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Palo Alto Daily Editorial misses on all points (cont.)

The editorial also charged that the City already decided that Avenidas and PACCC
are the best non-profits for this site. City procedures will require us to hold public
hearings before making any such determination. But the cart would indeed be in
front of the horse to hold such hearings without knowing whether or not we have
effective control of the property. Hence our proposal to the District.

The editorial worried about ‘the secret deal’ with the nonprofits – and that the rent
would be subsidized. There is no deal with the nonprofits; none has been
discussed, notwithstanding that Avenidas and PACCC made an offer to the City
which did indeed start us considering how to best use the 4.6 acre Ventura site.
Moreover, it has been a long-standing policy for the City to rent space to many of
our nonprofits at $1 per year. We do indeed subsidize community services.

Finally, the editorial worried that the council went beyond discussion of “price and
terms” in our real estate closed session several weeks ago. Our city attorney,
Ariel Calonne, is both cautious and a clear advocate of open government. The
public can be assured that he would advise us closely during our meeting
regarding what we could and could not discuss. In all cases, we followed his
advice. Nonetheless, certain real estate discussions are not held in public – this
is exactly why State law provides for such closed sessions.