Gloria Fredette is finding her stride

The voters in Pleasanton, California thought it was enough that Gloria Fredette was a mother and school volunteer that they elected her--on her first try for public office--to a seat on the Pleasanton Unified School District’s board of trustees.

In addition to having her two children in the Pleasanton schools, her friend Patrick J. Kernan wanted a seat on the board. Ms. Fredette signed on as Kernan’s campaign manager. In that role, she acquainted herself with many of the local issues. Kernan, with Fredette’s help, was successful in gaining a seat on the board, eventually becoming its president.

With that success, Ms. Fredette’s taste for politics expanded beyond the school board and she signed on to co-manage Pleasanton City Councilman Matt Campbell’s successful first-time run for public office. Campbell, a civics teacher at Amador Valley High School, won his first time out on the campaign trail.

In four short years, Fredette went from wife, mother, community and school volunteer, and campaign manager to her own seat on the board that attracted her to local politics. Her friends on the school board and on the city council were obviously a big help to her victory on her first run for elective office.

It was thought, during her campaign, that she was untested in serving in a responsible decision-making position. The school board in Pleasanton is a high-profile position. At least two additional schools are needed to accommodate the estimated number of children projected for when the city completes its development. Site selection and cost containment are therefore issues that assume a higher profile than would normally be the case. Ms. Fredette would be immediately in the spotlight.

The real test of Fredette’s mettle is happening right now. Governor Gray Davis is slashing education spending at the state level forcing local districts to make immediate cuts and to plan for cuts for next year. Fredette has initially shown that she is up to the task. In a take-no-prisoners attitude, Fredette seems unafraid to verbalize the unspeakable
--the need for layoffs and the need to hold the line on union wage demands—thought to be the third rail of school politics.

Fredette has deficiencies. She refuses to answer tough philosophical questions regarding homosexuality in the classroom and in school clubs in Tri-Valley schools. (The issue is not new or emerging. Danville schools faced parents concerned that schools too quickly provided meeting accommodations to homosexual clubs and acquiesced to outside speakers with a homosexual-only agenda.) She also refused to answer questions regarding sunsetting the class-size reduction program if it is proved to be unsuccessful (evidence is mounting that shows that class-size reduction is not having the positive effect on test scores that was promised.) Ms. Fredette also refuses to address the fact that Pleasanton schools, while testing above the state average, are not the in the highest percentiles. Schools are good but not that good or at least not good enough.

Thomas “Tip” O’Neil, the late speaker of the house of the United States House of Representatives, said, “all politics is local.” As a result, women who take the plunge into politics usually begin on local boards and councils. They accumulate experience with issues. They take the heat for bad decisions. They bask in the glory of good decisions. They build constituencies. They accumulate favors. They dispense favors.

In short, it is the Gloria Fredettes who move from local politics to county and state government and beyond. Senator Diane Feinstein was a county supervisor and mayor and candidate for governor. She started on the state parole board. Senator Barbara Boxer was a U. S. Representative and started as a Marin County supervisor. Gloria Fredette may not have those lofty ambitions but she could easily move up the ladder because of her drive and dedication on the school board and experience as a mother and school volunteer. Special to www.OpinionPleasanton.com. RJ

News Opinion

You were elected to make the toughest decisions

Things are so out of whack in our country’s schools that Pleasanton can score very well in a national survey.

That is not to take away from the accomplishments of the Pleasanton schools. It simply is evidence that nationally education has sunk to new lows. While Pleasanton students do well—the high end of average—they are just average.

Pit Pleasanton students against those in elite schools or against the very best home-schoolers in the country and we have work to do.

You can see the extent of the problem when you study our school district’s most recent budget discussions. With money being extremely tight our district representatives cannot talk about layoffs. They approach budget discussions with the mindset that money is not the object. It never has been, so we understand. The board has gone into the reserves to make up for operational deficits. That is what the reserve is for but is it wise to continue on a spending path that portends future difficulties.

