Candidate for
Council Member; City of Menlo Park

1. Traffic Congestion: Let's solve the number one complaint in our community. Making endless proposals that go nowhere, spending taxpayer's dollars for countless studies, which the Council then rejects, does not solve our traffic problems. The Council majority's "wait-and-see" policy is not the answer to resolving traffic congestion. Studies indicate, and the "naked-eye" confirms, that most of Menlo Park's traffic problems do not start or end in Menlo Park, they start or end in Palo Alto and Redwood City. Let's implement solutions for Menlo Park now!

Action:

• Widen Sand Hill Rd. Don't hold the Sand Hill Rd. residents' hostage to dangerous traffic in order to prove a point to Stanford. Minimize cut-through traffic in West Menlo and increase safe access to Stanford Hospital. Stanford has already put money in escrow to pay for it. It costs Menlo Park nothing.
• Turn El Camino into six useable lanes by restricting parking during commute hours. Quick and cost effective.
• Implement sequential "light-timing" on El Camino. Already funded.
• Implement a "no left turns" on Willow Rd. during morning commute hours. Let Palo Alto take responsibility for its own traffic congestion.
• Investigate placing traffic cameras on Santa Cruz Avenue and Willow Rd. to encourage drivers to comply with speed limits.
• Take leadership in negotiating with Stanford and Palo Alto to tie Sand Hill Rd. to Alma.
• Reintroduce neighborhood busing of our children to their local elementary schools. Significantly reduces drop-off and pick-up traffic in our neighborhoods.

Action:

• No further reductions in residential build-out regulations.
• Clarify building regulations for all residential property.
• Make regulations equitable for conforming and non-conforming lots.
• Create codified, objective standards, not subjective and arbitrary nightmares.

Action:

• Create codified, objective standards for future residential building, incorporating privacy and neighborhood character concerns.
• Embrace the occasional deviation in design style.

Action:

• Hire an Economic Development Director to ensure that Menlo Park is attracting the right type of businesses and services to its community.
• Encourage businesses that generate tax revenue to Menlo Park. Menlo Park needs these businesses to keep Menlo Park the great community it is today.
• Encourage activities that support our downtown business community and enhance our community interaction.

Action: Create a Parent Task Force to address and advise the City Council on the growing issues related to quality, available, and affordable childcare and after-school programs for our entire community.

6. Senior Programs: Menlo Park has a growing population of active and intelligent seniors.

Action: Include seniors in the development and shaping of Menlo Park's future. Create a Seniors Task Force to address and advise the City Council on issues impacting seniors in Menlo Park.

7. Accountability: City Council must be accountable to its entire community. Accountability means more than holding "open" meetings and returning the occasional phone call. Accountability means respecting, not abusing taxpayers money and community input. Accountability means making difficult judgment calls, which may be unpopular with the few, but vocal members of the community.

Action: Accountability to one's entire community means making judgment calls which may go against one's personal opinion or interests', but is in line with the majority of the community and/or, taken in its totality, is in the best interest of the entire community.

8. Regional Inclusion and Participation: Menlo Park is not an island surrounded on all sides by water. Menlo Park is a wonderful town that is part of the most thriving and dynamic region in the entire world.

Action: Menlo Park must take part in shaping this region's future, not be enveloped by it. Christina would build relationships with our neighbors to cement Menlo Park's role in regional decision-making and develop Menlo Park's reputation as a thought leader, not as litigious and obstructionists.

9. Neighborhood Inclusion: Menlo Park is made up of numerous unique and wonderful neighborhoods, each with terrific neighborhood associations and resources that can be shared with each other.

Action: Create a neighborhood commission to both advise the City Council and create a Menlo Park Neighbors' Website to share information and resources.

10. Civility and Integrity: Differing points of view and healthy debate are part of a civilized society. Posturing, diatribes, insensitivity, and personal attacks on Menlo Park residents, City staff and the business community have no place in our community. Furthermore, we must insist that are elected officials act with honestly and integrity.

Action:

• Those that will compromise sensitive City information for personal political gain should resign.
• Those who cannot engage in respectful debate or consider and opposing point of view should not seek office.