Council Members-

I was disappointed in the staff recommendation and the consultants report on the ECR Visioning Process. It was initially difficult to put my finger on the issues but after thinking about it was clear that, as a project report, this would get a grade of C-. Staff and the consultants took your assignment and phoned in the results. They did a minimum of what you asked them to do with no imagination, creativity, or analysis. They just ground out what you asked them for, dismissed any "thinking big" ideas as "too hard to do", and missed the essence of the project. I think the committee tried to get them to be more creative and imaginative but they were not ready to accept the committee's inputs, suggestions, or direction. If the committee pushed them, they brushed the objections aside. They asked the community for inputs but did nothing to hold any real discussion or analysis of alternatives.

What is missing is a real vision for El Camino not to mention any alternative visions. What is presented is very vanilla with no real overall vision and lots of little details. That said, where do we go from here?

I think it is important to keep the process moving forward. If the council accepts the staff recommendation but does nothing further, this process is very likely to fail just like all the previous studies about downtown. There has been no real community discussion of the vision and no buy in. I suggest that you accept the report, but keep some version of the ECR Visioning committee intact with a small budget, staff support, and a charter to take responsibility for developing one or two alternatives and a real community discussion/debate of a vision.

As you know, I will put it what ever effort is necessary to accomplish this as long as it has a chance to succeed  

J.Michael Gullard

Cornerstone Management

648 Menlo Ave., Suite 8

P.O. Box 1203

Menlo Park, CA 94026-1203

(o) 650-473-9780

(f) 650-473-9784

(c) 650-888-5431
  Received on Tue Jul 15 18:11:39 2008