Over the years the citizens have been more than willing to pony up when the sirens were sounded. They will again there is little doubt. As it stands now, parents will be asked to pay for programs--athletic and music programs--with one-time payments. If that cannot save the jobs of district support personnel and school janitors, the district will likely follow the herd mentality and ask voters to “contribute” more in the form of a parcel tax. But district representatives must face the music some day. Maybe they should make it today. District support workers must be laid off. School janitors must be laid off. With just being average, we must protect all of the academic programs we can.

In an unusually tough editorial the Valley Times, January 30, 2003, opined that, “Not only do high schools need to improve their English and math instruction, but they also should help students to determine whether they have the ability to do college-level work.” That unusually blunt assessment was a part of a greater piece on remedial education in the California State University System. The editorial concludes: “Community colleges help a lot, but the real problem is at the high school level, where standards are either too low or are not enforced.” So, crowing too much about Pleasanton’s placement on a national survey of high schools may be a little disingenuous.

Our district board members must ask our teachers this: Is it better to have a job and grade your own papers and pick up a few bag lunch bags or is better to be on the streets trying to shop M.Ed. degree for a $50,000. to $75,000 job in business and industry?

We can see that this is difficult. Our touch feely, agenda driven, equal-outcome, representatives have been programmed in the roaring 90’s to make only easy decisions—whose private property can we confiscate for a new school, from what evil developer can we extort school construction costs, draw an attendance boundary that offends the fewest parents. We wish there was as much hand wringing with getting our kids to read and write. With the strength of the teacher’s union, receiving educational accountability today is fairly remote but we should begin to bell the cat so that our grandchildren have a shot at a quality education free of politics, free of political correctness and laden with teacher, parent and student accountability. Wasting time on a soda ban is insulting Big Brotherism.

Budget under the microscope

Counselor Steve Brozosky says not so fast when considering the city’s 2004-2005 budget. While we like that this sentiment, Mr. Brozosky would prefer to make capital expenditures for parks rather than paying out exorbitant retirement and benefits packages. With a troubling economy and few ill winds blowing for Pleasanton and PeopleSoft, would it not be prudent to step back from the profligate spending of the past few budgets? That also includes capital spending for parks. We are so green here that our jeans get grass stains just driving by our parks.

Here is a difficult decision the council should make. Enact no more San Francisco-style budgets that include lavish retirement and benefits packages—on top of generous union wage and management salary packages--that far exceed private industry.

The council must also decide that the professional staff cannot adequately perform their job description duties if they are chasing red-legged frogs and Callippe butterflies and meeting every night with citizen committees, commissions and task forces. When meetings are curtailed and staff reports reduced, the staff can be further reduced without affecting current city projects.

Quick Opinion

Pleasanton Pornography

The American Library Association, of which the Pleasanton Library is a member, supported striking down The Children’s Internet Protection Act enacted in 2000. On June 23, 2003, the Supreme Court disagreed with the ALA and confirmed local government’s right to install firewalls/filters to block pornography from underage library patrons.

Our library must now comply with the act or forfeit federal funds. As it stands now, we have pornography filters. In the children’s section they are on all of the time. In the adult section they can be switched off. With the filters off, library patrons can view some materials that cannot break through the filters and, of course, pornography.

More importantly, what, if anything, does our library do now to prevent children from getting on the porn super highway in the adult section? Do we employ adult volunteers to look over the shoulders of those library visitors sitting before our ample number of Internet screens? Do we require parental supervision for each Internet session? Or, do we take a more casual approach simply trusting that our children not will surf in sexual waters?

Our library is now in the spotlight for its support of an association that would leave our children open to entering into forbidden areas of cyberspace and for its position on the American Patriot Act. Both positions are built upon the freedom of speech foundation. Supporting one and not the other seems to be a contradiction. Adults may use library Internet connections to view pornography. Filters on computers used by children can be switched off for adult viewing. Consequently, no violation of the freedom of speech or so says the Supreme Court. The American Patriot Act, on the other hand, does not violate free speech because no prohibitions are made or implied. Terrorists can still check out anything on the shelves or use the netLibrary.

