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Nearly half a million dollars has been raised in November’s ballot measure over whether Menlo Park should have housing on its downtown city-owned parking lots.
Menlo Park’s Measure P would bar the city from selling or otherwise changing its downtown parking lots without voter approval. The measure would apply to all eight city-owned lots downtown, including three for which the city has received housing development proposals.
With almost two months before the Nov. 3 elections, opponents of the measure have revealed deeper pockets, raising more than $272,000. The measure’s supporters are close behind, with more than $205,000 in their coffers two weeks before ballots go out. Thousands of dollars are listed as “nonmonetary,” which is when organizations or people donate goods or services in lieu of cash.
The measure was brought on by a signature-gathering campaign largely organized by downtown business and property owners, who argued that developing the parking lots would impair customers’ ability to access businesses and reduce foot traffic downtown. On the other hand, opponents to the measure say it would imperil future developments downtown when the city needs more affordable housing.
Top contributors to the “No on P” campaign include John Matthew Sobrato, director of impact and learning at the Sobrato Organization, who donated $49,900; former OpenAI executive Robert McGrew, who donated $25,000; and local housing advocate Karen Grove, who donated $20,000 from the “Grove Action Fund.”
Grove, who is also a co-chair for the “No on P” campaign, said she’s proud of the campaign’s broad coalition supporters, from Sobrato, who donated in his personal capacity as an advocate for affordable housing, to dozens of donations of less than $100. She said the campaign’s lowest donation is $9.25.
“I can tell we have really, really deep support,” she said. “So many of us are really invested as donors, as investors, as volunteers, in defeating the measure and investing in the future of downtown.”
Grove also touted a handful of notable organizations that have endorsed and are financially supporting the measure, including the ACLU of Northern California, which donated $5,000, and Midpen Housing, whose $5,000 donation will be listed in a future filing. Some notable figures in Menlo Park politics also appeared in the campaign’s financial disclosure forms, such as former mayor and councilmember Jen Wolosin, who gave $250.
The Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County also donated about $20,150 worth of staff time, according to the committee’s nonmonetary contribution filings. The nonprofit’s politically active branch — Housing Leadership Action — is sponsoring the committee, and Executive Director Evelyn Stivers personally sent the campaign $250.
Alex Beltramo, a chair for the “Yes on P” campaign,” said he’s unsurprised that opponents are leading the fundraising race.
“With big developers on their side, we’ve never expected to raise more money than our opposition,” Beltramo said in an email. “What’s important is that we raise enough to communicate to all voters what Measure P is and why it’s so important.”
Beltramo and his family are among the campaign’s top donors, having donated a combined $3,759 and loaned the campaign $48,000. Alongside him is Richard Draeger and his family’s supermarket chain, which together have donated a combined $11,551 and loaned the campaign $39,000. Beltramo said they’re both proud to be top donors, and that loans give the campaign more flexibility in the future.
Other top donors include Mickles Enterprises, a business representing a downtown property owner, which donated $50,000; James Boettcher, who donated $6,418 and Nadine Pfluger, who has donated $4,000.
A notable number of businesses and limited liability companies also donated to the “Yes on P” campaign. This includes Elf Realty Corp., which has donated $2,500; Baciocco Enterprises LLC, which has donated $2,000; and WTA Burgess LLC on behalf of Michelle Dillabough, which has donated $1,605. Marnie Foody, founder of the Downtown Menlo Fund revitalization nonprofit, also gave $1,303 to the campaign.
The next pre-election financial disclosure deadline is Sept. 24. Follow more coverage of this year’s elections here.
Editor’s Note: This version of the story corrects John Matthew Sobrato’s title within the Sobrato Organization. This version of the story corrects Mickles Enterprise’s name.
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Guest opinion: For Menlo Park's Measure P or not for P, that is the questionOctober 4, 2026 11:02 am
Where are all these “evil developers” hiding—in the vacant rug stores? Meanwhile, some of Menlo Park’s biggest longtime property and business interests are putting serious money into preserving the status quo. Maybe the real debate isn’t developers vs. residents, but who gets welcomed as a future neighbor—and who gets to decide.
It speaks quite loudly when the people funding a radical and destructive change to a city are developers and outsiders. I hope the usually apathetic homeowners in Menlo get out to defeat this poorly planned, downtown killing development.
I love to see all the funding from developers and organizations outside Menlo who are serving their personal interests. @DavidPollack, I will answer your question: it is the people actually paying the property taxes who should have the biggest say in how our town is governed and how our City best meets the state’s housing requirements. What we as a City decide will have ramifications that last decades.
