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The short version: The state of the city of Menlo Park is strong.
Mayor Peter Ohtaki almost left it at that, but chose to continue with a more traditional “State of the City” speech by talking about some of the successes achieved and the challenges faced by the city over the past year during his term as mayor.
At an Oct. 11 event held at the newly completed Park James Hotel, Ohtaki said Menlo Park has taken strides toward becoming a city that is vibrant, innovative, inclusive, family-friendly, and environmentally sustainable, a place where residents can live, work and play.
While Ohtaki’s remarks pointed to many of the achievements of the past year, he also presented some of his ideas on what he believes would help the city address its long-term problems, calling upon terms like “fiscal impact analysis” and “10-year forecast” in his remarks.
“To me, numbers tell a story – which is why I don’t get invited to parties much,” he joked.
Access the full speech here.
Achievements
Ohtaki highlighted the following in his list of the city’s accomplishments:
Transportation
● The city’s transportation master plan, now in the works, will “not only be the strategic blueprint for transportation improvements but will update our transportation impact fee to fund those improvements,” he said.
● The city launched a Safe Routes to School program to make it safer for children to get around town. It includes promoting driver awareness and supporting the bike lanes on Oak Grove and Santa Cruz avenues. “Bike lanes on Middle Avenue are coming soon,” Ohtaki said.
● The council negotiated for $5 million from Stanford University to help pay for a separated Caltrain crossing at Middle Avenue for bikes and pedestrians. “We must move this project to design stage next year,” he said.
● The council reached consensus to build an underpass beneath the Caltrain tracks at Ravenswood Avenue. The project would reduce congestion at the El Camino Real/Ravenswood Avenue intersection, which Ohtaki said is the busiest intersection downtown, carrying about half of all the city’s cross-town traffic.
● The city has asked Stanford to pay for improvements to the Sand Hill Road corridor, including projects along Santa Cruz Avenue and Alameda de las Pulgas.
● The Peninsula Bikeway, a “brainchild” of the Managers Mobility Partnership that includes city managers and Stanford, has resulted in an interim bike route running between Redwood City and Mountain View.
● The city was selected for a pilot project to optimize traffic flow along Bayfront Expressway and Marsh and Willow roads by synchronizing traffic signals and develoing adaptive signal timing during peak commute times.
● The Dumbarton rail project is moving forward with the passage of Regional Measure 3. “And hopefully with the passage of Measure W (on the November ballot), which will help to provide funding to get that started,” Ohtaki said. Many East Bay cities and Facebook support the project now, too, he said.
Housing
● Nearly 1,400 apartment units recently opened or are under construction in Menlo Park. “We are catching up on our jobs-housing balance,” Ohtaki said. “Prior to 777 Hamilton, the last apartment buildings built in Menlo Park were in the 1970s in Sharon Heights.”
● Construction on Greenheart Land Co.’s Station 1300 and Stanford’s Middle Plaza projects has begun.
● The council passed an ordinance requiring that new rental housing include at least 15 percent affordable housing.
● The council passed an anti-discrimination ordinance so that landlords can’t rule out potential tenants based on their source of income – a problem for families who have Section 8 vouchers.
Downtown
● The council fast-tracked plans and approved a new Guild Theater music venue. “I’m looking forward to no longer hearing the term ‘Menlo Dark,'” Ohtaki said.
● Both the Park James Hotel and the Hotel Nia were completed this year.
● The city is ready to move forward with a downtown parking garage, Ohtaki said.
● The city is planning to launch a review of the downtown specific plan and potential amendments, and reconsider zoning ordinance requirements for single-family residential development.
Parks and libraries
● The city renamed Market Place Park after Karl E. Clark, a World War II hero and longtime Belle Haven resident.
● The city’s parks and recreation master plan is in the works and is expected to be completed at the beginning of next year.
● The council just approved a space needs study for a new Belle Haven Library. The existing Belle Haven Library was renovated and its hours expanded.
● Restrooms at Jack Lyle Park are under construction.
● A delegation of Menlo Park teens went on an exchange trip to friendship city Bizen, Japan.
Sustainability
● The city is revamping its sustainable purchasing plan to increase the number of cleaner vehicles in the city fleet, including four new hybrid police patrol cars, Ohtaki said.