The ALA objects because the act allows authorities to access library loan records. There is precedent, however, for such access. Our telephone conversations can be recorded with the signature of a judge. Because the only pornography in the library is on the Internet, the library has nothing to fear from releasing library records to the proper authorities. The books, magazines, videos, and audiotapes are benign or should be. People checking out manure titles along with travel titles might just be terrorists. Surely if they are farmers with wanderlust, authorities will quickly see this upon further investigation. If they are terrorists, what manure have we stepped in? If they are simply farmers, what harm will come if we see the manure and travel titles they have borrowed from us?

The fact is that the Pleasanton Library already uses filters on what we may borrow from library shelves. For whatever reason—money, shelf space, demand, or political agenda—titles not carried did not make it through the filters. Pornography has not made it through the filters except on the Internet. Is this a restriction of freedom of speech? No, it is community standards. The Supreme Court feels we have a right to impose those and that the Congress has a right, under their spending powers, to restrict where the money goes. Congress could, at their discretion, cutoff federal funds to those libraries that do not cooperate with the American Patriot Act. That is a constitutionally permitted exercise.

The right to privacy in this public setting does not apply. The library is a public place, operating with public funds. There are plenty of private places where potential library patrons can find the “reading” material they do not want to be made public.

Guest Opinion

She’s back in print, this time it is lauding Socialist big government

Counselor Jennifer Hosterman needs counseling. She cannot keep off the editorial pages in the local newspapers. Her letters to the editors are usually Socialist or Green rants that would not be tolerated at the council meetings. Her letters kill two birds with one stone. She feeds her need to hear herself talk while she advances her usually far-left-of-center political agenda. In the case of her latest foray into letter writing, she embraces the Socialist leaning government-paid housing and the extra layers of government used to facilitate such programs.

Announcing to us that she attended a press conference seems a little like trying to score points with voters while trying to assuage her guilt for living the beautiful life in Pleasanton. The conference she did attend, the California Home Source Lease Purchase Home Ownership Program, was all about government, the California Mortgage Assistance Corporation (CalMAC) getting into the housing business to provide home ownership for those who cannot qualify for a home purchase because of no down payment money, closing costs, or bad credit. This “marvelous opportunity” is brought to us from the folks at the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) a quasi-governmental agency whose charter today is to socially engineer our communities to more closely resemble those urban communities closer to the Bay or, at the very least, what ABAG, the counties, and the state see as ideal communities. We do not vote directly for ABAG membership but our City council does. It might be necessary to look at a council that will vote to withdraw from ABAG and step back from a political agenda that does not remotely resemble Pleasanton.

Ms. Hosterman closes her letter to the Valley Times of July 4, 2003 with “Finally, I believe this program truly benefits families, which in turn benefits our community.” Beyond the obvious that families would benefit from freebies provided by the rest of us, Ms. Hosterman thinks that advancing taxpayer money to buy homes is the proper role of government. What is the benefit of unqualified homebuyers living in subsidized housing and the government having the contingent liability of the mortgages they could leave in their wake? What is the benefit to the community of telling those who work hard, save, and maintain good credit ratings that they must fend for themselves for housing and must “contribute” to those who do not share their fiscal responsibility and values? This much too much resembles “from each according to his ability to each according to his need.”

Gill netting

Tom Gill has vented again. Bush is bad. The only thing missing in Mr. Gill’s letter to the various editors is any credible proof that George the second is finishing what George the first could not. Frankly, with that kind of exposition it surprises that Mr. Gill did not characterize this as a war for oil, or at the very least, a war for lining the pockets of Bush wealthy contributors. Because of his “not in my name blinders,” he also fails to see that Bosnia was nation building by the military and by President Clinton. He sees a president and administration that fail to close our borders, reassess our immigration policy, and that spends more than our liberal brethren as ultra conservative.

Liberals, including Mr. Gill, are still furious that they were beaten in the last two elections. Moreover, they cannot countenance that their big-government programs and policies have failed over the last 50 years and that the electorate is no longer buying into the liberal agenda. Mr. Gill, Mr. Bush should take notice of this.