Here’s what many of you don’t seem to realize:
The parking lots are part of the approved Housing Element. (For whatever reason, over the years the city spent getting the Housing Element approved, somehow none of the pro-P people realized the lots were in the mix. That would have been the appropriate time to object.) If Menlo Park backs away from developing the lots, it is likely that the state will revoke HE approval, as it has already done or threatened to do for other nearby cities.
If that happens, the door to Builder’s Remedy will swing open again. Except this time, the site chosen might be a privately-owned downtown parcel, say, the Draeger’s property. A developer could submit a proposal for a skyscraper or two on that busy corner, and the city would have little power to oppose it. See, for example, 80 Willow.
A housing-only project in a highly-resourced area like downtown MP seems pretty close to perfect, considering the alternatives. Me, I don’t mind if I have to walk an extra block to visit the postoffice, go to the hardware store or buy my dog or the kids some new toys.
If you spend a moment reviewing all the facts, you’ll see that No on P is the only responsible vote.
Frozen, what you do and many other who oppose do not realize: (1) The City could amend its Housing Element to develop only Plaza 1 or 3 and not subject itself to “builder’s remedy projects. (2) The City never studied the negative impacts that this massive project could have, so voters lack critical information for the November 3 elections. (3) The City received developer proposals more than nine months ago and since then, the City has kept voters completely in the dark about (a) its evaluation of the proposals, (b) the major issues it has identified, (c) any adjustments made to the plan, and (d) the impact of any changes on downtown and our community. This is an extraordinary lack of transparency for a project that is financially infeasible. So, I believe the City is intentionally withholding information from voters. (4) If Measure P fails, the city will reduce the amount of public parking because the developers want to city to fund it. (5) the City has not even attempted to gauge the negative impacts of 4+ years of overlapping construction. There would be many more vacancies as customers shop elsewhere. So, these are the facts Measure P opponents never acknowledge. But they do provide a lot of misinformation.
You are treating a housing element amendment as a simple council choice, but HCD would have to approve any reduction in the downtown site’s capacity to ensure that the city still satisfies its RHNA obligations under the No Net Loss Law. That’s not guaranteed, and if HCD rejects a scaled-back version, the city could face exactly the kind of compliance failure that triggered Portola Valley’s housing element revocation and reopened it to builder’s remedy exposure.
Until someone confirms with HCD, in writing, that they would be okay with your suggestion, then this claim is an assumption dressed up as a solution. But the threat of another builder’s remedy project — one that might affect your neighborhood — could be substantial if HCD doesn’t like what they’re seeing in our city.
I have no idea why the city hasn’t been forthcoming with the plans, and I don’t see that as relevant to this vote. Nothing is going to get built without intense local scrutiny.
As for your fifth point, sounds as though the need for parking lots may be diminishing anyway! We have to add affordable housing somewhere, and transforming these parking lots into housing makes sense for many reasons.
A. We need more housing, everywhere in CA.
B. Downtown is a ghost town. There’s no foot traffic. 20% of our store fronts are empty. We need more people downtown. Other towns on the peninsula don’t have this problem, as any visitor to Palo Alto can see for themselves.
C. This is the perfect location for housing, a five minute walk to CalTrain and wi5 in walking distance to all town amenities.
D. You can’t run a city by ballot measures. Every few years a new measure attempts to take away power from our elected representatives and require city-wide votes for every decision. That wouldn’t be democracy it would be paralysis.
It’s not developers who are opposing Measure P. It’s long time residents of Menlo Park, like me. This ballot measure is a disaster.
A. “We need more housing, everywhere in CA.”
That’s a statewide slogan, not a site-specific argument. It doesn’t answer whether this land, all 8 downtown lots, no confirmed parking replacement, no funding source for the garages it would require is the right way to do it. When did HCD require towns our size to fund multimillion dollar parking garages so housing for low income people could be placed in currently utilized and full during business hours, parking lots in between 1-2 story retail/service businesses? Can the pro-housing in parking lots people please visit these 3 currently listed sites and use your imagination to even attempt to understand what it might be like to live there.
