I posted this on Palo Alto Weekly website. It drifts off topic a little bit:

Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
0 minutes ago

I think Fred Balin is doing an excellent job here. Kudos.

It will be interesting to see if Scharff or Shepherd will indeed try to change their stripes before election season and throw the citizens a bone here with a vote to pull from consent calendar. Joining Holman and Schmid, but not before enacting some pound of sausage in exchange.

I had to search the term PASZ to learn who they were. I’d be more concerned at what the special interests i.e. developers are doing to preserve or extend their rout of recent years (beyond lobbying for a smaller council, something I view as limiting the chances of “fresh voices” to get elected and the pendulum swinging back to residents or residentialists).

Web Link

Link above is to the group that was behind Measure D, the successful referendum on upzoning on Maybell Avenue and are continuing on, and I hope do play a role in the upcoming election.

I would say Palo Alto’s striving to self-govern means becoming independent of Stanford University, a hugely powerful and organized neighbor, as well as independent of the real estate industry, which arguably is larger than our public sector per se, and certainly better organized and incentivized that We The People.

It would be great to see one or two residentialists in the campaign this summer fall, for the bully pulpit it provides whether or not he, she or they actually get elected. Taking back the City leadership may take some time. I see it sort of like being a 10 and 152 baseball team looking to make a run at the pennant.

Not that we should concede on 1451-1601 Cali: give em hell, Fred!

(but it is kinda funny and sad that when a billionaire wants to build a giant monument to his greatness at 27 Uni City Manager gives him $250,000 of our budget to flesh out the idea, but if a average citizen and small business owner like Fred wants to contest something proposed by power or the powerful, it’s now $400 out of his meager pockets…)

Excuse the mixed metaphors: sausages, throw us a bone, change their stripes and more (and yes, I wrote a post about a developer who mixed metaphors in his speech to Council).

I also just looked it up: the Major League Baseball record for a team winning the World Series after a losing season is the 2013 Red Sox who were .426 (69-93) in previous season (and of course had won the Series previously).

It would take a fictional team like something out of Bernard Malamud to go, metaphorically speaking from 10 and 152 to the pennant.

I meant “exacting” not “enacting” as in the lower definition meaning “severe” as in common trope “exacting revenge”. I also wrote “that” for “than”. Oh, well.

I am still working on various formats for expression: comments on PAW site, posting to my own blog, sending email, texting. Should I copy and disseminate this post or comment?

I tend to back up comments on PAW site, fearing that they will delete it.

Will they delete “Give em hell, Fred?” Isn’t that a Harry Truman reference?

edit to add: I looked it up and “Give em hell” is a Truman trope, and the subject of a  1975 play, once reviewed by Roger Ebert, with this art. (And yeah, I’m going from baseball to drama, and all those mixed metaphors…)

OUTRO: OUR FRIENDS IN HOBOKEN:

edit to add: the Weekly deleted my link to here, which adds some detail but not much (unless you are looking for a James Whitmore movie or a Yo La Tengo song)

Re-posted the small addendum and added a brief report from last night’s council meeting:

Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
0 minutes ago

I meant “exacting” not “enacting” as in the lower definition meaning “severe” as in common trope “exacting revenge”. I also wrote “that” for “than”. Oh, well.

Fred Balin did an excellent job when given his 3 minutes to speak to his appeal, although the item was continued to June 9 meeting. There were about 40 people who turned out specifically to support Balin and his appeal (He asked people to raise their hands if that’s why they were there. )

Well played, Balin. Not sure, but waiting to see, what this will do if anything to the proposal. Not sure what this means to the residentialist movement, but it seems somewhat encouraging. I presume GS will note last night’s news on this when he covers the June 9 meeting.

edit to add, June 11:

Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
0 minutes ago

I wonder if the Ohlone considered filing an appeal to regulate the incursion of the Spanish back in 1769

(GS reports that Council will hold a public hearing on the matter June 23…)