City Council approves opening Foothills Park to everyone
PALO ALTO >> For the first time since its creation decades ago, Palo Alto’s Foothills Park will open its gate to everyone, not just city residents and their guests.
The City Council on Monday voted 5-2 — with Greg Tanaka and Lydia Kou dissenting — to overturn Palo Alto’s controversial policy that long had excluded non-residents from entering the park.
In its decision, the council set a limit of 750 visitors at any one time and declared that residents should get first crack at reserving park facilities for special occasions.
The decision to open up Foothills
Park came a month and a half after the NAACP of Silicon Valley and the ACLU of Northern California jointly sued the city, alleging the park access policy is unconstitutional.
The park could open to the general public as soon as Dec. 17.
Although it has remained intact despite off-and- on debate over its course, the park’s policy resurfaced this spring and intensified after the council refused to consider opening plans on several occasions this summer.
“We had a chance to open this park and we chose not to take the gracious path,” Mayor Adrian Fine said. “We can maintain park management and environmental sustainability standards and we can implement
parking limits, fees and reservation restrictions. What we can’t do is restrict based on residency. When I think about the fact there’s a sign that says ‘ residents only,’ we’re infringing on people’s rights. I’m sorry it’s taken a lawsuit to get us here.”
Since the restrictive policy went into effect 60 years ago, Foothills Park is believed to be the only publicly owned park in California that excludes out- of-towners unless accompanied as guests by city residents.
Even before the park opened in 1962 in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it stirred controversy. The city bought the land in the late 1950s, and after neighboring communities declined its request for contributions to convert it to a regional nature preserve, Palo Alto decided
only residents should be able to use it since they were the ones who footed the bill.
Past proposals to open the park to all have been beaten back by longtime Palo Alto residents who remember how the policy came about.
The latest debate was stirred amid a backdrop of social justice protests against systemic racism and police brutality. Since June, activists and protesters have marched on the main path toward the park and painted the word “desegregate” at the entrance several times.
When the council in August rejected a staff plan to open the park through a pilot program, the ACLU filed a lawsuit Sept. 15 on behalf of the NAACP of Silicon Valley and 10 individual plaintiffs from Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Menlo Park and other neighboring communities.
The suit alleges that
the restrictive ordinance is a vestige of a “well- documented history of racial discrimination” that has kept people of color out under threat of arrest and a hefty fine. In the past year, the city estimates it has refused access to about 8,200 people.
As part of lawsuit settlement discussions, the city had to agree to not revert to the old policy or impose a similar new restriction, a sticking point for some council members Monday including Tom DuBois. He said the city doesn’t need the “black mark” of a permanent court injunction if it opens the park to everyone.
DuBois proposed that the council not agree to the injunction, but his motion lost on a 4-3 vote after City Attorney Molly Stump warned that failing to adhere to the settlement terms would expose the city to continued litigation and force it to pay legal and court fees.
Fine said he didn’t understand why the city would open the park but “reserve the option to do otherwise in the future.” Stump explained that residents could organize to place a referendum or citizens’ initiative on the ballot to overturn the council’s decision.
T hough he suppor ts opening the park, Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman Jeff Greenfield, who spoke on behalf of several other people including fellow commissioner Keith Reckdahl, said the ACLU lawsuit has forced the city to make concessions without the public’s input. He said crafting “good public policy behind closed doors is problematic.”
Greenfield suggested the council enforce a 500- to 750-visitor limit, increase waste collection and monitoring and give Palo Alto residents priority for all reservations.
“If we rush forward with
quickly forming a plan, please take a conversation approach,” Greenfield said. “This was a transparent process we debated in public meetings, and now many in the community are frustrated at how this suit has changed the process. We need to make sure we don’t do a disservice to protect the environment.”
At one point during the sometimes tense discussion, Fine accused Councilwoman Kou of twice sharing confidential information from a closed session on Foothills Park.
Fine said Kou, who is running for reelection, divulged the discussion and vote from a closed session in August via a campaign email asking voters to complete a survey. Fine also said Kou sent an email to a member of the public detailing who would be attending the closed session. Kou replied that the matter was “personal” and denied the accusations.
In an effort to delay the vote, Tanaka suggested getting different legal counsel to weigh in on the settlement agreement and calling for more citizen input input, but his motion was defeated in a 5-2 vote. He said the council should “tread carefully” during the opening process.
Councilwoman Liz Kniss, who voted to open the park, said she remembers being on the council in the 1990s when then- Councilman Joe Simitian, now a Santa Clara County supervisor, campaigned on opening the park to everyone. She said the city has come a long way since then.
“There have been very few issues where I’ve had so many phone calls and letters and had so many people discuss this issue with me,” Kniss said. “I think that when we do this tonight, I think we are opening our hearts, we are sharing this and the timing is truly right.”