BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council candidate Bryna Chang is frustrated with the city’s transportation planners. She said they’re pushing an agenda and not addressing reasonable safety complaints.
“I’m running because I often feel like I’m spending my time on the Planning and Transportation Commission fighting city staff,” Chang said in an interview. “Public processes don’t have to be this way.”
Chang, 50, became more involved with the city after working on traffic duty in front of Hoover Elementary School. She said she kept seeing drivers make illegal U-turns on Charleston Road and kids slamming the brakes on their bikes.
So Chang emailed the police, principal and transportation planners asking the city to issue tickets. She said the principal sent out some announcements, but it wasn’t enough.
Chang went to a meeting on redesigning the Charleston-Arastradero corridor, and city officials said they were planning to install a center median in three years.
“I’m seeing, daily, kids almost die. This is urgent,” Chang said.
Chang asked if the city could add bollards, but city employees said the bollards would be dangerous. So she asked if they could put plastic posts, and they said they would have to study it.
Chang was appointed to the Planning and Transportation Commission in March 2021. She said she asked the transportation office to attend meetings for five years, and they finally started sending a representative for the first five minutes of meetings.
“I get really angry when I talk about this. And I know our transportation office staff seem to be so busy the they can’t address any of the very reasonable concerns that people bring up,” Chang said.
Chang’s also frustrated that downtown Palo Alto doesn’t have good signs pointing to parking garages. She said one resident at the corner of El Dorado Avenue and Alma Street had to replace their fence five times after car accidents.
“I don’t love throwing people under the bus, but there’s something going on there that is really problematic,” she said.
Chang said she wants the city to take on more legal risk to address RV dwellers living on city streets. She’s opposed to most state housing mandates because they don’t come with any transportation improvements.
“These laws are not well thought out,” she said.
Chang was also unhappy with the city’s consultants that were hired to address retail vacancies — Streetsense and Michael Baker International — but came to meetings with incorrect information.
“My kids could do a better job,” she said in an interview.
Chang wants to stop closing City Hall every other Friday — a schedule she said is symbolic of the city’s lack of responsiveness.
“City staff is supposed to serve residents. That’s like their reason for being. And I don’t think our bias has been that way,” Chang said.
Chang is endorsed by four council members — Pat Burt, Ed Lauing, Keith Reckdahl and Greer Stone — and seven former mayors: Peter Drekmeier, Tom DuBois, Eric Filseth, Karen Holman, Yoriko Kishimoto, Lydia Kou and Gail Woolley.
For some people, serving on a city commission seems to become a résumé stepping stone to the next elected office. But that still leaves the fundamental question: Why does Chang believe she needs to be on the City Council?
“I’m tired of fighting city staff” describes frustration. It does not describe a vision for the city.
What does she actually want to change? What are her priorities? What specific results does she believe she can deliver that aren’t being delivered now?
If the answer is simply that the current process frustrates her, that’s a reason to demand better from the system—not necessarily a reason to seek the next political position.
A Council seat shouldn’t be the next box to check on a résumé. Voters deserve a clear vision and measurable goals, not just dissatisfaction with the position she currently has.