Volume Two, Number 1                                              What ElseYou Need To Know                                        June 5, 2002

When it comes to traffic, Pico tests HOV positive

Mayor Tom Pico, who is chairman of Alameda County's Congestion Management Agency, has indicated a willingness to put his own city at risk for greater traffic gridlock by diverting Highway 84 widening funds for HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes between Santa Rita Road and Vasco Road on I-580. Before he proceeds with this folly, he should seek a "sense of the council" vote. Going rogue will show a total disregard for his council colleagues. If he pursues this line of thinking for gridlock on
I-580/I-680 and on Pleasanton city streets, it can only be assumed that he is pursuing his green-leaning Sierra Club agenda or is contemplating a run for higher office with a green campaign war chest or both.

Mr. Pico and his allies have always supported Sierra Club lanes to solve air quality problems. The fact that they do not work is irrelevant to Mr. Pico. If Mr. Pico is so secure in his environmental positions, he should resign and pursue his regional agenda as a private citizen. Doing so will allow his council colleagues to pursue sensible and overdue traffic solutions for Pleasanton including Highway 84 renovation, connecting Stoneridge to El Charro and connecting El Charro to Stanley.

HOV lanes increase the number of solo drivers and simply create gridlock for the remaining lanes. What's more, HOV lanes, instead of the Highway 84 widening, will exacerbate Pleasanton's cut-through traffic. Gridlock in the non Sierra Club lanes and gridlock on Pleasanton city streets means more pollution. Cars at idle create more pollution than cars at speed.

Trying to improve the East Bay's air quality on the backs of Pleasanton residents is an ideological act that cannot be tolerated. If this is Mr. Pico's idea of thinking globally, then he is a bigger flibbertigibbet than first thought. Pleasanton cannot and should not be held hostage by a renegade mayor willing to sacrifice the convenience and safety of his constituency for a pie-in-the-sky environmental extremist notion repeatedly proved fallacious.

Solutions to the traffic and air quality problems have stared the mayor in the face for all of his 10 years on the council. Widening Highway 84 is one of those solutions. Taking cut-through traffic off city streets onto Highway 84 has been planned for 20 years. That is not all. Mr. Pico has had plenty of opportunity to provide a permanent ACE Train station. He has had plenty of opportunity to incorporate the promised ACE station with a transit village to accommodate more buses, taxis and jitneys. He has had plenty of opportunity to have people live and work near public transit. His record here is miserable.

In contrast to Mr. Pico's sorry CMA performance, is a stellar performance by Pleasanton traffic engineer Jeff Knowles. Many speculate that his job is in jeopardy for his forthright presentation of the facts that show Pleasanton the big loser if Highway 84 funds go to HOV lanes. When it comes to environmental politics, the mayor has a nasty streak. Mr. Knowles has surely been called on City Manager Debra Acosta McKeehan's office carpet. Ms. McKeehan, at the June 4 council meeting, announced that she and Mr. Pico have already met with Mr. Knowles. Because Ms. McKeehan knows what three to two means (a majority vote on the council) she is counting right now. Mr. Knowles' future probably rests on that head count which appears to be three to two in his favor. At that June 4 council meeting, counselors Matt Campbell, Michelotti and Vice Mayor Becky Dennis appeared to be uneasy with questions raised about Mr. Pico's public statements. Ms. Michelotti stated that she has no interest in shelving Highway 84 improvements over HOV lanes on I-580.

Mr. Knowles characterized the prospects of halting the Highway 84 widening as "…disaster for solving Pleasanton's cut-through traffic problems." He also said "adding expensive HOV lanes that stop at Santa Rita will mean more cut-through traffic for Pleasanton and make our situation much worse." He also reported that the Livermore City Council, once opposed to widening Highway 84, is now in favor. They see commuters staying on the freeway until Isabel/Highway 84 and that means fewer vehicles on First Street in downtown.

It is clear that Mr. Pico cares little about Pleasanton's quality of life by allowing and even encouraging more cut-through traffic. He also shows a disregard for the safety of Pleasanton residents by his willingness to direct more vehicles onto city streets (more vehicles will lead to a greater accident rate and will have police officers writing accident reports rather than cruising the mall to prevent more serious crime.) Moreover, he is so wedded to the 60's notion that diamond lanes reduce air pollution that he is willing to risk creating more pollution on city streets for another risky freeway experiment that we voted out for I-580 only a few years ago.

About myself

Pico: a singular guy in a plural world

At OpinionPleasanton we consider ourselves hardnosed, cynical pundits. However, when we reviewed the "Mayor's Manifesto" on the Internet, we have to level with you, it touched our souls.

We have been under the impression that citizens, sometimes in concert with City Hall, were involved with downtown redevelopment. Now that downtown needs the mayor's vision to make it a "world-class" downtown in a world- class city, Mr. Pico abstains on all of the important downtown issues.

