Mr. Burmeister was the superintendent when this project was approved. The council paved the way for Stanford's design, size and number of units. Stanford was given a boost in the size it could build when it created the City's Specific Plan. In return it asked Stanford for nothing. Consequently homeowners will subsidize Stanford's children in Menlo Park schools and it will fund the under crossing to the tune of $15 M. Stanford's contribution of $5M does not meet the value of the increased rental revenue to given Stanford by the City. City Council elections have consequences.

The city overreached in its demands on Stanford for the first two proposals for this project.

Stanford got tired of being ripped off and submitted a third proposal which exactly complied with the zoning ordinance and included no request for bonuses or exceptions. The city had no choice but to approve the third proposal. And then Stanford announced that the development would be used primarily for tax exempt purposes.

Beware the consequences of attempted overreach!

Burmeister [Portion removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]
His actions show he really doesn’t have any concern for the homeowners and tax payers of Menlo Park. Add a bike lane and our city council will approve any losing proposition. Menlo Park is in sharp decline and it’s the voters fault for not showing up at the polls.

Voter turnout in most precincts of Menlo Park in the most recent election was ~70%.

kbehroozi:

That turn out is not typical. The typical turnout for city elections is around 25%. Voter apathy is what allows those with an agenda to get on council and ignore the impacts on the majority of residents of implementation of their agenda.

The negotiations were between Stanford and the city. Burmeister was NOT one of the negotiators.

"Erik Burmeister was superintendent of the school district at the time and was present at some negotiation meetings. "

Is anybody surprised that Stanford is screwing over the Menlo Park City School District? They shouldn't be. This city should never have approved this deal and the school district should have spoken up much stronger against it.

On the bright side I guess it's a good thing that the school district lied to everybody about increasing enrollment to get the parcel tax passed only to then come back and say that enrollment is actually declining. Since there is there a chance that they'll ever stop collecting the parcel tax they can apply that amount of money to the shortfall with the Stanford project. If they come back and try to increase the parcel tax or something else to raise additional funds they're going to meet a lot of resistance

@ Peter Carpenter "Stanford got tired of being ripped off and submitted a third proposal which exactly complied with the zoning ordinance and included no request for bonuses or exceptions. The city had no choice but to approve the third proposal. And then Stanford announced that the development would be used primarily for tax exempt purposes."

Who is to say that Stanford wouldn't have done the same thing if prior proposals were accepted? I recall those plans included residential and high traffic medical offices.

Stanford is now fighting with Santa Clara County over property taxes. Their goal is to do what is best for Stanford, not to be a good neighbor.

I think it is important, for the district's sake, to make sure the record is clear. While no longer the Superintendent, I remain a resident of this fine city and want ensure that misinformation is addressed.

I, nor anyone else from MPCSD, participated in negotiations with Stanford as these agreements are between the city and Stanford only. I specifically told the reporter (@Angela) that we were not involved in negotiations; I ask that she correct the record to reflect to state no one from MPCSD was involved in official negotiations.

The City Council members did engage us (two Board members and myself) on at least two occasions regarding district need and impact of the development. The district has always maintained that the only solution that made the district whole was for Stanford to agree to pay for all students generated by their properties for which they do not pay taxes. Period.

At the time of these negotiations, the City worked diligently to get the best deal out of Stanford they felt that they could (Stanford was not obligated to come to the table with anything). The City even gave $1 million dollars of its own money to ensure MPCSD had the best shot at covering the costs of the additional students.

There is NO new news in this article. The new CBO is only stating fact; a fact that has been true since the negotiations between the city and Stanford took place. No agreement short of paying of these students in perpetuity would be considered "enough." Stanford is and continues to be unwilling to commit to ongoing monies to pay for the students their non-tax generating properties produce. This is true in Palo Alto, and to my knowledge, all the other locations where Stanford considers building housing.

MPCSD was lucky they got anything from these negotiations.

Expecting the city to negotiate for the best interests of another entity is doomed to failure.

