It’s been clear for many years that the retail components on Santa Cruz Avenue are in a critical situation. This is a thirty year old problem, in large part not helped by anti-traffic activists both in the public and on the Council. I remember countess hearings going back into the seventies. Well, anti-growth people like Councilman Jack Morris and Paul Wilson got what they demanded, and we are now reaping the bitter harvest of their myopic, petty, bureaucratic and selfish perspective. Today Local brokers refer to Santa Cruz retail as “Armageddon “. Storefront vacancies now almost equal occupancies. So, when will we wake up and support our businesses? Enable their survival by giving them public spaces, assist them financially in constructing public dining spaces and relieve their bureaucratic and licensing requirements: in short, help them in their fight for survival. It’s in your self-interest!
Converting Santa Cruz Avenue and certain side streets into ‘no’ or ‘restricted’ traffic zones can make the difference between life and death for many of the restaurants. And, make no bones about it, restaurants are the only really viable retail sector for Menlo Park in the face of Stanford, Palo Alto and the transformational revived downtown Redwood City, as well as the Internet. We sure can’t support and don’t need any more carpet and home furnishings stores.
And we need to clean up the streets from the homeless people who have turned them Into a virtual public sewer of intimidation. For the past decade the traffic and parking police chase after automobiles and parking overrides, while they blithely and deliberately ignore the aggressive panhandling and intimidation of regular shoppers which has certainly contributed to the decline of Santa Cruz Avenue. I find myself walking around a block to get into Walgreen’s from the very badly maintained parking lot in order to avoid the panhandlers at the front entrance on Santa Cruz! There are several stores and restaurants that have closed because of this unattended problem.
Get a Grip!
Robert Gould
Menlo Avenue
Sent from my iPad
