What it is like to spin Jen

Counselor Jennifer Hosterman in no dummy. Yet, what comes out of her mouth belies that premise.

She is glib. About that, there is little doubt. She is deft at answering questions that were not asked and adroit at not answering questions that were. Her final comment to a question on junk science, upon which she bases much of her environmental pap, was: “man needs earth, earth does not need man.” That has the depth of a one-ring doughboy.

She is much better when she is lecturing—most of time on the environment. Her lexicon of ecoholic catch phrases is boring but to the untrained ear, she sounds downright erudite.

Why the concern for Ms. Hosterman’s intellect and rhetoric? She is running for mayor. As a counselor, she is just one of five. As mayor, she would control the agenda and the discussion. Of all of the Dream Team type of candidates in recent years, she is the most extreme. If it isn’t PV, it isn’t PC is a motto she could embrace. She, of course, thinks that everyone should know what PV is-it is photovoltaic, which is a way of capturing the sun’s energy and converting it to electricity.

While that is scary, it is Ms. Hosterman’s environmental justice and sustainability claptrap that should put voters on edge. Environmental justice and sustainability are socialist ideas that have nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with Big Brotherism—Ms. Hosterman has bypassed the welfare state that many lefties are still trying to make work. She also is among those liberals who arrogantly feel that only they know what is best for their constituents. She stops just short of telling them to take their medicine and like it.

 

News Opinion

Signature, build the gall darned school

I t is no wonder, in our welfare state, that cradle to grave educrats look for something for nothing. In Pleasanton, they are looking for a $14 million school for $8.5 million. They are looking for a 40-acre set aside on the Bernal property. Because the education establishment has had a free ride over the last 40 years, it is no wonder that they think there is a free lunch.

And because building permits are difficult to secure and school fees are so exorbitant, to get building permits homebuilders are willing to option land for schools and to entertain building schools to avoid the fees.

Builders are not without sin. But without Big Brother it needn’t have ended up this way.

That is the way it seems when dealing with the school construction issues and homebuilder agreements.

 

Quick Opinion

Say goodbye to Matt Sullivan

P lanning Commissioner Matt Sullivan has gone rogue one time too many. It is time for him to step down. Mr. Sullivan is running for City Council so Mayor Tom Pico should facilitate his campaign by asking him to resign his commission seat.

His rant about the water slides is only one of many rants Mr. Sullivan has had over his tenure on the commission. The Pleasanton Weekly was kind to call it sour grapes. Mr. Sullivan, an environmental extremist, is a negative influence on the commission and is an embarrassment to Pleasanton. He is certainly not an appropriate representative for a community of character. His agenda, demeanor, and radical rhetoric stifle discussion both on the commission and from citizens who wish to address the commission.

With Mr. Sullivan it is not about water slides, Red Legged frogs, or electricity, it is about power. For him it is not enough to have it, he must wield it. He did on the water slide issue and then was given his comeuppance by the City Council. For arrogant ecoholics, this is intolerable.

Hosterman thinks she is business friendly

Counselor Jennifer Hosterman claims that her advocacy of workforce housing and traffic calming makes her business friendly reports the Tri Valley Herald in a May article on the Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce’s formation of a new political action committee. Oh, and Ms. Hosterman feels that the chamber should weigh in on business issues but not candidates.

On what planet does she live?

Workforce housing is socialist speak for subsidized housing—from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs—except for a few among the elite. Traffic calming is socialist speak for no road building and eventually gridlock. How are those two welfare state ideas business friendly?

School District has another new plan

When the going gets tough for educators, the educators produce another new plan. The Pleasanton Unified School District has just released the outline of another new strategic plan.

School district plans are like waving the cape. They are good at it. Soon, however, the fact that our children are not learning at any advanced level will come back to gore them. The uninformed might say “educators have our children’s interest at heart, why not let them institute the new plan? All new plans require time to ‘kick in.’” By the time the plan actually kicks in, it is time for something new. During all of that time who suffers? Hello. It is your children. Every time we give the educrats more time to right our course, our kids still compete at the mediocre level (and that is more out of our socio economic location and our adult education level and not because the schools have worked that hard to reach mediocre.)

We are now to think globally. Learning foreign languages used to be mandatory.

Guest Opinion

Bravo Dublin. IKEA will help with new roads and schools.

P leasanton letter writer Pete Miller is a stoopnagle. Yes Mr. Miller, IKEA will bring people to the Tri-Valley. But so will almost any other project. Mr. Miller’s ice rink suggestion, in his May 31, 2004 letter to the editor, shows that he is unrealistic as well as ill informed. Land with that much value can only be used for projects that have a huge potential for profit. Ice rinks don’t or they would be opening rather than closing.

IKEA, the Swedish furniture retailer, is moving to Dublin and for that we should all be sad not because of I-580 and Hacienda Drive traffic but because Pleasanton had a shot at IKEA and the $1.7 in projected annual sales tax revenue and we blew it. Big time.

Dublin Mayor Janet Lockhart’s letter in the June 3, 2004 Tri-Valley Herald says it all. Mr. Miller is just a naysayer who fits in well with the elitists in Pleasanton who want all building to stop and hope for some faerrie dust for the problems left unsolved by elitist city fathers and the bureaucracy they have assembled.

 

 

 

 

 

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