Photo Opinion

Here is where we are going and George Orwell gave us a heads-up

In 1984, published in 1949, George Orwell warned about doublethink “good is bad and bad is good: war is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength" and in Animal Farm, published in 1945, he offered “four legs good, two legs bad” and “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

It is time that the lessons learned from Mr. Orwell be applied to our current national tilt to the socialist left. Trickle-up poverty is fast approaching and our president and his diplomats are assailing our national character around the globe. What is more, the press, with their newspeak, promotes utopian ideals and denigrates those who issue Orwellian warnings.

More importantly, we must put Orwell’s lessons to work in selecting local representatives. Our representatives sanction Spare the Air days and a civil police force looking for smoke curling up from chimneys—they also ask neighbors to inform on neighbors. We have elementary school students ratting out parents to their teachers about their parents’ global warming skepticism. Of course, NIMBYs have moved from the proletariat and the petite bourgeois to become burghers and now demand that the moat bridge be rolled up.

 

 

School district parcel tax has taxpayers a little nervous

Wae are disappointed to see Jeff Bowser’s name on the list of movers and shakers for the Save Pleasanton Schools. He was a little too squishee for our liking but we thought him a reasonable person with common sense when we endorsed him for a Pleasanton Unified School District’s board of trustees seat last November.

Mr. Bowser is a Save Pleasanton Schools fundraiser for the proposed $233. parcel tax headed for the June 2 ballot and that makes our endorsement a mis-read. It appears that he is more interested in increasing his profile with the education establishment for a board run in the future than he is for balancing the school budget.

We suggest that Mr. Bowser pull a few all-nighters on school finance. Should he win a seat, he will be required to balance the budget with reduced state funding and no parcel tax. It is too bad that he cannot take a few lessons from current board members who decided unanimously that taxpayers should make the final decisions on balancing the budget with the parcel tax proposal. What is it with Pleasanton elected representatives? We simply cannot elect any who have the courage to make tough decisions. Oh, maybe the candidates are products of an education system that only deals in feel good.

We cannot help but reflect on Valerie Arkin’s parcel tax rhetoric and her parcel tax vote. Rhetoric good. Vote bad. She seemed prepared—more prepared than most—and she seemed willing to make some tough budgetary decisions, though none of her suggested budget cuts involved teachers. Seems Ms. Arkin thinks the school corporate mucky mucks should take the whole budget broadside. Hem. We are trying to figure out if she is anti corporate, anti school administration, or pro teacher’s union. We are leaning pro teacher’s union. And, to our way of thinking, it is the teacher’s union that is a major part of the district’s problem.

We have been following the threads of several Internet blogs regarding the school district parcel tax proposal. Pleasanton residents are uninformed or ill informed. Their reasons for supporting the parcel tax are quite revealing. Many feel that the only reason Pleasanton houses have held their own in the real estate downturn is because of “excellent” schools—a fiction perpetuated by real estate interests and self-deluding elitists. They feel that losing class size reduction would mean the end of the world even though there is no evidence to show that it works. Many are even using the cheap shot that it is only $19 a month or $.64 cents a day and we would ruin our schools for a measly $19 a month, a few lattes.

News Opinion

 

Socialism is local too and why it matters

Pleasanton has its share of leftists in responsible government positions. For instance, Counselor Matt Sullivan is an elitist ready to cripple the Pleasanton economy to teach greedy developers a lesson—does not matter the development or the developer. His Staples Ranch comments, actions, and votes are just the latest in a long list of his obstructionist escapades.

Counselor Cindy McGovern and ex-vice mayor Kay Ayala oppose the approved Oak Grove development. Oak Grove is 51 houses and 497 acres of free land for a city park and is stalled because of Ms. Ayala’s initiative now being contested in court. Oak Grove landowners Frederic and Jennifer Lin have tried for more than 30 years to build on their land. Lucky for them they have very deep pockets and a great deal of patience.

Planning Commissioner Ann Fox, like Mr. Sullivan, is willing to do almost anything to prevent anything from being built in Pleasanton. It is a plant (Spearscale) both are banking on to derail the recently approved Staples Ranch development. The Spearscale (thought to be endangered) was not adequately reviewed in Pleasanton’s environmental review. The developer of Staples Ranch, unfortunately for them, is Alameda County and not a private citizen (the projects will be completed by capitalists after purchasing the land from Alameda County and completing development agreements with Pleasanton or Livermore or Dublin for that matter). Pleasanton has given its approval and is simply awaiting the eco extremist’s next move—court or ballot box. Alameda County wants to sell the land. They have been very clear on that at the various forums. To that end, they will forge a partnership with one or the other city to develop the land. Obstructionists Fox and Sullivan are hoping that the capitalist developers will lose interest in the project if its approval is challenged in court or put before the electorate.

