League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA November 4, 2014 Election
	Greg Scharff Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member; City of Palo Alto

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of Palo Alto and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. How would you balance neighborhood and city-wide concerns?

The role of a City Council member is to first and foremost preserve and defend our existing "quality of life" and then seek ways to improve and enhance it. Quality of life means different things to different people. To me, it is having fantastic schools, 34 parks, 4,000 acres of open space, a wonderful urban forest, a great sense of community and a shared sense of values. Our town is walkable, bikeable and has wonderful commercial areas from Charleston Plaza and Piazzas in the south to Downtown in the north, California Ave in the west and a revitalized Edgewood Plaza in the east. The Midtown Commercial District and Town and Country are at our core, and of course, there is Stanford Shopping Center. Being able to run 10 miles in our baylands and the next day hike 10 miles in Foothill Park makes Palo Alto special. Palo Alto is an amazing place and was rightfully named, "Americas Most Livable City."

However, we do face many challenges, and I, as a Councilmember and Mayor have worked hard to address them:

• Investing in streets, parks, fire stations, libraries and other city facilities. Palo Alto's infrastructure is vital to our high quality of life. City facilities like police and fire stations must be earthquake safe. Investing in public works projects to fix our streets, libraries, parks, and aging sewer and utility infrastructure has been my priority.
• Prioritized fixing our streets and sidewalks. We more than doubled the budget for repairing and repaving our streets. Work is underway on 50 lane miles of streets this year, and the city expects to increase its Pavement Condition Index score (which ranges from 0 to a perfect 100) to 80, which would be one of the highest in the region.
• Banned smoking in our parks.
• Palo Alto 311. Worked with city staff to develop a Palo Alto 311 mobile application that allows citizens to initiate requests for city services in a manner most convenient for them.
• Fiber to the Premises. Strongly advocated for Fiber to the Premises.
• Marijuana Dispensaries. Led the campaign to keep marijuana dispensaries out of Palo Alto.
• Cogswell Plaza Renovation & Free WIFI. Renovated Cogswell Plaza and instituted free WIFI.
• Know Your Neighbor's Grant Program. Developed with former Mayor Yiaway Yeah, the "Know your Neighbors Neighborhood Grant Program" has successfully brought Neighbors throughout Palo Alto together and built community.
• Safe Routes to School for Students. Advocated and supported ensuring that we have safe routes to school for all our children
• Bike Paths and bridges . I have worked hard to make Palo Alto bike and pedestrian friendly. Through my efforts Palo Alto will have a bike bridge across 101 and we are working hard to fully implement our bike and pedestrian master plan.
• High Speed Rail. Protecting Palo Alto from the effects that High Speed Rail would have on the community while preserving options for alternative transportation.

2. Palo Alto and surrounding communities are under economic pressure to grow and environmental pressures to live and work closer together. How do you envision Palo Alto responding to these pressures?

First and for most, I envision that Palo Alto will control growth & development in a manner that protects our quality of life, reduces traffic and parking congestion and maintains our quality of life.

We also need to protect and enhance our retail. I have been a strong advocate for expanded retail in our city. Stopping the conversion of retail to office space and supporting expanding ground floor retail protections has been a priority of mine. I spearheaded putting in place a ground floor retail requirement on Emerson Street between University and Forest that was in the process of converting to office. I tried to protect Rudy's and Zibbibo from converting to office space but lost on a 5-4 Council vote. I will continue to work hard to support and protect our retail and expand our ground floor retail requirements throughout Palo Alto where appropriate.

I also am very concerned about the loss of neighborhood serving retail and feel that we need to ensure that we have diverse neighborhood serving retail serving all of our neighborhoods.

3. What proposals do you have to alleviate the traffic and parking situation in Palo Alto?

Traffic, parking, building design and scale, and the loss of retail are very concerning to me. I recognize these concerns as issues that we need to address, and as Mayor, placed a "time out" with my colleagues on the PC Zoning process and directed staff to undertake a variety of initiatives aimed at reducing traffic and resolving parking issues as well as addressing parking intrusion into residential neighborhoods.

We are currently working on over 14 separate initiatives to improve the traffic and parking situation. To reduce the impacts of traffic, we are creating alternatives to driving. These include initiatives to expand our free shuttle program, the formation of a Transportation Management Association made up of major employers, traffic signal upgrades, getting better data on the impact of proposed development projects, Car Share and Ride Share programs, Bike Master Plan implementation programs, Embarcadero Roadway Traffic Operations improvements, Caltrain Advanced Preemption improvements and Safe Routes to School Commute improvements.

All of these initiatives are aimed at making getting around Palo Alto easier and more convenient.

Our parking initiatives are also robust. These can be broken down into three main categories that include (1) managing our current parking supply better, (2) reducing parking demand and (3) increasing parking supply. These include new parking garage technologies and parking management strategies, new parking garages downtown and on California Ave, Satellite Parking, and Valet Assisted Parking.

As your former Mayor and Councilmember, I advocated for and we eliminated loopholes that allow developers to build without adequate parking, and ended almost all parking exemptions. We moved ahead to address parking issues in the Crescent Park neighborhood and started the conversation with multiple stakeholders to address this issue citywide, which I expect to come to fruition in January of 2015 with a Residential Permit Parking system for those neighborhoods that need and desire it. The city is currently working hard on a Residential Parking Permit Program to provide parking relief to neighborhoods while ensuring the vitality of our business districts. We are also working hard to get more parking garages financed and built.

The Council has also initiated a downtown development cap study to evaluate the impact of future projects on traffic and parking and is moving forward with a comprehensive Transportation Demand Management Program to reduce traffic on neighborhood streets.

This combined with the push to give people incentives and alternatives to driving should help the parking situation, and when combined with a Residential Permit Parking system, end parking intrusion into our neighborhoods and restore quality of life.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. The answer to each question should be limited to 400 words. Direct references to opponents are not permitted.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 12, 2014 18:15
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