Facing a community backlash about insufficient transparency, Palo Alto officials abruptly canceled on Monday, Aug. 21, their plan to meet behind closed doors to discuss a potential purchase of Cubberley Community Center land.

In a highly unusual move, the City Council defied a staff recommendation and declined to take what is normally a largely procedural vote to enter into a closed session.

Instead, council members unanimously agreed to schedule a public hearing to gather community feedback before diving into negotiations with the Palo Alto Unified School District, which owns 27 acres in the sprawling, dilapidated and heavily used center at 4000 Middlefield Road.

The city, which owns the remaining 8 acres, is considering various options for expanding its Cubberley footprint and rebuilding the community center.

One option that has been floated by city officials is swapping Terman Park, which is located on Arastradero Road next to Fletcher Middle School, for Cubberley space. That proposal has galvanized significant opposition from residents of the Green Acres neighborhood, which is near Terman Park.

In the leadup to the Monday's scheduled discussion, dozens of residents had submitted letters urging the council not to move ahead with the swap, which they fear will limit their access to Terman Park.

Elaine Heal, who lives in the neighborhood, told the council Monday that someone in her family uses Terman Park every day, whether to walk the dog, stroll along its path or kick the soccer ball at the athletic fields.

"It's really the only field my kids can walk to quite easily and practice soccer, with goals and everything," Heal told the council.

The council also received a stack of letters protesting the proposed swap, including some from students and staff at Bowman School, which is next to both Fletcher school and Terman Park.

Katie Mueller, the school's director of community development, submitted photos, drawings and letters created by its first- , second- and third-grade students to demonstrate their love for Terman Park. The pictures — which included rainbows, grassy fields, stick figures playing catch — intended to demonstrate that "the idea of Terman Park is inextricably intertwined with fun and friendship," she wrote.

"If it falls under the ownership of PAUSD, they will have complete control, and our voices and opinions will not be taken into consideration," Mueller wrote.

"Whatever their immediate plans for the area, there is no telling what may come down the road if the parkland is un-dedicated. The only way to truly protect it is to keep it as a city-owned park," she wrote.

Green Acres residents weren't the only ones crying foul about the scheduled closed session. Penny Ellson, a civic activist who had served on the Cubberley Community Advisory Committee Member, urged the council to "properly engage the public before closing your doors."

"This is improper process, lacking transparency and thoughtful engagement of the public," Ellson wrote to the council on Aug. 20.

"This item should be pulled so it can be preceded by a regular agenda item in which the public can hear and comment on what is being considered for Cubberley and what the city is planning to build."

City Attorney Molly Stump emphasized at the beginning of the Monday meeting that the scheduled closed session would not include consideration of Terman Park but rather be limited to discussing price and terms of Cubberley space.

City staff had also provided the council with a confidential memo prior to the session with an overview of these subjects.

"There won't be any other park sites or anything else discussed in closed session tonight," Stump said.

But even with that provision, council members agreed that meeting behind closed doors is both premature and sends the wrong message.

Council member Pat Burt proposed nixing the closed session and scheduling a public hearing to consider possible Cubberley alternatives. He noted that the Brown Act only allows the council to discuss the terms and price of real estate transactions.

"I'm at a loss of how we can have that discussion without having gone through the narrowing of alternatives of which method we'd want to pursue to acquire the land and how much land," Burt said.

He and others also made the case for having a more robust public process.

"Whatever we do at Cubberley has been lingering out there for decades," Burt said. "This is going to be a very important decision, hopefully a very positive move forward.

"But the public input on this is not only their right, but it is a value that we place in hearing all the different stakeholders and exploring all the alternatives in the sort of way that we do as a public body."

Vice Mayor Greer Stone concurred and said it will be critical for the city to be transparent when it comes to Cubberley.

"This is going to be one of the largest projects that the city is undertaking in the next several years," Stone said.

"It's been ongoing for decades now. To start this process off in this way is not the way we want to gain the community trust and share in the community partnership," he said.

For the council, the need to get community support for Cubberley's redevelopment isn't just matter of civic ideals but also a reflection of practical realities. Any potential redevelopment of the 35-acre center would be an expensive endeavor — one that would likely require a voter-approved revenue source.

Similarly, voters would need to weigh in on any potential "undedication" of existing parkland, whether at Terman Park or elsewhere. In short, the project would need to be popular to be successful.

Council members, for their part, are eager to make progress on Cubberley after more than a decade of false starts and dashed hopes.

Three years ago, the council and the school district completed a joint planning process led by the consulting firm Concordia — an exercise that involved hundreds of residents and that led to the creation of a master plan recommending a complete Cubberley redevelopment.

The plan envisioned a community center that is shared by the city and the school district and that features a new wellness center, theater, swimming pool, classroom spaces and other amenities.

Shortly after the plan was finalized, however, the school district informed the city that it had no intention of replacing the existing gym and theater space and that it cannot legally help pay for any Cubberley projects that do not directly relate to education. The Concordia plan quickly fizzled.

Now the momentum is once again picking up. Just about every candidate who ran for council last year strongly advocated for Cubberley redevelopment, noting the decades of inertia and the worsening dilapidation at the valuable community center.

The discussions picked up in March, when the school board submitted to the city a letter clarifying that it is willing to part with about 8 acres of land and urging the city to make an offer.

Local architect David Hirsch subsequently released a Cubberley plan that would focus initial construction on the city-owned land and that would open up space at the center by shifting surface parking into new underground garages.

Council member Vicki Veenker spoke for the majority when she argued Monday that it's time to act on Cubberley, which she described as "somewhat of an embarrassment to the city today when it could be a source of pride."

"We all agree that something must be done about Cubberley because it's a community gem that is crusted over with the detritus of many good uses and the deterioration borne of time," Veenker said. "And we're all frustrated with the delay and eager to see this move forward."