More PAF Dirty Campaigning

Kniss, Fine, Tanaka, and McDougal are the problem. Kou, Keller, Carl, and Stone are the solution.

I've heard that this is going on. It would be great if the Weekly could investigate, even though the article may not be timely. Also, I would welcome an investigative article on Palo Alto Forward and Palantir. The overlap between Palantir employees and Palo Alto City Commissions, do employees receive comp time or other compensation for the time they spend on these activities, etc. It appears that Palantir is highly secretive and has spread deep tentacles into local politics. Eric Rosenbaum, Planning Commission, Palo Alto Forward is a good example.

I'm pretty sure claiming unspecified dirty tricks by someone else without letting people make up their own mind is the oldest dirty trick in the book.

I've seen the letter by Elaine Uang. It prints her own views and is pretty measured in saying that she doesn't think Lydia Kou is actually going to improve housing affordability, which is Elaine Uang's big issue. Obviously, in a different campaign, you could claim that negative campaigning is wrong, but Kou and Keller are famous for printing negative fliers and sending them to everyone, so that doesn't really apply this time.

Elaine didn't mention a lot of things she could have. She didn't even mention the part about how Lydia Kou's treasurer impersonated her organization to file a PAC in their name. The ending to that story is interesting, by the way - Lydia Kou fired her treasurer, but she made sure to say it wasn't because creating a PAC called "Palo Alto Forward" was wrong. She fired him because other people might think it was wrong, so it would be a distraction to her campaign.

So, overall, I would encourage people to read Elaine Uang'a letter themselves, rather than just this Town Square post.

It not just the negative campaigning or the yard signs on public property. The pro-development group is so self-righteous they have come to believe their righteousness, entitles them a moral self-license to engage in dirty politics and exempt themselves from regulations.

Here's a link to Elaine's letter: Web Link

This is a good opportunity to get her endorsements more publicity. Any actual dirty tricks would be worth noting, of course, rather than insinuating. The tone of her endorsement letter vs. this Town Square post speaks for itself.

I'm not talking about Elaine Uang's attacks on Lydia Kou (inaccurate), I'm talking about someone called Laura Woodrow presenting herself like a neighbor in the Barron Park list - on which political campaigning is against the rules, by the way - pretending she is looking for input from her neighbors and parroting the false and negative things said about Kou.

Elaine Uang's letter is pretty frightening in that it makes clear that the only way she thinks affordable housing can happen is through significant dense building to get supply forever ahead of demand, i.e., naive and delusional about Bay Area markets, or manipulative for Palantir's interests, you decide.

Kou never led anything against senior housing. I know, because I know Kou and was there, and she was never once against the housing, she was against doing it that way, and for collaborating to find a better way. It is the height of dishonesty by Uang to continue to push that cartoonish and false narrative about Maybell that was for political advantage in a rezoning battle. Kou and others in the neighborhood tried to find a way to get a working group, as had solved a nearly identical development battle in the same neighborhood before, with many of the same people, saving the school from being turned into housing and resulting in even more affordable housing than at Maybell (just not as originally planned, better).

Uang is drawing a false conclusion about Kou from Uang's outrageous belief that affordable housing is only possible as a side effect of huge development. This will not provide affordable housing in this area. PAF is not interested in real affordable housing, just using it for their own ends, Look at Steven Levy's surprisingly negative blog about Buena Vista. They are threatened by someone who wants affordable housing by focusing on the problem and providing for those who really need it, rather than screwing up Palo Alto because of manipulation by Palantir employees since Palantir wants to turn downtiwn Palo Alto into a company campus.

Back to the dirty tactics at hand: it wasn't posted by Uang, it was a person from downtown, Uang's surrogate, pretending to be a neighbor in Barron Park, asking all doe eyed for opinions from neighbors, parroting Uang's smears of Kou on a list that bans political duscussion.

Pointing out the positions of PAF members and using their own words about themselves, as Kou did about her opponents, is not dirty politics, portraying it as that was the dirty PAF politics. Pretending to be the opposite to get elected, as PAF candidates are doing, is dirty politics. Own your positions, even if you aren't being honest about Palantir's influence. (I wonder if we will have to continue putting up with this if downtown were made safe for retail and small startups again.)

You guys should really stop making up stuff about Palo Alto Forward. Try going to one of their events once in a while! They are just a group of regular residents who want to see more housing in Palo Alto and a better transit system. It's pretty interesting watching all the false things written about them, probably by the same five people linked to PASZ.

I really encourage you all to get out more and meet your neighbors. Maybe it will turn out they are not at all "manipulative" and it really sounds like they are as interested in affordable housing as they say. After all, they got 100 signatures for CalPark. I didn't see PASZ or the Kou campaign lift a finger.

