They will not ask her to resign. Shame on them

The Pleasanton City Council is gutless when it comes to disciplining their own for embarrassing the city with socialist pronouncements, preaching, and representing the city that does not share that socialist agenda or leftist ideas.

We are well aware that Mayor Jennifer will not resign—especially since she is up for re-election this fall. However, that does not prevent the notion from being introduced to the full council. The other four counselors should lay down the law when it comes to Ms. Hosterman’s left wing, anti-American globetrotting. If she is “Jennifer Hosterman, mayor of Pleasanton” then she should seek the approval of the council for the remarks and ideas she makes while attending out-of-town conferences, seminars, and conventions.

Most people in Pleasanton are pretty satisfied with the work that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory does. Ms. Hosterman’s ramblings about nuclear non-proliferation and refocusing scientist’s priorities are drek right out of the 60’s Berkeley.

She also pontificated about so-called global warming. She has forever spouted the claptrap from environmental extremists but this time she did it as mayor of Pleasanton. That must stop. Even if the counselors believe in that junk, most Pleasanton residents do not. However, at the very least, Ms. Hosterman should go to out-of-town meetings with a sense of the council mandate. Voters will let Ms. Hosterman and her council colleagues know how they feel.

It is a darn right shame that Ms. Hosterman feels embolden enough to make these trips and to make the comments she does. It is more of a shame that the council shrinks from its responsibility to have representations about the City of Pleasanton made after a council discussions.

Ms. Hosterman’s ideas and remarks are not new. She has been a part of the fringe for many years. However, with true believers and infusions of cash from special interest groups and lobbyists behind them, the fringe ideas take on the patina of mainstream and keep getting stronger and stronger. Just because it is said so often, does not make it ipso fact true. Man-made global warming—the scare catch phrase—is not proved factual science. There is no consensus. Sorry Mr. Gore and Ms. Hosterman most scientists do not agree that climate changes are caused by man.

 

News Opinion

Goodbye to the messenger

Ceff Knowles, Pleasanton’s former traffic engineer, learned that you cannot bring a knife to a gunfight. For suggesting that the Stoneridge Drive extension would help traffic in Pleasanton, he was canned. Exactly how that happened we will never know. City Manager Nelson Fialho has made this a strictly personnel matter and not open to public scrutiny.

More alarming than Mr. Knowles firing and the loud and clear silence surrounding it is that Mr. Fialho has apparently succumbed to the leftist agenda laid out by Mayor Jennifer Hosterman—Stoneridge Drive is bad because it will encourage cut-through traffic. More importantly, if you do not agree with that proposition, you are out. Does Mr. Knowles temporary replacement Michael Tassano follow the company line? Hum?.

The fact that Mr. Knowles received a severance package indicates that no malfeasance or wrongdoing was suspected. Absent wrong-doing it can only be assumed that Mr. Knowles traffic models for the General Plan update were simply lacking—his traffic facts do not mesh with the city’s preconceived notions.

No matter how this is spun at City Hall, this is not about Mr. Knowles seeking a job at Dowling Associates or Mr. Fialho rounding out his staff. Mr. Fialho was second in command when ex-City Manager Deborah Acosta McKeehan hired Mr. Knowles. Moreover, everyone on the staff looks at job opportunities outside of Pleasanton. Mr. Knowles’ only transgression was, right out of the box five years ago, supporting the Stoneridge Drive extension and calling it good planning and needed to complete Pleasanton’s traffic grid.

Rooftops are the give away that Larry Cannon has reviewed the plans.

If you see a bell tower with a pyramid roof, that is likely a Larry Cannon peer-reviewed design. If you have not noticed any of those roofs and towers just cruise by the Raleys on Sunol Boulevard, the Diablo Auto Body shop on Bernal and Washington Street, the self storage on Stanley and Bernal, the Senior Center or the new assisted living facility on Sunol Boulevard. They all have bell towers. They all have pyramid roofs. Hum?

It is not really per review if the designs submitted by developers and architects are thrown out in favor of Larry Cannon’s designs. However, with alarming regularity, that is exactly what has happened. Consequently, the city is getting a boring sameness about it and Larry Cannon has a pretty good gig.

How Opinion Pleasanton.com became .net and back again

ATTBI.com became Comcast.net not too long ago. As a result Opinion Pleasanton’s domain name registration renewal correspondence (from Scotland) got bounced back to them and they did not follow up with written or telephone correspondence to addresses and numbers that have not changed since Opinion Pleasanton signed on in 2001.

In short, we temporarily lost our domain name. However, to make sure that readers did not miss an issue of Opinion Pleasanton, we registered as Opinion Pleasanton.net with a San Jose-based domain name clearing house. In short, we are now dot com and dot net.

On a happier note, Opinion Pleasanton is five years old. We have been hectoring socialist and liberal politicians and environmental extremists for five years. Because of their wackiness have never we run out of anything to say.

