Four years ago, a small group of wealthy pro-housing donors and a San Mateo County housing nonprofit spent about $330,000 to defeat a Menlo Park ballot measure. The same names — the Sobrato family, Karen Grove, and Bob McGrew — and the same nonprofit are now the biggest money behind the Vote No campaign on the downtown parking-plazas measure. If it feels familiar, it should.
MonitorMenlo.news · Report and Commentary · August 10, 2026 · Reports/Opinion
The 2022 figures are drawn from contemporaneous reporting of the committee’s FPPC statements (Palo Alto Daily Post and The Almanac); the 2026 figures are from the committee’s filed Form 460s.
In November 2022, Menlo Park voters faced Measure V, a citizens’ initiative that would have blocked apartments in single-family neighborhoods and required a public vote before the City could rezone land in those areas — stripping the City Council of that power. Voters defeated it.
The campaign against it was well funded and organized. The opposition campaign, “Menlo Park Neighbors for Affordable Homes,” was backed by the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County and the local group Menlo Together, and it raised at least $330,000 ($330,953 through its pre-election filings). Its largest donors, per contemporaneous reporting of the committee’s FPPC statements, were the Sobrato family ($100,000 combined — $50,000 each from billionaire developer John A. Sobrato and John M. Sobrato), former housing commissioner Karen Grove ($50,000, plus $20,000 from her Grove Action Fund), and technology executive Bob McGrew ($25,000); the Housing Leadership Council itself gave about $43,000.
Now come the downtown parking plazas. The organization opposing this November’s measure calls itself “Menlo Park Neighbors and Small Business Owners for Affordable Homes” — nearly the 2022 name, with three words added — and it is sponsored by Housing Leadership Action of San Mateo County, the political arm tied to the same housing council. Its two Form 460 reports this year — the first filed in April (covering January through March), the second in July (covering April through June) — show the identical trio at the top of the ledger, giving cumulatively through June 30: John Sobrato, $49,900; Karen Grove, about $45,100; and Robert McGrew, $25,000 — three donors who together account for well over half of the committee’s money. (McGrew is the former chief research officer at OpenAI, now founder of the factory-automation startup Arda Industries; Grove is a former Menlo Park housing commissioner.) Those figures run only through the two reports filed this July; the committee’s next disclosures, covering the fall campaign, are not yet filed. For the full cross-reference of who is funding whom this cycle, see our report, In for a dime, in for a dollar..
The measures are not the same. Measure V was a broad, slow-growth initiative about apartments and rezoning across the city’s neighborhoods; the 2026 measure is narrower, requiring voter approval before the City sells, leases, or repurposes its downtown public parking lots. A reasonable resident could support one and oppose the other.
What repeats is the money, and the machinery around it. Twice now, a short list of the same wealthy pro-housing donors, working through a San Mateo County housing organization and a committee named for “neighbors” and “affordable homes,” has supplied the bulk of the funding to defeat a Menlo Park ballot measure it deems anti-housing. None of that is improper — they are entitled to spend, and they are open about favoring more housing. But it is worth naming the pattern: when a measure that could slow housing reaches the Menlo Park ballot, the same names tend to appear on the “no” side, in a big way.
For voters, the practical takeaway is simple. As in 2022, the organized money against the November measure traces back, in large part, to the same few people. Knowing that is not a reason to vote one way or the other; it is a reason to read the ballot arguments — and the names signed to them — with the funding in mind.
For a fuller accounting of the donors, dollars, and interests behind Menlo Park’s housing fights, see our booklet, Money, Power, and Clout.
Sources: 2026 — the committee’s two FPPC Form 460 reports (filed April 29 and July 31, 2026; figures cumulative through June 30, 2026), City of Menlo Park NetFile portal; homesformenlopark.com. Bob McGrew’s current role per Wall Street Journal reporting on Arda Industries (March 2026). 2022 — Measure V result (defeated, Nov. 8, 2022); opposition campaign total ($330,953) and top donors — Sobrato family $100,000 (John A. and John M. Sobrato, $50,000 each), Karen Grove $50,000 plus $20,000 via the Grove Action Fund, Bob McGrew $25,000, and the Housing Leadership Council $43,000 — as reported from the committee’s FPPC filings by the Palo Alto Daily Post (“Sobrato, Grove among the big names fighting anti-apartment ballot measure,” Aug. 29, 2022; “Measure V opponents report raising $330,000,” Oct. 1, 2022) and The Almanac (“Campaign finance roundup,” Oct. 7, 2022); committee sponsorship by the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County. AI-assisted in compiling and cross-referencing.