At some point, if you've got one set of people advocating for affordable housing, writing letters for affordable housing, and voting for affordable housing, you've really got to figure they are for affordable housing - even if another group that's done none of those things says that they are the true supporters of affordable housing instead.

Elaine's point in her letter that PASZ has actively vilified anyone involved in housing, transit, and walkability is proven, sadly.

No-one is guessing here. I simply read what Elaine Uang wrote. There's nothing regular about it. It was downright nasty and not the least bit neighborly. I don't remember reading about her support for Buena Vista or any other affordable housing efforts for that matter. Does she represent Palo Alto Forward?

Elaine Uang os a urban architect, and thus has a financial interest in increased construction.
It was her husband Mike Greenfield who first compared council candidates to Trump. Rosenblum applauded his foolish, uneducated rant.

These are PAF leaders and their public personnas:
* Elaine Uang - urban architect
* Sandra Slater - designer and partner,Drew Maran Construction Co.
* Steve Levy - economist, housing advocate, consults for ABAG
* Eric Rosenblum - Planning Commissioner, Palantir employee
* Mehdi Alhassani - Palantir employee
* Kate Downing - corporate lawyer; husband is Palantir employee for many years
* Mila Zelkha - Palantir employee
* Bob McGrew - Chamber of Commerce, Palantir employee

@Umm

Elaine Uang's letter makes very clear the PAF perspective that the only pathway to affordable housing is not by directly focusing on it, but by hyperdensifying Palo Alto, and somehow getting "enough" ahead of the demand curve to reduce prices. (This is the view proferred by Kate Downing, who quit her planning commission post before completing it to move to a large home in Santa Cruz, but not before claiming a lot of falsehoods in the news to slam Palo Alto and its residents.) Again, this is either naive and delusional, or manipulative for the sake of completing Palantir's office park transformation of downtown so it can have its employees all around. Either way, resistance should be expected and is healthy for Palo Alto,

It is that irrational perspective on affordable housing that is the lens through which Elaine Uang criticizes Lydia Kou. Stephen Levy, another PAF leader, wrote an extremely negative blog about Buena Vista that made it clear that he, too, cared mostly about densifying and build baby build, and only about "affordable" housing in principle to the extent that it furthered a market-rate building agenda.

Not long after it formed and won at Maybell, PASZ wrote one of its only advocacy letters to the City favoring doing everything necessary to retain Buena Vista. I heard nothing from anyone at PAF back then. I am, by the way, not a member of PASZ but support their efforts in spirit. They are far more than "five people". (You didn't lose yet another chance to throw out a false barb to try to marginalize them, though, did you? Typical PAF.)

I happen to know a large number of my neighbors in my neighborhood, on every street, and all the adjacent neighborhoods. We actually like Palo Alto and gather as neighbors frequently. PAF on the other hand bashes everyone else and then whines that people are being nasty to point out that they just want to densify Palo Alto (which you just said). If you hate this place so much, why are you doing this? San Jose leadership has said they WANT the jobs, WANT the young workers, and certainly there would be way less commuting if some (certain) companies simply relocated to San Jose.

With PAF, it's just words and a lot of misdirection. Building a lot will never make things cheaper and will only distract from helping real peopke like residents of BV. Low-income people are more likely to be pushed out by all the new building than to be ever helped, it's called gentrification.

My complaint was the dirty trick of Elaine Uang's surrogate, pretending to be a neighbor in Barron Park looking for information as a pretense to campaifn for the PAF Four and smear Lydia Kou. Dirty tricks even as they cry scandal at every little non issue. (Oh no! Tim Gray did something months ago that no one knew about and never would have if PAF didn't blow it up and make nasty public accusations!)

As I said, you really should get out more. Tom Dubois also supports having more housing in the downtown. I don't think he's a PAF member or part of some sort of crazy Palantir conspiracy. But when Elaine says the same thing, she's crazy?

Palo Alto Forward wrote a letter to City Council advocating for Buena Vista. Elaine Uang read it at Council.

Take a look at their housing petition. There's nothing there about "hyperdensifying" Palo Alto. It's just some moderate measures to add housing. I signed it.

At this point, you are just throwing random things out and trying to see what sticks. It's clear you don't know anything about Palo Alto Forward.

Seriously, though, Palo Alto is a small town. We are too small for this name calling and these conspiracy theories. Go to the next Palo Alto Forward event, meet some of them, and see if you still believe everything you are writing here after you talk to them.

You're right about one thing. We are too small for this name calling. It's a shame Ms Uang did not take that into consideration.

I don't appreciate the Fine campaign placing signs in my yard on private property. Twice! To me, that's dirty politics.

