Volume
Three, Number 5 What ElseYou Need To Know February 12, 2004
Vote No on 56, The Blank Check
Act
The left-leaning special interest
groups such as the teacher’s union and the Sierra Club tell you
in radio and television commercials in support of Proposition 56 that
state legislators will not be paid if they do not pass a budget on time.
Sounds tough, but that is no big deal. It will just become the cost of
doing business to most of the legislators. More importantly, the special
interests fail to tell you that Proposition 56 lowers the 2/3 requirement
to pass the state budget to just 55%.
You can bet that only needing 55% to pass the state budget will lead to increased spending and new taxes.
These folks just do not give up. The recall meant next to nothing.
We also recommend that you vote no on both propositions 57 and 58. Cutting spending to 1998 Gray Davis levels will erase the proposed deficit (until you spend the money there is no deficit). Bonds will put our children and grand children into fiscal bondage. It’s the spending stupid.
Vote no on Regional Measure 2. This is a mass transit tax that only motorists pay. Furthermore, only 10 percent of the contemplated 36 projects using new $3.00 bridge-toll funds have any relationship to the automobile, the Bay Area’s most flexible and popular mode of transportation.
Choose an administrator with no government experience
Hum? The retiring city manager and the no-growth mayor now want the “process” to speed up when it comes to finding a new city manager. Whatever happened to “we do things a little slowly in Pleasanton?”
It goes without saying that the council will look for a manager with considerable experience in city government. With federal, state, and regional mandates, it makes sense to have professional staffers who know the language and who are adroit at feeding at the government trough. However, the best city manager would come from business or industry and would have little or no day-to-day experience in city government. A long tenure in city government just stifles the creative juices, exacerbates dependence on others layers of government, and litters the lexicon-landscape with bureaucratese.
Pleasanton needs someone who is focused on the business of government and less on the process of government. For many years now, the process has bogged us down. When things happen slowly, as was the charge of the former city manager, things happen expensively as evidenced by the $14 million golf course now nearing $40 million to complete. IKEA jumped over the freeway to business-friendly Dublin and Pleasanton has the traffic problems associated with the huge retailer but loses a potential of $1 million a year in sales tax revenues.
Because Pleasanton’s developing is nearly complete, we do not need someone expert in interacting with environmental extremist bureaucrats and consultants. However, when it was necessary to joust with environmentalists in government, a businessman, such as a developer, would likely be as nimble as a bureaucrat in dealing with “permitting agencies” since business leaders have spent the last dozen or so years jumping through hoops that the permitting agencies have set before them. (When local government was local, there was one permitting agency and it was in City Hall. Today, there is a maze of agencies that call the shots on building projects: U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the department of Fish & Game head the list. But that is not all, the Center for Biodiversity, the Sierra Club, and Earth First are behind the scenes threatening suits and using other obstructionist techniques that add to the cost of doing business.)
Contrary to what Counselor Jennifer Hosterman said during a recent discussion
of the golf course overruns, governing is business—setting priorities
and making choices. An administrator who has met a payroll, dealt with
bureaucrats, and had bottom-line responsibility is what we need to manage
a prosperous and vibrant city. We need an administrator who will advise
Ms. Hosterman that a new City Hall, projected to cost $50 million, cannot
cost $100 million just because it is a “community driven project”.
The five-year programs in the old Soviet Union were community driven.
| Our
editors are investigating the city retirement and health benefits
packages and how much we are indebted for them. We are comparing
the cost of professional staff that can perform the entire job
versus the cost of consultants—it seems that at least one
is hired for every project or program (we would also like an exact
count of consultants under contract and the total price tag for
those consultants). We would also like to know how the morale
is at City Hall. |
Feature Opinion
The devil you know is better that the devil you
don’t
Republicans and self-described conservatives (mostly businessmen and home builders) are backing Mayor Tom Pico for the Democrat nomination for the open 20th Assembly seat being vacated by Assemblyman John Dutra who cannot run because of term limits.
Their reasoning is that the devil you know is better than the devil you do not know. What is known about Mr. Pico, a CPA, is that leans toward anti-capitalism while operating professionally in a capitalist society. For instance, Mr. Pico has been a proponent of spending $38 million (now) to build a municipal golf course to prevent homebuilders from building homes on the 800 acres south of town in Happy Valley. The result of Mr. Pico’s plan is that private property becomes public property. Long-time landowners and homebuilders get tweaked by removing valuable land from the private sector (land that could be used for much-needed housing demanded by the State is removed from the housing bank and the houses that homebuilders eventually build are much more expensive because they are built on much more expensive, hard-to-find land). Housing that is not even close to “affordable” becomes that much more unaffordable. And, the best news of all is that the community remains elitist with million dollar-plus homes the only housing stock on the new and resale market and homebuyers, golfers, and taxpayers pickup the considerable tab.
Instead of backing Mr. Pico, the so-called capitalists should be suing to prevent the taking of private property. Happy Valley residents and builders should have argued that the city’s golf course plan caves into environmental extortion (nearly $6 million of the $38 million project was used to obtain “environmental” permits). To preserve species of insects and reptiles that are not even in evidence, land had to be purchased elsewhere using green fees for that land purchase.
