Dear Council:

During the time I was on the Transportation Commission a few years back, the NTMP was on our agenda. As a commissioner, I was fairly involved with the development of the program and had first hand knowledge of what were the motivations behind developing such a program.

 From what I am reading and hearing, I fear the Council is headed down a path that is going to incite neighborhood strife in Central Menlo and the Willows.

The path seems to have veered from what is stipulated in the NTMP, a program that was voted on by the Commission and the Council and became the standard to use when requests came in for traffic calming. The NTMP says that a majority of residents should be in favor of any changes to the street. However, I have heard that only 42 households around Oak Avenue have been surveyed with respect to changes to the street scape there. I find it hard to believe that 42 households constitute a majority of residents that are directly affected by changes to the street scape on Oak Avenue, a street which is the ONLY direct access to Sand Hill Road/280 from the Central Menlo area. There must be hundreds of residents who use that street every day to commute to work and to Oak Knoll School. These people should be allowed to have a say in the plan.

Secondly, I am aware that certain Willows residents are again attempting to make changes to the Willows street scape and that the NTMP is not being employed to address those changes.

Short memories are going to cost our city wasted dollars. Does no one remember the Palo Alto North debacle when a small group of residents were empowered to change the street scape and upon the arrival of the impediments, the unknowing residents became inflamed? Many of the impediments had to be removed. Wasted tax dollars. Does no one remember when the same exact thing happened in the Willows in the 90's?

   Again, wasted tax dollars. A veritable civil war ensued between the neighbors in both cases causing long lasting resentment.

If the Council doesn't uphold the very valuable guidelines stipulated by the NTMP, they will find themselves again in the position of creating a civil war between the neighbors. This is an extremely unhealthy environment to create and by ignoring the NTMP guidelines, you are about to repeat history. I hope the Council will reconsider their position and uphold the standards of the NTMP. A lot of money was spent to hire a consultant and many hours of staff time were spent to develop the NTMP. A lot of money goes into creating street furniture and then ripping it out. Please employ the NTMP guidelines to ensure that a MAJORITY of residents are in favor of making the proposed changes.

Sincerely,
Mary Gilles
Former Transportation Commissioner
520 Hermosa Way Received on Mon Mar 10 20:26:34 2008