BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Mayor Jonathan Weinberg says he wants to focus on building a new police station, but most of council’s time this year has been spent on dividing Los Altos into districts to avoid a lawsuit.
Weinberg, 53, said he’s hoping council can discuss a new police station early next year, addressing one of his priorities since he was elected in November 2020.
Weinberg was assigned to a committee with Councilwoman Sally Meadows to advance ideas for a new station in November 2021, and he reiterated in January that having a plan in place was his top goal as mayor.
The current police station at the Los Altos Civic Center has a basement that floods, and there’s no air conditioning because a contractor said installing ducts would release asbestos.
Council still needs to answer some key questions — should the police station be rehabilitated or fully rebuilt? Where would the new building go? And how can the city pay for construction?
“It’s frustrating because it feels like we’re moving very, very slowly,” Weinberg said in an interview. “But the reality is that a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes — a lot of research, a lot of ideas have been teased out.”
Weinberg said he’s in favor of a full rebuild, and he threw out McKenzie Park as a potential location.
The city already has a building for maintenance workers there called the municipal services center, and the location offers easy access to Foothill Expressway and the northern or southern parts of Los Altos. “It’s right smack in the middle of the city,” Weinberg said.
The city wouldn’t need to find a temporary police station during construction, and the new location would allow for the land around the current police station to be used in some other way, Weinberg said.
Weinberg said he’s open to sharing a police station with the city of Mountain View — an idea he’s heard from residents that was discussed at a Mountain View City Council debate.
The biggest question is how to pay for a new building. Council talked about putting a property tax or a sales tax on the ballot in March 2022 and May 2023, but both times a pollster said the measures were likely to fail.
Like the police station, the city considered a bond or a tax to pay for a new community center at the Civic Center but couldn’t get voter support. A bond measure in 2015 needed two-thirds voter support but only received 29% of the vote.
Weinberg said the city should consider a commercial loan for a police station like the one taken out to pay for a new community center in December 2020.
Weinberg also said he would consider a property transfer tax, like the one Mountain View voters will consider this election, to tax all property sales over $6 million.
To have a property transfer tax, Los Altos would need to become a charter city, Weinberg said. Los Altos is currently a “general law” city, which follows the rules of the state and can’t have a property transfer tax. Charter cities have their own local constitution, or charter, that is approved by voters. The state can only impose its rules if an issue is of statewide concern, like housing.
Weinberg said much of council’s time this year has been spent on districting. It’s not something he wants to dp, but he said it’s important for council to get it right.
Council is responding to a threat from Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman, who said in April that citywide elections dilute the vote of Asians and violate the California Voting Rights Act.
Shenkman agreed not to sue if the city moved to district elections by the end of October.
Attorneys advised the city not to fight Shenkman, so council hired a consultant to draw maps dividing the city into five districts, with a council member elected from each one.
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