old timer:

I sure hope you don't work for someone that would fire you for making a mistake. That's not to say the City Manager made a mistake, but for the sake of argument let's say he did. "Cut off his head" is your response to every mistake by an employee? Glad I've never worked for you.

Ironic that the supporters of Measure M want to fire, attack, berate anyone that believes that informed voters are the foundation of a democracy.

I have never seen a supporter of Measure M quote anything from their own initiative - much less defend that initiative word for word. All we see are platitudes and assurances that Measure M really won't prevent building a new fire station or will somehow magically create demand for new retail without providing any new customers for our existing retail.

And in this case the supporters of Measure M have failed to provide even a single sentence from the Summer 2014 Focus that states "vote for," "cast your ballot," and "defeat."

The problem with what the city put in its mailer and on its website is that the information is not complete. The mailer, especially, lacks information about other uses and the downsides of office. It doesn't mention the initiative's benefits found by the city's own consultant.

The city authorized $165,000 of taxpayer funds to study an initiative that came about because of two projects and then failed to include those same projects in the scope of the study.
The city, however, features those two projects on the city website in the section about the measure and in the city mailer. Only pretty pictures of the projects can be found in the same section of the website. There are no, none, views of the Greenheart office buildings.
The city ought to be providing timely and thorough information. Instead, voters are being given partial information that comes across as quite biased.
The study was supposed to help the council decide whether to adopt the measure or put on the ballot. So why the heck, after they made that decision, are they spending more money?

Frankly all this stinks and a good investigative reporter would make a big deal of it.

@get real

The city payed for the impartial analysis because they are required to do so. They always do an impartial analysis for all ballot measure. It let's the council and voters know the financial and organizational impact of decisions.

As the Chairman of Citizens for Fair and Responsible Pension Reform (Measure L on the 2010 Ballot). I disagreed with parts of their analysis of the impact Measure L would have (that it's didn't save Menlo Park money). At the Time Heyward Robinson and Kelly Furgusson (who were backed by the Labor Unions and against Measure L) made hay of that report. We survived and received the highest Yes vote in Menlo Park history.

That the report came out against Measure M is because the measure is FLAWED. That Measure M is poorly written and has MANY unintended consequences with SEVERE negative impacts to Menlo Park. That is not the reports or councils fault, it's the Save Menlo peoples errors which are being pointed out.

THe city manager chose the newsletter to point to the analysis because it reaches a large part of the electorate.

In the end the citizens will have to decide whether they want the blight on El Camino to be there another decade, whether they want MORE traffic (which is what Measure M will cause) and whether they trust a DSP that was developed by the entire community in the open, vs. the small group of anti development authors of Measure M.....simple as that.

Vote No on Measure M
M is a Mistake

Roy Thiele-Sardina

@ Ray
The city is not required to do a study. But they did. You should read the whole thing and the response to it submitted by the measure proponents.

The study came back with quite a number of things that actually favor the initiative such as no impact on school enrollment or funding, fire district funding. It also says when M passes, development actually will be expedited with a "rush of applications"! But the city website description was never updated to provide this information or to provide a balanced view. The city mailer excludes some of the information that is on the city website, omitting for example some of the negatives of office space.

The study says that more office is quite a bit worse for city finances than the amount in the downtown plan (the SAME amount as in the initiative).

Measure M uses the same non-residential limit (Plan "maximum buildout")and the same office amount that underwent the CEQA EIR for the Plan. The amount of office proposed in the two projects combined has never been studied. That is why both projects are undergoing study now. You are attacking the wrong set of numbers.