This document contains meeting notes from the Los Altos Forward group on October 18, 2011. It summarizes discussions on recent city updates, including a city council study session and a pop-up dinner event in the downtown area. It also provides an overview of projects and actions taken by different working groups within Los Altos Forward related to parking, the village image, commercial interests, the city process, and social interests. The primary discussion involved breaking into groups to identify top goals, which were then voted on: 1) Pushing the city to do a community visioning process, 2) Making "First Fridays" social events a focus, and 3) Electing action-oriented city council members.

1. 10.18.11 Los Altos Forward Meeting Notes
Notes by Brooke Ray Smith
General Meeting Notes
• City updates
o Oct 4 City Council Study Session – open mic style discussion about what to do
on Plazas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7. Audio may be available through City Clerk’s
office, call to request (650) 947-2720.
o POP-UP dinner Oct 16 in Village Plaza (Main & State intersection near
Citibank) – Penny Lave summarized:
 Success! Many people, great food, beautiful table decorations
 City facilitated the use permit, alcohol permit, and rental of a port-a-
potty (but it never got used, they think)
 Very easy to coordinate
 City would only allow the event on Village Plaza, because the parking
plazas were thought too dangerous with the construction
• Request to review what LAF has done as of date
o Some concern that each week the group addresses new tasks/questions and
isn’t following through on ideas.
o Also good for newcomers to learn institutional memory
o Agreed that this could be a great idea, to add a brief recap of group activity at
start of each LAF meeting!
 Allow time for bi-weekly check-in
 Brings more power in masses – small groups get to share their
projects with the larger LAF group
 Brings confidence that work’s happening behind the scenes, between
LAF meetings (by working groups on their own)
o So, a representative from each working group summarized actions to date:
• Actions/ Projects of LAF Working Groups
o Parking & Transportation
 Parking petition – put public parking back at First & Main
 In lieu – sent memo to City recommending how an in lieu ordinance
could work in Los Altos
 Brought Ed Everett in to speak from Redwood City
 Safeway research
 Plaza 1, 2, & 3 research
o Village Image
 Signage revamp:
• Construction signage - helped LAVA with Apricot Annie idea
for construction signage
• Kiosk / wayfinding signage for downtown – could be digital!
• Ideas about better parking plaza / employee parking signage

2. • Online presence –
o Incorporate business directory link onto city website
o Build an app!
o Better social media management
 Design competition idea for Plazas 1, 2, & 3 – could get college design
students involved
 Survey – what are people’s perceptions of the Village Image?
Coordinate with other groups, one big survey?
o Commercial Interests
 Suzanne Kasso survey of parents – what types of businesses do we
want to see downtown?
 Coordinate with parking group – need parking to get great merchants
o City Process
 Increased participation in City Council meetings – up from 6 months
ago
 Led to the City publishing a legislative agenda announcing future
Council meeting topics (Jarrett’s idea, after attending a community
meeting on this)
o Social Interests
 Outreach to others downtown to come to LAF meetings
 First Friday idea – mobilizing & gaining momentum
• Primary Exercise of the Evening: 2-3 Top Goals for LAF
o (folks break up into 3 groups)
o Summary of responses from each table – then everyone voted on their top
three:
 #1 (16 votes) Push city to do a visioning process with community
 #2 (14 votes) First Fridays – focus on making this and other social
events happen
 #3 (13 votes) Elect action-oriented councilmembers, vet them via
questions about what they’d do downtown
 Outreach out to community
• Unbiased survey
• Bring in multiple generations – young, old
• Communication network – set up communication tree to reach
whole community
 Focus on parking infrastructure recommendations/research
 Better web presence for LAF
 Education/outreach programs – e.g. speaker series
 Differentiation – how is Los Altos different/unique in Silicon Valley?