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Portola Valley names new commissioners

by Dave Boyce

The Portola Valley Town Council named two new members and reappointed five incumbent members to the Planning Commission and the Architectural & Site Control Commission (ASCC) at its Nov. 28 meeting.

After more than two hours of interviews and three sessions of voting, with 11 new candidates having taken turns in the hot seat facing the dais, the council named to the Planning Commission Nicholas Targ, an attorney with a focus on environmental and land-use law; and to the ASCC, David L. Ross, a consultant on construction management and related dispute-resolution issues.

Incumbents reappointed to the Planning Commission were Denise Gilbert, Alexandra Von Feldt and Nate McKitterick. The council reappointed ASCC incumbents Danna Breen and Craig Hughes, but longtime commissioner Carter Warr did not receive enough votes, leaving the ASCC without his presence for the first time since 1991.

Mr. Targ, who lives on Hayfields Road at the northern border of the town, grew up in Portola Valley. He has a bachelor's degree in economics and political/legal studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a law degree from Boston College, and he studied land use at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to his online profile at the website of Holland & Knight, an international law firm with offices in San Francisco.

Mr. Targ's career includes work as an assistant city planner in Santa Cruz and as an attorney for the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to his profile. He now practices environmental and land-use law with Holland & Knight.

Mr. Ross, who lives on Canyon Drive in the Brookside Park neighborhood, told the council that he spent four years on the Architecture Review Board in Palo Alto and has 35 years of experience in the construction business. He is a certified mediator, has served as an arbitrator and has testified as an expert witness on construction issues, he said. His education includes four years at Stanford University concentrating on mathematics and economics, and later on computer science and statistics, according to a resume he provided with his letter of application.