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The Menlo Park City Council election is starting to take shape, even though it won’t be on the ballot until November. A member of the city’s Finance and Audit Commission is running against Councilmember Drew Combs to represent District 2 — which includes the Willows and Flood Park.
Vamsi Velagapudi, 47, is the first candidate to announce a challenge to Combs, and attorney for Meta who has served on the council since 2018 and is seeking reelection to a third term.
Velagapudi, who has lived in Menlo Park for eight years, said he wants to make the city more family-focused and connected, while using his experience as a consultant to help the City Council operate more efficiently.
Combs, 49, said he decided to seek reelection because of the unique perspective he brings.
“I see running for reelection about continuing to be the voice that I have historically been, which is very much rooted in pragmatism and reason and balance, and has had enormous impact,” Combs said.
While several factors led to his decision to run, Velagapudi said watching the City Council’s annual priority-setting meeting on March 12 showed him how he could help.
“It was not a good meeting,” Velagapudi said about the three-and-a-half-hour workshop. “So much of the time spent was discussing what a priority should be, without much alignment at the end of it.”
The discussion included debate among councilmembers over what qualifies as a priority, a recurring theme of the annual meeting. While several residents asked to add public safety as a priority, some on the council argued that a “core function” cannot be considered a priority. The council ultimately added public safety as a priority after extensive discussion.
Combs, an attorney for Meta, said his challenge to the exception for core functions helped shift his colleagues’ views.
“The fact that public safety is now on the priority list has a lot to do with my specific approach to the idea,” he said.
Velagapudi said the debate reflected a lack of alignment on the council, which affects the city’s work.
“What I tend to see on the Council at the moment is that there’s lots of good discussion, but I don’t always see consensus. When you don’t have that kind of clear clarity at the top, it is no surprise to me that everything else we do is going to be squishy and people are going to be confused,” Velagapudi said. “You can’t spend a priority meeting mostly talking about what a priority is and not getting to a consensus.”
Velagapudi worked as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company, one of the “big three” consulting firms, where he said he helped large companies and some public agencies decide on high-level strategy.
“I like to think that I could have helped in that meeting,” he said.
Velagapudi retired last year and has since focused on public service. He joined the East Palo Alto Sanitary District Advisory Commission in February and the Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee for the Menlo Park City School District in March 2025. He also served on the Menlo Park Library Commission from June 2021 to December 2023. Since April 2025, he’s served on the Finance and Audit Commission.
Velagapudi grew up in London, where he earned an MBA from Bayes Business School. He lived in Singapore before moving to the United States about 10 years ago.
Combs said he has long been a unique voice on the City Council and is not afraid to be the sole dissenting vote.
“I think that my approach on the council has real impact and value — there are literally dozens of examples. I look forward to continuing to be that voice.”
During the past four years, Combs said he is proud of his work to pass an RV overnight parking ban following concerns from residents and businesses.
“I led the city’s efforts to address in a compassionate and empathetic way the issue of long-term parking on city streets, specifically the concentration in the Bohannon Office Park area,” Combs said. “It took a couple of tries but the issue has been largely solved while other cities continue to struggle.”
He also cited improvements to Willow Oaks Park and his advocacy for Menlo Park’s recreation programs.
If reelected, Combs said he wants to continue his practical approach to city issues. One of his goals over the next four years is to restart discussions on making permitting for substandard lots more efficient. About half of the lots in Menlo Park do not meet typical city requirements. Even minor development on those substandard lots often must go before the planning commission. For decades, the city has considered ways to reduce that burden and allow more ministerial approvals from planning department staff.
“I’ve wanted to look to make that process more efficient and less burdensome for as long as I’ve been on council. I haven’t quite gotten three votes to give staff direction to devote time to it. My hope is that a future council will support it,” Combs said.
He also said he wants to continue work on several projects he launched, including capital improvements on Bay Road, landscaping along U.S. Highway 101 and upgrades to the intersection of Middlefield Road and Woodland Avenue.
