To City Council and Staff
Thank you as always for your work in serving the residents and workers of Menlo Park.
This is Misha, resident of Allied Arts.
For item H-1 - my street has been on the list for traffic calming for quite some time. I am frustrated at the lack of progress. I would like some sort of traffic calming program to be resumed ASAP so I would urge for that to be the top priority above all. Of course, I also strongly feel that the program as it existed before it was paused is extremely cumbersome and not helpful.
Staffs option 2 seems a generally good direction to go with the program. The nuances Id like to see outlined are:
1. At what point is the survey conducted? I think a general sense of resident desire for traffic calming is good to have, but after that, the safety of pedestrians/cyclists should not be left up to a vote. That should be prioritized based on metrics.
2. On the notion of metrics, - I am puzzled by the "Streetlight InSight data" presented in table D2. I would love to hear an explanation of that data since, for example, on my street there are no streetlights. Id like to see more local data incorporated such as police citations, radar measurements, etc. Maybe Google Maps has data on this?
For item L4 - I have been following the housing element as a housing advocate who is part of various local and regional groups including the Campaign for Fair Housing Elements. While I realize it is frustrating for staff and council to have the latest draft rejected, I would hope that we can look at this as an opportunity to come back together as a community and make a more realistic plan for more housing.
At this point I would just like to make 2 points:
1. I question staffs conclusion that "most of the requests are for additional detail and data to support the existing policies and programs". That is what we did for the last draft, and it did not work. I invite council to view this with skepticism and consider taking a more bold approach this time around so that we can get in compliance with our own local plan rather than a one size fits all approach from the state.
2. Groups I am part of have have sent many letters with proposals for policies that have not been included in the drafts. I encourage council to seek policy and program recommendations in this next round of drafting, whether they be ours or other groups. I recommend we urgently initiate a publicly documented process of soliciting more feedback from developers and other relevant groups that can be shared with HCD and the public in order to bolster the programs/policies in the housing element. Neither HCD or local advocates are satisfied with the current proposals.
Thank you in advance for your time and I look forward to the discussion tonight.
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Misha Silin
M: (925) 323-7727
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