When Bohannon was applying for permission to build high rises east of 101 the Fire District urged that the developer pay the cost of providing new high rise capable apparatus that were essential to serve those buildings. The city response was "we have gotten as much we can for the city out of the developer so you are on your own" and then proceeded to demand thousands more from the developer for flowers!

P. Carpenter and E. Burmeister allude to people in Menlo Park that failed to negotiate well on behalf of Menlo Park. Who did the negotiations and who had ultimate sign off authority?

"Who did the negotiations and who had ultimate sign off authority?"

The then sitting city council.

Fortunately the Mercury News accurately reported what happened in 2018.

Web Link

1. Burmeister and MPCSD asked for $2.5M:

" "Although Stanford gave the education foundation that supports Menlo Park City School District $1.5 million, schools Superintendent Erik Burmeister said that’s $1 million short of what’s needed to educate an estimated 39 students who will be living in many of the 215 housing units in the university’s planned Middle Plaza at 500 El Camino Real three years from now when completed."

Burmeister said housing units on Stanford land are exempt from property taxes, which pay 60 percent of the district’s expenses. Parcel taxes and funds collected by the Menlo Park Atherton Education Foundation cover the rest...

If the city adds $1 million to the $1.5 million the district received from Stanford, he said, the annual revenue from the combined $2.5 million in an endowment fund would satisfy 60 percent of the burden of 39 new students in year 2020-21 through their entire education...

Burmeister said the district’s financial picture is looking rosier, because projected enrollment growth has slowed statewide.

“We have lower birth rates in California and we see more people with children leaving the state than coming in,” Burmeister said. “My sense is we will be OK if the $1 million doesn’t come (from the city), at least for the foreseeable future, but we want all development within our district to mitigate the cost of educating students it is going to be bringing.” "

2. Then Mayor Pro Tem Mueller proposed the City give the School District $1M from a City surplus to be added to the $1.5M Stanford gave the School District Foundation to satisfy the District's request.

"At a recent City Council meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Ray Mueller suggested the $1 million gap could be covered by the city’s budget surplus...."

Someone should sit down with MPCSD and ask them why their projections in 2018 were so off....

"Someone should sit down with MPCSD and ask them why their projections in 2018 were so off...."

Probably because they were already contemplating yet another parcel tax ask?

Note "If the city adds $1 million to the $1.5 million the district received from Stanford, he said, the annual revenue from the combined $2.5 million in an endowment fund would satisfy 60 percent of the burden of 39 new students in year 2020-21 through their entire education..."

That appears to be exactly the situation we see today. The MPCSD projections were correct. The city simply failed to get Stanford to pay its full share.

Per Mr. Burmeister's explanation, only 60% of revenue to support a student was expected to come from the development to begin with. That is why it was the target requested by the school district.

"Burmeister said housing units on Stanford land are exempt from property taxes, which pay 60 percent of the district’s expenses. Parcel taxes and funds collected by the Menlo Park Atherton Education Foundation cover the rest..."

"If the city adds $1 million to the $1.5 million the district received from Stanford, he said, the annual revenue from the combined $2.5 million in an endowment fund would satisfy 60 percent of the burden of 39 new students in year 2020-21 through their entire education..."

It's also important to note from the article, Stanford would only agree to give the school district $1.5M.

The City then gave $1M more from City funds to satisfy the requested need of the school district. If the school district's request in 2018 wasn't enough, perhaps it should go back to the City and request more.

A) Regarding

"2. Then Mayor Pro Tem Mueller proposed the City give the School District $1M from a City surplus to be added to the $1.5M Stanford gave the School District Foundation to satisfy the District's request.

"At a recent City Council meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Ray Mueller suggested the $1 million gap could be covered by the city’s budget surplus...."

Ray my friend, really? How predictable is an MP budget surplus or deficit? Tell me you didn't say this.


B) My recollection of that El Camino Project is that as part of the deal to move Santa Clara County traffic to San Mateo County/ Menlo Park was to pay for the cost of the remodel of the Guild Theater, which is now complete.

Let me fix this:

"B) My recollection of that El Camino Project is that as part of the deal to move Santa Clara County traffic to San Mateo County/ Menlo Park was to pay for the cost of the remodel of the Guild Theater, which is now complete."

