October 3, 2022
By Emily Mibach
Daily Post Staff Writer
With all eyes on Atherton’s contentious housing plan, two incumbents and two challengers are vying for three seats on the Town Council in next month’s election.
There is an open seat on the council because Bob Polito, who was appointed after Mike Lempres moved out of the country, told the council when he was appointed that he would not run for election this fall.
Mayor Rick DeGolia and Vice Mayor Bill Widmer are running to keep their seats on council. Widmer has been on council for 12 years and DeGolia for 9.
Both said big reasons they’re running for re-election is the town’s Housing Element, where the state requires cities and counties across the state to realistically plan for a certain allotment of new homes. Atherton needs to figure out where some 348 additional homes will go.
Initally, council was looking at ways to zone certain parts of town for town homes, but after backlash from residents, the council opted to submit a draft housing plan to the state where most of the new homes would come by way of accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, in people’s backyards.
Both Widmer and DeGolia acknowledged that there will be a lot of work to do on the housing element in the next term, especially when it comes to convincing the state that it can in fact add most of the 349 homes through ADUs. The other way the town plans on meeting its housing quotas is by having schools build housing.
Greg Conlon has run for a number of elected positions over the years, from Atherton council to State Treasurer. He’s been on the town’s rail committee for about 20 years and has served on the finance committee as well.
Conlon, 89, told the Post that a big reason why he jumped into the council race is because of the housing element.
“The state of California has no business trying to zone the city of Atherton and other cities,” Conlon said. He said the housing plan, called a Housing Element, could be “fatal” to the town’s identity if not done just right.
Conlon also said he wants to try to see if the state and county will let Atherton pay for housing to be built in neighboring North Fair Oaks, a predominately working class Latino community that is unincorporated.
Stacy Miles Holland is on the town’s environmental commission. She has lived in town for four years and quick attending council meetings and orgaly got involved, joining commissions, nized the town’s Earth Day celebration.
Miles Holland wants to add programs to the town’s housing element in order to convince the state that ADUs and school housing will truly get the job done in Atherton. Miles Holland runs a communications consulting business and plans to use her expertise to help town employees really bolster communication with residents so they know not only what’s going on with the housing element but also around town.
Their qualifications
The Post asked DeGolia how he’s made people’s lives better while on council. He said the approval of the Caltrain quiet zone through part of town, so trains didn’t blast their horns, was a big improvement for people.
Widmer, when asked the same question, said aside from urging the town to pay down its pension liabilities, he worked to get the city out of its garbage collection contract with Recology. Widmer said when the town joined that contract, resident’s rates went up 100%, now, the town is getting better service from GreenWaste.
Both DeGolia and Widmer listed the completion of the new Civic Center as an achievement, both noted that there had been three previous attempts to get a new civic center, but it wasn’t until DeGolia spearheaded the efforts, did the project come to fruition without any tax increases for residents. Widmer also pointed out that the rest of council weighed in on the project to make sure it was designed in a way that was affordable to the town.
The challengers
The Post asked the two challengers why they are the best pick for the job.
Miles Holland said with the Civic Center done, the town has a lot more bandwidth to get other projects done.
“This is a new chapter for Atherton,” she said.
Miles Holland says that at 38, she brings a different perspective than the other council members or her competitors.
A big goal for Miles Holland is to make it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists to get around town.
Conlon said his decades of experience on town commissions and working for the California Public Utilities Commission in the 1990s, along with working with a housing nonprofit in San Francisco gives him a bevy of knowledge to pull from that will help the council, especially when it comes to the housing element.