Great decision about the Museum. Thank you Tom, Pat, Lydia and Greer.

"It's important to tell the next generation about our history and without the Palo Alto Museum it's hard to imagine that happening," Green said. "This Roth Building is going to bring a tremendous amount to this community."

I totally disagree with that statement. The City has better things to spend money on.

Common sense prevails. We have rainy day money for reasons. This is our rainy day.

Just what does the Roth building refurberation and its subsequent emergence as the Palo Alto History Museum actually bring to this community?

The history behind Stanford and the university carries far more impact as a local historical consideration and the university already has a museum that will make any Roth museum offerings pale by comparison.

Will the allure of a mechanical monkey from the Nut House be enough to draw in future visitors?

How ironic to hear Ms. Cormack suddenly become fiscally conservative after her refusal to stop or curtail massive city building projects, her rush to replace the sales tax-generating retailers at Town & County with "medical" offices more lucrative for the landlord and her grandiose vision for Mitchell Park Library where she was so "ashamed" of the old one.

I am still waiting for the City to generate some revenue by asking large businesses to shoulder more of the costs they impose on the community. Something at least?

It was mentioned last night that Alison Cormack is contemplating a parcel tax. Another tax that all residents will pay. I wish any more funding gaps would be addressed by making the city more efficient (it was mentioned that out of 938 employees total, least 211 are people managers. So people managers have only 3 direct reports on average…lots of managers). And if there is still a gap, then follow the lead of other neighboring cities and impose a business tax (large employers only). But not another tax on residents.

Just spend the gift money from the feds and do something constructive with these resources.

Simple as that.

NO new parcel taxes without a heft business tax!!! Shame on Ms. Cormack and her anti-resident pandering.

The City Manager's budget "survey" was ludicrous in its transparency when it never offered a clean choice for a business tax without muddying the waters by combining with another utility charge, something "impose a business tax and/OR a new utility charge" which allowed the city to spin the results.

How about first cutting some of the upper level positions at City Hall, eliminating the new $90,000,000+ fiber-to-the-home project etc. before even thinking about a new parcel tax???

"Will the allure of a mechanical monkey from the Nut House be enough to draw in future visitors?"

Whatever it takes to lure you in, I suppose. Stanford takes care of Stanford. Period. Palo Alto has its own rich history that not enough people are aware of, as you demonstrate. Why not drop by after the museum opens and see for yourself? And bring a friend.

I cannot help but wonder what Staff's initial suggestion for History Museum admission will be. $18? I don't see that this particular spend needs to happen in the next fiscal year. The community has waited until now for this so an extended wait would not be a fatal blow. Cuts to existing programs would have a much more damaging impact. So I say THANK YOU to City Council for taking steps to restore the cuts proposed by Shikada.

I suspect that the mechanical gorilla from Antonio's Nut House will become garage fodder and eventually disposed of accordingly.

A erudite museum curator would be hard pressed to seriously consider something like that of any key historical significance.

Might as well include the horrid outdoor wooden sculpture called 'Friends' that used to grace the lawn bowling park on Embarcadero Road.

And that crappy-looking sculpture on California Avenue...the mangled bike rack and wooden spiral that looks like a grotesque unicorn horn.

For such an upscale community, Palo Alto art commission tastes are somewhat questionable.

Re my earlier comments about budget cuts, I challenge / dare the City Manager, City Council, PTC commissioners to venture over to NextDoor and read the responses of to a poor soul's quest to reach someone in the Residential Parking Permit group. There must be 100+ responses with OTHER people detailing their lengthy quests to reach ANYONE, comments about the continued failure of the web site, etc.

For this we pay good money? And have to waste OUR time fighting to keep "community services" we value?!

Accountability and responsibility would be special. How much was spent on the new web site the City Manager is proudly bragging about? Did ANYONE bother to test its features? Evidently not. No more than they tested the City Manager's survey.

"The history behind Stanford and the university carries far more impact as a local historical consideration and the university already has a museum that will make any Roth museum offerings pale by comparison."

Yes, and no, James - indeed Stanford has a fascinating history and is the reason Palo Alto is the way it is. They have terrific art collections, but no history museum. (My PA-born husband still mourns the move of the locomotive to Sacramento RR Museum.)

That's why Stanford and the Museum are partnering, and why it's endorsed by the Stanford Historical Society, Palo Alto-Stanford Heritage and Stanford Special Collections & University Archives, among other community groups. And we're working with professors like Dr. Clayborne Carson, Dr. David M. Kennedy, and Gordon H. Chang, Professor of American History and Sr. Assoc. Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. Plus more Stanford folks on our advisory board and among our donors. But UC grads and other non-Cardinal alums will also find their history here, because Palo Alto has been drawing people from around the country and the world for generations.

We're working together to honor all voices, and share the stories of the Palo Alto-Stanford community. And with 30 years of local history museum management under my belt, you can trust that we'll meet the standards this community - MY community - deserves.

Learn more at www.paloaltomuseum.org.

Laura Bajuk, E.D., Palo Alto Museum

PS: to Annette: the City agreement we've had stipulates free admission.

It makes no sense to fund ongoing operations and people with one time money from the Fed. Cuts will just have to happen later once the money is spent. I side with the more cautious group who only wanted to spend half of the federal grant.

Further the Roth building should be fixed up but then the city should rent out at least half of the building to pay for the renovations. The history museum groups has proved that they are totally inept since they couldn't get their act together in 20 years to refurbish and open the museum. The city should not just fix up the building and give it to them for free. We the taxpayers deserve to get a return on fixing up the building.

And again no new park space, no new open space just more buildings, more people, more stuff that adds to global warming with no respite for the people who have to live here. Buying park land is a one time investment that will be there for the residents forever. I guess it isn't splashy enough to get city council people interested. The just want to hire more people and pass out money so they can get reelected.

So shortsighted and it may come back to bite them but like most politicians they just spend the money as fast as they can with no thought to the future and what taxpayers will have to pay.

YEAH - look at what PA has stated as their "places to visit" on the city web pages. Children's Theatre, Library with children's section, that is where some money needs to go.

Thank you CC for beginning restoration of our Historic Roth Building. I strongly agree with Carol Scott idea as how to help fund it. When the Medical Center was replaced by two townhome/condo complexes, the contract stated their “Public Benefit” for the honor of being awarded the contracts would be restoring the Roth Building to become a City Museum. Unfortunately OUR Public Benefit was “excused” in later negotiations. Then the CC ignored it. Our city has a long rich history important to this state here on our peninsula and this museum will richly benefit our community as well as our surrounding local communities. A terrific children’s educational school field trip is just One. Visual learning is necessary. I don’t not understand the alarming posts I read as the CC has a very clear understanding of the challenges from the public they face when concidering raising parcel taxes. I am so very happy for this good news. Thank you again CC.

Will they bring the steam locomotive back from Sacto to the Roth Building or possibly house a non-descript Southern Pacific diesel locomotive to show the importance of PA as a key rail-link from San Jose to San Francisco for both commuters and gravel/freight trains?

And what about the Ohlones? The Stanford Museum pays tribute to their earlier occupation and even has an Egyptian mummy to expand its global acknowledgment of ancient history.

Will the mechanical gorilla from Antonio's Nut House be viewed by future museum visitors in the same light?

What about this for a win-win idea. Why not just give whatever money we have allocated for the Roth building and directed towards Antonio‘s not house. My guess is there are many hundreds more people Who would visit the nuthouse versus a museum. You could put some of the interesting artifacts in the back of the nuthouse. And use the Roth building for affordable housing instead