Election focus: land use Supervisors: Kniss, Sandoval split hairs over Stanford University stances
By Chuck Carroll

In the tight race for the northern district of Santa Clara County, the two candidates for the board of supervisors are staking out similar positions on one of the key issues affecting voters in their district: Stanford University's proposed 10-year development plan.

Palo Alto Mayor Liz Kniss and Foothill-De Anza Community College District Trustee Dolly Sandoval of Cupertino agree that Stanford should:

- Designate the university's 2,000-plus acres of land in the foothills as permanent open space, a key demand made by some environmentalists. The university has said it would keep the open space undeveloped for 10 years.

- Focus its development on the core campus area and stay out of the foothills.

- Develop 3,000 units of new housing and new academic facilities concurrently.

- Take strong steps to minimize traffic resulting from the proposed 4 million square feet of new development and the additional 2,200 people who would be added to the campus's daytime population.

With the key exception of the permanent open-space designation, the candidates' positions are close to what the county planning staff is recommending to supervisors.

Like the city of Palo Alto, county planners recommend Stanford keep the foothills undeveloped for at least 25 years.

County supervisors are scheduled to vote on Stanford's comprehensive 10-year development plan in October. If the process stays on schedule, Stanford's first-ever comprehensive blueprint for development will have been adopted by the supervisors before Kniss or Sandoval takes office early next year.

But there's a chance the process will bog down and delay the vote until after the next supervisor is seated. Even if that doesn't happen, both candidates say the Stanford plan remains a key issue in the Palo Alto area because the next supervisor must oversee the plan's implementation.

Although the Stanford plan is of less concern to people who live and work farther from the campus, Sandoval and Kniss know their positions on the issue will send signals to voters in the rest of the district about their approach to land use and development issues. The 5th supervisorial district represents a stretch of the Peninsula as well as parts of the West Valley, Sunnyvale and a sliver of San Jose.

The incumbent supervisor, Joe Simitian, is giving up his seat to run for the state Assembly.

Kniss and Sandoval face off in November, after defeating county planning commission member Terry Trumbull in March. Kniss took 42.5 percent of the vote in March to Sandoval's 33.9 percent. Trumbull, who ran strongly among environment-minded voters across the county, pulled 23.6 percent.

Similar views

Because Sandoval's and Kniss' views on Stanford are so similar, Kniss has sought to distinguish herself by stressing her land-use experience in 15 years on the Palo Alto City Council and the local school board.

But Sandoval, who has little experience with land-use issues in nine years on the Foothill-De Anza board, has raised questions about Kniss' commitment to open space and her willingness to stand up to Stanford.

Sandoval says capturing the environmental vote Trumbull enjoyed in the primary is essential to her fall campaign. She won the general-election endorsement of the county chapter of the League of Conservation Voters and the Loma Prieta chapter of the Sierra Club.

Edie Keating, chairwoman of Mid-Peninsula Action for Tomorrow, a political action committee, said her organization hasn't endorsed either candidate in the race. But she said she knows both women.

Keating said she's more comfortable with Sandoval because Kniss' record on the Palo Alto City Council has been too friendly toward Stanford.

Speaking of Sandoval, she said, "On Dolly's behalf, my sense of her is that she's very committed to environmental issues and to preserving the natural areas of the mid-Peninsula, so I have less concern about how she's going to view a juicy project."

Kniss counters that her commitment to open space is just as strong as Sandoval's, but more "thoughtful" and realistic. She said Stanford must commit to preserving the foothills for 25 years at a minimum and that she will push for the legal maximum, whatever that may be. She accused Sandoval of going for the easy applause lines in her speeches and debates but never saying how she would make it happen.

"To simply stand there and say, `You must designate the foothills as open space'ŠThey'll say, 'Yeah, right,' " Kniss said. The process is "very complicated," she added, saying Sandoval's heavy-handed approach would likely not stand up in court.

Although Sandoval has accused Kniss of "buying into the Stanford line" on the open-space issue, Kniss said she first called for the permanent protection of the foothills in 1997, when Stanford proposed building housing in the Sand Hill Road area near Menlo Park.

But in an interview this week, Kniss said that she and the rest of the Palo Alto City Council backed off that position in part on the advice of the city's attorney.

Kniss said in the interview that the attorney suggested the city would likely lose a legal challenge if it designated the foothills as permanent open space, because the amount of land Stanford was proposing to develop for housing was dwarfed by the amount of land the city would have required the university to preserve.

But now that Stanford is pushing a much larger development plan, Kniss said, she would feel legally justified in designating the foothills as permanent open space. She might also be willing to consider a 99-year agreement.

Records in question

Kniss said it's easy for Sandoval to criticize her record because Sandoval doesn't have a record on land use.

"It's a lot harder to do these things when you're the one who has to find a way to make them happen," Kniss said.

Last week, Sandoval said getting Stanford to designate the land as open space was a simple matter of the board of supervisors exercising its authority to reject any plan that did not do so.

Later, she said she had given more thought to how it might be accomplished.

She said she had been thinking about whether a conservation organization such as the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District might be interested in purchasing some of the land.