So well check after Cecilia Taylor is elected ? So if she must revise Belle Haven has zero voice on FB related issues on city council? That’s not right. I’m viying for George Yang for sure.

The math is simple - with no members recused Facebook needs three votes for any approval and with one member of the Council recused Facebook still needs three votes for any approval.

More important with no members recused Facebook can afford to lose two votes but with one member recused Facebook can only afford to lose one vote.

I will vote for Combs.

Peter, do you plan to live in District 2 for the next four years?

Residents that have lived in District 2 for years want a representative that can participate in critical discussions coming before council where Combs has a Facebook conflict.

The Almanac and Daily Post editorial boards follow the actions of City Council every week. Both editorials considered Drew Combs potential recusals and both came out with strong endorsements for Combs, and fair criticisms of Keith’s record on City Council.

Drew Combs has been endorsed by the Almanac, the Daily Post, the Sierra Club, 10 former Mayors, and six former Mayors from District 2. Keith received no newspaper endorsements, and has less former Mayor endorsements and only one former Mayor’s support from District 2. Don’t buy another tactic trying to credit those endorsements. Vote Drew Combs for City Council!

There was a similar quote counting mayoral endorsements from Mueller on the Combs mailer, but I can't be sure because the type was so small it was difficult to read. The editorial boards and three of those former mayors don't live in Menlo Park, and they don't care what a bad deal this is for District 2. With Combs on council, every other district will have more say on development agreements with Facebook, so it's great for the rest of the city, but District 2 voters want to be able to vote for a council member that can represent their interests.

On Facebook issues Combs' recusal is an automatic NO vote.

Keith has always voted YES on every Facebook issue.

Easy choice - vote for Combs

Looking at Keith's record over the last eight years, both the Almanac and the Post have endorsed Combs, as well as the Sierra Club. It's speaks volumes none of the editorial boards endorsed Keith. You can read the Almanac endorsement above. The relevant part of the Post endorsement is below:

From the Daily Post's endorsement of Combs

"In District 2, the incumbent is Kirsten Keith. When you ask her about traffic, she’ll respond by pointing to the city’s Transportation Master Plan, which has yet to be completed. Maybe a consultant-driven plan will be a panacea? Assuming it will be, why wasn’t she working on this eight years ago, before the problem got out of hand? Offering this Master Plan in her eighth year in office strikes us as too little, too late.

Keith, who is collecting campaign contributions from developers, voted for the Facebook expansion, Greenheart and Stanford’s El Camino development. She has a hard time saying no to development. She even went to the groundbreaking of the California High-Speed Rail project and took a selfie with Gov. Jerry Brown.

Her ethics have also become a problem. Earlier this summer, she was caught violating the state open meetings law, the Brown Act, for lobbying another council member over the downtown library development — a violation that caused City Attorney Bill McClure to postpone consideration of the project until a new council could be seated. That delay may have been the reason why billionaire John Arrillaga decided to withdraw his offer of $35 million for the library project.

The China trips

Another ethical problem are the repeated trips she’s made to China, paid for by a nonprofit that appears to be funded by Chinese businesses. At one of these meetings, she wore a pin saying she was mayor when she wasn’t the mayor. The Fair Political Practices Commission is investigating a complaint about whether the nonprofit that paid for her travel was eligible to make such a contribution to an elected official. Regardless of how that investigation turns out, council members shouldn’t be accepting free gifts like this. The only reason they’re being offered these trips is because they’re elected officials. They shouldn’t be profiting from your public office.

When Keith is asked about her opponent Drew Combs, who works for Facebook, she points out that he won’t be able to vote on Facebook’s “village” proposal for Willow Road. Of course she doesn’t point out that when a crucial study session on the village project happened in March, she was missing — taking another trip to China.

Combs, who ran for council in 2014 and is serving his fifth year on the Planning Commission, said one of the reasons he’s running is to promote ethics on council.

He favors a proposal to have council members disclose when they meet with people who have business before the city. Keith has opposed that idea.

Combs has down-to-earth ideas to benefit residents. For instance, many residents want to expand their homes. But some can’t because they live on “substandard lots,” meaning they are shaped differently than conventional lots. That means those residents, when they propose plans to expand their homes, go through a confusing process that often puts them before the Planning Commission. He wants to make it easier for residents on substandard lots to make home modifications.

