Shifting politics boost Palo Alto s quest for a history museum paloaltoonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from paloaltoonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Architect John Northway, who serves on the Palo Alto Museum board of directors, said that if the city doesn t accomplish the rehabilitation of the Roth Building under the current permit, costs will likely escalate and the project will only become more difficult to complete. This is the fastest and most economical path toward rehabilitation of that building, Northway said. It is important to preserve this civic infrastructure treasure for the community.
Rich Green, president of Palo Alto Museum, called the council s vote on May 17 to direct the Finance Committee to identify funding for the Roth Building rehabilitation a moment of courage in leadership.
The council voted 4-3 to direct its Finance Committee to find a way to fund the Roth Building through a combination of Stanford funds and impact fees. By the same vote, with Cormack, Filseth and Tanaka dissenting, the council also supported including in the city s capital improvement plan the completion of the Charleston-Arastradero streetscape project. At prior meetings, council members had supported splitting the remaining portion of the project into two phases and deferring the second phase to future years.
Much like at prior meetings on the city budget, the council heard from residents who opposed the cuts in Shikada s budget. Some urged the council to restore funding for Children s Theatre or Art Center. Others, including Eileen Kim, called on members to rethink its proposal to slash in half the number of crossing guards at local intersections. Kim noted that some of the crossing guards are stationed at multilane streets with large traffic volumes, including Alma Street, Embarc
Facing a brighter outlook, Palo Alto backs away from budget cuts paloaltoonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from paloaltoonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Council members showed little appetite, however, for tapping into the city s pool of impact fees. Mayor Adrian Fine called the museum project laudable but suggested that allocating the impact fees to the museum would represent an end run around the financial process. Impact fees, he said, are intended for a whole range of priorities relating to parks, libraries and community centers. If I knew we could ve done it on council, I would ve done it years ago, Fine said. I would have said, I love bike lanes and dog parks and let s use the impact fees to fund those. I find this entirely inappropriate.