About Us

Our Mission is to innovate and expand housing and transportation choices for a more inclusive, affordable, and environmentally sustainable Palo Alto by working with residents and city government.

We host educational events, conduct original research on local housing and transportation-related issues, and serve as a voice to our elected officials and city staff.  

Our History

Palo Alto Forward was started in 2014 in reaction to the local initiative that overturned the City Council approval of the Maybell senior housing project.

The organization began as a purely volunteer board with no budget. In 2016, Palo Alto Forward become a 501c(3) with its first donations coming from dedicated board members. With just a volunteer board, Palo Alto Forward was highly successful in working with the City Council, residents, and city staff in supporting housing projects and changing public perception of housing.

Throughout the years, we have sponsored and co-sponsored a number of educational events including those with Scott Weiner, walking tours of “forbidden homes”, annual retreats, ice cream socials, and advocacy for projects.

Today, we are funded by our generous members and have obtained grants from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Our Team

Amie Ashton
Executive Director

Amie Ashton is a passionate housing advocate, bicycling evangelist, environmentalist, and urbanist. In a professional capacity, Amie is a recovering CEQA practitioner, environmental planner, and project manager who works on housing and mixed-use developments throughout the Bay Area. She is Board Chair of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and leverages her connections with city staff and partners in the development world to educate and capitalize on the link between high-density housing development and bicycling. Amie has lived in Palo Alto since 2008. Her first job after graduating from the University of California at Santa Barbara was with the City of Palo Alto Planning Department, where she obtained an in-depth education on the local development process. When not talking about housing, Amie can be found outdoors hiking, camping, skiing, gardening, and bicycling.

Contact Amie at info@paloaltoforward.com

Board of Directors

Sheryl Klein
Board Chair

Sheryl Klein is the first Chief Operating Officer at Alta Housing, formerly Palo Alto Housing, which operates the majority of affordable housing in Palo Alto. Prior to being COO she served a five year tenure on Alta’s Board of Directors. During her time as Board Chair, she led Alta Housing’s latest affordable housing project, Wilton Court, through entitlements, development and funding.

Reid Kleckner
Secretary

Reid grew up in Palo Alto, graduated from Palo Alto High in 2006, moved to Boston to attend MIT, and returned to the SF Bay Area in 2013. Reid met his wife, Anastasia, in 2017, and she is, coincidentally, also a local who graduated from Gunn. Reid and Anastasia currently live in Palo Alto with their two young children, and they are both incredibly grateful for the opportunity to live here and start a family near both sets of grandparents. Reid is currently working as a software engineer at Google and serving on the board of the LLVM Foundation. Reid is a passionate cyclist, and was drawn to Palo Alto Forward in his desire to see Palo Alto grow and support more human flourishing. Palo Alto is a wonderfully innovative and welcoming university town, and Reid wants to see the city live up to those values, extend the franchise to new neighbors, and cultivate a city that is safe, livable, and inviting.

Steve Levy
Treasurer

Steve Levy came to Palo Alto in 1963 for Stanford Graduate School. He and his wife Nancy raised their children in a home close to Duveneck Elementary School and moved downtown to a condo in 2005. Steve is the Director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. His work focuses on long term regional growth projections and planning for public agencies in California and on workforce projections and policy implications, with a focus on helping workers, businesses and the economy. He serves on the state and our local area workforce boards, is on the committee advising the state on the new state housing policy and served on the Palo Alto Infrastructure Commission. Steve can be reached at slevy@ccsce.com.

Elaine Uang
Board Member and Co-founder

Elaine arrived in the South Bay in 1988 as a fourth grader, and credits all the house hunting during the move with cementing her interest in architecture. She has spent most of the last three decades bouncing up and down the Peninsula, before returning to Palo Alto in 2011. She currently resides in the first post-office of Palo Alto/Stanford, which she renovated inside and out (with an edible garden!) to serve as a dwelling for her, her husband and two young daughters. As an architect and design thinker, she spends nearly all of her professional and spare time thinking about how our built environment can be improved, from street furniture to housing policies. She has BA in Human Biology from Stanford University and an Masters in Architecture from the University of Virginia.
Elaine can be hailed at elaine@elaineuang.com.

Robert Chun
Board Member

Robert Chun a local renter and passionate advocate for more equitable, sustainable, and affordable cities. He is a JD-MBA student and Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford University, where he focuses on land use and housing affordability. Prior to graduate school, Robert worked as a strategic finance lead at Google X and as a consultant to nonprofits, philanthropists, and impact investors.

