Many are the ways to take stock of a year. Photographs can sum up powerful moments of raw emotion, while words reveal people’s perspectives and their attempts to shape public policy.
This year, as issues of unrelenting traffic congestion, the woeful inaffordability of housing and missteps in the Palo Alto Unified School District made the headlines, city leaders and residents alike weighed in.
To help you think over what happened this past year and what it all meant, here’s a playback of some of the comments that were selected as the Palo Alto Weekly’s Quote of the Week that touched on development, homelessness, schools, traffic and other topics.
Development
“It’s the Wild West. Let’s figure out what’s going on.” –Ed Lauing, member of the Planning and Transportation Commission, on banning marijuana dispensaries
“While we’re not catching you most of the time, when we do catch you, you’re dead.” -Greg Tanaka, Palo Alto councilman, on new parking regulations
“If we wait until the wrecking ball starts … there’s no turning back.” –Jan Holiday, a La Comida board member, on moving La Comida’s program back to Avenidas
“What the city does with its waste is more important than where it does it.” -Phil Bobel, assistant director of Public Works, on scaling down the city’s planned waste facility
“We will never be able to house everyone who wants to live here.” –Elaine Meyer, University South neighborhood resident, on the council’s revised Comprehensive Plan
“We don’t know what we’re zoning for.” -Tom DuBois, Palo Alto councilman, on proposed parking garage
“We are no longer the ’90s.” –Larry Moody, East Palo Alto mayor, on the state of the city
Homelessness
“I’m not lazy. I don’t want handouts or anything.” –Mike Becker, RV dweller, on whether the city should allow people to live in parked RVs
“People are concerned that a restroom brings more people and allows them to stay longer.” –Liz Kniss, Palo Alto vice mayor, on adding public restrooms to city parks
“Most times my biggest complaint is stepping on human feces on the Bay Trail.” -Mark Dinan, East Palo Alto resident, on the unregulated presence of portable dwellings
Schools
“While I would encourage parents to come hold feet to the fire, we have no one to blame but ourselves.” –Todd Collins, Palo Alto school board member, on weighted grades for freshmen
“My hope is that this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.” –Laura Prentiss, a Paly parent, on how the school district handles reports of sexual assault
“Those Emerson neighbors went ballistic. I really can’t blame them.” –Tom Shannon, Kellogg Avenue resident, on Castilleja School’s expansion plans
“You don’t have to be a kick-ass student to have a kick-ass career.” –Nicole Naraji, Gunn High School alum, on the value of circuitous routes in life
“We don’t want to end up in a situation again with egg on our face.” –Terry Godfrey, Palo Alto Unified Board of Education president, on the district’s $6 million contractual error
“When students speak, they should be heard without the menace of a shortened buzzer.” –Christina Schmidt, former chair of Community Advisory Committee, on shortening public comments at school board meetings
“I feel that this district has paid a lot of lip service to this issue for a long time.” –Laura Bricca, Palo Alto High School special-education teacher on plan for closing the achievement gap
Traffic
“The really disconcerting thing is they know they are doing something wrong, so they do it fast.” –Eileen Wall, Park Boulevard resident, on wrong-way drivers
“All I can see is a recipe for drivers getting frustrated and having road rage.” –Maryann Hinden, Palo Verde resident, on Ross Road street redesign
“The exact technologies we use and the tools we use are left to us.” –Jean McCown, Stanford’s assistant vice president and director of community relations, on Stanford’s plan to tackle traffic
Miscellaneous
“Everyone has a right to free speech but not hate speech.” -Denise Hermann, Gunn High principal, on conflicts after MLK Day talk
“It’s not an overarching monitoring and Big Brother-type thing.” –Derek Moore, Palo Alto school district chief technology officer, on monitoring software for student computers
“It is like a presidential library losing all of its speeches and correspondence.” –Brad Whitworth, former HP international affairs manager, on the loss of HP historical archives in the Tubbs Fire
“It’s not like a bunch of people from ISIS are trying to storm the gates.” –Matthew Ball, Stanford Law School, on Trump’s immigration ban
“There are certain rights that not even the president can take away.” –Grisel Ruiz, immigration attorney, on Trump’s immigration policies
“The city has a very narrow definition of what a religious institution is and what it can provide.” –Randle Mixon, pastor of First Baptist Church, on the city’s crackdown on permitted uses at the church
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