● More electric vehicle charging stations are being installed at City Hall.
● The council passed an electric vehicle charging station ordinance for new construction.
● An analysis is being done to identify gaps in the city’s electric vehicle infrastructure.
● The city’s water systems master plan was approved.
Business
● Construction has started on Facebook’s Building 22 and Bohannon Companies’ Menlo Gateway Phase II.
● Facebook’s “Willow Village” project is expected to get more scrutiny next year, Ohtaki said. The council has had a study session about it and brought together the company and the Sequoia Union High School District to “help understand each other’s plans.”
● The city’s life sciences sector has businesses like CS Bio, Pacific Biosciences, and Grail, “so that not all of our economic eggs are just in the Facebook basket,” Ohtaki said.
Challenges
Yet the city still has challenges aplenty, Ohtaki pointed out.
“Eighty percent of our traffic on our major avenues, El Camino, Willow, Bayfront, Sand Hill … does not start or end in Menlo Park. It is the job growth in the Midpeninsula that is generating gridlock in our city, (has) caused cut-through traffic in our neighborhoods and made it difficult to get across town in under 30 minutes. So we need to make improvements to our transportation infrastructure to fix these gridlocked areas,” he said.
One valuable transportation lesson over the past year, he said, has been learning that installing no-turn signals has been helpful in alleviating cut-through traffic in the city’s Willows neighborhood. Those strategies are being used in a neighborhood traffic plan for Belle Haven, and could be extended to Allied Arts next year, Ohtaki said.
City Hall remains understaffed, with an overall vacancy rate of about 15 percent and more in departments that work on transportation and engineering. Ohtaki said that while the city pays staff the median salary based on staff salaries in similar cities, it is working to keep pension costs “under control.” He said that to avoid increasing the city’s pension obligations while being able to motivate and retain staff, the council is trying to identify other, nonsalary-based staff incentives, such as bonuses or commute and health benefits.
The city also must grapple with the selection process for a new city manager, he said. The plan is to conduct a search as soon as early November; for a subcommittee made up of himself and Councilman Ray Mueller to pick a recruiting firm to work with; and for the new council, when seated in December, to launch the search process in January with a goal of hiring the new manager in the spring.
There will be someone from the Belle Haven neighborhood on the new council, Ohtaki said. “I hope that all the council members representing other districts will rally around Belle Haven to support and expedite its infrastructure and education needs,” he said.
Belle Haven continues to experience education inequality relative to the rest of Menlo Park, but, he said, “We must continue to demand change.”
To make sure that the council doesn’t just work on infrastructure in bits and pieces on an annual basis as each year’s surplus becomes available, he suggested that the city develop a strategic plan for its infrastructure spending. Looking at the city’s 10-year forecast, and layering on projected revenues from a fiscal impact analysis done for the projected revenues from redevelopment east of U.S. 101, Ohtaki said, “We have an unprecedented opportunity that few cities have to fund and prioritize our infrastructure over the next 10 years.”
“I am excited at all that still lies ahead,” he concluded.
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The Mayor’s speech should have been postponed until after the Nov 6 election. Holding it shortly before an election gave the two incumbents running for re-election an unfair advantage. These types of addresses should be held at the beginning of the year or well before (or after) an election. You can see my more detailed thoughts in my Oct 17 email to council on the topic.http://ccin.menlopark.org/19085.html I first wrote on October 9th http://ccin.menlopark.org/19040.html asking that it be postponed and pointing out the problem. However, it went on. Thus my more detailed email to council and senior staff so I could create a record of my concern.
This practice might be considered a violation of California Gov Code 8314 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=8314.&lawCode=GOV because city staff were involved in helping to put on what could be considered a form of a campaign activity. The MP practice of holding these speeches during an election season is problematic for many reasons.
Some of our past elections have been very close ones. I’m now thinking that a prior state of the city speech, during an election season, might have influenced the result. The practice favors the incumbents and is unfair. I’d like to see our new Council re-consider the timing of these speeches.
The State of the City should be done away with because it’s a pompous waste of time, not because it’s illegal. Give voters some credit! The “SotC” is a recent invention instigated by Kelly Fergusson, which is an even better reason to cancel it forever.