I have thought a lot lately about the claims opponents make against Measure P and its supporters and decided to address a central one: That Menlo Park voters should simply let the City Council decide the future of the downtown affordable housing project (“Project”).  After all, Menlo Park has a representative form of government, and voters did choose the current council members to represent them and their interests.  I believe most voters would agree with this sentiment, but only if three reasonable conditions were met. 

1. The City had convincingly shown the proposed Project was either highly desirable or required due to state affordable housing requirements, was well designed and would not harm downtown, visitors  and existing businesses.
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2. The City had provided our community a reasonable set of opportunities to participate in the planning for the Project. 
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3. Voters actually trusted the Council to fairly and competently represent them.

Unfortunately, NONE of these conditions were met. That’s why Measure P exists. 

Given the importance of the Project, how the City has conducted the planning and the ways the Council has poorly treated our community, why would voters trust as few as three council members to decide the future of downtown? They clearly should not. Instead, voters  should limit City parking lot housing proposals to ones voters would likely approve. That’s what Measure P does

Voters have plenty of reasons NOT to trust the Council and to instead support Measure P.
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1. The Council created the current intensely divided political environment by not clearly justifying  the Project and explaining its decisions. Instead of building broad community support for both, it adopted a Manhattan Project-like attitude that left both sides of Measure P  speculating about the need and desirability of the project including its major trade-offs. The Council is responsible for ensuring the city knows all key aspects of the Project  and keeps our community well-informed but has not done so. This is an extraordinary failure. 
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2. The Council and city planning staff have repeatedly shown they lack the essential capabilities to conduct the planning for such a complex urban planning project. And despite this obvious handicap, the Council chose NOT to leverage the services of either outside professionals or a community-based, advisory team that could contribute valuable capabilities, experiences and community insights. This decision significantly weakened the City planning effort for this project and further undermined community trust.
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3. The Council has intentionally excluded residents and business owners from participating in the City’s planning efforts, and understandably this has offended, discouraged and upset many who feel ignored, letdown and disrespected.
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4. The Council has kept our community entirely in the dark about the City’s evaluation of proposals received in December 2025 and on City plans and activities since then. Everything that has been published since then was already included in the developer proposals. 
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5. The City should have completed at least preliminary versions of analyses and plans that voters need BEFORE voters participate in the November elections, e.g., a parking management plan, an analysis of how the loss of public parking would impact residents, business owners, visitors and Downtown and a plan to mitigate expected shortfalls. What meaningful accomplishments were achieved in the past nine months? Where was there any sense of urgency?
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6. Since mid-2024, the Council has ignored repeated warnings that the replacement of existing public parking would make the Project financially infeasible unless the City supplied a developer substantial financial help in the form of either funding or project financing. In December 2025, developers confirmed these warnings and the City still has no real plans to deal with this problem.
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7. Some council member positions and decisions have been extremely biased. For example, in 2023 Betsy Nash championed the idea of including parking lot affordable housing  in the City Housing Element despite state concerns. Now, as our city mayor, she is a leading advocate for defeating Measure P. 
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8. In 2023, the City Council unnecessarily exposed the City’s Housing Element to potential decertification  by 
   (a) committing the City to producing affordable housing on downtown parking lots even though the state had raised concerns about the feasibility of such projects,
   (b) excluding other potential housing sites, e.g., additional ones in District 1 , public land like the Civic Center 
   (c) clearly underestimating the amount of community opposition to using parking lots for so much downtown housing.
   

Final Thoughts

If Measure P fails, the Council could try to salvage the project by reducing the cost of the Project and/or funding or financing a developer. The former would likely require a significant reduction in planned public parking and the latter new funding sources for the City. This would add substantial risk to an already very troubled project.

I encourage voters to end it and support Measure P .

There are much better ways to plan affordable housing in Menlo Park!