Castilleja is the most selfish neighbor ever. Why do they feel so entitled that the rules do not apply to them? They’re a private school- that does absolutely nothing for our community, including not paying taxes. There is no reason for them to expand at their current location. Find a new location like every other business that wants to expand. This has gone on long enough.

"The council will have only a limited ability to modify the new traffic plan, which consolidates and reorganizes the dozens of policies that it already approved last June, when it voted to advance the project. "

Why? This sounds like ABAG where you can't review and correct errors in the Housing Element in the face of change and new realities.

In the case of Casti's traffic plan, that includes the gridlock likely to happen when/if they close Churchill and when the massive office / hotel development at the old Sunset Magazine site backs up Middlefield traffic.

So with all the changes due to construction and closures at Embarcadero, Churchill and Middlefield could someone tell me how I'm supposed to get to downtown Menlo Park from my home in Leland Manor??

I love the "magical thinking" espoused by Casti, Stanford and developers that they can just keep expanding, adding more people, more offices etc. and there will never be any increase in car traffic. traffic backups, etc.

Money talks and common sense walks.

Casti has a shuttle that runs between the school and AME Zion Church. Does the school also have one that runs from the train station to the campus? If not, maybe they should connect with VIA and add a shuttle for that route.

Also, simply b/c of the history, basing any part of any plan on trust is not good optics for the school or the City. Trust has to be earned and Castilleja has a pretty lousy record in that department.

This story is awfully one sided, implying that the TDM solves all the issues. For those who have troubled to read it carefully, the TDM - which was created by the school, and outlines the ways in which the school will self-monitor (self-serving? You think?) - is full of holes and ambiguous language. We have already seen how City Council offered the school the opportunity to increase to 450 students IF it moved off campus during construction. It was an incentive to speed up completion and avoid the traffic horror show of students commuting through a construction zone. Instead the school did an end-run, and both added enrollment AND stayed on campus. Their explanation: "it didn't specifically say we couldn't do both." So 6th graders will be at another campus, but those students and their parents will now be added to the "all school events" on the current site. Talk about acting in bad faith.

It sounds like neighbors just keep carping, but they are aware from years of experience (up to and including today) that the school will take advantage of every loophole it can find, and if the TDM isn't specific, the school will find ways to run around it too.

Can we start with not letting the school monitor itself, but having them pay for an INDEPENDENT monitoring company that reports directly to the City?

Castilleja school has not earned the trust of our community, and should not be allowed to monitor its own traffic program. Given the history of the school flouting the limit of students enrolled, and pressuring the city for special allowances through money and influence, the school has shown itself to be unworthy of self monitoring. The city of Palo Alto should appoint an independent monitor for the school's impact of traffic and expansion in a residential neighborhood. Anything less is shameful for both the city and the school.

Castilleja School should not be trusted to monitor its own traffic impact program. Given its shameful history of flouting the enrollment and using money and influence to pressure expansion in a dense residential neighborhood, Castilleja should have an independent monitor appointed by the City. Anything less would be ridiculous and shameful.