Introduction

by author Michael Giudessi

Beginning in the 1940s, Menlo Park city leaders built the eight existing downtown parking plazas through a visionary plan that acquired yards and gardens from families and taxed downtown property owners to pay for it.

That plan took a span of three decades to develop and finish. 

Time has proven that the effort was worth it--the plan worked at inception and still works today. 

Residents and visitors gather and shop along Santa Cruz Avenue in a village atmosphere that exudes comfort and community, and safety and calm.

Now city leaders seek to give the plazas to private developers to build high-density apartment structures towering over neighborhood shops and restaurants. Those towers of five to 10 stories would diminish existing parking and irreversibly change the character of downtown.

These plans have continued to progress despite overwhelming community opposition.

The commentary presented in “Big Yellow Taxi,” published before residents requested a ballot initiative requiring voter approval of any conversion of plaza land, lays out the history and facts of how the community came to rely on this critical foundation of the downtown’s infrastructure.

Those facts make clear that City efforts to uproot that foundation represent a classic case of government trying to fix something that’s not broken.

The question must then be asked: Are City officials about to break something they cannot fix?