We are in good hands with Stone and Lauing. Both are the best, most qualified choice.
Thank you Council for electing them and congratulations to both.

So much for the equity goals our city "supposedly" upholds. This does not reflect our city, or even our Council makeup. I am not sure how this gets us good decisions for all residents. A sad day for those who value a better Palo Alto.

As several people said re the choice for vice mayor, "experience matters."

Those who are playing identity politics vs experience and qualifications are setting back women and minorities more than they're helping and are creating a major backlash.

TOTALLY agree with last post.
IMHO best person for the job.

Why was the quote from Liz Kniss singled out as one of our many former mayors and included in this article? Kniss was the mayor who claimed there was no traffic issues in Palo Alto and never met a developer proposal she didn't like.

What a difficult choice but I too would have chosen Ed Lauing. I look forward to Vicki Veneer becoming vice-mayor next year. When we have so much talent on a city council, changing mayors every year makes sense.

Of course next year we my see Veenker versus Lythcott-Haims for Bice Mayor. Will be interesting listening to JLH then try to out do Veenker based on race/Bi/female to promote her own ambition. Hmmmmm

"...observed that the council has three female members and suggested that electing Veenker would make the council more representative of the city's population."

This doesn't even make any sense. We had a female mayor in 2023, so having a male in 2024 makes the "council more representative of the city's population".

I never hear silliness like this from the Los Altos CC. Just sayin'

The debate between candidates and supporters for Vice Mayor on Monday night was certainly the longest I can recall and produced real drama for the large turnout.

So did the 2021 Vice Mayor election in which Pat Burt edged out Alison Cormack, cited by Gennady Sheyner above.

But for greatest shock effect, Vicki Veenker's decision to decline Greg Tanaka's nomination for Mayor on Monday night reminded me of Alison Cormack's stunner in 2020. Tied 3-3 with Tom Dubois for the Vice Mayor position (with Greg Tanaka abstaining), in the second round of voting Cormack switched her own vote and cast it for DuBois throwing the election to him. With Tanaka abstaining a second time, who knows how many more ballot counts there would have been had she not done so.

An extremely classy move by Cormack, that I don't expect to ever forget.

@Eric Filseth: It was indeed an extremely classy move by Cormack. What wasn't classy was what you did the following year.

According to the record, while you did nominate Cormack for vice mayor the following year (2021), you changed your vote to Burt in the second round of voting. This in my humble opinion was NOT a classy move on your part.

It especially is not classy considering that you've benefited in the past from an arrangement where the Mayor + Vice Mayor spots were balanced (or they alternated) between the Pro-Housing and Residentialist camps. Then things seemed to change and the Residentialist majority wanted both spots to be filled by Residentialist.

For all the talk this year by folks voting for Ed that Vicki could serve as Vice Mayor next year, I suspect the same sort of dishonorable betrayal that happened to Cormack just a few years ago will happen again for Vicki.