morris brown
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More evidence that the City was using public funds to advocate against Measure M.
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Daily Post Nov 7 2014
City billed for letters to the editor
BY BILL SILVERFARB
Daily Post Staff Writer
Consultant Malcolm Smith charged Menlo Park more than $6,000 for services that included drafting news releases, talking points, letters to the editor and opinion pieces against Measure M — even though City Manager Alex McIntyre told the Post that Smith’s work was limited to just to the city’s website.
Smith’s invoices to the city, which the Post obtained yesterday, reveal that he charged the city $575 to draft news releases; $200 to draft letters to the editor; and $350 to redraft letters to the editor and talking points among many other services between May and July.
Whether the city used any of the material Smith produced couldn’t be determined yesterday.
On Sunday, McIntyre said that to his knowledge Smith only worked on language for the website that detailed Measure M’s impacts to the city’s Specific Plan.
A battle on three fronts
Residents who led the Measure M campaign told the Post that they felt they were in a three-way fight — sparring with current and former city council members, a major developer and the city government itself.
The developer was Greenheart Land Co., which wants to redevelop the former Cadillac dealership at 1300 El Camino Real and Derry site on Oak Grove Avenue with 210,000 square feet of offices and 210,000 square feet of housing.
Measure M, which was defeated with 62.3% of the vote, would have forced Greenheart to come up with a new project that had only 100,000 square feet of offices. Greenheart spent $200,000 to defeat M.
Fighting City Hall
Former mayor Heyward Robinson, a leader of the Measure M campaign, said his side also had to fight the city government, which appears to be openly campaigning in the election by mailing out a biased brochure against the measure and hiring Smith. Robinson said Smith contributed biased language to the city’s website on Measure M.
The Post couldn’t reach Smith for comment.
The campaign was vitriolic throughout with M opponents criticizing the measure’s backers for using the names of prominent Menlo Park residents on campaign literature without their permission and M supporters accusing the council of spreading inaccurate information on what the initiative’s impacts would be.
Just last week, former mayor Steve Schmidt, during a public hearing on an amendment to limit new medical and dental offices in the Specific Plan area, accused the City Council of spreading “misinformation” about Measure M.
It turned into a heated exchange between Councilwoman Catherine Carlton and Schmidt over decorum.
“This is purely designed to satisfy and provide theater for your friends at Greenheart and Stanford Building and Real Estate,” Schmidt said about the timing of council’s action to amend the Specific Plan just six days before Tuesday’s election.
A plea for politeness
Carlton said Schmidt was being “rude.”
“I cut him off and told him to be more polite. I ask my 7-year-old to be polite, and I ask the same of former mayors,” she said yesterday.
At the meeting, Mayor Ray Mueller said he was “tired of the rhetoric and innuendo.”
The SaveMenlo camp, Mueller said, had resorted to “character assassination” against the council in order to sway voters to support M.
But Measure M may have lost ground during the campaign. More people signed the petition to get it on the ballot (2,545) than actually voted for the initiative (2,513). The vote total may change, however, as provisional ballots are being counted.
The wide victory of margin against Measure M pleased Carlton.
“I’m glad it was a solid ‘no’ vote. The people have weighed in on it,” she said.
But Carlton said the initiative will have a lasting effect because it has divided neighborhoods and friends.
“It was very emotional. I hope we can heal and work together and function in a positive way,” Carlton said.
Robinson, however, said the city was already divided before Measure M came along.
“These divisions didn’t just pop up with Measure M,” Robinson said.
It’s a classic fight between pro-development forces and Residentialists, he said.
