Hull, Colehower for LA Council

This year’s crop of candidates for Los Altos City Council features two candidates with a strong resumé of city involvement (Val Carpenter and Randall Hull) and two others with no history whatsoever (Kurt Colehower, Chris Croudace).

We appreciate candidates who have done their homework and paid their dues, if you will, to prepare for the council post. However, there’s also something to be said for those who can offer fresh approaches without being encumbered by city indoctrination.

For this reason, we are endorsing two candidates who represent both perspectives: Randall Hull and Kurt Colehower.

Although Hull has been deeply involved in city doings as a historical and planning commissioner and ever-present “student” at council meetings, he has established himself as an independent thinker who won’t go along with the way things have always been done.

Hull also is a rarity: someone who can master details while seeing the big picture. It was such thinking that made him the lone vote on the planning commission against a Pinewood School expansion project, a position the council ratified later by voting the project down.

Colehower may be an outsider to city government, but as a successful business executive and board member of numerous corporations as well as someone who grew up in town, we see him bringing needed expertise and passion to the council job.

He has ambitious goals to improve and better unite the Los Altos community. At the same time, he pays attention and shows concern to the most vital of city services: public safety. Colehower will ensure our police department is functioning at its best and get involved in shoring up our emergency preparedness operations.

Our endorsements of these candidates come with conditions: We expect Hull to continue his intense involvement in city affairs and to play a strong role in speeding up the pace of city staff execution of decisions made by the council.

We expect Colehower to be continually visible if elected to council and to carry out his goals with the same success that marked his leadership status in the high-tech business world. We are confident his semi-retirement from business (he currently heads his own executive search firm) will free up time for the many commitments of an effective councilmember, demanding action by staff of council-approved projects such as bringing a hotel to downtown.

Excluding hard-working community activist Val Carpenter from our endorsement choices was not done without a lot of soul searching. However, we feel that, considering the current state of city affairs, Hull and Colehower are the best choices.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Hull provides technical support to the Town Crier as a private contractor.