Should be:

"B) My recollection of that El Camino Project is that as part of the deal for Stanford to move Santa Clara County traffic to San Mateo County/ Menlo Park Stanford was to pay for the cost of the remodel of the Guild Theater, which is now complete."

Steve's original point is correct. In the downtown plan (DSP) the city upzoned development intensities, a gift to owners/developers, requiring nothing in return.

Then, the DSP boasted an impressive array of public benefits (DSP Table G2 pG19) but did not create any legal funding mechanism that required owner/developers to make fair share contributions in exchange for the new zoning rights. The developers just took the gift and ran. Few, if any, of the benefits were ever built.

@MP Resident "Who is to say that Stanford wouldn't have done the same thing if prior proposals were accepted? I recall those plans included residential and high traffic medical offices."

Correct logic, IMO.

I dug up a 2013 document, PC minutes of the initial project in 2013. The proposal did not ask for density bonuses, it required only architectural control and environmental review. The city gained some discretion when the focused Traffic EIR showed traffic impacts in nearby neighborhoods.

All versions of this project had housing components, probably destined for Stanford users. I sincerely doubt Stanford intended open market rentals and later decided to punish Menlo Park by restricting rentals to tax-exempt Stanford employees.

Stanford tweaked the configuration (and probably backed away from medical uses) to reduce the traffic impacts eliminating the city's discretion.

I'm not debating whether or not the city overplayed its hand once it rezoned the entire downtown without condition (Steve's original point).

Peter may be making the right point for the wrong reason.

"the DSP boasted an impressive array of public benefits (DSP Table G2 pG19) but did not create any legal funding mechanism that required owner/developers to make fair share contributions in exchange for the new zoning rights."

The public benefits ONLY came into play if the applicant wished to build something in excess of the base level provided by the DSP.

After two unsuccessful attempts to get the project improved with public benefit enhancements for which Stanford was prepared to make significant contributions Stanford elected to submit a third proposal which involved ZERO public benefit enhancements and thus Stanford was not required to do anything.

@Peter Carpenter "The public benefits ONLY came into play if the applicant wished to build something in excess of the base level provided by the DSP."

Not correct. Read the cited tables.

There is ALSO an additional level of intensity that can be built contingent on entering into a developer's agreement, but the listed benefits were not tied to that tier of development.

Many of these benefits (e.g widened sidewalks) would have required multiple property owners to participate and would have been handled best by some mechanism such as an assessment district.

I agree that Stanford was not required to do anything when accepting a base zoning conforming proposal and the potential punishment to MP might have been withdrawing earlier contributions to the bike underpass.

If that is the case I agree that MP may have mis-managed.

I don't think Stanford changed its mind about who to house in the housing component, and the initial project did not ask for a density bonus.

@Peter Carpenter "Expecting the city to negotiate for the best interests of another entity is doomed to failure."

I agree. You and I were on the same side on the Bohannon project.

But I would take the insight one step further. Expecting the city to negotiate and deliver for ITSELF anything near what it gives away to developers is doomed to failure.

I learned this within months after being seated. Public entities are wretched negotiators on behalf of the public. There is asymmetrical information and goals, and cities are always badly outplayed despite their best intentions which are truly sincere.

PH - Great points! I would suggest that in the future the city hire a professional negotiator because that will be who is sitting across the table. Stanford in particular has superb negotiators and even better lawyers who focus on the long term. Council members serving four year terms have a much shorter time horizon.

The DSP allowed a higher Base zoning for Stanford's land on El Camino than the rest of the El Camino corridor. It always seemed that this was intended to allow stanford to build a lot (more than other zoning areas of El Camino) without needing to provide Public Benefit. Stanford's land management group is highly professional and good at what they do - maximize profit for stanford.
I agree with Carpenter that the city should hire professional land use negotiators; staff and council have proven incapable of tough negotiations on behalf of our community. When 500 ECR project was negotiated, the shortfall to the school district was known, and it was quite foreseeable that Stanford University would want to use the housing for academic purposes (some residents pointed it out at the time); our city's negotiators ignored reality. This shouldn't happen again.