Thorn in the side of good judgment

Jerry Thorne, Parks and Recreation Commission chairman, is way off base on the Bernal park issue. There is no compelling reason that the sports fields cannot wait until the entire civic center park issue is settled. There is no evidence that sports fields will not be a part of a comprehensive park design. In fact, fields must be a part of the Bernal design competition now underway.

A bigger issue is Mr. Thorne’s involvement with circulating a ballot initiative petition (see OpinionPleasanton Poll) to force sports fields in the Bernal civic center park. First, city counselors and commissioners, and committee members should not enter the initiative arena while serving in their city capacities. This is just the latest case of counselors and commissioners compromising their service with referenda and initiatives. Counselor Steve Brozosky circulated a Bernal petition in the last election.

In short, Mr. Thorne should resign his Parks and Recreation seat to sever any connection to the city before beginning a Safeway campaign to force sports fields in a major regional park—promised or not. As a private citizen, Mr. Thorne would have our full backing for an initiative, though we would oppose it.

Mr. Thorne’s candidacy for the City Council is the best use of the ballot box (likely to be on the same ballot as the sports fields initiative if it qualifies). Mr. Thorne can conduct a let-it-all-hang out campaign with the sports fields as the centerpiece. The sports lobby in Pleasanton is quite large and vocal and Mr. Thorne’s chances to win a seat are quite high. From the dais in the City Council chambers, Mr. Thorne can pursue the city’s sports field needs.

News Opinion

Have the cheating teachers and complicit administrators been punished for violating school district rules?

Placing political flyers in teacher cubbies is not permitted by the Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees. During the recently concluded school board election, some teachers (union representatives) were observed placing endorsement flyers in teacher mail slots. The district explanation of “the dog at my homework” was not good enough for Julie Testa and former school board candidate Christian Bendixen who both asked for further clarification from Superintendent John Casey.

Apparently, Ms. Testa and Mr. Bendixen, plus a small cadre of school district watchdogs, are still waiting for the answer.

This time, Mr. Casey should announce that the violations have noted in the appropriate personnel files and that Jimmy Carter will be here in 2006 to supervise the next school board race. To do less is to issue an invitation to the teacher’s union to completely dominate school board elections and it is a clear illustration to students that cheating is okay, in fact an approved behavior.

Quick Opinion

Deserters versus the patriots at the Board of Supervisors

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors has deserted the war on terror. In only two and a half years, the board has forgotten that nearly 3,000 U. S. citizens died at the hands of radical religious enemies.

The-sky-is-falling liberals on the county Board of Supervisors come in many stripes. Supervisor Nate Miley, leaves little doubt about his opposition to the United States Patriot Act. He would like a strongly worded resolution denouncing the act. Supervisor Scott Haggerty, also opposed to the act, stakes out for what on the board is a middle-of-the-road position. He prefers the vanilla, do-not-offend-anyone approach of monitoring the act for constitutional violations.

Harry Scott, who addressed the supervisor’s at their early January meeting, said: “We are taking away our constitutional rights in the name of security.” Scott is a member of the south county Peace and Justice Coalition.

What Mr. Scott and Messers Miley and Haggerty failed to do is to cite even one example of how our rights have been abridged. Barring evidence of rights violations, the supervisors should do nothing about the act and should concentrate in reviving Alameda County agriculture among other issues that are in their purview.

Guest Opinion

Peter MacDonald speaks out about Big Brother

Peter MacDonald, a Pleasanton land use attorney, has said it exactly the way it is in his letter to the editor of The Independent. He wrote: “If the cost of local government protectionism were trivial we could ignore it. But look at what happened to California housing prices when local governments were empowered to choose our housing for us. In 1970, when the CaliforniaEnvironmental Quality Act and other planning ‘reforms’ were passed, California housing prices were a little above the national average. In 2003, after 30 years of mismanagement by urban planners and local politicians, the Bay Area median housing price is 275% higher than the national average.”

Mr. MacDonald goes on to say that the same politicians now want to protect us from “big box” retailers such as Wal-Mart, Costco, Target and other discounters. What has happened to housing prices will happen to clothing and grocery prices if the “protectionists” succeed in convincing an uninformed and uninvolved electorate that we need ordinances to regulate corporate giants.

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