Atherton
residents have the chance to vote on four important issues—3 ballot
measures dealing with proposed town projects and the future composition
of the council. Below is some guidance that should help those residents
who are not familiar with these issues or the underlying disputes that
frame the issues.
Ballot Measures
1) Ballpark - Measure M
This one is easy. The local Little League is proposing to pay for and
make needed improvements to the Little League Field and adjacent tennis
courts, to be funded
by Little League. Exactly what will be done will still have to be
vetted and approved by council. Very straightforward.
2) Town Center Funding - Measure L
A confusing and confused ballot measure asking: Should the Town
"primarily use private donations to construct and design a new Town
Center?" Contrary to what some think, this does not ask voters to
approve a decision to build a new town center. There is a fairly robust
consensus that a Town Center needs to be built. There is also no way
that a Town Center could be built without private donations. This
measure seeking voter approval to limit the town to private
donations however is akin to the council saying, "Tell us we can't
decide to use any of our existing tax revenues to help build the Town
Center." Council dysfunction could not be clearer.
3) Library in the Park - Measure F
Many will see this measure and wonder why there's suddenly discussion
about building a new library. There's no record of residents being
unhappy with Atherton's library or its failure to meet our community
needs. It's not a stretch to say that the proposed library is not a
solution to the community's problem with the town's library. Rather,
the new library is a solution to "fiscal" problems — namely, the library
has too much town money and the park too little!
Whether or not
to abandon the town's quaint facility in town and build a large new
structure for the library where the Main House currently is sited is the
matter over which community controversy has raged for a full year.
There are two clear camps and their views are very different. One key
area of dispute is over whether or not there has been adequate community
process for us to have arrived at a solution that the community is
happy with. There's a big dispute on basic facts. Those with control
over the process, namely the Library Committee and their three council
advocates say "
Yes," dozens (do I hear
hundreds) of meetings. Those for whom the process was actually intended to make happy, ie residents, emphatically say "
No."
If hundreds of residents are really unhappy with the process provided
for making this important community decision, can they all really be
considered sour grapes? One can rightly question whether an objective
council could view such a process as a success?
Luckily, regarding government matters, facts relating to public meetings are a matter of
public record.
A review of the committee's claims for dozens of meetings, finds this
claim quite specious. The difference is simply a failure to distinguish
between the committee's own quite numerous working meetings (which are
public meetings
by law but which were
uniformly not attended by the general public),
and the very few organized community workshops, for which the committee
made distinct if modest outreach efforts to inform residents to attend.
These few publicized workshops the general public did attend and
expressed active interest in the issue. The two most important of these
workshops were noticed with a single, glossy mailed postcard and held in
mid-summer, 2011.
Luckily, California's
Brown Act provides
protection from efforts to make important community decisions behind
closed doors. A very thorough review of the available minutes of the
public meetings held simply
does not support the Committee's claims.
There were only 3 community workshops held in which the topic of
location was addressed after initial presentations by the committee. The
discussions that followed with the community reveal that there were
more questions than answers, many objections and no consensus. Three
similar meetings did not progress the discussion: these were clearly
introductions to the issue, with no carry forward consideration of
matters raised at prior meetings. There was simply no session held for
the community which evidence either a vetting process or the culmination
of a dialectic process and arrival at a decision with community
involvement. All other meetings that the committee claims to have held
were either not public (sub-committee meetings without an agenda), not
reported (an early focus group held with a neighborhood association) or
did not address the topic of location (the focus groups and four
publicized workshops held after the council approved the location
decision).
As troubling as these findings are, the real problem
is the one resulting from the failure of such a process to adequately
address important questions, all of which are still controversial and
unanswered. Why, in an era of eBooks and iPads do we need a bigger
library? Can't we use funds to support Atherton's school libraries or
implement digital solutions? What will be the ongoing operating costs
of the county library? If it turns out we need traffic lights on
Watkins, who pays for those? How well were increases in traffic from
Facebook and the medical office at El Camino considered? Why wouldn't
we want our large "community meeting spaces" in our town center? Will
students even go to libraries in two years,
in ten? If we are bulldozing the Main House and the surrounding mature
trees, why can't we put in a swimming pool or a soccer field? How will
the park support its other maintenance costs if we don't have the Main
House to rent? How many extra cars are expected to be parked? How much
space will be left for recreational users? How will we address park
safety and increased police costs due to vagrants in the park after park
hours? None of these questions have been adequately addressed and all
of them have the potential to significantly impact what kind of library
the community needs. We don't really know if we have the right solution
to the problem of having so much library tax money to spend.
