BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council candidate Bryna Chang is frustrated with the city’s transportation planners. She said they’re pushing an agenda and not addressing reasonable safety complaints.
“I’m running because I often feel like I’m spending my time on the Planning and Transportation Commission fighting city staff,” Chang said in an interview. “Public processes don’t have to be this way.”
Chang, 50, became more involved with the city after working on traffic duty in front of Hoover Elementary School. She said she kept seeing drivers make illegal U-turns on Charleston Road and kids slamming the brakes on their bikes.
So Chang emailed the police, principal and transportation planners asking the city to issue tickets. She said the principal sent out some announcements, but it wasn’t enough.
Chang went to a meeting on redesigning the Charleston-Arastradero corridor, and city officials said they were planning to install a center median in three years.
“I’m seeing, daily, kids almost die. This is urgent,” Chang said.
Chang asked if the city could add bollards, but city employees said the bollards would be dangerous. So she asked if they could put plastic posts, and they said they would have to study it.
Chang was appointed to the Planning and Transportation Commission in March 2021. She said she asked the transportation office to attend meetings for five years, and they finally started sending a representative for the first five minutes of meetings.
“I get really angry when I talk about this. And I know our transportation office staff seem to be so busy the they can’t address any of the very reasonable concerns that people bring up,” Chang said.
Chang’s also frustrated that downtown Palo Alto doesn’t have good signs pointing to parking garages. She said one resident at the corner of El Dorado Avenue and Alma Street had to replace their fence five times after car accidents.
“I don’t love throwing people under the bus, but there’s something going on there that is really problematic,” she said.
Chang said she wants the city to take on more legal risk to address RV dwellers living on city streets. She’s opposed to most state housing mandates because they don’t come with any transportation improvements.
“These laws are not well thought out,” she said.
Chang was also unhappy with the city’s consultants that were hired to address retail vacancies — Streetsense and Michael Baker International — but came to meetings with incorrect information.
“My kids could do a better job,” she said in an interview.
Chang wants to stop closing City Hall every other Friday — a schedule she said is symbolic of the city’s lack of responsiveness.
“City staff is supposed to serve residents. That’s like their reason for being. And I don’t think our bias has been that way,” Chang said.
Chang is endorsed by four council members — Pat Burt, Ed Lauing, Keith Reckdahl and Greer Stone — and seven former mayors: Peter Drekmeier, Tom DuBois, Eric Filseth, Karen Holman, Yoriko Kishimoto, Lydia Kou and Gail Woolley.
For some people, serving on a city commission seems to become a résumé stepping stone to the next elected office. But that still leaves the fundamental question: Why does Chang believe she needs to be on the City Council?
“I’m tired of fighting city staff” describes frustration. It does not describe a vision for the city.
What does she actually want to change? What are her priorities? What specific results does she believe she can deliver that aren’t being delivered now?
If the answer is simply that the current process frustrates her, that’s a reason to demand better from the system—not necessarily a reason to seek the next political position.
A Council seat shouldn’t be the next box to check on a résumé. Voters deserve a clear vision and measurable goals, not just dissatisfaction with the position she currently has.
Chang’s frustration with city staff echoes that of residents who’ve been paying attention for the last decades. It means that if elected, she’ll finally start demanding some accountability unlike the present council which — for example — accepted staff’s Oversized Vehicle “plan” presented without having collected any data on OSV residents and STILL supports making Coyote Hill as an OSV haven while ignoring all the fire risks.
As for the consultants, it’s incredible that the current council keeps allowing the renewal of their contracts when they have little or no local knowledge and base their pricey retail recommendations on their absurd assumption that Stanford Shopping Center is located downtown! You’d think there’d be some accountability given PA’s $26.000,000+ budget for consultants!
We need Bryna Chang’s informed attention to details, not the puerile virtue-signalling and buck passing from Mayor Veenker and the simplistic platitudes from Yudy Deng both of whom beholden to the deep-pocketed developer lobby.
Chang’s commitment to Palo Alto is just what we need, not someone like Mayor Veenker who sees PA as a stepping stone to state office as she travels around the country and the world ingratiating herself to the party machine and big donors. Given PA’s budget shortfalls do we really need to pay for her trips to Brazil etc to pontificate on sustainability
If Bryna Chang’s candidacy is built on “accountability,” voters have a right to ask what that actually means once she has a vote on the dais.
Telling a voter that OSV “needs to move on” is not a policy prescription. Move where? Under what rules? Based on what data? With what enforcement? And at what cost?
The same goes for her public frustrations with the City Manager and city staff. What specifically would she do differently?
Would she establish measurable performance standards for Ed Shikada and department heads? Would she require strict deadlines, transparent deliverables, better data, meaningful cost-benefit analyses, and accurate staff reports? Would she publicly track whether those commitments are met—and what consequences would follow when they aren’t?
Most importantly: if those management failures continued, would Chang actually use the Council’s authority to demand corrective action, reallocate responsibilities, or ultimately support replacing the City Manager?
That is the fundamental difference between complaining about City Hall and governing City Hall.
Chang should spell out her plan before asking voters for their support: What will she change? What will she demand from Shikada and staff? And what consequences will follow if they fail?
Voters deserve concrete answers—not another expression of frustration.
