BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Planning Commissioner Eric Steinle, who is running for council, says he wants to put roofs over downtown Los Altos to give residents more shade.
Steinle said roofs could go over downtown parks, parking lots or sidewalks and could be made of cloth or metal, like a carport.
“The idea is that if you basically put a ‘people-port’ over at least part of the park, the people there will feel more comfortable. They will actually be protected from the sun, which is something that we all need to do,” Steinle said in an interview.
The roofs could also hold solar panels or cell nodes to help with spotty reception, Steinle said.
“Once you have a layer of ‘not people’ but other stuff, there’s all kinds of things we can now do … And it wouldn’t bother people in the same way because it’s way up there,” Steinle said.
The city is looking into developing its downtown parking lots and building a new garage, with a park on the top floor.
The park would be a good place to start with a partial roof, Steinle said. Metal would last longer, but cloth would be cheaper, he said.
Steinle said he would also look into requiring new apartment buildings to put awnings over the sidewalk.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea or a bad idea. I’m sure the engineers will come and tell me. But we need to think about things in that way,” he said. “I call this jiu-jitsu planning.”
Steinle compared his idea to the skyways in snowy Duluth, Minn., where residents have more than three miles of climate-controlled walkways to get around downtown.
“These are all over, and this is the way people get around in the winter,” Steinle said, anticipating that Los Altos will get warmer due to climate change.
Steinle, 73, is one of five candidates running for three open seats on council. Mayor Jonathan Weinberg and Councilwoman Sally Meadows are seeking re-election. Councilwoman Lynette Lee Eng is termed out. Larry Lang and Ibrahim Bashir are the other two candidates.
Lang has been on the Historic Commission and the Los Altos History Museum board. Bashir has been on the Library Commission and works in tech. Steinle is an attorney who lives on El Camino Real. He became involved with the city in 2018 because a developer proposed an apartment complex outside his window at 4350 El Camino Real.
Steinle joined the Library Commission and started going to just about every council meeting from start to finish.
“All the really interesting stuff happens in the last 15 minutes anyway, when people are tired and saying things they probably shouldn’t say,” Steinle said.
Steinle was appointed to the Planning Commission in 2020 and is coming to the end of his four-year term. He said he reads the entire council packet each week, even one that was 2,500 pages, and thinks about what he would do if he were a council member.
“Since I’m already doing the work, I thought I might take some of the responsibility that goes with it,” Steinle said.
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