It
is clear that the Atherton community is not just full of cry babies but
actually has smart, thoughtful, concerned residents who care to help
sort out these complex issues. It is also apparent that they believe
they have been (and there is no evidence that they haven't been)
excluded from what was meant to be a community decision-making process.
When those enlisted to conduct a service on behalf of the public
instead
abbreviate and mask their process, and then publish
deliberately misleading and self-serving information, whether or not you agree with
the resulting outcome, the decision should not be validated. The
community deserves much better treatment before committing as much as
$8,000,000 in town funds for a massively expensive development project
(even though these were previously collected tax funds). It has
demanded a better process to resolve these questions and it is something
of a travesty that only in the 11th hour, have residents even been
granted only a thumbs-up or thumbs down vote. Even in Atherton, a one
person majority vote can deny a whole community that right!
Council Composition
Library Politics Dominate.
The current council has pushed the library project through with the
help of three openly pro-Library advocates who also believe council
alone should decide this issue: McKeithen, Widmer and Dobbie. Elizabeth
Lewis and Jerry Carlson, the two minority council members, have
advocated on behalf of having concerns expressed by residents fully
aired and addressed by the council and both have declined to voice or
assert their personal viewpoints. This 3-2 division of the council has
dominated politics in the last two years. One seat from each of these
two groups is open. Thus, residents have the option of electing new
representatives that maintain the majority power in the hands of
Pro-Library and Council-Control group or which re-balance the power of
the council in support of residents' right to have their voices heard.
Vice Mayor Elizabeth Lewis,
the only incumbent, has proven herself to be a staunch supporter of the
concept of a representative council, and has spoken out on numerous
occasions in council meetings on behalf of resident groups. Lewis has
also worked against the tactics of the council majority to denigrade
concerns expressed about the Library process by hundreds of residents. A
vote to re-elect Ms. Lewis would clearly create the "tie" vote between
those pushing the library and those seeking to maintain a democratic and
inclusive community process. For those who want to do that, this
candidate has the track record.
It is the second council choice
that is difficult, as this one is the seat that tips the scale and
choices are among those much less well-known candidates. Only one of
these candidates has any kind of Atherton record to look at. This is
Denise Kupperman,
who is the Chair of the Library Committee and who many attribute to
being one of the architects of the Library's choice of community
process. Ms. Kupperman has been the public face of the Library
Committee, appearing and speaking at all council meetings on behalf of
the Library Project and the voice of the committee, with frequent
viewpoints published on the project in the Almanac. She has endorsed
"Yes on F" and is considered by many to be a protege to Council member
McKeithen,
with whom she has worked closely as leaders of the Library Committee.
Ms. Kupperman's record is equally clear and her election would be enough
to tip the balance to the Pro-Library/CouncilControl majority on the
council. (We note with dismay that Ms. Kupperman has
downplayed her role as chair of the Library Committee
throughout her campaign and appears to want to distance herself from
personal responsibility for the polarizing actions of that committee.)
Two other candidates. Two other candidates entered the race.
Cary Wiest, who ran for council in 2010 had a very strong showing but was edged out with a third place finish.
Greg Conlon
has not run for a council seat in Atherton previously, although he
recently ran for U.S Senate this past spring. Denise Kupperman
suggested that he run for Atherton council. At the
League of Women Voter Candidate Debate
both Mr. Wiest and Mr. Conlon made the case that they were open-minded
about the outcome of the Library project, which will be determined by
Measure F. Mr. Wiest has endorsed the "No on F" and also was endorsed
by the Atherton Police Officers' Association (as was Ms. Lewis).
Other Important Town Issues.
Critical upcoming issues include: determining process for drawing up a
town-wide Master Plan (if Measure F is defeated), leadership for raising
funding for a new Town Center and renewal of the Parcel Tax for
continued funding of Public Works and Police Services for Atherton.
(Surprisingly, some members of the council have recommended outsourcing
police services to the county sheriff. This issue is heating up, as
negotiations begin this coming spring for a new police contract and
decisions have to be made about whether space is in provided for the
Police Department in the town center.) Additionally, Atherton has begun
to explore whether to change form to become a Charter City and whether
to leave the Library JPA, so as to have more control over town approved
uses of the Library Tax revenues (now up to 10% of total town revenue
and growing) which the Library JPA has recently moved to keep in full.
We also need to wrestle with High Speed Rail issues, improving bike
safety on our streets and many other things.
Needless to say, all of
these matters require that our council representatives care to hear
our voices.
