Palo Alto approves funding to bolster chances of preserving mobile-home park
UPDATE: Monday June 29, 2015
With the Palo Alto City Council’s final vote a month ago confirming that the Jisser family had met all the legal prerequisites to close the mobile-home park they own in the Barron Park neighborhood, efforts to raise public and private funds to buy and preserve the property have now kicked into high gear.
Thanks to the initiative and hard work by Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian over the last six months, during which time the City Council was carrying out its quasi-judicial role in assessing the adequacy of the closure plan, there is significant progress and real optimism that saving Buena Vista may actually be within reach.
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to allocate another $6.5 million in county housing funds to the potential acquisition of the park, contingent on it being matched by the City of Palo Alto, bringing the total county commitment to $14.5 million.
With 117 units of affordable housing at stake, and with the cost of replacing those units far greater than the expected cost of acquiring Buena Vista, only those who do not place a value on maintaining diversity in Palo Alto are arguing against this initiative, and virtually all of them are doing so anonymously online.