City Hall Rally for Buena Vista

On March 9th Santa Clara County Supervisor, Joe Simitian, hosted a rally at City Hall to encourage the Palo Alto City Council to set aside funds to preserve the Park.

Buena Vista rally brings hundreds to City Hall

Residents and supporters urge Palo Alto officials to help preserve the mobile-home park

by Gennady Sheyner / Palo Alto Weekly

With a cloud of uncertainty looming over their homes, residents of the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park and hundreds of their supporters rallied at City Hall on Monday to express support for the park’s preservation and to thank Palo Alto officials for recent contributions to that cause.

Holding signs and wearing yellow stickers of support, more than 400 people attended the rally at Kings Plaza on late Monday afternoon. After about 30 minutes of pizza, photos and camaraderie, the tidal wave of Buena Vista supporters then spilled into the Council Chambers, filling every seat and spreading out against the Chamber walls and vestibules for the first few minutes of the meeting. The crowd included children, seniors and every age group in between; neighborhood leaders and school volunteers; staunch slow-growth “residentialists” like Bob Moss and Lydia Kou and board members of Palo Alto Forward, a citizens group which favors more housing and a “vibrant” downtown. [Read full Palo Alto Weekly article…]

Winter Dellenbach, founder of the group Friends of Buena Vista and one of the event’s organizers, voiced a similar sentiment. “One of the purposes was to show the breadth of support,” Dellenbach said. “There can never be, fron this point on, any doubt that this town supports Buena Vista.”

“In 30 years of participating in all manner of petitioning our local government for redress, last night’s crowd of Buena Vista supporters and residents was by far the largest. Just under 550 support stickers were handed out, 1 to a person – a good indicator of attendance on the Plaza.

It was a stunning outpouring of support for a solution that keeps residents here, the children in our schools, affordable housing preserved, and pays the owner for his land. We have much work yet to do, but the momentum is going in the right direction.

Thanks to everyone who participated. It was critical that Council members know we support them in setting aside $8 million of affordable housing funds for Buena Vista.”

Volunteers from the Media Center”s Zoom In Collaborative covered the Rally at Palo Alto City Hall March 9, 2015 where supporters rallied on behalf of the residents of the Buena Vista Mobile Park, home to fifty families and 300 people, one of the last bastions of affordable housing in Palo Alto.