The questions asked to the candidates and their answers from the Los Altos City Council forum are now available as follows:

Downtown Parking: You mentioned downtown parking. People have been arguing about downtown parking for decades. Do you believe there is a parking problem now? Do you think there will be a parking problem in 10 years? And if so, what would you do when in office to solve that problem?

Measure N and Schools: Do you support or oppose Measure N, and give us your reasons for that, and what can the city council do to improve relationship with the schools?

Pool at Community Center: Do you see a pool as a must have for the Community Center? Why or why not?

First Street Developments: Do you like how the developments on First Street between Edith and Main turned out, and should those developments serve as a template for future development in the rest of downtown?

Traffic: Los Altos has thorough fares like Grant Rd and Fremont Ave that are heavily trafficked and link outside Los Altos’ jurisdictions– the backup on Fremont in the morning and evening is from lights at Hwy 85, for example). How will you improve this kind of situation when you are in office?

Safe bike and pedestrian routes: Please describe how you would incorporate safe bike and pedestrian routes into all planning so that biking/walking is a safe and desirable option in Los Altos and not an afterthought?

Library: What is your outlook for a new library and where should it be ranked with all the civic center priorities?

City P.R. Person: In December 2012 the city hired a full-time, $86,000 a year, Public Affairs officer – a P.R. person – is that position necessary in a city government as small as Los Altos? If so, why?

Good government: How do you define good city government?

Stevens’ Creek Trail: Do you favor future expansion of Steven’s Creek trail in Los Altos?

Loyola Corners: It seems like little attention has been given to Loyola Corners over the years. What’s your take on the needs of the area and how would you meet those needs on the council?

Citizen Input: How will you learn what citizen’s want? What will determine your response to citizen opinion? And a context statement: How do you define the difference between reaching a consensus versus succumbing to “group-think”? How would you avoid the latter?

Questions to Audience and Candidates:

Multiple choice – Know the Facts

 Who do you admire in Los Altos: Could you tell me who do you admire the most in Los Altos ­­– it could be a person living or dead?

What makes you unique: What makes you unique? What makes you stand out among the rest of you? Give me one unique quality about you that you would bring to the table that the other candidates don’t quite match up with?

 Connecting Civic Center and Downtown: How would we connect the Civic Center to Downtown? Would you have any ideas?

Overflow questions from the Forum are posted at 

Residents can continue to post and vote on questions at this link as well.

The Los Altos Town Crier is continuing to publish responses to questions that have been developed by the sponsors, which include:

American Association of University Women-Mountain View & Los Altos Area, Center for Age Friendly Excellence, GreenTown Los Altos, League of Women Voters of the Los Altos-Mountain View Area, Los Altos-2020, Los Altos Community Foundation, Los Altos Education Association, Los Altos Forward, Los Altos Town Crier, Los Altos Women’s Caucus.

featured image created by Coolcaesar at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons and cropped