It is a fair question to examine what “accountability” looks like from the community’s perspective. My understanding about the OSV comment is it was taken out of context (intentionally?) and omitted her clarification of that. I find it interesting you are demanding so much from one candidate when there is an existing process for evaluating performance standards for the City Manager (and I assume staff too). Calling attention to some operations problems may not require restructuring those evaluations, but may require people adhering to them.
In the story “Tax Payer” responded to by asking “What does she want to change?” Bryna Chang gave a list of things she things need to be changed. First among them is that the City Manager isn’t responsive to the priorities that are set by the City Council or by city commissions.
Bryna is an exceptional candidate, and I believe she understands an important problem in Palo Alto. Local government needs to stay accountable to the people who live here.
I have watched candidates and officeholders become less aligned with local interests as they begin looking toward higher office. When that happens, their incentives can change. They may start paying more attention to donors, outside groups, and political constituencies beyond Palo Alto. That can make it harder to keep the concerns of local residents at the center of decision making.
As a Palo Alto commissioner, I have also seen a growing disconnect between City Hall and residents. Too often, people spend a great deal of time trying to understand decisions that already seem far along. Public input can come late in the process, after much of the direction has already been set. That makes people feel unheard and can weaken trust in local government.
I think the process needs to work better. Residents should have representatives who ask hard questions, demand transparency, take public input seriously, and keep local concerns at the center of their work.
That is one reason I support Bryna. She has experience, deep ties to Palo Alto, and a clear focus on the city. I also value that she has publicly said she does not intend to seek higher office. For me, that matters because I want local leaders whose attention stays on Palo Alto.
And to “Tax Payer,” I would be interested in hearing more about your perspective and what is shaping it. Please email me at [email protected] and we can set something up. Concerns about the relationship between City Hall and residents have been raised for years by multiple commissioners and City Council members.
Bryna is one of two candidates in this race who has said she plans to address that problem. She entered the race at a point when her children were in college and she felt able to devote the time the job requires. Public service at this level takes a great deal of time, and I think her willingness to take it on reflects a meaningful commitment to the community.
What gives me confidence in Bryna is her experience and her understanding of how city government works. She has also been clear about the changes she wants to pursue. Those are the reasons I support her and believe she would represent Palo Alto well.
(This is posted in my personal capacity and does not represent the Utilities Advisory Commission or any other groups that I am a part of).
I’ve worked with Bryna on the PTC for 3+ years. In addition to our roles as Commissioners, both of us have served as Chair at different times during those years.
It’s hard for a short article to give a full picture of a candidate, but I think the spin in this one is surprising. Bryna’s not running because she’s fixated on City Staff.
She has one of the best understandings of the issues, at both broad and detail levels, that I’ve ever seen. She’s great at finding solutions to difficult problems and reconciling conflicting requirements. Those are all key skills we need on Council.
Advisory bodies like the PTC perform research, talk to Staff and residents and project applicants, and make recommendations. City Council makes the final decisions. Going from PTC to Council is a pretty natural progression. On the PTC you learn the history of why things are as they are, gain an understanding of the laws that constrain what you can do, and develop relationships with the people who are essential to getting things done in Palo Alto. On the Council you apply those things for the benefit of the City.
Going beyond nonpartisan offices like Council to the partisan world of the Assembly or Senate is a very different kind of ambition, and Bryna’s made it clear that she’s not going to pursue that.
Akin, I have to give you credit: it took your explanation to finally tell voters what Bryna Chang has actually accomplished on the PTC.
That’s the problem.
You’ve managed in one post to make a more coherent case for Chang than Chang herself has managed to make throughout this campaign. Three-plus years on the PTC, serving as Chair, understanding the details, reconciling competing requirements, working with Staff and residents—that is exactly the kind of experience a Council candidate should be able to clearly and convincingly explain to voters.
Instead, we’ve been left to have someone else explain why she is qualified.
And after looking at the alternatives, I’m increasingly at the point where I may have to vote for Chang simply because I don’t see another viable candidate left. That’s hardly the ringing endorsement a candidate should want.
If her strongest advocate has to explain her qualifications for her, perhaps the campaign should start answering the most basic question itself: What exactly has Bryna Chang accomplished on the PTC, and what specifically would she bring to Council that voters can point to—not just take on faith?
Akin, you’ve made her case. I just wish Chang had been able to make it herself.
Generally speaking I’ve found that the most accomplished detailed-oriented people are less concerned with promoting themselves than actually accomplishing the things they’re elected or hired to do. Details are complicated and it’s catchier for candidates, the media and lobbyists to spout generalities.
Years ago Dave Price described certain candidates as “magic wand candidates” who think governing means hopping onto their soap boxes, waving their their magic wands and expecting something to miraculously happen. (Longer ago there was the old joke that the Apple marketing manager’s partner was still a virgin because he/she/it couldn’t stop saying how great it will be.)
As Allen Akin has explained, Bryna Chang is the real deal.
I met Bryna Chang since my kids attended Hoover Elementary, when we both volunteered for traffic duty. She’s clearly smart, capable, and talented. But Palo Alto has no shortage of highly educated people. What matters to me is having someone who will demand real accountability from City Hall and its staff, and provide the leadership needed to hold them responsible. The field is getting narrow, and I hope Ms. Chang is elected.