BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Mountain View city officials say increased towing in Palo Alto is contributing to an influx of RV dwellers, leading to office vacancies, fear among employees, sewage in storm drains and car accidents.
Palo Alto Preparatory School has seen a 40% decline in enrollment because of RV dwellers around 462 Wyandotte St., Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour said in a June 22 memo for Mountain View City Council.
The school initially embraced RV dwellers as new neighbors, making contact and bringing food, Seymour said.
But the RV dwellers have changed, bringing more troubling behaviors to the private school that serves disabled students from the Mountain View-Los Altos High School District, Seymour said.
RV dwellers have cat-called and followed female students and sat with their door open, partially clothed and in full view of students walking by on the sidewalk, Seymour said.
One RV dweller defecated on the school’s lawn during the school day where students could see, Seymour said.
Another RV dweller was upset that he couldn’t park his car behind his RV, so he yelled and kept honking his horn to try to get the school to move its van, Seymour said.
Pizza delivery
The school had to sort out a pizza delivery when an RV dweller gave the school’s address with his order, Seymour said.
Now the school is considering leaving Mountain View or closing altogether, Seymour said.
The city has painted curbs red and posted signs prohibiting parking by the campus during school hours, Seymour said.
Palo Alto Preparatory School is one of 23 businesses and property owners who have reached out to the city about RV dwellers, concentrated in nine areas where they’re allowed.
43% increase in car campers
The city of Mountain View has seen the number of people living in vehicles go from 306 in August to 438 in March — a 43% increase in seven months.
An employee’s car was t-boned while leaving a driveway that was blocked by an RV, Seymour said.
Businesses like Intuit have taken street cleaning into their own hands, getting a city permit to do private street sweeping twice a year. Other businesses have hired private security and offered to build bike lanes to keep RVs away, Seymour said.
Arriving from Palo Alto
The influx of RVs in Mountain View coincides with new bike lanes on El Camino Real and the city of Palo Alto stepping up its enforcement and regulations, Seymour said.
Menlo Park banned RVs from overnight parking throughout the city in February 2025, removing RVs from commercial areas that weren’t already covered by a long-standing neighborhood ban.
“What happens in one city can quickly have a significant impact on another city nearby,” Seymour said in her memo, which the Post obtained on Friday using the California Public Records Act.
Palo Alto is towing
Palo Alto City Council voted in October to have police tow unregistered RVs and do more street sweeping, requiring RVs to move twice a month. Police have towed 144 vehicles since then, including 77 RVs, and spent $91,600 on towing services, City Manager Ed Shikada said in a June 8 report for council.
The number of RVs in Palo Alto’s monitored locations decreased from 191 in January to 131 in May, Shikada said.
Palo Alto’s efforts are contributing to the influx in Mountain View, Seymour said in her memo.
Mountain View voters passed Measure C in November 2020, restricting RVs from parking on streets less than 40 feet wide.
Six RV dwellers sued the city in July 2021 before enforcement began, arguing the ban threatened them with unreasonable seizures, excessive fines and restrictions on their free movement.
The city settled with RV dwellers in September 2022, allowing them to park their RVs on at least three miles of city streets and providing them a map of where they can go.
The settlement expires at the end of February.
‘Vanlords’
The city is looking into changes when the settlement ends, including a ban on detached trailers and “vanlords” who rent out RVs to tenants, City Manager Kimbra McCarthy told council on Tuesday.
“There is some low-hanging fruit there,” McCarthy said.
Cupertino, Palo Alto and San Jose already ban vanlords. Mountain View police estimated that 50% of RVs in the city are owned by vanlords, charging from $200 to over $1,000 per month in rent.
Vanlords attract RV dwellers from outside the city, and tenants can’t move to dump their waste or follow the city’s 72-hour parking rules, Seymour said.
“People are being taken advantage of,” Councilman John McAlister said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“RV dwellers have cat-called and followed female students and sat with their door open, partially clothed and in full view of students walking by on the sidewalk, Seymour said. One RV dweller defecated on the school’s lawn during the school day where students could see, Seymour said.
When conduct like this happens in front of the same liberal progressive homes of the ‘I stand with the unhoused” at council meetings, school board meetings, etc. believe me, they will be singing a whole different tune. Good enough for thee, but not for me.
The spelling in your headline should be “defecate.”
The headline is right, you’re wrong, Paul. Defecates is the third-person singular form of the verb defecate. Check Merriam-Webster for more information.