Why the 3-term limit? As stated in the article, other cities have a limit of TWO consecutive four-year terms on City Council.

Yes, why not two four-year term limit. And why not fashion make the restrictions retroactive! Without the retroactive restriction, we could have current council or previous council members serving up to 24 years. The Planning Commission has a restriction of two consecutive terms.

Thank you Rich Cline for starting the conversation on this important topic. Would prefer two-term limits with no opportunity to run again for City Council in Menlo Park. If enough residents speak in favor of two-term limits, perhaps a political way to get this done is to approve a phased-in approach which would allow our current Council members (all in their second term, expect for Cline who is in his third) to run again for a third term.

Two terms only.

Yeah it’s two terms. As if somebody will run for four! But they are right about how bad districts are for the electoral process. Not worth their benefit.

If one looks at the massive overdeveopment on El Camino approved by this council in the last four years, one term would have been too many.

After what Mr. Cline told the Post about his regret in running for a third term, this is a strange move for him. Is this a nod to Keith and Ohtaki who want to run for a third term? Haven't these people been on the council for way too long already? In the time these five have been on the Council, there have been some 4 million sf of office developments approved. Has anyone noticed the amount of commute traffic driving through Menlo Park? How about the huge busses driving down small residential streets, making wide turns in intersections that were never designed for these industrial size machines.

The best term limit is election day. Vote the bums out. Both Keith and Ohtaki have made very clear their allegiance to developers at the expense of residents who live in and pay huge property taxes for a quality of life that is slipping away before our very eyes. Who knows how much more office Ohtaki and Keith will vote for? Keith may want to stay on the council for the perks, which she has taken over and over. No more China trips; no more huge office complexes.

Cline's move will motivate more opposition to these incumbents than if he had just kept quiet and started packing up his office at city hall. Jeez Louise

I agree, two terns seems like enough.

I never thought I'd say this. I agree with all the comments above. Two consecutive terms max. And yes, in most cases since I've been a Menlo Park resident, one term was - and is -- too much.

Then, there's the problem of the Administration. And that requires another whole page for comments in this paper.
Let me sum it up. Since 1999, Menlo Park's series of harmful Councils and its Administration have been shameless.

I can't believe that we can't do better. Term limits are a good start.

Unsure what Engel is getting at, here is his list of "harmful" council members: Borak, Boyle, Carlton, Cline, Cohen, Collacchi, Duboc, Fergusson, Jellins, Keith, Kinney, Mueller, Ohtaki, Robinson, Schmidt, Winkler.

I bought "Managing Urban America" (eighth edition) by England, Pelissero and Morgan as my personal attempt to make better sense of what was going on in Menlo Park. I wondered why Council decisions were not necessarily carried out and why I actually even heard blatant attempts to obstruct Council decisions. I pondered who was actually running Menlo Park as I became more privy to the workings of our city government through attending meetings and my first-hand experience serving on the Library Commission. Based on the "Managing Urban America" book, and my other research and personal experience, I've concluded that our City Manager and his staff have too much policy-making power in Menlo Park. My summary as to how they exert this influence would take too long for this email. We have a problem that won't be solved just by electing new Council members. Instead, we need a wholesale change to how we are governed with the residents reclaiming what should be their rightful place in our local democracy. To start, we can demand a Sunshine Ordinance that would significantly increase the public's ability to decide what they need to know, or not know, on a given topic. Web Link We also need an Ethnics Commission with teeth. The residents role on the advisory commissions and committees also needs to be a meaningful one, with all key decisions (especially those involving capital outlays of money) coming through commissions for meaningful (not rubber stamp) discussion. We also need a significantly improve public participation process for collecting public input, such as the EPA-developed one. Web Link Until then, residents can share information, post notice of important meetings on Next Door and other social media sites and attend meetings and speak up!

Cline says he didn't "actively participate" in campaigning; that should not be seen as a slam against the next runner up. In 2014, Cline was the only candidate to be endorsed by all three local newspapers, and there was also a small army of volunteers walking for the incumbents and dropping Cline's literature. A lot of people really like the job Cline does on city council.

Att: "harmful". A close and careful reading of Lynne Bramlett's comments will answer your question about what "Engel is getting at." And your list includes many council members, including some I voted for, who promised to work on behalf of the residents of Menlo Park, but instead became intoxicated with themselves, the job and the title.

If however, "harmful", you believe that things are actually getting better and better in Menlo Park, we have nothing further to discuss.

Thank you Ms. Bramlett, for your articulate, detailed and researched comments about MP's Council and Administration, which together are "the tail wagging the dog."

Appreciate Mr. Engel's comments. We have a complicated challenge in Menlo Park that isn't uncommon based on what's described in "Managing Urban America." In short, Council-Manager forms of government (which we have) have short-comings. These include the way that the "full-time professional manager inevitably will provide considerable policy advice to the part-time amateur council" (81). The City Manager and his staff have disproportionate influence in MP because "council members are more likely to be part-time and either non-paid or low-paid and they often defer or respond to the expertise of the city manager and the professional bureaucracy - thus they are given the policymaking label of "respondents-adopters" (113).

While doing their best to keep up, our Council members understandably over rely on staff reports. These should be objective, fair and detailed enough for Council and the public to make a rational decision on the topic. Unfortunately it's not uncommon to see staff reports and presentations with obvious slants and biases designed to get Council to go along with staff's recommendations. Rich Cline once said at a Council meeting that he would appreciate having more outside information to help with the decision-making process. However, supplying that information takes up a lot of time, so the bureaucracy has an advantage. While some staff members are wonderful, some seem to have forgotten that they are here to serve residents. Staff should treat the residents as their clients!

Anyone attending the public input meetings, for key projects, also sees that some were planned so as to get the public to agree to what staff wants done. Finally, RFPs have also been written in a way that the subsequent report will lead to a recommendation that staff prefers -- such as maintaining the Status Quo. For so many reasons, Staff has undue influence on policy decisions. However, even if Council makes one that staff disagrees with, they can obstruct the policy decision because staff lacks enough accountability, transparency and oversight. They can delay action. If pressed, they can write an RFP for another expensive study (that goes nowhere) and so forth. As a former two-term council member put it to my husband, "Staff run this town." I don't disagree.

Concerned residents can become part of the solution by becoming or remaining civically engaged. Follow some key issues. Attend meetings and speak out. Your doing so will encourage others to also speak out. You can also join forces with others by going to Google groups and adding yourself to this group: MP Residents for Civic Engagement. Please email me directly at lynne.e.bramlett@gmail.com if you have any problems doing this. Our group will initially focus on making sure the proposed Charters for MP do not give Council/staff sweeping powers. Instead, we want to see a limited initial charter. We also support Ray Mueller's attempts to get a Sunshine Ordinance on an upcoming Council agenda so that Council can discuss this idea. The increased transparency, that would come with a Sunshine Ordinance, would enable more public participation for better decisions and better outcomes. I also suggest following the budget process and where the money goes, attending the F&A Committee meetings too -- where possible. Working together, we can bring about a Menlo Park that works for residents across all neighborhoods.