BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council and school board members are continuing to negotiate their land deal at the Cubberley Community Center ahead of a sales tax measure to fund the city’s purchase.
The school board discussed negotiations privately at a special meeting on Tuesday (Sept. 8), and council will discuss the deal again on Monday (Sept. 14).
“A deal is never done. We could always discuss a better deal,” Mayor Vicki Veenker said in an interview on Tuesday.
Veenker said something could happen before or after the Nov. 3 election, when voters will consider a half-cent sales tax to fund the $65.5 million pur-chase.
Other options remain
Councilman Ed Lauing said the city hasn’t released its appraisal at Cubber-ley because council is still looking at ways to acquire the land if the sales tax fails.
“The deal is not done until we have the money to pay them,” he said.
Lauing said the district could lease Cubberley to private schools and let the property value appreciate for a decade, and the city doesn’t have another location for a community center. Still, negotiations have been friendly.
“All of the minds that are dealing with this want what’s best for the city,” Lauing said. “The benefits of the community center to the kids, and the parents of the kids in the school district, is clear. And (the district) doesn’t need the space.”
Cubberley was a high school that closed in 1979 due to declining enroll-ment. Since then, the city has leased buildings from the district and rented them to nonprofits, artists and youth programs.
But the buildings are rundown, and the city is planning to add more housing in the area. Lauing called the land deal a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
After 18 months of negotiations, council agreed in October 2024 to buy seven of 35 acres.
The city already owns eight acres there. The city has partnerships with five nonprofits that want to raise money and get space: Avenidas Senior Center, Palo Alto Community Childcare, Maker Nexus, TheatreWorks and a group raising money for a gym.
Voters appear skeptical
Only 34% of Palo Alto voters surveyed in January said buying the Cubberley land was very or extremely im-portant, so the city focused the ballot question on areas that had more voter support.
“Electrical, plumbing — those kinds of basics really resounded with the voters,” Assistant Director of Administrative Services Christine Paras told council on June 8.
The half-cent sales tax is expected to bring in $15.6 million per year, with no expiration.
If the city needs to buy Cubberly to support the population influx from all the planned development near the San Antonio corridor, shouldn’t the developers have to foot the bill?