BY NORAH SHEPPARD-HUTCHINS
Daily Post Staff Writer
A Menlo Park councilman running for reelection is catching flak from his opponent after getting an endorsement from the Measure P campaign, which is trying to halt plans for public housing on the city’s parking lots downtown.
Vamsi Velagapudi, who is running against Councilman Drew Combs to represent the Willows, Suburban Park and Flood Triangle neighborhoods, sent an email yesterday saying Combs has been playing “both sides,” and criticized the endorsement he received from Save Downtown Menlo.
“It’s no surprise we’re having to deal with Sunset skyscrapers after eight years of fence-sitting,” Velagapudi said in an email to supporters.
Save Downtown Menlo is the campaign in favor of Measure P, which would require the city take any plans for the downtown parking lots to the ballot box.
On Monday, it announced it was endorsing Combs and Finance and Audit Commissioner Laura Melahn, who is running for another seat on council.
Combs said he will be voting “no” on Measure P. Combs said this endorsement does not indicate that he shares the group’s vote, but may be because of his empathy for both sides of the measure.
“Even though I’m no on P, I’ve not tried to demonize them. I have not tried to paint them as bad people,” Combs told the Post. “And I’ve said that these are small businesses that are at the core of our downtown and they’re concerned about how they’ll survive.”
Combs said his opposition to Measure P is known. He wrote about it in his September newsletter saying he wanted to focus on building on just one lot instead of three, or developing one parking lot at a time.
Velagapudi said he will also be voting “no” on Measure P.
“Obviously, there are residents who are supporting me that kind of go the other way, and I respect their decision. I’m being very clear on where I would vote, partly because Measure P as it stands is trying to at least slow down the building of homes downtown, if not block it out,” Velagapudi said.
The other candidate endorsed by Save Downtown Menlo, Melan, is the only candidate who has not explicitly stated how she will vote on Measure P.
Melahn is competing against Charlotte Reed to replace Betsy Nash to represent District 4, which includes the Allied Arts and parts of central Menlo Park. Melahn’s campaign includes a housing plan where she says deepening the affordability of homes in already-ap-proved developments would be more helpful than trying to build affordable housing on the downtown parking lots.
Melahn is also part of the Downtown Menlo Fund, a booster group for downtown that puts on events.
“I am on my own team. I’m on team Menlo Park, which is a perspective that says, no matter what happens on Nov. 3 when people vote, we need to plan to move forward,” Melahn said.
Reed said she has been against Measure P since day one of her campaign, however she understands the democratic right for voters to choose and therefore has no direct control over the outcome.
“My responsibility as an elected official is to make sure that I deliver the best possible outcome, no matter what the result is. And I’ve talked to many people knocking on doors that support no on P, that support yes on P. But all of those residents are part of this big tent and this coalition that I’m building,” Reed said.
Save Downtown Menlo made no endorsement in the race between Woman Lee and James Rohr to replace Cecilia Taylor in representing on council the Belle Haven neighborhood and the far eastern part of town, nearest the Bay.
Rohr, who calls himself a community volunteer, said he will vote “no” on Measure P because it would take away powers of the council.
“I’m not only no on Measure P but I’m full on making sure that we improve the parking lots there,” Rohr said. “Even though I am one that goes there every single week for the farmers market, I know that if we do it in a staged approach, it won’t displace any of those vendors and it won’t ‘displace any of the initial companies.”
Lee is on the Parks and Recreation Commission and said that because more housing is a major proponent of his campaign, it would be hypocritical if he didn’t vote “no” on Measure P.
The Save Downtown Menlo folks have a real problem when no “relevant” leaders will take a stand and support their ballot measure. Their home page now displays (mildly critical) quotes from Mueller, Combs and Melahn but none of them will publicly endorse.
Enough with blaming the council for builder’s remedy.
The window opened because HCD rejected the element twice, not because the council sat on its hands. The council adopted on deadline day, Jan. 31, 2023.
The specific deficiencies: the AFFH east/west analysis, the sites-inventory realism findings, displacement protections, program specificity, were first communicated in the formal rejection letters themselves (after the July 2022 submittal, then April and August 2023). It’s all on the city website; the comments are, at best, obtuse.
HCD never flagged any of it before rejecting the drafts. The city learned what was wanted through the rejection letters themselves.
Here are a few of my favorite hits from the rejection letters:
1.HCD pressed the city to analyze whether its landscaping requirements act as a constraint on housing development, the HE had “briefly discussed that landscaping, parking, and FAR requirements could act as a constraint,” and HCD wanted more.
2.HCD dinged the element for not spelling out the qualification thresholds of the city’s own Affordable Housing Overlay Zone which is the density-bonus thresholds a project must hit, which was analyzed in the plan itself.
3.HCD ordered the housing element to brief the finer points of density-bonus jurisprudence, including the ‘burden of proof,’ as if the planning staff were arguing before a judge.”
[Comment removed — Terms of Use violation]
Nonsense. Yes, the City Council adopted the housing element on January 31, 2023, the exact state deadline day. Waiting until the final deadline to submit something that they knew would be iterative was a fools gambit. The council is on record saying they assumed the state would cut them some slack. They deserve every once of blame for mishandling such an important process and trying to skate in under the wire.
What I find most interesting in this race are the introduction of apparent “everyday” people running for office. As shown in this publication, both Velagapudi and Reed have significant funding from outside Menlo Park. Two telling quotes from that article. “Velagapudi received $2,803, or 46.7%, of his donations from out-of-town contributors.” “Reed’s report lists 45 donors, but only 14 of them live in Menlo Park.”
I find it distasteful when outside advocacy groups try to stack local elections. It tells me that those candidates will be beholden to desires outside of Menlo Park. We don’t need that.
Velagapudi and Reed are candidates who were recruited to run by YimbyYes. This is happening in races all over the peninsula. They’re being told to keep their Yimby views on the down low so as not to scare off voters. They’ll get the big campaign checks after the final reporting period, making it less likely they’ll be mentioned in the paper. If a candidate makes a loan to themself, they’ll get repaid for the loan after they’re elected. The voters won’t know about their Yimby leanings until after the election. Then they’ll be shocked that their council has become pro-growth, pro-development, and pro-big housing projects. Too late then.
Just went to the city website to verify. In D4, Reed has no loans (zero, nada) while Melahn’s loans are just under $10K. In D2, both Velagapudi and Combs have loaned thousands to their own campaigns. We can search for “after final reporting” donations, but without a specific name/race to look into, we must assume your conspiracy theory is nonsense.
Regarding YIMBYs, Combs wrote in his July 2026 newsletter, “In fact, I’m the only sitting council member in San Mateo County who faced a recall attempt specifically for backing affordable housing.” Unfortunately for Combs, the City Clerk verified to the Post that she never received any recall paperwork.
Drew was hoping no one would fact check him. Most of his newsletter was full of pretty funny boasts of typical political accomplishments, few of which I found true.
Ben, have you bothered to investigate Vamsi Velagapudi? Only 39% of his donors have a Menlo Park address. Of the Menlo Park donors, fewer than half live in his district. What do they want if they don’t live in his district?
Interestingly, while Velagapudi has avoided taking a stand on Measure P, his few local donors are on the “no” side — Jen Wolosin, Andrew Ehrich, Misha Silin, Katie Ferrick, Katherine Dumont, and so on. They’re all people Betsy Nash put on city commissions.
It looks like Velagapudi is cut from the same cloth as the city’s status-quo faction.
Even do-nothing councilman Jeff Schmidt has donated to Velagapudi. When you look back and see how little Schmidt has done to stop the Sunset towers, you don’t want him associated with your campaign. He’s totally inept.