B. “Downtown is a ghost town… other towns don’t have this problem.”
Vacancy is real, but the fix doesn’t match the scale of the claim. The city’s own M Group study put the benefit to downtown merchants at ~$2M/year. That’s not vibrancy, that’s a rounding error against losing all 8 parking lots (3 currently) and years of construction. (your favorite farmers market uses one of those lots). Why the ~$2M/year figure matters here. That’s the M Group’s own estimate of value to downtown merchants and services and it’s a useful check on the word “vibrancy,” because it’s a real number that can be compared to a real cost (lost parking, construction disruption, bond-funded garages, over crowded side streets, traffic). If “vibrancy” is doing more rhetorical work than $2M/year can justify, that’s worth saying plainly: the term is being used to describe a feeling, not the economic outcome the study actually found.
C. “Perfect location, 5 minutes to Caltrain, walkable to everything?”
That’s also exactly why it’s valuable land. Good location for housing and good location to lose as parking are the same fact argued both ways. It doesn’t answer who replaces the parking or who pays.
D. “Can’t run a city by ballot measure… it’s residents opposing Measure P, not developers.”
If I were to believe this statement, I would honestly wonder why most businesses in DT are displaying a “Yes on P” sign? Do they not know what you know about how important putting low income people into housing in parking lots are? What “facts” that you claim to know might change their minds or demonstrate to them how beneficial this is to their business that employ people, pay taxes, etc?
On your “ballot initiative” claims. First: this argument would disqualify any citizen initiative, not just this one, and the alternative to a ballot measure here isn’t “trust the process,” it’s trusting a change (full parking replacement to a “nice to have”) that reportedly came from somewhere at the last minute, with no clear public comment or authorization. Second: who opposes it isn’t a rebuttal, it doesn’t answer who pays for the garages, why would the city be required to keep evaluating proposals when none reportedly met the RFP requirements.
Lastly, and slightly off topic:
Why are all the YIMBYs against builders remedy (BR)? Do they not see the amount of housing and projects that get submitted during a lapse in “approval” or “compliance” from HCD? Just look to Palo Alto recently. BR is simply being used in MP as a wrecking ball to justify destroying DT, city council (I believe most of the 5) are so fearful of triggering it that bad decisions are going to be made, and the people with skin the in game are going to suffer the consequences.
Richard – you clearly care about this topic. I do as well.
Yes, my argument could apply to other locations as well, and I would make it for those too. Housing policy in california has brought a disaster on us. Housing is ridiculously unaffordable in California and young professionals are leaving the state in droves. Not because they don’t want to live here, but because they can’t afford to stay.
Most ballot measures don’t require a city wide vote for any decision the council proposes for making changes. That’s a terrible way to run a city. That’s not an argument against measures in general only against terrible ones like this one.
And vibrancy is a simple argument. Just walk down Santa Cruz and see the sad state of our town. That’s happening because we refuse to change with the times. Other cities around us are making the needed changes and their downtowns are thriving.
You may have legitimate objections to specific plan elements. That’s what the planning and building process is for. You have a right to be heard, but this is not something that should be brought to the ballot or something that should tie the hands of the city council that we vote for.
I also appreciate the engagement, and I don’t doubt you care about this too. A few pushbacks:
On “young professionals leaving because housing is unaffordable”:
No argument that California’s housing costs are a real problem (maybe all the regulations, highest state taxes on most things also cause this). But that’s a statewide, macro-level fact being used to justify a hyper-local, specific decision, the parking lots, no confirmed parking replacement, no funding source for the garages. “The state has a housing crisis” doesn’t tell us anything about whether this deal, on these terms, is the right way to address it in Menlo Park specifically. When I was a “young professional” looking to move down to the peninsula, I wanted to live in DT Los Gatos, Burlingame, Palo Alto, but had to settle for the sleepy lesser town of Menlo Park.
On “not against measures in general, only against terrible ones like this”:
That’s exactly the problem with your argument, you’ve just defined “terrible” as “one I disagree with,” which is precisely the judgment ballot measures exist to check. And here’s the piece that makes this pointed rather than abstract: Menlo Park is no longer a citywide representative body. The city moved to district-based elections. Each council member is elected by only one-fifth of the city, not the city as a whole. So “the council we vote for” is a bit of a misnomer for anyone outside that one member’s district, four out of five council members I don’t get a say/vote on, at all. A citywide ballot measure on a citywide land-use decision is, if anything, more representative of the city’s actual will. You can’t invoke “trust the representatives we elected” when the structure was specifically changed to make each member’s mandate narrower, not broader. Now there is no good way out. I believe most people vote based on their best interests. How easy would a proposed a ballot initiative that places all future low income housing in your backyard (and not in anyone else’s in the city forever) be to pass?
