In the weeks since another death on the Caltrain tracks in Palo Alto rocked the community on Feb. 3, city leaders have scrambled to find the right policies to respond to the ongoing crisis. They have recommitted to funding mental health services for youth, hired security guards to monitor the tracks and, most controversially, revived...

Neighbors who live on Wilkie Way succeeded Monday in urging the Palo Alto City Council to limit the expansion of an assisted living facility that faces their backyards, a vote that settled a yearslong dispute between residents and the owners of Palo Alto Commons over privacy and parking. The city council signed off on seven...

Palo Alto leaders set themselves up for a busy year on Monday when they approved a list of 42 measurable goals to carry out for the next year — an agenda that includes adopting a new area plan for neighborhoods around San Antonio Road, crafting a policy for managing consultants, completing a new bike master...

It’s been a year of change and uncertainly for Palo Alto Link, the ride-share service that the city launched in March 2023 and that continues to fight for its life in the face of an increasingly skeptical City Council. Compared to private services like Uber and Lyft, Palo Alto’s nine-vehicle fleet remains a relative a...

Palo Alto leaders are increasingly looking to regional partners to help address widespread RV parking throughout the city after months of increased enforcement has seemingly done little to alleviate concerns from residents and business owners. The effort is being led by the City Council’s recently established oversized vehicle ad hoc committee, which is made up...

Editor’s note: Resources for any person who is feeling depressed, troubled or suicidal are listed at the bottom of this article. With Palo Alto facing increased pressure to address youth mental health, Assemblymember Marc Berman introduced legislation this week aimed at providing access to free suicide prevention training to all K-12 students, teachers, administrators and parents...

It’s a simple hotel room: a bed and night stands, a small kitchenette and a bathroom tucked in the far corner. For Paul and Sheryl, it’s the difference between a good night’s sleep and a restless eight hours in a crowded shelter — or worse, on the street. “Out there, you have one eye open...

Undeterred by an ongoing legal challenge, the nonprofit Alta Housing last week filed a formal application to construct an affordable-housing complex with 72 apartments on a downtown parking lot near the corner of Lytton Avenue and Kipling Street. The six-story project on what’s known as “Lot T” is the first to take advantage of the city’s new...

The Palo Alto Police Department just regained a clinician from Santa Clara County to assist officer response to acute mental health calls after the program went without one for more than two years. The Psychiatric Emergency Response Team (PERT) program began as a pilot in 2021 and pairs a mental health clinician with a police...

After floundering for hours in their own stratified vocabulary, Palo Alto officials coalesced on Saturday around a new list of goals for 2026: government efficiency, housing production, economic development and the renovation of Cubberley Community Center. The City Council direction, now led by Mayor Vicki Veenker and Vice Mayor Greer Stone, marks a departure from...