BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
A Palo Alto resident with a pro-housing bent and a background in utilities has tossed her hat in the ring to run for council for a second time.
Lisa Forssell, 53, ran in 2022 and finished in fourth out of seven candidates, just outside the top three who won.
Forssell was all about housing during her campaign. She said she wanted to allow taller and denser buildings, and she supports state housing laws that ease the rules for developers.
“All arrows lead back to the cost of living in the area, which goes back to the cost of housing,” she said in an interview in 2022.
Forssell was on the city’s Utilities Advisory Commission for eight years. She that she wanted to focus on upgrading the power grid, not on building a fiber internet network as the city has pursued to compete with Comcast and AT&T.
“If we were firing on all cylinders, and utilities had a full crew of linesmen and system operators and engineers and program managers, then I’d be singing a different tune,” Forssell said during her previous campaign.
Forssell’s pro-housing rhetoric prompted Councilman Pat Burt to revoke his endorsement because he said her approach was “divorced from reality.”
Burt said he changed his mind after hearing Forssell say that she doesn’t think state housing mandates went far enough.
Instead of Forssell, Burt endorsed Planning and Transportation Commissioner Doria Summa, who finished in fifth.
Now Forssell, Burt and Summa are all running for council together this year in a growing field of 10 candidates.
Keith Reckdahl, George Lu and Cari Templeton are also running from the Planning and Transportation Commission.
Parks Commissioner Anne Cribbs, Human Relations Commissioner Katie Causey, Mayor Greer Stone and resident Henry Etzkowitz round out the race.
Candidates have until Aug. 9 to file papers to run.