In addition, the very people that the Callippe Preserve Golf Course was supposed to benefit may not now be able to afford the green fees. Sure the Vic’s All Star golf course roundtable has plenty of well-heeled participants. But seniors not at the roundtable, and who, over 10 years, did a lot of the heavy lifting on the golf course project, will be hard pressed to pay green fees estimated at nearly $80 for weekends and $60 for week days.
News
Opinion
Jerry Thorne should toss his hat into the ring
W
Mr. Thorne is a reasonable person willing to look at all sides of issues—about all that you can hope for in a local politician. One thing that is sure about Mr. Thorne is that he is a capitalist. He will not be a part of a coalition to subvert our form of government. He will be sensitive to the environment but will not goose step with those who say two legs bad, four legs good. He is one of us not one of them who have recently moved here and want to roll up the moat bridge to others, especially those who do not meet the gated community requirements of high income and graduate education.
Bob Wright should follow Mr. Thorne’s lead. Both Mr. Thorne and Mr. Wright were candidates in the City Council election two years ago.
They would likely line-up against former school board member Cindy McGovern and Planning Commissioner Matt Sullivan. Again, the contrast in political philosophies is stark. Ms. McGovern and Mr. Sullivan lean left. Mr. Thorne and Mr. Wright are more concerned with making Pleasanton a better place than winning points with extremist special interest groups.
Counselor Kay Ayala will likely meet Counselor Jennifer Hosterman for the mayor’s seat. In this race, Bill Eastman would be a welcomed third candidate. Ms. Ayala is moving back to the center of the political spectrum—a move that is disquieting because it appears that she changes her mind when the political winds suit her. Ms. Hosterman is simply too radical.
She’s such a sweet little thang, but…
Counselor Jennifer Hosterman is downright dangerous. On issue after issue, she shows herself as anti-capitalist, anti-competition, and anti-consumer—an elitist wolf in the ever-affable sheep’s clothing. And now she wants to silence critics at City Council meetings.
Earth to Ms. Hosterman, “meeting open to the public” means anyone can speak on any topic. Mayor Tom Pico’s pointing to the “be nice” poster to the contrary, politics is sharp-edged. Jerry Wagner, or any other in this community of characters, is free to address any issues or the council’s approach to those issues. Thinking otherwise is an outrage.
Her council harangue notwithstanding, Ms. Hosterman is now also on the anti-Wal-Mart bandwagon demanding hearings focusing on changing building and zoning regulations to keep Wal-Mart and other large retailers from expanding or simply preempting them from considering our fair valley community. Word is that Pleasanton is business unfriendly. Ms. Hosterman does little to dispel this notion.
Were she to devote the same energy to solving Pleasanton’s traffic problems as she devotes to bashing corporate America, we would have a completed road and street network and plans for a mass transit facility to accommodate motorists as they abandon their use of the freeways and city streets.
Fewer vehicles means mush less pollution. Or, should we keep that to ourselves?
We should learn from our mistakes
WWW.OpinionPleasanton.com supports a new civic center on the Bernal property. However, we are having second thoughts. The Pleasanton City Council and the professional staff as developers are not up to the task.
If the Callippe Preserve Golf Course is any indication of what the council and staff can do, we should frightened. Six years ago, the golf course was projected to cost $14 million. The council is now wrestling with a project of more than $38 million.
Of course, there are many explanations of how the project has nearly tripled in cost. Environmental extremists account for $6 million to preserve species of insects, reptiles, and animals not in evidence and to purchase preservation land (why a 500-acre golf course would need additional “mitigations” has never been adequately explained). The exact amount the delays caused by governmental agencies responsible for environmental permits is incalculable. Nevertheless, it is safe to say the prices have gone up during the years of delay.
That was then, this is now.
Now we are looking at overruns.
Quick
Opinion
A giant dose of common sense and fewer meetings
We must hire professional staff members who are qualified. Even with exorbitant employee retirement and health benefits, outsourcing everything to consultants is still a costlier time waster.
The latest example is the city council’s vote to look for a consultant for $50,000 to $100,000 to tell us where to locate a youth center.
A teen facility, it has been learned, will be proposed as a part of a new civic center on the Bernal property. (City Hall, public safety, youth facilities, and library facilities will be designed into a complex that will also house a mass transit center and senior housing.)
Look, the city just saved a minimum of $50,000.
Guest Opinion
Put the new civic center in
the middle of a beautiful new park
Hooray for Bob Nickerson. In his Pleasanton Weekly editorial, he got it exactly right about developing the Bernal property. Direction from the City Council was mixed or non-existent right from the beginning. Planning for the property was piecemeal with two committees working with two different objectives.
The design competition is a way to explore new ideas. Additionally,
during the last two years of study on Bernal, some have come to the
conclusion that expensive sport facilities are not the highest priority.
Something for nothing
James Anderson’s Pleasanton Weekly letter to the editor is on the money. The Pleasanton Unified School District is crazy to think that Signature properties would agree to an open-ended development of Neal School. The only quarrel we have with Mr. Anderson is his elitist manner in not so cleverly hiding his feeling that money has its privileges. Breaking a promise to a Ruby Hill resident is no different from breaking a promise to any other resident.
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