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By John Richards
We have a new town manager in Portola Valley who is engaged in a monumental task: re-building the town’s staff with qualified professionals who can guide us into the future. For a bit of context, in 2023, almost three quarters of the staff left, an unprecedented number in Portola Valley where retaining staff had never been an issue. Acknowledging the real reasons for this tectonic shift might help our new town manager navigate the re-build. Most importantly, we need to recognize that this upheaval was generated by us, the town residents.
It seems to have begun with the Stanford (University) proposal to build a number of faculty housing and affordable units on Stanford property along Alpine Road. A small group of self-appointed resident experts, including some of those associated with Portola Valley Neighbors United (PVNU), were not happy with the way the Town Council responded to this project and later to the state’s demands for more housing. With an assist from the internet and virtual anonymity, these “experts” subjected staff to a constant barrage of increasingly personal criticism for doing their jobs.
And by most accounts, staff had done their jobs very well. Regional experts called our draft housing element “the best in San Mateo County, if not the state” before it was set aside for yet another pointless review. The new Town Council majority that took over in 2023, while seeming to favor appeasement in the face of the growing controversy, sent the housing element back time after time for more tweaks, longer meetings, and pointless re-litigation of the same material. This of course emboldened those who wanted to prevent all changes and stall adoption of the document, and resulted in increased attacks on the staff for trying to meet state mandates and deadlines.
Between March of 2023 and early this year, Portola Valley lost its town attorney, town manager, town clerk, assistant to the town manager, planning technician, town planning and building director, administrative assistant, and building technician. More than a few of these valued employees saw working for the town of Portola Valley as their “retirement job,” but the attacks and lack of support made it impossible to stay. Overall, the town saw the departure of nearly 75% of its staff during that time. Many of us who have observed or participated in local government for decades believe this was due to the unfair and unrelenting attacks from a small group of people who simply did not want to face facts.
Now we have a new town manager, who has the difficult task of rebuilding an entire town administration. Experienced staffers are always tough to come by in a region that suffers from such a high cost of living. And worse, the tight-knit community of municipal employees has learned that you might want to think twice about taking a job in a town that treats its employees with little or no respect.
We live in a place of amazing natural beauty, with a wonderfully supportive community of very able folks. But we also live in a time when the demands of the state, the pressures of an ever growing population of unhoused residents (leaving us with the well known housing crisis), along with all the other unwelcome complexities of the 21st century, make running a town far more difficult than ever before. We need those smart planners and managers and attorneys more than ever. Let’s not drive them away again.
John Richards is a former Portola Valley council member. He served on the council from 2009 to 2022.
Thank you, John, for your many years of service to our town and for speaking up on the sorry state of affairs caused by a minority of agitators. Let’s hope that PV voters make smart choices at the ballot this November.
Well said. It is time for town citizens to rally around the excellent new staff and let them know how much we appreciate their frequently difficult job handling the negativity inherent in community work.
John, thank you for providing context and for your years of service over the past decade. As a fairly new resident to PV who recently went through the building process and interacted frequently with the town, we found it extremely frustrating. This may have been due to limited resources, experience, or competing workloads. While we recognize these challenges, somethings just made no sense. For instance, town representatives routinely avoided face-to-face interactions or brief phone conversations, which led to significant inefficiencies.
More importantly, it was clear that cultivating a positive attitude was well within the staff’s control – and that led to our primary frustration and an attitude that came across as very unwelcoming.
I hope the new manager not only brings a dose of pragmatism and common sense, but a welcoming nature to newcomers in our community for a far better first impression.
Totally agree with John’s assessment.
There is a meeting with our new town manager this Weds 28th at 10am. I plan to go and voice support for him & current staff. Join me!
