Menlo Together supports interrelated issues of affordable housing, sustainable transportation, and environmental justice.
We focus most of our time and effort on local issues in Menlo Park.
In support of our values, we learn about and make endorsements on ballot measures at the regional and state levels, to educate our community.
No on P
Measure P on the ballot in Menlo Park would make it harder to build affordable housing on city-owned parking lots downtown. It would require a citywide vote to make any changes to the parking lots, even improvements to parking. Menlo Together strongly supports affordable homes downtown, near transit and services, on publicly owned land, which is the most financially feasible for deeply affordable homes.
The downtown homes are essential for the City to meet its housing commitments to the state. If the city falls out of compliance, we risk losing land use control and getting more “builders’ remedy” projects that don’t need to follow city rules. The ballot measure could be very costly to the city, because it requires the city to fund the legal bills ballot measure proponents in likely litigation, as long as the proponents want to keep litigating.
YES on Regional Transit Measure
The Regional Transit Measure will prevent drastic cuts to Caltrain, BART, AC Transit and Muni. (San also needs Prop H to protect Muni service)
Our affordable housing goals depend on public transit, to reduce car traffic and improve cost of living for residents. In the Bay Area, two thirds to three quarters of new housing is planned near frequent transit. If there are big cuts to transit, car traffic will get a lot worse, according to this new report from SPUR.
The Regional Transit Measure won’t just prevent service cuts, it will help make transit more seamless, rider-friendly and affordable, with funding for 14 years of free and reduced price transfers, standard low income discounts, unified signs and maps, and improvements to safety and cleanliness. It requires agencies to improve efficiency.
Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and particulate pollution in our region. Transit helps lower emissions.
The Regional Transit Measure is essential for our goals of housing affordability and sustainability. Vote yes on RTM.
YES on Prop 1 Statewide Affordable Housing Bond
Public funding is needed to build affordable housing in Menlo Park and around the state. Prop 1 authorizes the state to issue $11.5 billion in bonds to fund a variety of good programs to build new affordable housing for groups including veterans, students, farmworkers, and others who need. “Affordable” in this context means that rent is set at a fixed percentage of the household income.
YES on Prop 3 – Making High Earner Tax permanent
Proposition 3 makes permanent a tax on the highest earning 2%, which originally passed 15 years ago and would otherwise expire in 2031. This measure funds education and health care.
No on Prop 39 – Adds Barriers to Voting by Requiring Government Issued ID to Vote
Currently, to register to vote, you need to be a citizen and provide name and address. This ballot measure would also require a government-issued ID to be provided every time someone votes. This would add barriers to voting, expose sensitive information to identity theft, result in rejections of valid ballots for clerical mismatches, and cost up to hundreds of millions yearly to administer.
No on Prop 43 – Adds barriers to raising public funds for housing, transit, parks, and other needs
Proposition 43 would require a two-thirds vote for local special tax and property tax citizen initiatives. Currently these can pass with 50% plus 1 of the vote. Proponents want to increase barriers to raise funding for affordable housing, transit, parks, fire departments, etc.
It does not retroactively impact measures that are currently on the ballot (the RTM, Prop H), but it would make future funding for public investments harder.
No on Prop 45 – Speeds environmental review for highways and sprawl housing
Prop 45 changes the California Environmental Quality Act to speed up environmental review for some projects. In recent years, the legislature has already reformed CEQA to make it easier to build environmentally beneficial infill housing, transit, bike and sidewalk projects. This law would mostly benefit greenfield “sprawl” development in agricultural lands and fireprone wildland borders, and highway expansions, and industrial projects that cause environmental harms to nearby communities and habitats.
There are opportunities for the legislature to make more changes to CEQA that make environmentally beneficial projects easier, but this ballot measure is a blunt instrument that could only be changed by another ballot measure.
