By Lauren McSherry

The Los Altos Hills City Council has decided that even though the city did not receive four notices or a draft environmental impact report from Palo Alto concerning its Mayfield Agreement with Stanford University, it’s time to move on. The notices and DEIR were required under the California Environmental Quality Act.

“Palo Alto was not looking for input from us. The deal was going down,” Councilman Mike O’Malley said at the June 16 council meeting about the agreement Palo Alto approved last month. “We were the last piece in this, and we were a minute piece. I think any more of this is beating a dead horse and we need to move forward.”

The council agreed that suing Palo Alto over lack of notification wouldn’t change anything. It would only delay the project by six months and rack up legal fees.

In May councilmembers seemed to be taken by surprise when Fremont Road resident Kim Cranston brought to their attention that, as part of the agreement, Stanford would build 460,000 square feet of office space at the triangle formed by Foothill Expressway, Arastradero Road and Hillview Avenue. The agreement includes plans to install two stoplights on Arastradero.

A report presented by staff on all communications since Dec. 2004 between the two cities concerning the agreement revealed that the council knew about Stanford’s plans well before May.

The city engineer apprised the council of the traffic signals at a Jan. 6 council meeting during which the council directed staff to send a letter to Palo Alto expressing concerns about the proposed lights. The letter, however, was never sent.

The staff report contained no explanation for the failure to send the letter nor did it provide an explanation for how the notices and DEIR, sent as certified mailings to the city, slipped through the cracks.

“I think we need to collectively agree we dropped the ball and, as a result, we are where we are,” Councilman Jean Mordo said.

After learning about the proposed traffic lights through a grassroots effort led by Cranston, some residents living in neighborhoods along Arastradero became outraged and asked the council to stop the Mayfield Agreement from going forward.

Since then focus has shifted to how the city let the issue slide.

“If the train left the station, why did it leave the station?” Cranston asked the council. “If it did leave, then staff was asleep at the switch.”