About

Subscribe to our RSS feed for immediate notification of new published content.

Let’s Make Our Voices Count!

We believe Menlo Park residents, visitors and business owners deserve a far more inviting Downtown, an attractive place where users not only shop, eat and access a variety of personal services, but also relax, stroll, gather for social activities and often unexpectedly encounter their friends. Downtown should also be a special central place that is a source of immense community pride.

Our Downtown Is Improving But Trails Neighboring Cities

In 2025, many new businesses opened in Downtown, e.g., Bar Loretta; Clark’s Seafood; Yeebo, Darling; Cafe Vivant and Somm Cellars. But unlike neighboring Peninsula cities –  Palo Alto, San Carlos, Redwood City, Mountain View, and Burlingame, improving the vibrancy and economic vitality of our central retail district has not been a high City priority. The physical evidence of neglect is pervasive. Streets, sidewalks, crosswalks and parking lots are stained, dirty, cracked, pot-holed and crumbling. Street landscaping is in poor condition. Collection bins overflow with trash. And while the City approved the creation of an inviting new public plaza on the 600 block of Santa Cruz into an inviting plaza in July 2025, it remains poorly furnished, unkept, strewn with bikes, and protected by ugly street barriers as of March 2026.

Reimagine Menlo Park Focus

Led by Dana Hendrickson, Ali El Safy and Richard Johnson, we aim to help our community create a much better Downtown.

  • Advocate for the new civic projects, e.g., 600 Block Public Plaza.
    .
  • Manage Elevate Art Menlo Park, a community nonprofit that is building a unique public art walk in Downtown Menlo Park with a growing collection of engaging contemporary art displayed on the exterior walls of local businesses.
    .
  • Publish the Creating A More Vibrant Downtown Menlo Park on the Almanac Online.
  • Maintain a wish list of needed civic Downtown improvements.
    .
  • Support more affordable housing in Menlo Park without harming Downtown; (View comprehensive analysis)

We welcome community feedback and volunteers.

Dana Hendrickson

Editor & Publisher
danahendrickson2009@gmail.com

Dana Hendrickson

Short Bio

My family feels extremely fortunate to have lived here for more than thirty-five years. After retiring from executive roles at Silicon Valley hi-tech companies, I turned my attention to national and local community service.

  • Founded Rebuild Hope, a national non-profit that for a decade provided financial counseling and aid to the families of severely disabled U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraqi and Afghanistan as they waited a year or more for their merited, service-connected disability compensation.
    .
  • Helped Habitat for Humanity build multi-family housing on the Peninsula for five years.
  • In 2022, co-founded Elevate Art Menlo Park, a nonprofit that continues to build a unique public art walk in Downtown Menlo Park.
    .
  • Since 2014, published Creating a More Vibrant Menlo Park, a community advocacy blog on the Almanac Online website.
    .
  • Evaluated many large (a) Menlo Park civic projects including the El Camino Corridor Study, El Camino bike lanes, Caltrain grade separations and Downtown affordable housing and (b) commercial projects on El Camino, e.g., Middle Avenue Plaza, Springline (formerly 1300 El Camino)