On “vibrancy — just walk down Santa Cruz”: I don’t dispute how Santa Cruz Ave. looks right now. It has not changed despite council members statements that they “care about downtown”. It is clear that our town’s representatives and its employees don’t care. (I used to think that increased vacancy would cause them to care.) To illustrate this, I point to the brick crosswalks where the city decided to fill holes/cracks with tar/asphalt instead of simply sourcing a few bricks (see the crosswalk at University and Santa Cruz.) Are bricks too expensive? (the city had $165,000 to study the impact of this initiative, but not $10 for bricks?) Maybe take a walk and look into the windows on the first block of SC from El Camino (there is a Color Me Mine store still half cleaned up, do you think anyone is coming back to finish?)
What I dispute is the mechanism you’re implying, that adding housing on parking lots fixes it. If Santa Cruz Ave. is struggling, the fix should be sized to the actual diagnosis, not backed into because a housing mandate happens to land on every downtown lot. We don’t even need to send our elected officials to far away lands to see how improvements could be made, unless you think a 20 min Cal Train trip is “far away”. Hint: widen the sidewalks, keep them clean…
There’s also a geography problem worth understanding. Menlo Park is a genuinely fragmented city. U.S. 101 cuts off Belle Haven (District 1) from the rest of town, and the Caltrain line and El Camino Real corridor split Districts 3 and 4. There are very few cross district crossings for cars, and even fewer that are safe or practical for bikes and pedestrians. The loss of DT MP has little to no impact to D1, maybe some to D2, and again little to D5 (they have their own shopping plaza) so voters or their separate council reps get to decide a major impact to mostly D4 and some of D3. The decision is now potentially by a council structure that easily would like to see low income not in their districts, which is exactly the mismatch a ballot measure is meant to correct.
On “that’s what the planning process is for”: The planning process is exactly where the parking requirement quietly became a “priority”, a change made mid-meeting, after the agenda was already posted, with no advance notice that it was on the table. If the process itself doesn’t give people meaningful notice before changes like that happen, “you have a right to be heard” rings a little hollow. The ballot measure isn’t bypassing the planning process, it’s a response to how that process was actually run.
I always get a chuckle when I hear or read things like, “You can’t run a city by ballot measures.” Oh no, keep those uneducated taxpayers out of big decisions. The hubris is stunning. If 5 out of touch are making bad decisions then that’s exactly when the people should use a ballot measure. It’s the only voice we have. Clearly there is a need for housing, but shoving high rises in between old, one story shops is a spectacularly lazy idea. There is zero thought toward a modern, mixed use downtown on display here. Our city council should be ashamed at their lack of vision and leadership. The only way forward is to kill these terrible plans and start over with a voter driven commission to design it right.
Frozen, Menlo Park can maintain its required RHNA capacity by amending Its Housing Element and using either Plaza 1 or Plaza 3 with the amount of affordable housing included in the Alliant proposal. I do not know why HCD would have a problem with this substitution.
There are a couple of common themes here. Most seems to agree that downtown is sleepy and filled with rug stores, which really sounds like it needs more shoppers. Most also want it to be very easy to find a parking spot for convenience, which in reality means that if you will have a conflict.
This is the same dilemma all downtowns and shopping malls battle and the solution long term is commonly a parking garage. The incentive for shoppers to use it is a lower rate and the option to park longer, with closer by street parking limited to 30 minutes. In an area like Menlo Park this would also remove all the workers, who let’s face it probably uses up 70% already, as these plazas are filled up before the stores open.
Regardless of which proposal is picked and how it will look when discussed and ready, at the end of the day people are coming. The state’s requirements that every city shall take its part won’t go away, and right now Menlo Park will have to add almost 3,000 dwellings. The real discussion isn’t if we want more buildings like the one at the corner of University and Valparaiso, it is if we want these building in the downtown area where there are shops, public transport and hopefully parking garages, OR if we want these multi family housings interspersed into the single family neighborhoods where they would really wreck havoc in terms of traffic and parking. Yes, that is Builders Remedy for you and it will activate if Menlo can’t meet its targets.
Besides elderly people people annoyed that it won’t be easy to park right outside the few shops we have anymore (which could be solved with max 20-30 min parking) or that it will be an influx of poor people (which only one of the proposals involve) I think it is time to wake up and realize that we can’t go back in time, and that people needs places to live, it is just a question of where. In a downtown city area or next to your house?