BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
This is a story that will leave your head shaking it’s so unbelievable. Palo Alto Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haims says she wants the city to furnish her with an intern.
Only two months ago, it came out that she had an affair with a female undergrad half her age while she was a dean at Stanford. When the young woman’s mother complained to the school, Lythcott-Haims stepped down from the high-level job.
Lythcott-Haims hid the reason for her resignation until the former undergrad decided to go public and write an online essay about their affair.
Now Lythcott-Haims should be avoiding situations that put her in contact with young people. In fact, after the scandal broke, she resigned from three committees that were associated with youth and Stanford. She probably did so in order to quiet those asking for her resignation.
Giving her a city intern is asking for trouble.
Even if she keeps her hands to herself, the intern could make up a story to implicate her — and who would people believe?
And what parent would allow their child to intern at the city knowing they might get assigned to Lythcott-Haims?
Lythcott-Haims didn’t commit a crime when she was dean; the undergrad was old enough to consent. But when you reach your 50s, and you have any sense of decency, you don’t have affairs with people in their teens or 20s.
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays in the Daily Posi.
It’s a dumb idea anyway. City council people don’t have so much on their plate they need their own staff. Most actually can read their weekly packet, if they choose. Deeper Policy research? That’s what the Boards and Commissions do. To get around the Brown Act? Unlikely to work. More bandwidth to shmooze with ideological activists and special interests? Probably would end up mostly that, but is there really a citywide shortage there?
There’s only one councilmember in the last couple decades who’s used interns, and they don’t seem to have made him more effective …
Yep
And if the city provides a young intern and something untowardly happens who is going to be sued? Answer, the City of Palo Alto and any staff or council members who facilitated and allowed it to happen. Deep pockets.
Why does she want an intern? Is she too lazy to do her job? If she doesn’t have time for her position, she should resign.
I agree that putting any young person near her is a disaster.
This is ridiculous- does she have no shame??? She should resign already. I was disappointed to see her at the midtown social.
Funny how she keeps asking for things that will benefit her — a change in CC schedule so she can leave early, an after-the-fact change in the FPPC rules re outside income while falsely claiming she wasn’t earning money from companies doing business with PA even though they were (like Facebook, indulging in ego gratification by running for US Congress before she even completed a term as City Council while sticking us with 2 undesirable candidates while she knew full well she had no chance of winning the election.
And of course her “alternate facts” about why she left Stanford.
Her egotistical selfishness is obvoous to us and totally irrelevant to the outside interests / developers who keep funding her to destroy what HAD made Palo Alto unique and wonderful. When asked about her position on retaii and parking, she had the audacity to pretend there were only two extreme alternatives!
Why? Because she was too lazy to dig into the issues or because she didn’t care and would act however her deep-pocketed backers instructed?
Shame on the Mayor and City Council for not censuring her for her dishonesty and lies.
If, as a Stanford Dean of Undergraduates, a married male had seduced a 22 year old female undergrad, he would have been driven off City Council by the howling mob, led by the City Council Members. Might it be that Julie has survived the disgrace of her seduction of a student half her age, entrusted to her care, because Julie is bisexual? Does her sexuality make everyone so uncomfortable and fearful of being named homophobic that she is shielded against deserved criticism? She stated that it was not adultery because her husband was aware and approved. Ha! Julie spoke words of love to a student, never intending to leave her marriage. Betrayal! Julie used her celebrity and position of authority to damage a young woman. Low! What a sad, sad joke that she wants a young intern! Where oh where is the disconnect in her arrogant mind? A male abuser would have stepped down from CC and faded into the shadow. Julie is protected by her persona. She writes lucrative books telling us how to raise healthy children! The sad joke is on Palo Alto.
She wants the title of councilwoman as a platform for her social justice agenda but not particularly interested in doing the work like reading the staff packets before each meeting and making the lives of the folks who live here better. She’s too busy thinking about herself.