change in an email on June 30, 2021, that went over how City Hall would be “reactivated” coming out of the pandemic.
“In keeping with current workplace safety best practices and support contact tracing, access above the ground level will require badge access and visitors will be escorted,” Shikada told council.
Shikada challenged Burt’s assumption that City Hall was underused.
A variation of workers come in on different days because of remote work schedules, particularly on Mondays and Fridays, Shikada said.
Office space is now being used for “hoteling,” where city employees schedule time to work.
Departments leaving City Hall
Police officers are getting ready to move out of City Hall, freeing up 25,000 square feet of space. Their new headquarters near California Avenue is tentatively scheduled to open later this year.
“With that move finally happening, we really need to make some decisions soon and get underway with the planning for what’s going to be a pretty serious renovation project to make that police building usable for another purpose,” Director of Public Works Brad Eggleston told the Finance Committee.
Fire administration and the Office of Emergency Services are also planning to move from the sixth floor at City Hall to the new police headquarters, Eggleston said.
The city will look at reducing the size of the IT department’s data center on the second floor and reconfiguring the cafeteria in the basement.
This year’s includes $629,096 for space planning at City Hall. That doesn’t include any money for construction.
Councilwoman Lydia Kou in August 2022 said the city should consider applying for a state grant to convert the old police headquarters into a homeless shelter.
This is absurd on SO may fronts that cost US the taxpayers time and money. 1) It was 10 years ago that PA spent almost $500,000 on an “interactive Wayfinder system” to help residents and contractors find their way around City Hall as part of a $5,000,000 set of City Hall “improvements.” At the time we laughed at how stupid the city manager must assume we and the contractors are that we needed such help. 2) Just this week Bob Moss, a woman on Greer and a friend all documented their problems in getting any type of response from PA Utilities for MONTHS and how they were forced to trot down to City Hall to TRY to present their documentation in person but could not because the building was locked down.
Shame on Mayor Greer Stone for silencing those complaints. Shame on City Council for tolerating thisd egregious over-reach by the City Manager.
And shame on us the voters, tax payers and Utility Customers for letting our highly paid staff get away with this while letting them keep hiring more employees and consultants!
I’ll bet if you laid off half our city workforce, half the PACC and our City Manager, there’d be no noticeable difference in city services. The lack of oversight is astonishing and unacceptable.
I think that City services would actually improve with Mr. Shikada gone! I have talked to many many City employees who are extremely frustrated that they are blocked from helping residents.
Mr. Shikada was asked to leave San Jose for creating a toxic work environment and undermining the City Council. Why did we get him, and why is the same behavior tolerated here in Palo Alto?
I have a friend who works for the city outside of the City Hall. When this employee needed assistance from Human Resources the employee was directed email or call. Both went unanswered and when the employee went to City Hall to turn in paperwork and talk to someone in person the employee couldn’t even access the Human Resources lobby. To make matter worst when another city worker exited out the door of a “restricted area” the city worker would not even help or engage in conversation. Now if that is happening with their own staff how do you think the services are going with residents.
Gee, since Candidate Causey makes such a big deal about her role on PA’s Human Relations Commission. maybe you should request her specific assistance and see how far you get
City Council is being entirely run by artificial intelligence. His name is Shikada.