BY DAVE PRICE
Editor of the Daily Post

There will be no major election campaign for Menlo Park City Council this year, as only three candidates have filed for two seats.

This is worrying because the candidates are not talking about the biggest threat the city has faced in years.

Russian businessman Vitaly Yusufov, the son of a friend of Vladimir Putin, wants to build a 50-story building and two lower buildings on the site of the Sunset magazine building on Willow Road.

As things stand, Yusufov will likely get the green light to build these towers because the state’s housing law includes a “builder’s relief clause,” which states that developers who miss a deadline to submit a state-required housing plan have free rein to build new housing projects that violate height restrictions and other city regulations.

How did that happen?

The Menlo Park City Council obviously messed up by not completing and approving the plan in time. I know they will blame others – politicians never take responsibility – but the responsibility is theirs because they oversee the city government.

Now the Council must develop a strategy to stop this development. So far we have only heard empty talk about it.

The candidates aren’t talking about the 50-story tower either. Jeff Schmidt is focused on stopping climate change. He knows about the Sunset Towers, but he’s not talking about it yet. There’s no mention of it on his campaign website.

You would think that the people in his district, whose property values ​​would be reduced by this skyscraper, would expect answers from their local council.

The other race is in the district on the west side of the city, where Sharon Park is located. A candidate for that seat, Jennifer Wise, seemed unaware of the Sunset Tower project when our reporter reached her the other day. She later said she would comment on it in the future.

The other candidate for the seat is 91-year-old Greg Conlon, formerly of Atherton, who ran unsuccessfully for many offices. He is 10 years older than President Biden. As one commenter on Padailypost.com said, “She knows nothing and he has forgotten everything.”

The current City Council, with the exception of Drew Combs, also seems to be in the dark about the towers. Jen Wolosin, whose district includes Sunset, went on vacation when the proposal first surfaced. You’d think she would lead the fight against the project.

But the City Council would rather spend its time on bike lanes than stopping a monster project like this. Combs is the only City Council member who takes this proposed tower seriously.

The council should hold a public hearing to hear residents’ suggestions on how to fight this proposal.

I have a few ideas:

• The city could join with other cities that have Building’s Remedy projects and challenge the law in court.

• The city could negotiate with Yusufov to reduce the height of the project to a size that fits this part of the city.

• Buy the project from Yusufov.

The city could pursue any of these ideas, or all of them at once. For now, however, it seems the city is just waiting for Yusufov to update his original request. Yusufov will not back down—and neither should the city. The citizens of Menlo Park need a city council that is up to the challenge.

Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.