Palo Alto sued by ACLU over its exclusive park

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California sued Palo Alto on Tuesday over its morethan50year policy banning nonresidents from using bucolic Foothills Park, calling the prohibition “a legacy of the city’s history of racial discrimination.”

The suit charges that the ban — in place since shortly after the park opened in 1965 — is unconstitutional and insists that the gates of Foothills Park should be thrown open to anyone. The ACLU filed the suit in Santa Clara County Superior Court on behalf of the NAACP of San Jose/ Silicon Valley and several Palo Alto residents, as well as people who say they’ve been excluded from entering the park.

“Palo Alto cannot threaten to arrest and fine people who want to enjoy a public space,” said William Freeman, senior counsel for the

ACLU. “Palo Alto’s exclusion of its neighbors violates the civil rights of communities who too often still find those rights under threat: Black and brown communities.”

Only 1.6% of Palo Alto’s population is Black, a stark contrast with adjacent East Palo Alto, which has a Black population of 16.7%. The Bay Area’s Black population is 7.5%, according to census data.

A spokeswoman for Palo Alto did not respond to phone and email requests for comment.

The suit claims the ordinance perpetuates Palo Alto’s history of housing discrimination and racial exclusion that lasted into the 1950s, transforming the park into a “preserve for the fortunate few,” namely those who were not victimized by racial exclusion in decades past and can afford to live in affluent Palo Alto today.

Access to the park’s rolling hills, lake, campground and picnic areas and panoramic views has been restricted to Palo Alto residents since 1969, when the city adopted an ordinance allowing fines of up to $1,000 and sentences of up to a month in jail for nonresidents caught using the park. City officials limited access to the park after nearby cities refused to join in its purchase in 1959. Some who support the policy say that it prevents the park from being trampled by crowds.

Attempts to overturn the ban have failed over the years, but a campaign that started last year and picked up speed with broad calls for ending systemic discrimination prompted what City Council members considered a compromise: The council voted 52 in August, after a tense threehour online debate, to try opening the park to a limited number of nonresidents for a year before putting the ban to a public vote in 2022.

Critics of the city policy, including LaDoris Cordell, a retired Santa Clara County Superior

Court judge and former Palo Alto city councilor, said that that effort was insufficient and insincere and that they were considering legal action to force the city to let anyone enter the park.

“I cannot in good conscience sit by while the city of Palo Alto uses my tax dollars to perpetuate the exclusion of people from public spaces in my community,” she said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “The practice of blocking nonresidents from Foothills Park perpetuates inequity, and it must end.”