My Scorecard:

Rebecca Eisenberg – B+ She is still the only person running who I find inspiring. She reiterated her support of electric shuttles — which she introduced back in December in her application for PATC. In that context she said that if Castilleja moved to a better location and housing was built on the R1 zoned lot it currently occupies tax exempt, the millions raised in property taxes could fund the shuttle. She says that despite being from Wisconsin, a trip to a dairy farm made her vegan at age 9.

Greer Stone – B+ I’m giving Greer a tie with Rebecca for the night’s plaudits, grading on a curve because I also posted on the chat function that most of these people work in tech, which to me is not green.

Raven Malone – B I think of our 2020 Palo Alto City Council elections in terms of a panel of 4 being added to another panel of 3 so I include her on my ballot mostly just for being young and Black. She handled all the jargon suitably well, but I thought she could have hit the bike platform a bit harder since it is high on her published priorities.

Steven Lee – B –

Cari Templeton – B-

Ed Lauing– B-

Steven, Ed and Cari are tied for sixth here, although in some ways, and as I started to dash off this post, I thought one of them would temporarily or in this limited sense replace incumbent Lydia Kou as my fourth choice on the ballot. This whole topic, though of interest to me, seems to disintegrate into a hodge-podge of abstactions and jargon and platitudes. I think the Greenbelt Alliance crowd trols here as a type of greenwashing: I don’t believe that growing Palo Alto even with tiny people in tiny boxes near the tracks is green. YIMBY is not green. Its a type of growth, expansion.

Ajit Varma – C I could see him on a geek squad to compare electric bicycles but I don’t think electric bicycles are a green priority. I like my solar power version, although complex creature that I am today mine was powered by fast food and dead cow. Ooops. But the

Greg Tanaka – D

whole experience reminded me that when I ran for Council in 2009 I made it a strict point — and this was before Covid — to bike to every event and not drive, including using bike and train and bike last 3 miles or so to San Jose for Labor Council. And then feeling trumped by Brian Steen who said that he fixed bikes to pay his way thru college.

Pat Burt — F — He thinks he’s a know it all, but it is merely fluent in his own worn cliches and jargon. I called him a polluter on the chat board because the company he led Acteron was listed as a major polluter by the EPA, then sold to Flextronics, another polluter. Plus his machishmo is antithetical to a green, more feminine society. White males more than anybody have caused global warming; Pat Burt more than anybody embodies the problems we seem to be punting, at least since 2009, my first foray. (And in comparison Earthwise Productions started here in Palo Alto in 1994 — I stopped working for corporate capitalism in 1992).

Rebecca repeats almost as a mantra that because we are the richest city in the world we can solve any problem. Potentially true. Plus, we are named for a tree (albeit a tree whose twin was lost; or a tree that was quickly chopped down, and special interests claimed the subsititute twin-pine Palos Altos Minus One was close enough).

A bit of a red herring: I said at the time that the mixed use building at 420 Cambridge was “greed” and not “green” because they crammed too many units in.

“Silicon Valley” has to admit that their proliferation is antithetical to the natural world. Don’t say “we have an app for that”.