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Gennady Sheyner
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About Gennady
Gennady Sheyner has been covering Palo Alto since 2008. His beats include City Hall, with a special focus on housing, utilities and transportation. He also covers regional politics for the Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto Online and its sister publications. He has won awards for his coverage of elections, land use, business, technology and breaking news.A native of Ukraine, Gennady grew up in San Francisco and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a bachelor’s degree in English and from Columbia University with a master’s degree in journalism. Prior to joining Embarcadero Media, he spent three years covering breaking news and local politics for The Waterbury Republican-American, a daily newspaper in Connecticut. He is a massive fan of English football, marathons and churros.
Stories by Gennady
When nature calls
It's hard to enjoy nature when nature calls and there's no room for relief in sight. No wonder then that 81 percent of respondents to a recent Palo Alto survey rated adding restrooms to local parks as "important or very important," making toilets the most coveted new amenity.[Friday, March 31, 2017]
Dogged persistence
Not surprisingly, dog parks have emerged as a key policy of the city's new Parks, Trails, Natural Space and Recreation Facilities Master Plan. The policy specifies that parks for canines will not be placed in open-space preserves and identifies a list of potential locations: Bowden Park, Eleanor Pardee Park, Heritage Park, Juana Briones Park, Kingsley Island Park, Peers Park, Robles Park and Werry Park. The policy also calls for improvements and expansions at the three existing dog parks.[Friday, March 31, 2017]
Recreating Palo Alto's parks
With Palo Alto's population growing at higher-than-expected rates, prompting competing demands for recreation space, city officials are putting the finishing touches on a new vision for the sprawling and popular park system.[Friday, March 31, 2017]
City confronts growing costs, louder demands for new California Avenue garage
The Palo Alto City Council will tackle one of California Avenue's most frustrating problems on Monday night, when it considers a new parking garage to address the area's severe parking shortage.[Thursday, March 30, 2017]
Billing error leaves city gas customers overcharged
About 15,000 utility customers in Palo Alto received an unwelcome surprise in their February bill: an overcharge on their gas bills that officials say was caused by a data-entry error.[Wednesday, March 29, 2017]
City Council changes course on housing fees
In an unusual move that reflected Palo Alto's shifting political dynamics, the City Council reversed on Monday night its December decision to significantly raise the fees that office developers must contribute to support affordable housing.[Tuesday, March 28, 2017]
Fire battalion chiefs get raises with new contract
After more than a year of negotiations, Palo Alto has approved a new contract with four battalion chiefs in the Fire Department -- an agreement that will raise their salaries by about 15.5 percent while capping the city's contribution for their health care costs.[Monday, March 27, 2017]
FPPC closes case against Adrian Fine with a warning
Palo Alto City Councilman Adrian Fine will not face a penalty for failing to put his campaign's identification number on an envelope that he used to send out a mailer last October, the state's Fair Political Practices Commission informed him in a letter Thursday.[Thursday, March 23, 2017]
FPPC investigates allegation against Adrian Fine
An anonymous complaint against Palo Alto City Councilman Adrian Fine has triggered an investigation by the Fair Political Practices Commission into whether his campaign had failed to properly disclose his FPPC number on the envelope of a mailer he had sent out while campaigning last fall.[Thursday, March 23, 2017]
Electricity-rates surge could bring shock to customers
Despite a wet winter that recharged Palo Alto's hydroelectric supplies, the city's electric customers could be in for a shock in July, when rates are expected to go up by 12 percent or more.[Tuesday, March 21, 2017]