Palo Alto Restricts Foothills Park Access: Report

PALO ALTO, CA — Less than a month after rolling out the welcome mat to visitors at Foothills Park, Palo Alto is putting up a stop sign.

The city last year reversed a longstanding ordinance restricting access to the 1,400-acre preserve to Palo Alto residents, opening the park to visitors since Dec. 17.

But the influx of non-residents has triggered concerns of overcrowding, Palo Alto Weekly reports.

The concerns have led city officials to restrict access, the report said.

The park’s entrance will be closed from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends and holidays according to the report.

Since the park’s opening to non-residents, the park has hit its 750-person limit several times each day, the report said, noting that on a weekend day before Christmas 4,081 people visited the park, around six times more than the same time last year, when 688 visited.

The novelty of hiking trails that was forbidden just weeks ago was already attracting overflow crowds last month, The Mercury News reports.

"This temporary measure is to help manage the number of visitors in the park and provide a safe, enjoyable and consistent experience to parkgoers," the city's announcement stated.

The city was in the crosshairs of an ACLU lawsuit when it councilmembers by a 5-2 margin voted to overturn a controversial ordinance Nov. 5 that opened the picturesque park to the public.

The ACLU moved to compel the South Bay city to lift an exclusionary ordinance that's come under scrutiny in recent months in the aftermath of George Floyd's death in police custody.

The ACLU's Northern California affiliate filed a lawsuit September compelling Palo Alto to remove what it calls an "unconstitutional residents-only restriction at Foothills Park" that stands as "a legacy of the city's history of racial discrimination."

Foothills Park had been the state's only such "residents-only" park.

"I cannot in good conscience sit by while the city of Palo Alto uses my tax dollars to perpetuate the exclusion of people from public spaces in my community," said plaintiff LaDoris Cordell, a retired Superior Court judge and former member of the Palo Alto City Council earlier this year.

"The practice of blocking non-residents from Foothills Park perpetuates inequity, and it must end."

Councilmembers Greg Tanaka and Lydia Kou voted against overturning the ordinance.

"I'm hoping the community can move forward and we could start focusing on things that will have more meaningful and bigger benefits," Tanaka said according to a San Francisco Chronicle report.

The park's opening followed an organized group's failed petition drive seeking to overturn the council's decision to open the park to the public according to The Mercury News report.

Read more at Palo Alto Weekly