BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Mayor Vicki Veenker is touting her progress on addressing the city’s influx of RV dwellers as she runs for a second term.
“We’re finally getting to the point where we’re resolving it more fully,” Veenker said in an interview.
Council voted on Aug. 24 to ban RV dwellers from all residential streets and to permit 37 RVs on two roads at the edges of the city.
Veenker said she has a couple leads on more off-street parking where more RV dwellers could temporarily live, but she wasn’t ready to provide more details about where.
Veenker said it’s too soon to consider a citywide ban on RVs.
“Some people would likely end up in our parks or our parking garages if we just said, ‘Go away,’” she said. “So the idea is, why don’t we try harder to fix the problem?”
The city counted 133 RVs on the streets in May. Veenker said she wants to focus on helping RV dwellers who live or work in Palo Alto, and she’s hoping the city can find a way to verify their ties to the city. She wants larger employers like Stanford and Google to step up and provide parking for their employees living in RVs.
Veenker said critics of the city’s slow approach to RVs, including residents Bob Marinaro and Barry Katz, are encouraged by the city’s multi-pronged approach.
“I’ve had multiple conversations (about RVs) today already. It’s pretty much an everyday thing,” she said.
Veenker said she wants to improve Palo Alto’s reputation as a pro-housing city. She pointed to affordable housing projects council has approved downtown, on El Camino Real and in the Ventura neighborhood, along with the city’s new homeless shelter that opened in May at the end of San Antonio Road.
Veenker said the city needed a nudge from the state to build housing, but many state laws have gone too far in taking away local control.
“It makes my job on council easier because there’s not that much to decide,” she joked.
Veenker ran for state Assembly in 2016 but lost to Assemblyman Marc Berman, who is termed out in 2028. She was elected to council in 2022.
Veenker represents the city at the Bay Area Air District and Northern California Power Agency. She works as an attorney and mediator and has lived in Palo Alto for 34 years.
Veenker is endorsed by Congressman Sam Liccardo, former Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, state Sen. Josh Becker, former Supervisor Joe Simitian, Assemblyman Marc Berman, District Attorney Jeff Rosen, Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga, Vice Mayor Greer Stone, Councilman George Lu and nine former mayors.
“Finally getting to the point where we’re resolving it more fully.”
Then show the results.
How many RVs have actually been relocated? How many remain? How many of the promised 37 spaces are occupied? What has the city spent? What are the additional locations, and when will they be operational?
If roughly 130–140 RVs are part of the problem and the current plan addresses 37 spaces, celebrating “progress” before showing measurable results looks less like a solution and more like a victory lap over a fraction of the problem. Residents don’t need another progress claim. They need a scoreboard—and the numbers need to speak for themselves.