For the last year and half, a citizen task force has been studying uses for the remaining 170 or so acres on the Bernal property. However, when we look at how "myself" has preserved the "Crown Jewel", we see his vision of the Modesto Tan Phoenix rising up from the wonderful hayfield, sans those wonderful trees that use to present a beloved and much-envied arbor entrance to our town.

We are touched to learn that a 24-hour gas station, with fast food and a car wash, will add another glittering jewel to the crown. Who else could have envisioned this? Only "myself."

We did not realize that "myself" came up with the "you want to see 3,000 homes on the ridge?" Moreover, we were under the mistaken impression that our ridge, our beautiful ridge, was saved by a vote of the people.

When we become agitated with Pleasanton traffic, we just look at Staples Ranch. "Myself" said no to a frontage road along I-580 because it would promote growth and Staples Ranch was "saved." There is virtually no traffic there now. But, was it also his vision to lose a major retailer who would contribute plus or minus $1 million in sales tax revenues to city coffers? IKEA said no to Staples Ranch because the city said that getting in and out would require years of study. What happened to the frontage road study? What happened with the General Plan's Stoneridge Drive extension through Staples Ranch to El Charro?

"Myself" fights for traffic calming. What exactly is traffic calming? Does Mr. Pico mean drive during off hours and you will remain calm? Is Sunday at 3 a.m. the right time to remain calm?

Is fighting for 10 years on the General Plan's West Las Positas interchange calming? Maybe to "myself" it is but neighbors, concerned for the safety of their children who must cross I-680 to get to school, did not take10 years to see that things are not all that calm.

We stand corrected. Tom Quixote did all of this for us and without Dulcinea and Sancho Panza.

News Opinion

Dublin gets the job done. Again

Pleasanton has apparently lost IKEA to Dublin. The Dublin City Council is considering a General Plan and East Dublin specific plan change to accommodate the Swedish furniture retailer. The prize is $1 million plus or minus in sales tax revenue to the city.

By contrast, Pleasanton's approach with IKEA was: change your opening schedule because we do not have a completed road study and we are not accelerating any processes to accommodate you.

Pleasanton will receive the booby prize—no money and more traffic on Hacienda and Santa Rita roads.

In the September 26, 2001 issue of OpinionPleasanton, Mayor Tom Pico was strongly urged not to chase IKEA away. The plea was directed to Mr. Pico because of his predilection to study projects to death so that they would go away without his direct intervention—which is bad politically. However, Mr. Pico also despises development and developers to the point that he is perfectly willing to intervene should the situation demand. (Mr. Pico intervened in the Bernal Avenue project to derail any development and scuttled more than a year and a half's worth or work by a citizen's task force he insisted work on the civic uses for the gifted land.) In the case of IKEA, he did not intervene. The City's policy of studying projects for years worked quite well. IKEA, exasperated first with Livermore and then Pleasanton, looked north across I-580 for a solution to their Tri-Valley development dilemma and they have apparently found it in Dublin—digital or otherwise.

Pleasanton's environmental agenda has essentially flushed $1 million more down the drain. That sales tax potential would have played a major role in keeping Pleasanton afloat coming out of the recession and the state's mega deficits—which will trickle down to counties and cities eventually.

Lost in the brief development discussions has been that the Swedish furniture retailer is an asset to a community and is an appropriate use of county-owned but soon to be annexed Staples Ranch. To have those discussions before now would have derailed Mr. Pico's plan to quietly chase those evil developers out of town. Fair-minded people would see that IKEA is a good idea, in an appropriate place and a financial windfall for Pleasanton.

Quick Opinion

 
Bravo Mr. Campbell

By asking his colleagues to rescind their vote on placing Bernal issues on the ballot, Counselor Matt Campbell made good on his feelings that the Bernal Property Task Force should complete its assignment of exploring civic uses on the 170 plus or minus acres that can be developed by the city before the issue goes on the ballot.

Though it was an academic exercise, Mr. Campbell aligned his voting record with his personal philosophy of doing the people's business ahead of running to the ballot.

However, environmental extremists gathered enough signatures to put Bernal issues to a vote this November. The main issue, in their initiative, is subsidized housing. They claim that subsidized housing is an inappropriate use for the remaining Bernal land and that subsidized housing has already been addressed in the city's development agreement with Greenbriar who is building 80 or so subsidized units. In reality, the issue is housing and the people it will draw. Environmentalists in Pleasanton have consistently opposed housing especially units less than a million dollars.

Encouraged by Mayor Tom Pico and his council colleagues, the Bernal Property Task Force addressed subsidized housing as one of Bernal's additional civic uses. When it looked as though the committee would actually arrive at several uses that could be developed, Mr. Pico took the first opportunity to wink at the right people to undo what his own committee had accomplished over a year and a half.

Deep Croak

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