The Cubberley Ballot Measure Doesn't Mention the Land It's Meant to Buy

Ask a longtime Cubberley regular what the November measure pays for, and you'll likely hear about the new TheatreWorks theater, or the gym with pickleball courts, or the wellness center a group of neighbors has been raising money to build. Ask what the actual ballot question says, and most people have never read it. That gap matters, because the two documents describe almost different projects.

The measure Palo Alto voters will decide on November 3 asks whether the city should fund repairs, safety upgrades, and street maintenance. It does not ask voters to approve buying the seven acres of land the entire Cubberley master plan depends on. Every theater, gym, and makerspace the city has spent two years promoting sits on top of a land deal the ballot question never names.

What the Ballot Actually Asks

Cubberley Community Center sits on 4000 Middlefield Road, a former high school that closed in 1979 and reopened as a shared community hub a decade later. The city currently owns 8 of the roughly 35 acres on site. The Palo Alto Unified School District owns the rest and has agreed to sell the city 7 more acres for $65.5 million, which works out to roughly $9.3 million an acre. That purchase, not renovation costs, is what the November measure is supposed to fund.

But read the actual question voters will see, and the land purchase is nowhere in it. The measure describes itself as funding general city services, including repairing Cubberley's buildings for safety and accessibility, upgrading deteriorating electrical and plumbing systems, acquiring outdoor space, and maintaining streets and preparing for natural disasters. Resident Phyllis Brown put the disconnect plainly at a June council meeting:

"It just seems off to me. I mean we can't really do it without the purchase of the land."

Why the Land Purchase Got Left Off

The omission wasn't an accident. City staff told the council that a January poll found only 34 percent of voters ranked buying the Cubberley land as very or extremely important, well below concerns like plumbing and electrical repairs. Assistant Director of Administrative Services Christine Paras explained that the city built the ballot language around what voters said they cared about most, which meant the land purchase got cut in favor of language about wiring and accessibility.

There's also a structural reason. If the measure named a specific project, like the land purchase, state law would require a two-thirds supermajority to pass. Written as general city services instead, it only needs a simple majority. That's the same reasoning the city used earlier when it dropped a parcel tax option entirely, since a parcel tax would have needed that two-thirds threshold and polling showed nowhere near enough support to clear it.

Everything Else Depends on That Land Anyway

The land purchase may not be on the ballot, but nothing else in the Cubberley plan happens without it. The memorandum of understanding between the city and the school district is explicitly contingent on voters approving a 2026 funding measure. If the deal doesn't close, the whole sequence stalls.

Here's what has to happen in order, according to the city's own timeline:

1. Voters decide the sales tax measure on November 3, 2026.
2. If it passes, the city and school district move to close escrow on the 7 acres, targeted for July 2027.
3. Design work and environmental review continue in parallel, building on the master plan already endorsed by the Planning and Transportation Commission, the Architectural Review Board, and the Parks and Recreation Commission.
4. Deconstruction and construction on the first phase could begin as early as 2030.

That's four years between a yes vote and a shovel in the ground. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, the Tony Award winning company founded in Palo Alto in 1970 by Robert Kelley, has said it would help fund a new 40,000 square foot two theater complex at Cubberley once the land purchase closes, but not before. The company currently performs at the Lucie Stern Theatre and the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, and its move to Cubberley stays conditional until the acreage is actually city property.

What Fifteen Acres Actually Buys

If the purchase goes through, the city's owned share of Cubberley grows from 8 acres to 15. Here's what that expansion looks like in the numbers the city has published:

Phase 1 alone is projected to cost between $300 million and $400 million, funded through a mix of the sales tax, private philanthropy, and partnerships. The TheatreWorks complex would take up about 16 percent of the completed 247,000 square foot project. The rest is split between a recreation and wellness center, backed by a nonprofit called Friends of the Palo Alto Recreation and Wellness Center, and a gym with space for basketball, volleyball, and indoor pickleball. Later phases add a makerspace built with the nonprofit Maker Nexus, which one Hoover Elementary third grader told the council he hoped would help "bring together community." Avenidas, the senior services nonprofit, has also signaled interest in joining the list of partners.

None of that changes what today's regulars already use the site for. Cubberley currently hosts everything from Pilates classes to English language instruction for immigrants to rehearsal space for the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra's Preparatory Orchestra. One longtime attendee recalled taking Italian there years ago through a Foothill College annex program. The master plan keeps those uses running during construction, but the pace of that construction is tied entirely to a land deal that isn't technically what voters are being asked to approve.

The Poll Numbers Tell Their Own Story

Support for a Cubberley tax has swung considerably over the past year and a half. A mid-2025 survey found 73 percent of respondents willing to pay up to $250 a year in new taxes for the project, with 58 percent willing to go as high as $500. By January 2026, a follow-up poll found only 48 percent support for either a parcel tax or a sales tax, a steep drop that pushed the city to abandon the parcel tax option outright. By May 2026, a fourth and final poll from the research firm FM3 showed support back up to 55 percent for the sales tax specifically, with a margin of error of 4.9 percent. Miranda Everitt, a partner at FM3, summed up the odds for the council plainly:

"This is something that could be viable, but everything would have to go right for you all."

What a No Vote Actually Costs

If the measure fails, the city doesn't just lose funding, it risks losing the land deal itself. The purchase agreement with the school district was struck on the condition that voters approve financing in 2026. A failed measure would likely send the city back to the negotiating table for a new memorandum of understanding, a new timeline, and no guarantee the district would offer the same acreage or price again.

There's also an unresolved transparency question hanging over the vote. The Daily Post filed a public records request for the independent appraisal of the Cubberley land and the city denied it, declining to release the figure before residents vote on paying for it. If the city agreed to a price below that appraisal, it would strengthen the case that residents are getting a fair deal. If it agreed to pay more, that number could work against the measure. Voters are being asked to approve a sales tax rise to 10.1 percent, among the highest in the region, without seeing the number that would tell them whether $65.5 million is a fair price for those 7 acres.

Whichever way the vote goes, the difference between what the ballot literally says and what residents have been told it funds is worth understanding before you fill out a ballot, not after. For anyone weighing what community investment like this means for a neighborhood they're already living in or considering, Christy Lin is always glad to talk through what's actually happening on the ground in Palo Alto. Let's Connect.