More about Ed in his own words:

Objective

Continue to serve the citizens of Palo Alto by leveraging my 10+ years of Parks and Planning commission experience and my extensive CEO business experience applied to the city’s toughest issues as a City Council Member.

Skills:

Proven ability to work with others and negotiate on non-profit boards and commissions to facilitate reasonable solutions and create program execution plans.  Decision process is organized around problem definition determined by listening to input from all constituents before analysis or action is undertaken.  Thoughtful and strategic in analysis; no knee-jerk decisions. Will take risks to try new things with clear metrics for evaluating the risk and for the success of the project.  Strong work ethic. Thoroughly prepare in advance of debate.  Tenacious.

Summary:

City Experience:

Recognized leader with significant accomplishments on both the Parks and Recreation Commission (7 years) and the Planning and Transportation Commission (3+ years).  Chair of PRC three times and Vice Chair once.  Chair of PTC in 2018.

Previous Community Service:

President of PA Babe Ruth regional baseball (5 years) and PA Little League Manager (6 years).

Board member and Finance Chair of Urban Ministry of Palo Alto – addressing hunger and homelessness; co-leader of merger with InnVision for broader scope and financial sustainability, and also served on that board after merger. (3 years)

Board member and VP on executive committee at Congregation Beth Am with special focus on social action on housing and hunger on the peninsula. (5 years)

Selected Accomplishments:

Planning and Transportation Commission:  2017-Present

1/11/17 Preservation of Ground Floor retail. Reinstated full protection for ground floor retail by removing temporary ordinance that allowed some office use of retail space.  Supported 4-2.

4/26/17 Southgate RPP Pilot.  Made motion to approve. Passed 6-1.

1/31/18 El Camino “workforce housing” test market.  Small housing project to test “car-light” housing near transit so data analysis of project can guide future policy in this regard. Supported 7-0.

9/26/18 Affordable Housing District to create Wilton Court AH. Strongly supported Wilton Court and affordable housing as a critically missing housing segment.  Earlier in year tried to improve the zoning structure to and accelerate this project.  Seconded motion which passed 6-0.

3/27/19 RPP for Old Palo Alto.  Active role in this debate to prioritize Old PA as #1  for next RPP and strongly encouraged staff to activate this pilot quickly – which they did.  Moved to approve. 5-0.

3/27/19 Zoning change to allow building of Mercedes and Audi dealership at 1700 Embarcadero. Strongly opposed in the minority on 4-3 vote.  Zoning change was just for these auto dealers. Traffic was not mitigated and scored as an “F.”  It is not consistent with the Baylands Master Plan or the Comp plan.

Parks and Recreations Commission: 2010 - 2016

El Camino Park. Was the PRC project leader in expanding playing field capacity by 80% with a complete revamp of this large city park. All athletic fields were replaced to flexibly accommodate multiple sports with less environmental impact.  Synthetic turf fields and the addition of lighting extend the operating hours and reduce maintenance to accommodate the insatiable demand for playing fields.

Dog Parks.  There had been well over a decade of ineffective efforts to address high resident demand for more off-leash dog recreation opportunities.  The new policy called for pro-active pursuit of appropriately sized dog parks, equitably distributed across the city, and it identified specific park locations based on established criteria. A new dog park was soon approved at Peers Park and opened for use less than 18 months after the policy was adopted.

Baylands Golf Course Renovation.  Led the years-long effort to rebuild the municipal golf course from scratch while radically reducing water usage and enhancing wildlife habitat in the Baylands.  The new layout also carved out 10.5 acres of new space from the old course for future recreational use.  Forecasted revenue goals from the new course were on target (pre-virus) to make the redesigned course economically self-sustaining.

Personal Interests:

Outdoors - Hiking in PA open space, biking, working out, skiing, scuba, cooking.

Indoors -  Watching City Council Meetings!