Hearing on Charleston/Arastradero Project

 
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When:
October 2, 2012 @ 2:00 AM – 4:00 AM
2012-10-02T02:00:00+00:00
2012-10-02T04:00:00+00:00
Where:
Palo Alto Council Chambers
250 Hamilton Ave
Palo Alto, CA 94301
USA
Contact:
Rafael Rius
(650) 329-2305

The City Council of Palo Alto has scheduled public hearing  for “Approval of the Retention Charleston Road/Arastradero Road- Phase II Trial Restriping Improvements between El Camino Road and Gunn High School.” The meeting is scheduled on Monday, October 1, 2012 at 7:00PM in Council Chambers at 250 Hamilton Avenue.

The Agenda and Staff Report are now online at

http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=31315

The Staff report can either be clicked through on the agenda or accessed directly at:

http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=31304

Contrary to the postcard from the City (which some received last week), the meeting starts at 7pm, with preliminaries (items 1-6) that are likely to take at least 30 minutes. The staff has requested that item 7 be postponed, so Arastradero, item 8, will be the first substantive item to be heard.

Interested persons may appear and be heard.  This project has had a substantial effect on traffic in Barron Park, especially on Maybell Ave.  If you plan to attend, be aware that the schedule is tentative. For additional information, call Rafael Rius at (650) 329-2395.

The following advice is from Doug Moran, Barron Park Association:

If you wish to make your opinion known to the City Council, the method with the most impact is to attend and speak. Speakers are given 2-3 minutes each, depending on immediate circumstances. You may want to send an email (below) and then speak to the same thoughts, but saying it somewhat differently to take advantage of the difference in effectiveness of spoken and written comments.

You can send Council an email at city.council@cityofpaloalto.org . Put a descriptive subject line so that they can easily find it when they read the email for this hearing. For example “Oct 1, Item 8, Arastradero Restriping”. Council members get lots of email, so in formatting your message to ensure that your point comes through clearly, think of them as quickly scanning the message rather than carefully reading it. Also make your point in the first 2-3 paragraphs — if you think you need to write more, think of this first part as an executive summary.

Most Council members reportedly read the packet on Sunday, so it is best to send your email by Saturday night so that it is considered along with everything else. You can send email up until 4pm Monday (sometimes later) and have it put before the Council members, but may get less attention than emails received by Sunday.

Speakers: The Council Chamber has a projector and if you want to put up slide or two during your presentation, put it on a Flash Drive and show up before the meeting starts (7pm) to have it transferred to their computer. Given how tight time is, I recommend that you have a friend to work the computer while you speak — I have found the set-up to be a bit awkward. This also allows you to face Council rather than the screen.
Links to earlier Planning and Transportation Commission meetings:

 Posted by at 10:11 PM