Typical twisted history. Yes John there are quite a few people who will not participate in town government because in the last election a small group of people, who you openly supported, publicly falsely, and cruelly called candidates they disagreed with racist and sexist. They were willing to embarrass people and drag unwilling innocent citizens into the public dispute. They used name calling and caused hurt in an attempt to win. In fact you were a cheerleader for huge amounts of “unpleasant” political speech. As to the town staff, they did not quit because they were bullied by residents, they quit because the town manager had failed in his job to maintain a budget, deliver for citizens, and support staff. Then when we the town residents realized the terrible state of the town budget he quit. It was not a small number of people who voted for a new approach, it was the majority. Many of the staff resignations you referred to were related to policies and decisions made by the last town government. But the more recent departures were in part due to questionable decisions involving the new town manager and were NOT supported by the new council members. Further the new town manager has been very slow to produced a budget. The housing element has been updated by the current town council and we are building in PV. So they are doing the job that the last group didn’t manage. What we really need now is a timely budget and to elect/hire/retain good people, not bullies. But with John’s continued attacks on people serving on the town council and local citizens, who will want to run? With his support of policies that do not produce a budget to pay people or nice working conditions who will apply to work here? I will be voting for people who can bring kindness, competence and consensus to the existing town council and an end to the constant bully tactics that were at a peak under the previous town council/manager. I encourage people to run for town council. I encourage people to support our current council members (rather then tearing them down). Finally, I encourage civilians to continue to organize and express there opinions – even when John suggests that you should not.
I suspect had the almanac been able to interview former employees, this article would look very very different.
I have known John Richards for years as a resident and town volunteer. I have found him to be kind, honest, and respectful to everyone he works with – residents and staff. I have never witnessed him using any hurtful language nor bullying people. He’s quite the opposite – almost kind to a fault, if that’s possible. I thank John for his years of service and for supporting our staff.
I do not find this opinion letter respectful to the many “self-appointed resident experts” with actual degrees in and years of study of the conditions that lead to natural disasters. A large group of people came forward and volunteered countless hours to the task of preparing for earthquake and fire when the former town council had completely failed in their duty to the town in those areas. In fact the language in this is very hurtful. I can only thank these volunteers who John continues to mock, belittle and blame. Their caring about PV residents safety is to be honored and I do not for a second believe that town staff left due the actions of town residents.
Kudos to John Richards for bringing to light the mass departure of employees from Portola Valley – this type of exodus is effectively an in-motion death-spiral.
What John (and the Almanac) fail to discuss is the dire state of the town’s finances: needing a 50% discount on the San Mateo County Sheriff contract just to have coverage? Financial projections that essentially lead to bankruptcy within three years? Being three full years behind on audited financial statements which further compounds the cash position because issuing debt requires current financial statements. The data on the Town website is barely up to QuickBooks standards!
Portola Valley and Woodside are virtually indistinguishable from one another: population size, demographics, socioeconomics, geography and topography. The Towns share garbage services, fire protection, and until recently sheriff’s services. How can the outcomes be so different?
Time to look at a merger and be done with this nonsense.
I agree with Meg A’s realistic assessment. No, PV’s staff is not just innocent victims of the will of an out of control majority.
This perspecitve ignores the fact that PV’s finances were in shambles have been for years. This wasn’t because of a group of self-appointed citizen experts who objected to the housing mandates. It was due to incredibly poor fiscal controls and spending. PV didn’t have audited financial statements for years. This is a staff management issue and has nothing to do with citizens unhappy with development.
I do agree that PV needs to move in a positive direction and I hope the new staff can do that. The best wasy would be to get its financial house in order first. And it never hurts to listen to your citizens, especially when they are in the majority.
Kudos to John Richards for bringing to light the mass departure of employees from Portola Valley – this type of exodus is effectively an in-motion death-spiral. What John (and the Almanac) fail to discuss is the dire state of the town’s finances: needing a 50% discount on the San Mateo County Sheriff contract just to have coverage? Financial projections that essentially lead to bankruptcy within three years? Being three full years behind on audited financial statements which further compounds the cash position because issuing debt requires current financial statements. The data on the Town website is barely up to QuickBooks standards!
Portola Valley and Woodside are virtually indistinguishable from one another: population size, demographics, socioeconomics, geography and topography. The Towns share garbage services, fire protection, and until recently, sheriff’s services. How can the outcomes be so different? Time to look at a merger and be done with this nonsense.