BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council voted tonight (Aug. 24) to permit RV dwellers to park on two edges of the city while stopping short of a controversial proposal around businesses and neighborhoods.
The city will offer permits for RV dwellers to park on both sides of Coyote Hill Road outside the Stanford Research Park and on Embarcadero Road by the sewage treatment plant.
But the permits won’t be enough for more than half of the city’s 130 RV dwellers.
Council rejected a proposal to limit RV dwellers to one side of the street on 22 blocks that have been most impacted.
Over 50 people spoke at the meeting. Some people liked the ideas to permit and restrict RVs, but most residents were upset the city wasn’t doing enough to clear the streets.
“We are shocked, offended and outraged,” resident Barry Katz said on behalf of the Ventura Neighborhood Association.
Chamber of Commerce CEO Charlie Weidanz said RV dwellers are creating blind spots, making deliveries dangerous, taking away customer parking, leaving waste and stealing utilities.
“Palo Alto’s small businesses cannot continue to operate under these conditions,” he said.
Landlord Christian Hothem said he’s lost out on potential tenants because of a line of RVs outside 844 E. Charleston Road.
Resident Chris Schremp said he’s part of a coalition that may pursue a citizen’s initiative to ban RVs citywide.
RV dweller Rollin Tschirgi said restricting RV dwellers to one side of the street would just make them park closer together.
Ventura residents said they’ve dealt with the burden of RV dwellers, and the impact shouldn’t be concentrated in south Palo Alto.
So the city will also look at permitting RVs by City Hall on Bryant Street. The police department is moving into its new headquarters, so their patrol cars will no longer park there.
Councilman George Lu also suggested putting RVs south of Forest Avenue, on Encina Avenue and outside the fire station at 301 Alma St.
Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haims said she’s interested in permitting RVs at the airport or next to the city’s golf course.
For the permit program, the city will landscape Coyote Hill Road to prevent wildfires and paint new lines on Embarcadero Road so RVs don’t block bike lanes. Both areas will get portable toilets and trash bins, and RV dwellers will be required to have insurance, sign a “good neighbor agreement” and pay a $15 monthly fee.
Last night the City Council taught me that we have a moral duty to take care of the nearly-homeless, if they can afford to own and run RVs. If we don’t feel that way we’re abjectly prejudiced.
They now have a fresh idea: to ask employers to provide RV parking for their employees, and to ask Stanford to provide parking, too. Good luck with that.
A $15 monthly fee? What a joke, why bother. These freeloaders should be charged at least a below market rate fee. For example, if a studio apartment rents for $2,000 a month, then these RVers should be charged $1,500 a month for renting a space on our streets. They shouldn’t be getting a free lunch. It costs me $9 per month just to park my two cars in front of my house.
Time was wasted at the beginning of the meeting with a speech by a man who felt the city council needed more Black representation. The census says the racial breakdown of Palo Alto is as follows:
White, 45.7% to 45%
Asian, 38.1%
Hispanic or Latino, 7.9% to 8%
Two or More Races / Multiracial, 6.5% to 7.0%
Black or African American, 1.8%
American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5%
With a seven-member council, if one seat is reserved for a Black person, that would give Blacks 14.2% representation on council.
And the one Black person on council, Julie Lythcott-Haims, doesn’t represent the views held by very many Blacks; she is extremely woke.
Does George Lu, who is also woke, represent the views held by many Asians?
And who represents the Latino community on council?
I don’t think any group representing only 1.8% of the population deserves to occupy 14% of the council dais.
It’s not surprising to see council members offering up parking to these squatters that isn’t in front of their own homes. in fact, the solution to the entire problem is painfully obvious. The city can maintain a list of homeowners who support parking RVs on city streets, and let the RV owners select a supporting household. They can patch into their electricity and water, and use their sanitary facilities. It’s so simple and equitable. We can start the list with the council members who voted to allow parking.
Somehow, I feel support would suddenly dry up when it’s the supporter who is burdened.
I am SO tired of everything boiling down to identity politics rather than expertise and commitment to represent the entire community rather than special-interest groups. The reliance on identify politics rather than critical thinking prevents nuanced discussion of the issues and reduces complicated issues into a mindless team sport.
Recent examples include the campaign slogan / platform “Vote for Me; I’m bisexual and I bike” and the pejorative “Oh no, she’s one of those advanced math / AP people” which may be consistent with the national anti-education trend but totally unexpected here in Silicon Valley.
Back to last night’s OSV meeting, how did we get to the point that such sloppy work made it before a full council vote with no data about who lives in the RVS, no outreach to the residents and businesses on the targeted street, no community input and no awareness of/interest in all the logical objections and serious concerns raised for the last 1.5 years on Bob Marinaro’s list?
What a waste of staff time and resources!
Where’s the oversight and accountability and awareness of community sentiment?
We need an RV parking law that takes into account historic patterns of discrimination. All RV owners would be entitled to one space. If the RV owners is Black, Latino, Asian or Native American, they’re entitled to a second space that they can use or rent out. Disabled RV owners would get an additional space. LGBTQ+ would get an extra space, upon proof of their status to the City. All would be entitled to free electricity, free Internet, free food at any market in town, and free healthcare provided by Stanford Health. All of this would continue until the RV problem ends.
NO ONE is entitled to a “space.” That’s the problem.
Why is Julie Lythcott-Haims on the ad hoc committee that will decide all of this? She has said that she believes that anybody who wants to clean up the RV problem is a racist. I know she’s not running again, but why is the mayor continuing to put her on important committees?
Why is Julie Lythcott-Haims on this ad hoc committee and so many other committees given her obvious bias on the issues, her repeated branding of anyone who disagrees with her as a racist and her unapologetic twisting of facts as she did with the student Churchill petition? (other examples abound.)
When challenged, Mayor Veenker defends the appointments in the name of “continuity” in the same way she defended her support of Peterson as supporting “incumbents” — even when those who threaten police and small businesses 8 times in a single day — until community outrage convinced her otherwise. On that SINGLE vote of support.
Some answers re oversight and accountability would be appreciated sooner rather than later.
How can the City conduct extensive outreach on OSV parking yet have no meaningful data or documented community input to show for it?
Where is the data on the number of vehicles, length of stay, complaints, citations, and impacts on surrounding homeowners? And where is the actual input from the homeowners who live directly alongside these vehicles?
It is deeply concerning that OSV occupants appear to be receiving greater consideration than the homeowners who pay property taxes and have lived in these neighborhoods for years. A policy that effectively allows permanent RV habitation on residential streets should not move forward without reliable data and meaningful input from the homeowners who will bear the consequences.
You’ve got it wrong. OSV occupants receive all of the consideration. Owners who pay property taxes are stuck where they are. There’s no reason to pay any attention to them. They keep electing the people who do this. Why change now?
You’re certainly right about how owners, residents and businesses have been ignored for too long by staff and City Council. Mountain View businesses got the city’s attention by withholding almost $3,000.000 in taxes to force them to address the issue.
Maybe voters are now so frustrated that they’ll pay attention and vote intelligently this election?? We can only hope.
The City Manager holds a significant leadership position and is appropriately entrusted with providing the City Council with thoughtful, well-informed recommendations. On an issue as important as OSV policy, I would expect that recommendation to be grounded in objective data, careful consideration of neighborhood impacts, and a balanced assessment of the interests of all residents.
The current approach raises legitimate concerns about whether those considerations have been adequately addressed. The Council deserves a clear, evidence-based recommendation that protects neighborhood quality of life while addressing the OSV issue in a fair and sustainable manner.