Volume Four, Number 2                                             What ElseYou Need To Know                        October 15, 2004

 

Vote for Thorne. Hold your nose and vote for McGovern

Stoneridge Drive should connect with El Charro Road. With Parks and Recreation commissioner Jerry Thorne on the council, Stoneridge Drive has a shot at being extended and Pleasanton’s tremendous traffic problems can be seriously addressed for the first time in four years.

Mr. Thorne’s experience on the commission and on various other civic projects qualify him to sit on the council. That experience will help stabilize the council that might have three new members. Mr. Thorne wants to take serious steps to solve the traffic problems by building the Stoneridge Drive extension. His support of Stoneridge Drive also signals his desire to begin serious discussions of emergency preparedness. Connecting Livermore to Pleasanton is an excellent first step (that connection is needed for evacuation of one or the other cities in case of an emergency at the Livermore labs or elsewhere in the valley. Stanley Boulevard, Vineyard Avenue, and I-580 are the only three east/west roads connecting the two cities and they are at gridlock many hours of the day).

Except for his co-authoring and support of the Bernal initiative, nothing has changed since we endorsed him in the 2002 City Council election. His support for the initiative, though troublesome, is not unexpected. He is, after all, the chairman of the Parks and Recreation commission and worked tirelessly on the Bernal Avenue Property Task Force that supported lighted sports fields as a possible use for the land donated by developers for the right to develop a smaller portion of the property. (We simply feel that the initiative process is overused in Pleasanton and that it is a way for representatives to avoid making the difficult decisions.)

Most of all, Mr. Thorne is first and foremost, a fair-minded capitalist. That is significant in that one of his opponents leans toward socialism and the other appears to be a cradle-to-grave welfare state advocate.

Counselor Steve Brozosky is the only experience the council will really need to guide us in the final days of development. Counselor Jennifer Hosterman, an eco extremist, at least has institutional memory that can aid in the council’s tackling of the traffic problems (her ideas are old, tired, and do not work and her tenure on the Alameda county Traffic Management Agency has been as fruitless as Mayor Tom Pico’s). Ms. Hosterman is running from a “safe seat” on the council; she has two years left on her first term.

Former school board member Cindy McGovern is too touch feely. She no doubt got that way from her association with educrats and other members of the school board. We hope it is only an act. We also hope that Ms. McGovern will eventually see that the city has too cozy of a relationship with the school board. Cooperation with the school board is one thing, but sharing decisions is dangerous. (We should not be offering money to the district to build schools.) Her support of the inclusionary housing ordinance and subsidies for city personnel is worrisome. Though these only make her Sullivan or Hosterman light, these elitist welfare-state ideas are out of step.

We must take a line or two to encourage voters to reject Planning Commissioner Matt Sullivan for the council and Counselor Jennifer Hosterman for Mayor. They are both eco extremists. More, they are arrogant elitists who feel only they have the answers to the problems we face. (We have more reason to reject them both in other parts of this issue.) Not only should voters reject Mr. Sullivan for a seat on the City Council, Mayor Tom Pico should ask for his resignation from the Planning Commission for his extremist agenda and his belligerent, argumentative, and outrageous behavior. Mr. Sullivan’s support of socialist ideas combined with his authoritarian nature should give voters the chills.

How has Pleasanton moved from being a conservative suburban community with roots in agriculture to being an elitist, NYMBY, and banana community more akin to Berkeley with no roots at all? Uninformed and uninvolved voters is the short answer. Mr. Sullivan’s and Ms. Hosterman’s biographies are impressive on the face. Voters who rely on biography alone will surely find these two to be adequate. Their record of service and public utterances, however, show their true natures.

OpinionPleasanton hopes that the Tri-Valley Herald’s Matt Carter and the Valley Times’ Chris Metinko will be given the go ahead to delve into Mr. Sullivan’s and Ms. Hosterman’s public records. For too long, the daily newspapers have published only the campaign schedule of events and biographies for the candidates and have ignored the issues and the candidate’s stands on those issues. If the daily papers want a cheat sheet, they should turn to the October 7 and 14 issues of the Independent.

The tough questions Mr. Carter and Mr. Metinko should ask of Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Hosterman are: If there are no Red-Legged Frogs when will the world end? What is your guesstimate of the cost of permits and fees for the median priced house in Pleasanton? Given the state demands that we have affordable housing, do those fees and permits make those affordable houses unaffordable? Should teachers and public safety personnel, and city workers earning $50k-$75k annually receive subsidies from the City of Pleasanton for their housing? Should seniors receive preferential treatment in housing? Should the city strive to meet the state and Association of Bay Area Government’s (ABAG) subsidized housing goals? Sierra Club (High Occupancy Vehicle—HOV) lanes do not work and add to air quality degradation. Should the city lend its support to this unsuccessful, elitist program?

You call it in the mayor’s race. Both Kralik and Ayala are good


The Mayor’s race is a tough call. Vice Mayor Kay Ayala is far superior to Jennifer Hosterman and yet she has some baggage.

Gabe Kralik has little or no civic or volunteer experience. We, however, like his style. His background as a corporate attorney (not a personal injury trial lawyer) also suits him to the mayor’s chair. He seems to know the same people that our current representatives do. We also like the idea that he does not know how to approach Pleasanton’s myriad problems in the politically correct way. He has been here only a couple of years and he has not been connected to any of Pleasanton’s special interest groups.

