Interesting how only the staunchly pro-density crew who got / get the biggest campaign contributions from organized groups OUTSIDE of Palo Alto keep pushing for the change to a rotation system so they can push their agenda.

To paraphrase Mitt Romney extolling the virtues of unlimited political contributions by lobbyists, unidentified PACS, corporations etc, when pushing through the Citizens United law, "Corporations are people, my friend."

At the same time they also want to limit campaign contributions from people / individuals only but not from groups / businesses / lobbyists.

See also their repeated calls to end Prop 13 from "greedy homeowners" but never ever from corporations who of course are so much more entitled than those horrible senior citizens and grandmothers who are only politically useful when pitching ADUs,

I wish the paper would use less disparaging language when referring to the “residentialist” council members. With 3-4 of 7, it sure seems voters have chosen to have a majority of voices speaking to residents’ priorities on the council and THAT should be a major indicator of what Palo Alto voters want in a mayor, too.
I hope Ms. Lythcott-Haims’ is enthusiastic about the election of current mayor Kou who is a woman of color and who also was elected to CC and as Mayor based on her leadership and track record.
Agree with not rotating based on seniority. It’s politics! Building consensus shows leadership and good governance. Tanaka has not demonstrated as much skill in this department as his colleagues.

This article implies that Tanaka and Cormack were not elected to leadership positions because they were on the wrong side of a majority. One of these council members consistently is the least prepared at Council meetings and unnecessarily delays Council discoussions with off topic and ill-timed comments. The other, while well prepared, consistently showed a divisive tendency and both a willingness to support business interests at the expense of residents. Thank goodness the Council as a whole recognized that they would not be good for the leadership positions. We lived through the reign of Mr. Fine which was a disaster in terms of a well functioning Council. Indeed, as Council Member Stone suggests, a rotation system in which, which is appropriate for AYSO soccer where everyone gets to play, is not the right way to choose a leader.

I watched the council meeting last week and could see that the new members were dragging the meeting with offering opinions which were not thought out - they were making it up as they sat there wasting time. We will put people in charge who can present their ideas in a well thought out manner with a clear statement of the desired outcome.
If people got voted onto the council then razing the race card seems to be a pot stirrer. If you are there then participate with well thought out positions that do not waste time. If people want to gain political clout then it has to be based on good, solid solutions to the current problems of this city.
We vote for good management - not serving up the "image" of the city. Some of the comments from the call-ins were disturbing. Some call-ins seem to think that they were directing a image building TV show - not running a city. Running a city is a business and the taxpayers know that. Run this business for the best outcomes for the residents.

Connecting the dots of the various news stories about system failures, flooding, outages, crime, housing, the erosion of retail, etc., it is painfully clear that what Palo Alto badly needs is more leadership and less politics.