Palo Alto Council race: Lauing says the city should be more transparent

BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer

Councilman Ed Lauing wants the city of Palo Alto to be more transparent. “We need to be telling people more, sooner,” Lauing said in an interview as he campaigns for a second term.

For example, Lauing said the city screwed up by putting out a survey on expanding the Palo Alto Airport into a duck pond when council wasn’t on board with that possibility.

Lauing criticized City Manager Ed Shikada for unilaterally replacing the city’s handcrafted, wooden park signs without going to council or the Parks and Recreation Commission first.

“Apart from the action, the process needs some attention. Because other folks should’ve known about it,” Lauing said about the signs.

Another example Lauing gave was council’s vote to keep a report secret on a planning commissioner who was accused of trying to get special treatment from a tow yard.

The report looked at a complaint by the tow yard owner against Forest Olaf Peterson, who resigned from the commission before he was set to be removed. Four council members — Vicki Veenker, Greer Stone, George Lu and Julie Lythcott-Haims — voted to re-appoint Peterson on April 13 and to keep the report secret on Sept. 8.

Lauing said he was disappointed in the outcome.

“The tradeoff is 70,000 residents who may want to see the report compared to minor risk that a witness might be revealed,” he said.

Lauing said he tried to improve transparency as mayor last year by having monthly forums where anyone could ask him or Shikada questions. But the forums haven’t continued with Veenker as mayor.

On RVs, Lauing said he’s willing to take more legal risk now that council has agreed to permit up to 37 RVs on two roads at the edges of the city. “I don’t feel any need to go beyond that … We have to cap the incoming number, or this is just a merry-go-round,” he said.

Lauing works as an executive recruiter and has lived in Palo Alto for 38 years. He was on the Parks and Recreation Commission from 2010 to 2016 and the Planning and Transportation Commission from 2017 to 2022, when he was first elected to council.

Lauing is endorsed by former Supervisor Joe Simitian, Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga, Congressman Sam Liccardo, state Sen. Josh Becker, former police Chief Andrew Binder, council members Pat Burt, Greer Stone and Keith Reckdahl and former mayors Liz Kniss, Karen Holman, Greg Scharff, Tom Dubois, Eric Filseth, Judy Kleinberg and Yoriko Kishimoto.