@Ummm....
"As I said, you really should get out more"

You start your post with another dig, something intended to attack my deep understanding of the people and issues while glossing over all the Build Baby Build noise from the likes of Steven Levy, Kate Downing, and Eric Rosenblum (let's not forget the infamous letter and all the townsquare efforts trying to equate residentialists with Trump, or the saying single family homes are immoral or lived in by billionaires only). Then you try to characterize my pointing out the essence of PAFs position to build baby build and throw out zoning in Palo Alto - which you yourself affirm (though downplayed to the point of inaccuracy) - as randomly throwing (ostensibly false) charges out to see what sticks. Then you end by, in passive aggressive phrasing, characterizing my pointing out PAFs building agenda and the dirty tricks and campaigning of PAF as "conspiracy theories" and "name calling". Finally, you insinuate that you alone are somehow calling for peace, while in the same breath insinuating that I cannot know anything at all about PAF based on the jarring political positions and many public statements and actions, and nasty campaigning against good people like Lydia Kou of its founders, and if I just met PAF members in person in a meeting/group of them together, I would be enlightened. (Oh no, THAT doesn't at all border on cultish inculcation <sarc>).

Tom Dubois and Elaine Uang's positions can hardly be equated. Tom is thoughtful, intelligent person who will think about the big picture. Elaine is an ideologue pounding one idea only: build baby build, and the rest of holistic civic needs be damned. If you think PAF actually supports BV in a realistic way, read Stephen Levy's negative blog post about it. And Uang and PAF have been particularly nasty and low in how they've pursued their agenda, just search for Kate Downing's public statements, and go from there. But thank you for admitting that residentialist Councilmembers like DuBois are not just ideologues like PAF.

Palantir and a few other large players are in violation of zoning rules, strangling the vibrancy of downtown that used to be a great place for startups, and turning it into an urban mess for their own benefit. Should they move to San Jose or just anywhere else, and stop trying to manipulate Palo Alto politics and civic dealings, I would be happy to say nothing more about them.

A residentialist sweep just might convince Palantir to move elsewhere, IMO to the great benefit of Palo Alto. OTOH, they'll still hold long-term leases on 20 buildings in Palo Alto, making it advantageous to continue to attempt to manipulate Palo Alto politics.

@More PAF Dirty Tricks - When candidates like Adrian FIne are retweeting extremist idealogues like Kim-Mai Cutler, I think it is fair that to assume he is an extremist himself, right? I hate that the PAF candidates aren't honest about their extreme growth positions. The election should be a referendum on growth, but the PAF candidates hide their views because they know they'd lose.

If you wonder what I wrote about Buena Vista go to my blog and check it out for yourself. I asked a bunch of questions to the Santa Clara Housing Authority about their proposed help to buy the BV site. If asking questions is negative, I am guilty but most posters thought the questions should be answered and the Housing Authority has pledged to answer them if they decide to move forward.

@stephen levy,
Having heard you in other contexts, where you seem to be able to turn *every* issue, no matter how unrelated, into a problem where the answer is more building of housing in the Bay Area and especially here, I was very surprised to see what I thought would be a supportive essay about BV by its title. What I read instead was a negative essay with questions that were leading (about the PAF preference of razing it and putting in densified new housing, which prioritizes spots over actual longtime low-income residents who will not likely be occupying those spots) and unsupportive. It's not questions I took issue with, it was your way of parsing what you were saying to be so negative about saving BV without your saying it outright.

Years ago Steven Levy was a big supporter of Below Market Rate housing.
Now he simply wants more development, including housing for the wealthy.
Right on Stephen! Go for the Gold!

I can't wait for this mudslinging to be over!

Why did the thread on signs for (mostly) Adrian Fine illegally placed on public property disappear?

I wonder how all the hyper-growth candidates including those with Palantir's backing rationalize their positions when the inevitable economic crash comes and they've succeeded in pushing for density that no one wants or needs? Most of were too young to have caught the the dot.bomb crash of 20 yrs ago but you'd expect them to read the business press for a dose of reality to go with their rhetoric and refusal to find practical solutions.

Read the business press. There are few if any IPOs, many companies are cutting back and/or slow to hire and there are lots of articles about down rounds!

A little maturity and realism would be special.

Didn't they see the recent NYT Times article and the recent Fortune article about how companies -- including Palantir -- are cutting back on funding and valuations?

Morgan Stanley Marks Down Its Stake In Palantir, Dropbox
Web Link

Yes, why did the post on campaign signs disappear without a trace? Weekly?

At around 4PM today (Sunday) a woman was busily planting signs for MacDougall and Fine at the Embarcadero and Middlefield intersection on what was clearly public land. Since I was stopped at the light, I called out to her that that was illegal. She looked at me and continued to plant them. By around 6PM, there were 3 more on the other public corners of the same intersection.

Last week our dogsitter wrote that we'd suddenly sprouted 3 more political lawn signs on our personal property in spite of the fact that we were OBVIOUSLY backing other candidates whose signs were already there! We were out of the country and not checking email daily so they got a few days of free unwarranted publicity.

How special to see such respect from our candidates for our laws, personal property and political positions,