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Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

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Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#31

Post by nine_k »

jmspring wrote: post #12
smcg wrote: post #4

I think we should have a letter writing campaign to shame residents of Atherton. There's not that many of them.

Atherton residents include people like founders of A16Z, Stephen Curry and others. The funny thing, 10-15 years ago, a number of residences were second houses and generally empty. Back about 15-16 years ago, there was an international incubator BlackBox based out of one of the properties in Atherton.

Time and again, a small group of people who have motivation and resources wins against numerous members of general public who are neither coordinated nor motivated enough.

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#32

Post by alephnerd »

Animats wrote: post #7
smcg wrote: post #4

I think we should have a letter writing campaign to shame residents of Atherton. There's not that many of them.

I've never been able to figure out what's so great about Atherton. The houses are big, but other than that, it's nothing special. Woodside is a nice horse community with hills and sequoias. Los Altos Hills used to be; there was a time when the Los Altos Hunt ran the town. Palo Alto is next to Stanford. Portola Valley used to have more patent holders per capita than anywhere else in the US. Atherton is just a bedroom…

> I've never been able to figure out what's so great about Atherton

It's 90s/2000s tech and finance leadership money - excluded from Woodside and Portola Valley so Atherton was the next best thing back then.

Not being around Asians played a huge role as well - in the 1990s and 2000s, Saratoga, Cupertino, the Fremont Hills, and the parts of Palo that fell under Gunn High became "Asian" and we were viewed negatively by Silicon Valley types back then. I remember the white flight first hand [0]

Cathy Gatley, co-president of Monta Vista High School's parent-teacher association, recently dissuaded a family with a young child from moving to Cupertino because there are so few young white kids left in the public schools. "This may not sound good," she confides, "but their child may be the only Caucasian kid in the class." (2005)

Their kinds still populate HN.

> Woodside is a nice horse community with hills and sequoias

Older money (1950s-1990s)

> Palo Alto is next to Stanford

Palo Alto was much more "middle class" (think like Fremont or Dublin is today) back then

[0] - https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113236377590902105

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#35

Post by austin-cheney »

reducesuffering wrote: post #20

Atherton resident Marc Andreessen Apr 18th 2020: "It's Time To Build" "We can’t build nearly enough housing in our cities"[0] Andreessen family 2 years later: "IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily development! I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton... They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values"[1] [0] https://a16z.com/its-time-to-build/ [1] ht…

I can sympathize.

People in my town, Fort Worth, have been saying the same things for years. People were moving in too fast causing home values to sky rocket, so everyone was saying they need to build houses faster to prevent a property tax explosion. You can only build single family homes so fast, so then came the hundreds and hundreds of multi-family apartment campuses and home values immediately tanked. They got what they wished for. Now we have traffic, electric grid, and school system over crowding because they still can’t build everything else fast enough. Even still people keep moving in, about 65 new residents a day.

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#36

Post by decimalenough »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #24
reducesuffering wrote: post #20

Atherton resident Marc Andreessen Apr 18th 2020: "It's Time To Build" "We can’t build nearly enough housing in our cities"[0] Andreessen family 2 years later: "IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily development! I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton... They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values"[1] [0] https://a16z.com/its-time-to-build/ [1] ht…

it's time to build (ew, no not here... somewhere else)!

Relevant Onion: https://theonion.com/report-98-percent-of-u-s-commuters-favo...

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#37

Post by sandeepkd »

mlyle wrote: post #16
sandeepkd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it does not works as intended all the times. From what I have personally observed, everything falls down to the city planners on the interpretation of the code changes.

I'm confused; AB2503 does specify some building standard changes ... to be studied and then adopted by 2032. We're talking about how it exempts many things from CEQA litigation. Since it's been less than a year, I'm not sure how well we can gauge its effectiveness.

This is from my own personal experience for normal housing project. The city officials works as conservatively to safeguard themselves.

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#38

Post by alephnerd »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #25
alephnerd wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do the fundraising events for House, Senate, and the State House happen ;) Atherton is a vibe, but it's an older demographic of tech and finance successes (the 1990s-2000s scene).

> Where do the fundraising events for House, Senate, and the State House happen Atherton is wealthy. But it’s surrounded by the Bay Area. Atherton is uniquely civically engaged, but that’s about it. Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Cupertino and San Francisco can each muster more capital than it can, to say nothing of LA.

They absolutely can in aggregate, but all those towns you listed only became "rich" in the last 10-15 years, and their wealthy members tend to be extremely disassociated with the local political scene from personal experience giving advice to my peers.

Atherton, along with Hillsborough, Ladera, Potola Valley, and Woodside represent old and oldish money who were much more engaged and locally entrenched.

These are peers of Draper, Ellison, Conway, Steyer, Newsom, Getty, Schiff, Pelosi, Sobrato, Panetta, and Siebel and are an entirely different social and political strata.

There is a money as well as a racial component, which is ironic as a significant portion of the community were Italian, German, and Irish Catholics who were excluded by descendants of the Hearsts and Stanfords barely 70 years ago.

Edit: I completely agree with you. The issue is organizational though - California local and state government is structured in such a way that local priorities can override collective goals, and this goes well beyond weaponized environmental reviews or NIMBYism.

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#39

Post by malfist »

jmspring wrote: post #12
smcg wrote: post #4

I think we should have a letter writing campaign to shame residents of Atherton. There's not that many of them.

Atherton residents include people like founders of A16Z, Stephen Curry and others. The funny thing, 10-15 years ago, a number of residences were second houses and generally empty. Back about 15-16 years ago, there was an international incubator BlackBox based out of one of the properties in Atherton.

Wasn't 10-15 years ago the financial crisis?

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#40

Post by pibaker »

Train electrification would at minimum reduce pollution from diesel trains, and in the case of Caltrain, improve train services and reduce the number of cars on the road.

It is peak irony that a piece of environmental regulation is being used here to delay the upgrade works. On brand for California, of course.

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