The Alameda Creek Alliance and Ohlone Audubon along with the Tri-Valley Sierra Club are willing to wade in on anything to stop development. They have the ear of the bureaucrats and they have the pocketbook to file suits—and they often do. The maybe endangered Spearscale is right up their alley.

Should Alameda County choose Livermore to develop Staple Ranch, there are at least a couple years of delays before the building process can move forward. That is enough time for eco extremists to throw a Spearscale-like monkey wrench into any approved development. That is the matrix for doing nothing and running evil developers out of town on a rail.

 

Housing Cap comes back to hurt

Socialists will do anything to move people with no money into home ownership—or, at the very least, below market rental housing—spreading the wealth. Remember, that practice has put the entire country’s economic system in jeopardy.

California Attorney General Edmond G. (Jerry) Brown has written to the city to request additional information regarding Pleasanton’s draft General Plan. Seems that Mr. Brown does not think, in the accompanying Environmental Impact Report, that there is enough undeveloped land remaining to build housing units for low to moderate-income families. Mr. Brown feels that Pleasanton’s 29,000 unit housing cap prevents having enough land to build the “required” low-income housing Pleasanton is “obligated” to have. It is suggested that the remedy to this is to remove the housing cap.

We agree that the housing cap should be rescinded. We do not agree it should be rescinded because it prevents low-income housing. It is an intrusion into local governance that is constitutionally forbidden—or it used to be before the constitution became such a pretzel-like document that the framers would have trouble recognizing it.

Housing obligation is a socialist idea that gained traction at the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). With San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and Berkeley on board, there is little wiggle room regarding assumed obligations. However, Pleasanton has signed on to the notion of affordable housing (even while approving very unaffordable housing) and now is being asked to build it or at least have enough land to build it. Pleasanton, ever so charitable, has gone one step farther and advocates workforce housing to provide housing to special interest groups--public safety workers and schoolteachers.

To be blunt, Pleasanton property owners and taxpayers do not owe housing to anyone. We certainly do not owe housing to those in their prime earning years as the so-called affordable housing plan is established. If there is a sense of obligation, it should be to single parents and to seniors.

Pleasanton, if it had the funds, should sue the state and/or ABAG to remove any housing obligations beyond the Uniform Building Code. The Pacific Legal Foundation or some other conservative public advocacy group should also take on this issue—it, like imminent domain, goes right to the core of private property.

 

Guest Opinion

 

The good of the city finally won out over neighborhood speciousness

Once again, we say huzzah to Gerry Brunken. His letter to the editor offering congratulations to the winning side in the Staples Ranch debate made several cogent and relevant observations:

During our many pleasurable years in Pleasanton, there have been, from time to time, some loose cannons on the decks of our sturdy civic ship who seemed to want to make up their own rules, "my way or the highway."

Times and circumstances change, but some of our current and former elected or appointed officials refuse to remove their emotional, egotistical, or neighborhood biased blinders.

Now, for one of the few times in my memory since 1992, I can applaud a majority city council that has voted to confirm and support what is best to do for all our residents. Thank you Mayor Hosterman, members Thorne, and Kallio for your right decision on SDE, Staples, and earlier, Oak Grove. You did what you were elected to do.

All who live here should share in the gain and pain experienced by our city growth and evolution. In the East Stoneridge area, it is good to note in [Pleasanton] Weekly Forum comments, that many residents who located there and do support the SDE noticed a four-lane road, wide medians, and a tall sound wall, a good indication of future plans.

During the council meeting of February 23, I was angered but not surprised, when members Sullivan and McGovern proceeded to nitpick the EIR with the obvious intent to prevent the SDE, which could sink Staples improvements within our city limits and future city revenues.

Later, Planning Commissioners Fox and O'Conner stepped forward with possible negative litigation. Then in the Weekly issue of the 27th [February], former council member Kay Ayala, has the effrontery to state against SDE, "why would the council want to put the community thru another referendum debate." This, when she and her fellow dissident instigators had, quite possibly previously agreed to, planned, and will now pursue it, and another lawsuit, as happened with the Oak Grove project.

Enough is enough.

Gerry Brunken

Oh Paulette, save your poison for those who care

Ann Richards of Danville wins the guest commentary award with her commentary in the Valley Times on Sunday March 15. She says of Pleasanton’s own Paulette Kenyon, “the only certain “hate” in her [Kenyon’s] article is clearly from the author herself, directed with great venom against those who do not share her political views…” when speaking about Kenyon’s views on an article about the facial expressions of terrorists. We have felt this about Ms. Kenyon for the last few years. Surrender at any price is Ms. Kenyon’s solution for almost everything to do with terrorism and the military.

 

 

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