It would have been nice to include a link to the final version of the letter. Here's the best I could find: Web Link It includes the Staff Report, the draft of the letter, and the original Grand Jury report.

I disagree with the City staff rebuttal comments about the Grand Jury Report. A positive reaction would be to accept the recommendations as well thought-out suggestions which are unfortunately for "Real Estate Developers" and their minions much more critical than they would prefer. Palo Alto seems to be in a different Universe over the whole housing crisis.

PAUSD would benefit from increased socioeconomic diversity.

We hear people call themselves YIMBYs. There are YIMBY groups. YIMBYs call home owners NIMBYs. But nobody identifies as a NIMBY. There aren't groups calling themselves NIMBYs.

To me, this is the equivalent of the Pro-life movement identifying their opposition as "baby killers". The grand jury's effort was pretty much ruined by this perspective. Council's response is more than the biased report deserves.

We would love to know who the supervising judge was for this grand jury.

Stanford should shoulder its responsibilities in this area. They have the land and the money.

The article uses the term "low-cost cities" wrt to some location(s) in Santa Clara County. Are these "low-cost cities" identified? I -infer- that the following cities are -not- low-cost:
{Campbell, Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Saratoga, Sunnyvale}
but I don't see the low-cost cities actually named. San Jose?

Palo Alto elected officials represent the interests of residents of Palo Alto. A Santa Clara County Grand Jury report prepared by a dozen random citizens throughout the county (were any of them Palo Alto residents?) is not meaningful. In this case, Palo Alto elected officials can improve things for ALL Santa Clara residents (except a few developers) by not building any more offices. There are enough offices in South Santa Clara County, Palo Alto doesn't need to build a single sq ft more office space.

JR: What exactly not building more office space in Palo Alto will accomplish? Make it more like Los Altos Hills?

I've few friends and acquaintances living in places like Los Altos Hills and Woodside. They very much like to point out a very solid housing policies of their cities, and how they have very healthy residential vs. commercial balance within their communities. As well that there's virtually no new commercial developments going on there. It's all these other places that are out of balance. At the same time, those exact same people making the claim are high-ranking executives in big companies. You know, the very same large companies building new office spaces to house thousands and thousands of new employees annually all over Santa Clara and San Mateo counties (and beyond). I find it rather hypocritical. With Palo Alto becoming more and more of a city where only high ranking executives can afford to buy housing, I don't think anybody living inside city limits has moral right to point fingers to other communities when it comes to housing crisis. It's not big bad companies creating housing crisis. If you live in Palo Alto, it's literally people living on the same street as you that are behind it.

Along the same lines, calling for not building any office space inside city limits to justify not building any housing, you know, you are not fooling anybody.