Our job is incomplete however. We have also been tough on the local newspapers. The two dailies just cannot devote enough space to give complete Pleasanton coverage. Also, it is essentially easier to rewrite news releases for local events than to dig into events at City Hall. The Independent is way out left and unabashedly so, so bravo to them. The Pleasanton Weekly has become a good news only publication since the hiring of ex-city manager Deborah Acosta McKeehan as its president. So, it is our duty to suggest to these media outlets to devote more time, energy, and space to Pleasanton government and politics. But if they will not, we will be on the case.

We would like our media friends to question Mayor Jennifer Hosterman about her bad temper, her arrogance, and her socialist agenda when they do their perfunctory election interviews. We would like them to explore the outrageous city spending for tearing out roundabouts and making drainage ditches into creeks with native plants for school children to study on field trips.

We would like to know why Jerry Thorne changed his mind on the Stoneridge Drive extension. We would like to know why Steve Brozosky opposes the ACE train station on the Bernal property. And, from Brian Arkin we would like to know why the Planning Commission has ceded all design review to outside sources (usually the same ones) and why projects are almost never approved without major expense and numerous meetings just to end up with what our peer-review architect recommends. From newcomers Dan Faustina and Karen Cook-Kallio we would like to know how workforce housing became ipso facto good and necessary for highly paid Pleasanton employees.

More importantly, we would like to know about the candidate’s views on pursuing state and national issues from the council dais.

Guest Opinion

 

Got to love those Independent letter writers

Peter Kotsinadelis, in his August 10, 2006 letter to The Independent, can sure turn a phrase. We particularly like “I Love Jennifer Hosterman committee” that writes letters praising Pleasanton’s mayor. We also like “their weekly Kumbaya sing-along” to describe the committee’s blind obeisance to their environmental deity. What we like most is that Mr. Kotsinadelis says, “come election time I will be looking for a town mayor, not a political Ambassador.”

Doug Miller says that Pleasanton needs a real mayor

Doug Miller in his August 10, 2006 letter to The Independent says that Pleasanton Mayor Jennifer Hosterman “has used her office to establish her Liberal credentials for higher office.” Yep, that is what she is doing. He says that “Pleasanton needs a real mayor,” and that is what voters should be think about come November.

Even a blind pig can find the occasional acorn

Pleasanton Weekly letter writer Paulette Kenyon is right about the roundabouts. They were not given a fair chance on Vineyard Avenue. The cost to remove them was outrageous. Speeders who ignored the roundabouts and the speed limit should have been cited.

Ms. Kenyon, however, diminishes her arguments with her squirrelly comments about flattened squirrels and cloud dwellers. Had she left it at the point where the City Council jumped when a neighborhood snapped its fingers, she would have made a viable argument that reasonable people could consider and support.

In any case, we wonder if she feels the same way about those people who live near the Stoneridge Drive extension or are they cloud dwellers as well.

Not so fast Howard

We elect the City Council to make the tough decisions. The Stoneridge Drive extension decision was made when the last General Plan was written and approved 10 years ago. This council can let that decision stand (as they should) or they can continue to advocate against the extension in the new General Plan.

Rather than put the Stoneridge Drive extension on the ballot, we would advise letter writer Howard Neely and others to campaign against those counselors who support the removal of the Stoneridge extension. Since that appears to be all who are running, that means that voters will have to take the lesser of two evils for both council seats and the mayor’s seat.

If, after the November election, the council votes to remove the Stoneridge extension then Mr. Neely and likeminded voters should mount a recall and put the issue to the voters or both.

Going to the mat with the Weekly

No shrinking flower, counselor Matt Sullivan, wrote a letter to the Pleasanton Weekly regarding his recent comments about marijuana shops. He complains that he is misunderstood and that all he was interested in saying is that more information is needed before making any decisions about whether Pleasanton should allow them. Oh, and there are sick people here too whines Mr. Sullivan.

If he were not such an extremist and naysayer on other issues, he might have been correctly understood on this one. However, he leans way to the left and postponing decisions is the leftist way in Pleasanton to stall out programs and proposals with which they do not agree—usually development. Sadly, he was able to convince his colleagues that more time and money should be wasted on this issue.

Chief of Police Tim Neal is opposed and so are most of the voters. That should have been good enough for Mr. Sullivan and his colleagues that voted a temporary moratorium. Marijuana shop clientele are not all that ill with many reselling the pot to people who are definitely not ill. Pot is a dangerous drug as bad or worse than cigarettes. Pot is a gateway drug. Those facts with police opposition and voter skepticism should have done it for Mr. Sullivan and the others.

About the only way to establish a legal pot shop in Pleasanton is put it in City Hall where Chief Neal can closely monitor the entrepreneur and the clients. Somehow, this is probably not what the entrepreneurs had in mind when they inquired about Pleasanton’s openness on the issue.

Knowing Mr. Sullivan as we do we could not help thinking that the Weekly editorial was right on the money about the pot issue and about Mr. Sullivan’s council comments. After we reviewed the Weekly editorial, new accounts, and Mr. Sullivan’s whiny letter, we think he should take the blame for the delay, the wasted motion, and the squandered money. Surely, the council will and should eventually vote no on pot shops.

 

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