Natalie Geise
Board Member

Natalie Geise is originally from Pennsylvania and moved to the Bay Area for graduate school in chemistry in 2015. She has rented in Menlo Park, Mountain View, San Francisco, and Palo Alto since then. Natalie is a senior associate at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory, where she bikes to work and supports science and technology initiatives. Natalie also volunteers locally at the Palo Alto Repair Cafe and with ClimateRaise, advocating for female and non-binary founders in climate.

Scott O'Neil
Board Member

Scott O’Neil grew up in the Bay Area and worked as a software developer in Silicon Valley for fourteen years.  He's lived in Palo Alto for ten years, where he serves as President of his HOA.  His passion for housing policy stems from watching much of his generational cohort gradually displaced from the region by ever-escalating housing costs.  A parent of two, his goal is to be able to hug his grandchildren without buying plane tickets.  His focus at Palo Alto Forward is on monitoring and ensuring local compliance with state housing law.

Owen Byrd
Board Member

Owen Byrd has been an advocate for, and developer of, dense infill housing on the Peninsula for most of his 35 years of Palo Alto residency. HIs land use experience began as the policy director and staff attorney for Greenbelt Alliance. He served as a member and chair of the Palo Alto Planning and Transportation Commission, member of the Community Development Block Grant Committee, and chair of the Housing Action Coalition. As a private attorney he represented developers of market-rate and affordable housing in obtaining sites and entitlements for new projects throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. He has developed housing projects with partners and continues to do so, while also providing development consulting services, primarily on projects in East Palo Alto. He currently serves on the Peninsula/South Bay Board of YIMBY Action.

Angie Evans
Board Member

Angie Evans is a renter and Mom in Palo Alto. She has worn many hats at Palo Alto Forward and has been a member since 2017. Her background is in community organizing and movement building. She has a demonstrated history of building power in marginalized communities and helping organizations shift from an outdated lobbying effort - to a multi-layered community organizing approach. In her day job Angie is a Senior Project Administrator for Santa Clara County's Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) vendor where she works to reduce and end homelessness by leveraging technologies and using better data. 

Emeritus Board Members

Sandra Slater
Board Member and Co-Founder

Sandra Slater has lived in Palo Alto for the last 29 years. Her current position is Northern California Director of the Cool City Challenge, a project to achieve deep carbon reduction, create resilient neighborhoods, promote green economic development and reinvent our cities from the bottom up. Sandra has served as a consultant to the Golden Gate National Recreational Parks Conservancy, to Zeta Communities (a net-zero energy, LEED Platinum start-up), has led her own design firm, Sandra Slater Environments. Sandra lives in downtown Palo Alto in a home she designed to showcase green design principles. Sandra can be reached at sandra@sandraslater.com.

Gail Price
Board Member

Gail has broad public service and non-profit  experience as an employee and elected official. In Palo Alto, she served on both the Palo Alto School Board and the Palo Alto City Council. She has 30+ years experience as a city and regional transportation planner in Maryland, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA). She has served on the County Behavioral Health Board and the Arts Council Silicon Valley and is the former Executive Director of the AIA Silicon Valley Chapter. She has been a Cool Block Team Captain and mentor. 

Currently, she is a member of the Abode Services Board, the Co-Chair of the North Ventura Comprehensive Area Plan (NVCAP) and a member of the Kiwanis Club of Palo Alto. Gail is a strong proponent of urban planning and design, affordable housing, transportation, smart growth, and strategic planning. She believes responsible planning policies and actions are needed to address climate change, social justice challenges, and growing economic disparities.
Gail can be reached at gail@paloaltoforward.com.

Kelsey Banes, PhD
Board Member

Kelsey Banes grew up in the bay area and moved to Palo Alto when she began working for Veteran's Affairs as a psychologist. She provided mental health services at veteran’s homes, in shelters, or in public places - but rarely was able to help Veterans find stable housing near the services they needed in Menlo Park and Palo Alto. As a renter herself, she was forced to move multiple times because of our poor zoning policies and lack of renter protections.

Grant Dasher
Board Member

Grant Dasher is a native of Edina, Minnesota and has lived in Palo Alto for the last several years. He has worked as a software engineer at Google since 2009 both in Cambridge, Massachusetts and here in the Bay Area. He also served in the Obama administration as part of the United States Digital Service and has a long time passion for the fusion of technology and policy issues. He has an AB in Mathematics from Harvard University.

Amy Sung
Board Member

Amy Sung is a former NASA software engineer and current Silicon Valley real estate agent. She is committed to the community and is a skilled relationship builder. Amy is a former PTA board member of Duveneck Elementary School and Jordan Middle School in Palo Alto. Among her current interests, she serves as Palo Alto District Chair of the Silicon Valley Association of REALTORS®. Amy lives with her family in Palo Alto. An amateur ceramic artist and a news junkie, she also enjoys hiking and reading mysteries. A cook and loving gourmet food, she enjoys good company, good food, and good laughter.

