A tiled tower with mosaic medallions on a mid-century building at Palo Alto's Cubberley Community Center under a blue sky

Palo Alto’s Cubberley Bet: Measure J Asks Voters for a Permanent Sales Tax and a Leap of Trust

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Editor-in-Chief

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Top image: A mosaic tower at the former Cubberley High School campus, now Cubberley Community Center, in Palo Alto. Photo: Joojay / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The Palo Alto City Council is planning to approve an agreement Monday with Palo Alto Community Child Care, a nonprofit that runs 18 child care centers and serves more than 1,200 children a year, to build an infant-toddler and preschool center at Cubberley Community Center, Palo Alto Online reported Sunday. It is the latest in a string of partnerships, with HeartFit for Life, Avenidas, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Maker Nexus and the group building a new gym, that the city is lining up for a rebuilt campus.

All of it depends on Measure J, a half-cent sales tax on the Nov. 3 ballot that has become the city’s most contested local question.

What the measure does

Measure J, formally the “Palo Alto Community Safety/Services Measure,” would raise the city’s sales tax by 0.5% and generate about $15.6 million a year, according to the city’s information page. The council placed it on the ballot unanimously in June. State legislation, Senate Bill 762, gave Palo Alto the capacity to exceed the usual local cap.

It is a general tax: the money would go into the general fund, and it needs only a simple majority. According to California Choices, the tax would take effect in April 2027 and remain until voters end it. The council has adopted spending guidelines naming Cubberley as the priority, and the city points to past advisory commitments it honored with hotel-tax and business-tax revenue.

The first use would be land. The 35-acre site at 4000 Middlefield Road opened as Cubberley High School in 1956; the city owns eight acres and has an agreement to buy seven more from the Palo Alto Unified School District for $65.5 million, according to the city. The district would use the proceeds for school improvements, and the remaining tax revenue would go toward Phase 1 of the Cubberley Conceptual Master Plan.

The price fight

The purchase price has been the opposition’s sharpest attack. “We don’t even know how the $65.5 million price for the property was determined,” reads the official argument against the measure, co-signed by former Mayor Lydia Kou, resident Jeanne Fleming and the Silicon Valley Taxpayer Association, as quoted by Palo Alto Online. “It was established behind closed doors.”

Facing that criticism, the city and district released a joint statement on Oct. 5 summarizing the negotiations, Palo Alto Online reported. The district’s asking price was $90 million, reflecting potential value under a long-term lease, including possible use as a private school. The city’s 2024 appraisal valued the land at $43.6 million to $60.2 million. “Following protracted negotiations, the City and District ultimately agreed on a purchase price of $60.65 million (2024 dollars), equivalent to the $65.5 million 2027 purchase price,” the statement said. The appraisal itself remains confidential.

“Transparency on this issue is important to residents and voters,” Mayor Vicki Veenker said. The race may be close: in May, the city’s polling consultant found just over 50% of likely voters supporting the measure, Palo Alto Online reported.

Two cases, one site

Former Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian made the yes case in a Palo Alto Online guest opinion, arguing that the site “has not had the investment it needs to be a 21st-century community center” and that the tax would leverage “tens of millions of dollars in additional philanthropic contributions.” He also wrote that “40% of the tax will be paid by non-Palo Alto residents.”

Longtime local journalist Diana Diamond, in a companion piece, argued that the measure “only asks voters to approve a half-cent sales tax increase,” from 9.75% to 10.25%, with no sunset, and that “there is no guarantee that future councils will spend” the money on Cubberley. She urged a special tax or bond instead. The Mercury News editorial board has also recommended a no vote.

The long view

Measure J reflects a fiscal trade-off that is reshaping local ballots across California. A city can earmark a tax and face a two-thirds threshold, or keep it general, need only a majority, and ask voters to trust its stated intentions. Palo Alto chose the second path. The statewide Proposition 43 would not change that calculus, since it applies only to special taxes proposed by voters, not to general taxes placed by councils.

The broader question is what Cubberley represents. In one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country, nonprofits that provide child care, senior services, arts programs and rehab services increasingly depend on publicly owned space to remain local. Whether voters see Measure J as an investment in that civic infrastructure or as an open-ended tax tied to a costly land deal will say a great deal about how much trust Peninsula residents are willing to extend to their city halls in 2026.

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