BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
A planning commissioner who allegedly tried to get special treatment after his daughter’s car was towed says that parking has become his number one issue.
“I am a huge fan of parking programs,” Commissioner Forest Olaf Peterson said at a meeting on July 8, a day before the city released a complaint about his actions at a tow yard.
Peterson said he’s learned about the public service that parking garages provide for apartments because he lives by the “beautiful” California Avenue garage at 350 Sherman Ave.
“I would have been the last person in the world to say that public parking is my favorite topic,” Peterson said. “But it has become, to me as a planning commissioner, probably one the single most important urban topics we have in the commercial districts.”
Peterson said garages can pull cars off the street to open up spaces for local businesses, and he wants to make sure residents have enough parking in garages “as a service for the community.”
The Planning and Transportation Commission was talking about its work plan for the next year, which includes a discussion of parking policies in the fall.
Peterson brought up the same garage where his daughter’s 1994 Ford Mustang was impounded by police because of a DMV registration issue on Jan. 6.
At the tow yard, Peterson allegedly tried to get a discount and suggested that he could “change the rules” and said he had police friends who would agree with him.
“His repeated invocation of his role appeared intended to influence the outcome of a private commercial matter in his favor,” the tow yard owner said in a complaint to City Manager Ed Shikada.
Shikada hired an attorney for $50,000 to investigate the complaint on March 9. The attorney’s report was sent to council on April 7 but hasn’t been released to the public.
Councilmen Pat Burt and Keith Reckdahl said they’re interested in releasing the report and will talk to City Attorney Chris Jensen about calling a vote.
Four council members — Vicki Veenker, George Lu, Greer Stone and Julie Lythcott-Haims — voted to reappoint Peterson on April 13.
“I did not believe there was a sufficient basis to conclude there had been an abuse of position. So I voted for the incumbents,” Veenker said in an interview last week.
Burt and Reckdahl were surprised to see a majority pick Peterson.
“We were supplied the same report, and I simply don’t understand how (Veenker) came to the conclusion that she claimed,” Burt said in an interview on Saturday.
Peterson has declined an interview about the tow. Given its financial impact, he will have difficulty being objective in discussions about the city’s parking garage policies, Burt said.
Peterson paid $494 to recover the car, a receipt shows. He left a negative online review for the tow yard and called Palo Alto police eight times before picking up the car, according to a log he gave the investigator.
Burt said he tried to give Peterson an opportunity to respond to the investigation during an interview, but Peterson “was unresponsive and even deceptive.”
“The public has a right to know the facts and understand what the council knew when we made the appointment,” Burt said.
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