Combs also championed “activating” parks in Menlo Park beyond Burgess Park and the Belle Haven Community Campus by adding new programming.
Velagapudi said that if elected, he would focus on making Menlo Park more family-focused. One way he hopes to do that is by ensuring residents can easily bike and walk throughout the city.
“I came here for my daughter to grow up here and we’re so lucky. We get to walk to Cafe Zoe. We get to walk to Willow Oaks Park, walk to school. There’s a South Indian food place just around the corner. My hairdresser is right here. Spiffy is just down the road,” Velagapudi said. “I’m conscious that as my daughter grows up, she can walk as well. And then within a small radius around that, there’s some areas you can bike around but otherwise it’s trickier.”
On housing, Velagapudi said that with the Willow Village project apparently canceled, proposals to build housing on downtown parking lots — and ensuring Menlo Park meets state housing requirements — are even more important.
“There are real outcomes if we don’t meet those mandates: there are potential state sanctions that do have some teeth, 80 Willow for example,” Velagapudi said, referring to the towering builder’s remedy project proposed for the old Sunset Magazine campus on Willow Road.
He also said there are ways to mitigate concerns about downtown development, including impacts to businesses during construction and long-term parking availability.
“There’s still things to solve for and I don’t take any of those things lightly. And it’s not just to build housing: it’s also to make sure that downtown is vibrant,” he said.
Velagapudi said that, in the long term, adding more housing downtown could help support local businesses.
Combs has been supportive of the city considering other places to build affordable housing instead of the parking lots but was outvoted when he proposed the city explore other options.
“There are a lot of issues that we haven’t analyzed regarding the concentration of affordable housing at one location,” Combs has previously said. “We did something to check a box and make ourselves feel better. The council was in a bind (due to state requirements) but there was still optionality.”
He has also said that how the City Council at the time approached the parking lot developments has led to community frustration.
“I do think it’s important we talk about, well, this is the democratic process. But to a degree, I think the fact that we have ended here also speaks to something being broken,” Combs said about the citizen’s initiative. “I hear you vice mayor when you say this engagement could have happened some time ago during this process. But I also pause with the thought that to some degree: was the council blinded by a sense of its own righteousness?”
As the City Council works on downtown vibrancy, Velagapudi said he wants to ensure all residents can access downtown.
“It’s harder for us to get downtown, and even getting to Burgess is sometimes difficult. Getting across 101 to the Belle Haven campus is harder. We’re very lucky to have this little area — it’s great here in the Willows. But it’s harder to get outside of it and it’s harder for others to come here as well,” he said.
Velagapudi said quick-build bike and pedestrian improvements could both help residents and support local businesses.
Through his service on the Finance and Audit Commission, Velagapudi said he has learned more about the city’s budget and is concerned about a structural deficit.
“Generally, when it comes to revenue, my philosophy would be how can we raise revenue in a way that doesn’t impact struggling residents and doesn’t impact small businesses?” Velagapudi said.
He also said the city should more closely examine the programs it subsidizes. While he supports funding programs such as child care and aquatics, he said the council needs to consider trade-offs.
“We may need to start prioritizing things. And by implication, it means I won’t be able to do all the things that I want to do,” Velagapudi said. “It’s not just whether this gets a million, it’s whether something else gets less. That’s the real way to have that trade-off discussion.”
Velagapudi said he would aim to represent a range of views from District 2 residents.
“We need to see more councilmembers representing other views in their own districts and not just their own,” he said.
Learn more about Velagapudi on his Instagram page @votevamsi and learn more about Combs at drewcombs.com.
The District 2 seat is one of three that will be on the November 2026 ballot. Mayor Besty Nash, who represents District 3 which includes Allied Arts and Downtown Menlo Park, announced she is not seeking reelection. Two candidates have already filed to run for that seat: Charlotte Reed and Laura Melahn.
District 1 incumbent Cecilia Taylor, who represents Belle Haven, has not responded to repeated inquiries on whether she is seeking reelection.
