Jun 23, 2021Citing complete lack of evidence, PAPD blames designer purse theft on “black males in their early 20's.”Once again, faced with zero evidence to identify a criminal, the Palo Alto Police Department points its crooked finger on the same individuals that US Police Departments have targeted for centuries: young black men. We must put a stop to this intolerable, deadly practice. The Palo Alto Police Department issued…Palo Alto3 min read
Jun 19, 2021Memo to Floundering Palo Alto Vice Mayor Pat Burt: A Business Tax, Explained.Palo Alto could easily bring in more than $100 million a year through a relatively low-rate business tax aimed at only the city’s largest and most successful companies, ignoring small and medium size businesses altogether (other than generating funds to better support their growth). It’s so easy to prove. Yet…Palo Alto9 min read
May 7, 202110 Questions for Palo Alto’s City Manager Ed Shikada, whom Palo Alto City Council pays $600K (of our money) a year to fire crossing guards and close libraries.Tonight the City of Palo Alto hosted a “Town Hall” which mostly, unsurprisingly, amounted to city staffers giving misleading presentations overstating rationale behind their terrible decisions, and understating the probability of impending destruction of everything we value most. In the presentation, City Manager Ed Shikada and his top lackeys (who…Palo Alto12 min read
May 3, 2021Palo Alto taxing the poor to benefit the rich, again.Today’s Palo Alto Weekly reports a story that has become a regular event here, in the wealthiest city on earth: “Palo Alto plans further cuts to community services.” It leaves out from the headline, and of course, the article, why Palo Alto plans these cuts. …Palo Alto3 min read
Apr 22, 2021Thank You For Participating in My DemocracyLast night at the Palo Alto Unified District School Board meeting, in the “consent agenda” (agenda matters that are passed without any explanation or discussion, even though they often are both controversial and controverted) was an item that asked the Board to approve a Policy that clarified that PAUSD teachers…2 min read
Apr 22, 2021PAUSD Superintendent to parents: “No one told me I was supposed to *open* schools!”Don Austin was not a good hire. He has underperformed even the lowest expectations. He should be replaced. Last night at the PAUSD School Board meeting, students and parents made it clear that they are not impressed with Don Austin’s (lack of) leadership, and for the first time that I…Palo Alto2 min read
Mar 25, 2021Fantastic Location for Housing the HomelessA couple months ago, I filmed two video walkthroughs of the City of Palo Alto’s brand-new huge and empty 6-level parking garage just south of California Avenue in Palo Alto. I made these videos initially to publicize Palo Alto’s inappropriate waste of limited taxpayer funds on this energy-wasting $200 million…Homeless2 min read
Mar 2, 2021Good Cities Don’t Audit ThemselvesTonight at the Palo Alto City Council meeting, the Council unanimously voted to approve a report from its new outsourced auditor (which it engaged after defunding an entire city office and eliminating a dozen city jobs). That report made no conclusions, and offered no recommendations by design. It was merely…Palo Alto2 min read
Feb 8, 2021PROTESTFOR. THE. KIDS.! For people outside of Palo Alto, it can be hard to believe that our public schools are among the very last in the state to enable students to return to school, much less, even to have a workable plan for return to school. PAUSD, once considered among…Palo Alto3 min read
Jan 28, 2021Recap of City Council Meeting Monday Jan. 25Everything I feared in my preview on Monday morning, came to pass on Monday evening, but worse. A few of the low-lights: Palo Alto City Council still refuses to disclose whether any Palo Alto Police Officers were part of the deadly white supremacist rally in Washington, DC. Pat Burt still…Palo Alto3 min read