Although Ms. Ayala is a bit of an opportunist, she works hard. Her latest incarnation as business friendly is also a plus. Her shedding her eco-extremist persona, adopted when she thought she needed retiring Mayor Tom Pico’s campaign help, is also a plus. We wish she had seen bigger and better things for Bernal and not just lighted sports fields (lighted, she suggested, before homeowners moved in.) We hope Jerry Thorne can convince her to consider extending Stoneridge Drive to El Charro Road to relieve traffic but, above all, to improve regional safety.

We fear that Mr. Kralik if he loses and he probably will, will be another Bob Wright, Bill Eastman, Christian Bendixen, Mark Moses, or Michael Jurkovic—candidates with great ideas and qualifications who just did not have fire in their bellies. We hope we are wrong. We would like to see Mr. Kralik run for Ms. Hosterman’s council seat in two years.

For this election, though, we feel that the endorsement of Mr. Kralik could cause the election of Ms. Hosterman. For that reason and because of her 11 years of community service, her hard work, and for greater continuity on the council, we support Vice Mayor Kay Ayala for mayor.

 

Now that summer is gone, OpinionPleasanton is back on the case. In this issue we offer our endorsements. Because all of the candidates, save Gabe Kralik, are known quantities, we have made our endorsements based upon the candidate’s core principles, civic accomplishments, and public utterances. In Mr. Kralik’s case, we base our opinions on his performances at the League of Women Voters and the Chamber of Commerce forums.

 

 

Feature Opinion  

 

City Counselor and Planning Commissioner do not get it or they just do not care

Counselor Jennifer Hosterman and Planning Commissioner Matt Sullivan showed their true colors at the City Council meeting September 7.

Ms. Hosterman, speaking in defense of her appeal of a Planning Commission approval of a Wal-Mart expansion, clearly demonstrated her contempt for the system that Pleasanton uses to administer and manage city affairs.

Two speakers, Judy Symcox and Norm Thomas strongly suggested that Ms. Hosterman relies on socialist dogma, methods, and rhetoric when dealing with social issues and those issues she wishes to make social issues—namely Wal-Mart’s storage and garden center expansion.

The Socialist “ends justifies the means” fits this situation to a tee. To appeal the Planning Commission decision based upon design would have been appropriate since the PUD under which Wal-Mart operates allows the city to review design elements of the proposed project. To appeal based upon Wal-Mart’s pay and benefits structure or Wal-Mart’s competitive advantage over other retailers is specious since development approvals cannot be based upon economic considerations. Ms. Hosterman, a law school student and a city counselor for two years, certainly knows this but wished to capitalize on the press’s pounding of Wal-Mart’s super centers and local government’s antipathy toward Wal-Mart and its success in the free market. Her appeal, patently a poke at Wal-Mart’s personnel practices, including its non-union status, was clearly designed to socially engineer pay and benefits practices of local businesses beginning with big bad wolf Wal-Mart. (Remember, she has proposed “living wage” and sustainability studies. And, living wage is akin to “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”)

 

 

News Opinion

Whining and sniveling when confronted with logic

T he August 13, 2004 guest editorial by Planning Commissioner Matt Sullivan and Counselor Jennifer Hosterman in the Pleasanton Weekly is a perfect example of why these two should be rejected for mayor and city council next month.

In a response to a well-thought-out guest editorial by Gerry Brunken regarding Wal-Mart’s application to expand its outdoor garden center and add 5,700 square feet of storage, all that Ms. Hosterman and Mr. Sullivan can do is whine and snivel about Mr. Brunken’s matter of fact language; language that both use when they are on the offense.

Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Hosterman, Pleasanton’s Wal-Mart is not a supercenter and has no immediate plan to be one. And even if it did have those plans, so what? There is enough land their for expansion and their Planned Unit Development (PUD) approval allows them to expand.

Even if the wage and welfare study that Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Hosterman cite was accurate, it is irrelevant when it comes to land use issues.

 

Quick Opinion

Fialho good City Manager choice

Nelson Fialho, long-time Deputy City Manager, is a good choice to replace retiring Deborah Acosta-McKeehan as City Manager. He has shown a complete understanding of what the city’s retirement system will do to future budgets. We hope he can steer the City Council into amending its propensity to pass along city personnel retirement costs to our children and grandchildren.

People, who never met a welfare program they did not like,
now are concerned with its cost to the taxpayer


It was amusing to see a normally confrontational Planning Commissioner Matt Sullivan so contrite when speaking before the City Council September 7. Could it be that he is running for a seat on that august body and does not want to appear too strident?

But, Mr. Sullivan did not let composure get in the way of his left-leaning agenda. In his short address he picked up where Counselor Jennifer Hosterman had left off, trying desperately to tie Wal-Mart’s pre-negotiated expansion for storage to economic woes of the community (there are none in this community). Citing a tremendously flawed study claiming Wal-Mart employees feed out of the government trough more than workers at other companies, (namely union companies), Mr. Sullivan tried to illustrate that expansion plans would mean a large drain on the public purse. What nonsense.


What do the poles indicate?


The 60-foot poles at the Callippe Preserve Golf Course and Open Space are another example of, “you have to be careful of what you wish for.” The poles will hold black netting to keep golf balls on the driving range at Callippe. And that disturbs the “view shed” as bureaucrats and politicians call it. Sometimes when you want to screw developers so badly, you have to take the bad with the good. Poles and black netting are preferred to lawsuits from hikers and golfers struck by errant golf balls. The poles are only a minor irritant when compared to a $20 million overrun on the course itself.




Guest Opinion

Let us know how you feel about the City Council election

We are sure that there will be plenty to talk about after the November election. We hope that you will talk to us too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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