Combs is thoroughly knowledgeable about city issues and the process at city hall, and if elected, will be able to hit the ground running. We enthusiastically endorse him for District 2."

From the Almanac:
Editorial endorsement: Taylor, Combs and Nash for Menlo Park City Council
Much has changed in Menlo Park since 2010, when two incumbents who are now running for re-election to the City Council were elected to their first council terms. And though change is inevitable and some of the changes in the last eight years have been positive, too many have adversely affected the quality of life for residents — or threaten to do so in the future. Many of those residents are calling for change, citing transportation and housing crises stemming from the jobs-to-housing imbalance exacerbated by shortsighted approvals of big developments.
Incumbents Kirsten Keith of District 2 and Peter Ohtaki of District 4 are asking voters to return them to the council for third terms. Their challengers point to what they see as the current council's record of accommodating developers at the expense of residents' needs, and to a lack of transparency in how the city governs.
Voters can look at the records of Keith and Ohtaki to determine for themselves whether the changes the incumbents have supported argue for their return to office come December. But it would be difficult to consider changes that have resulted in roadway gridlock, a burgeoning of office space where housing and retail might have been built, and the severe housing-to-jobs imbalance as positive.
Both incumbents can rightfully boast of accomplishments that served the community well. They have also been part of majority votes supporting, for example, the adoption of a general plan update that greatly increased allowable development on the city's Bay side before working out a plan for needed infrastructure to support that growth. They were part of a four-member council majority that ignored Councilman Ray Mueller's request to discuss a proposal aimed at increasing transparency by requiring council members to make their calendars of council-related meetings with others — developers, businesses, residents and others — available to the public. And they tacitly supported the city manager's opaque strategy of working directly with billionaire developer John Arrillaga in pursuing Arrillaga's offer of millions of dollars to rebuild the main library in a process marred by secrecy and a "public" process that amounted to a charade.
The city faces many difficult challenges that have grown in scale over the last eight years and that stem from rapid development, traffic gridlock and a housing crisis. Three non-incumbents can offer fresh thinking and approaches to confronting those challenges.
...
We support Drew Combs for the District 2 council seat. Yes, he's a Facebook employee who would have to recuse himself when matters involving his employer were before the council. But that's not as problematic as it might appear to be at first glance. With a four-member decision-making body, any project approval would still need three votes. One could argue that such a requirement might make greenlighting a project even more difficult.
Combs forcefully argues for a stronger commitment by the city and the council to addressing residents' needs and concerns, giving them just as high a priority as the needs of developers. He also is an advocate for more transparency, which we agree has been lacking in City Hall.
We acknowledge and appreciate Kirsten Keith's commitment to the community, and her investment of time and effort on behalf of the city. But after eight years, we believe change is in order.

long term home owner

I have lived in District 2 for 50+ years and I am very supportive of Drew Combs. I have seen the traffic issues go from bad to horrible and not get any action on fixing them. I joined a group that went out and collected 500+ signatures in order to get the council to take action. I asked the council to add the Willow road corridor to the traffic impact study for the downtown mega projects (Stanford and Greehheart). All the current council wants to do is add more development. They already voted (with the exception of Mueller) to rezone the Facebook land to allow for the massive development that would be Facebook Village (General Plan Update approved on Nov 29 2016) so I am curious are you in favor of Facebook Village and want it approved? The fact of the matter is that if the project is good and beneficial to Menlo Park then they should be able to get approval. If it is not then Combs recusal acts as a NO and it is harder to get it past. Given her record Keith would be an unqualified YES.

I don't really think you are qualified to speak for District 2 voters, many of us are fed up with the unrestricted growth of office space in Menlo Park, the worsening traffic, the distractions of China trips, Brown Act violations, etc. We also think that our city government should be transparent and support the Sunshine proposal that lets the residents know what people with business in front of the city the City Council members are meeting with, having meals with, going out for drinks with, etc. If you or I want to say something we get 3 minutes as part of Public comment, isn't it fair to know that others are getting hours of our governments time to make their case?

So, as has been stated several times by people here, by the Almanac, and by the Daily Post the recusal is blown out of proportion by the Keith Campaign as a way to not talk about her record or the issues that she has had in the last couple years.