Having the Skill and the Will

#53, October 18, 2000

Here's my advice for voting day: vote. That, by itself, will be good. The non-voters have, in effect, granted you their proxy. When half the eligible voters stay home, your vote carries twice the weight.

There's another good thing about your vote. You read the papers, which means you're looking deeper than the TV sound bites and mailer text bites. The deeper you look, the higher the quality of your choice. Less impulse buying, less buyer's remorse.

Speaking of quality choices, I've already told you why we need to return Pam Torliatt to the City Council. In addition, I'm recommending David Glass, Scott Vouri, and Jim Mobley. Any two of these other three would make great council members. But I'd especially like to see Jim Mobley elected Mayor in two years. While he doesn't have the financial experience of the other three, his values and character would make him a perfect fit in the Mayor's role.

I want to clarify my opposition to Mike O'Brien and Bryant Moynihan. First, it's about economics. These two would shift the burden of growth (water and transportation infrastructure costs, quality of life) away from those who directly profit by it (the growth industry) to those who don't (everyone else, including future generations.) They favored paying for 101 widening almost exclusively with an economically regressive local sales taxes, instead of use-based state gasoline taxes. They'd take all our redevelopment money-- money that could fund dozens of smaller transportation and community improvement projects-- and put it into the Rainier floodplain development project… and still come up short. They would sign onto a nine-figure water contract without provisions protecting the City from the kind of contractor-generated cost overruns that doubled the cost of the Payran flood control project. And yet they decry spending an extra few hundred thousand dollars to protect our forty year investment in Lafferty Park.

My other concern is a matter of personal character. Over the past year, I watched a dozen episodes of Mike O'Brien's TV show, "The O'Brien Factor." He'd spend at least 5 minutes of each show in a Rush Limbaugh-style trashing of the Council Majority, including references to "King David (Keller) and his court jesters." His sustained and public display of mean-spiritedness should make anyone question his fitness for leadership. But at a recent candidates forum, when he was asked about his ability to work with a Council team, he responded, "I have a great deal of respect for the members of the present City Council." So, do we believe what O'Brien says, or what he does?

Bryant Moynihan has campaigned against the Council Majority's "foot dragging" and "studying things to death." Yes, construction costs inflate as years pass, but so do tax receipts. The way studies really drive up the construction cost of projects is by discovering how the initial estimates were severely lowballed, primarily through failure to address environmental impacts. I, for one, am glad the proposed Bodega Bay nuclear power plant, Rainier, and Amendment 11 were thus "studied" to death.

Mr. Moynihan's most infamous example of decisive leadership occurred in 1998, over the Magnolia Hill forest. This 17 acre parcel, designated a future park site in the City's General Plan largely due to its grove of towering eucalyptus trees, was a popular destination for local hikers and wildlife. As agent for the owner, Moynihan was unsuccessful in gaining City approval to build 47 houses on the site. Then, without studying wildlife impacts, without consulting the neighbors or the City, and using a loophole in County regulations, he's got loggers clearcutting the eucalyptus grove. Adding insult to injury, when angry neighbors secured a temporary logging halt to protect a nesting red tail hawk, Moynihan accused them of fostering "divisiveness."

There are better choices for bringing new perspectives to the City Council than by supporting O'Brien and Moynihan. Glass and Vouri, like Torliatt, have solid grounding in business and finance. But unlike O'Brien and Moynihan, these three have both the skill to recognize when the public is getting fleeced, and the will to stand up to it.