Mehdi Alhassani
Board Member and Co-Founder

Mehdi Alhassani is a former Palo Alto Human Relations Commissioner. He is passionate about Palo Alto's land use and planning policies, has also served on the Comprehensive Plan Civic Leadership Group. Mehdi spent five and a half years working for President Barack Obama: first on then-Senator Obama's presidential campaign; and then for much of the President's first term, on foreign policy and national security issues. He is both a Fulbright Scholar and Truman National Security Fellow. He loves reading, traveling with his wife, and playing basketball (at the JCC, Cubberley Center, and Stanford among other places!). Born and raised in Massachusetts, Mehdi first arrived to California by way of marrying a native Bay Area lady named Deena. He is very thankful he did, and they love calling Palo Alto home.

Eric Rosenblum
Co-Founder

Eric Rosenblum is a native of the small town of Steubenville, Ohio, but has been a resident of Palo Alto since 2007. He lives in the Downtown North neighborhood with his wife, Titi Liu, who works for Stanford, and his two kids (at Palo Alto High and Jordan Middle School). He has spent his career working in strategic management and product management (for Palantir, Drawbridge, Google and Boston Consulting Group, among others). He has just completed a term as a Commissioner on the Planning and Transportation Commission. Eric received his AB from Harvard University and his MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Adrian Fine
Board Member

Adrian Fine is the former Mayor of Palo Alto has a Master's in City Planning and a demonstrated commitment to creating space and opportunity for new neighbors. Adrian joined Palo Alto Forward's board shortly after leaving Palo Alto City Council.

Diane Morin
Board Member

Diane Morin was born in Paris, France, to a French photographer and American secretary. She was raised in Rome, Italy, surrounded by her Italian family, and came to the United States for her higher education: college (Pomona College), graduate school (University of Michigan and University of California, Berkeley) and law school (University of San Francisco). She raised her only child in Palo Alto as a single mother. Her daughter, a journalist, just graduated from college and is working as an editor. For over thirty years, Diane has been an attorney and mediator and is a Certified Family Law Specialist (as certified by the Board of Legal Specialization of California). She has based her family law practice in Palo Alto for the last 25 years. Her interests have been climbing, sailing and traveling. Diane is interested in issues concerning seniors, affordable housing and diversity as they apply to the place she proudly calls home: Palo Alto.

We are a broad coalition of Palo Alto community members from retirees to recent graduates, families who have lived in Palo Alto for generations and those who have just moved here.

In the 1890s, University and California Avenue were founded and flourished as compact, vibrant rail town centers. Since then, Palo Alto has attracted creative, innovative souls from around the country and the world, and enabled them to invent the future.

A strong local economy significantly increased the number of jobs in Palo Alto - yet the city has over time refrained from building housing and supporting transportation policies necessary to sustain economic growth in this area. This has resulted in more people traveling to work from further away, causing traffic congestion and air and climate emissions impacts. Despite work-from-home policies, Palo Alto still more than doubles in size as workers commute long distances to their jobs because they cannot afford homes locally.

Given a nearly stagnant housing supply in Palo Alto, housing has become extraordinarily expensive and whole groups of workers have been priced out of living in the community they serve. The result has meant a city whose population is skewed with many more older adults than younger ones. Many older adults would like to downsize but have no appropriate options to do so while remaining in Palo Alto, and therefore often must leave their lifelong friends and grandchildren.

On its current course, Palo Alto will continue to experience traffic issues, air and climate emissions, local business declines, and school enrollment declines. We turn away new businesses and new workers who no longer have appropriate housing — and we all suffer the impacts.  

Build for the Future

  • Add more housing clustered near services and transportation options in Downtown, El Camino, and California Avenue. This reduces both the length and frequency of car trips, parking demand, and greenhouse gas emissions; while increasing the vibrancy and quality of life in the community.

  • Enable schools to thrive by increasing housing of all sizes to serve the entire community. 

  • Eliminate expensive parking mandates to allow projects to “right size” for their location and unit type.

  • Design for livability by creating public amenities such as public plazas  and street networks that promote public health, community, and connectivity.

  • Champion specific plans for areas like Downtown, California Avenue, along El Camino, and at the San Antonio and Charleston Corridors. Build impact management strategies into growth plans to enable our city to thrive. 

Our Vision  

Current Housing Projects

*Including Builder’s Remedy Projects*