Jonathan Greenberg's leadership of CVS opposition questioned
:hmmm:
Sebastopol City Council candidate Jonathan Greenberg's ballot statement lists among his accomplishments: “provided leadership” in challenging CVS.
Perhaps he was in the leadership of some group other than Committee for Small Town Sebastopol (STS) that opposed CVS. If not, his claim of leadership is not supported.
He was never in the leadership of STS, which filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of the project approval. Jonathan did once offer to STS a design to be used at a boycott or picketing event, but declined to take part in organizing such an action. His design was never used.
I am told that he refused to sign a petition to boycott CVS.
He did not contribute to the fund set up by STS, as many community members did, to prosecute the lawsuit.
Helen Shane
Co-founder
Committee for
Small Town Sebastopol
1 Attachment(s)
Will Helen Shane Apologize For Her False and Misleading Post About Me?
It was surprising and unsettling for me to read Helen Shane’s post above, and her identical letter in Sonoma West, challenging my leadership role in countering the CVS project.
It was my weeks-long volunteer investigation of the CVS traffic report, and the facts surrounding it, that led me to the uncovering of the falsehood at the core of the report. So significant was the information in my expose, that, at my suggestion to John Warner and Helen Shane, the attorneys for Small Town Sebastopol modified its original lawsuit to include them.
My work pulled back the curtain on the suspicious “negative declaration” of no “significant” traffic at the most congested crossroads of our community. I reported here in WaccoBB about the inaccurate information that had been provided by Sebastopol’s Planning Department to the traffic study company. The core finding of the official CVS traffic study concluded that during afternoon rush hour it takes just 35 seconds to get to Main Street heading east on Bodega Avenue.
35 seconds at rush hour? Everyone knows this is hogwash. Yet this negative declaration was championed by Council Member Patrick Slayter, who, despite being a deciding vote to pass the CVS project and an outspoken champion of the faulty CVS traffic report (see minutes here) was recently endorsed by Ms. Shane’s organization, Sebastopol Tomorrow (I am running for City Council to replace Mr. Slayer, who, as current Vice Mayor, is likely to become the City's agenda-setting mayor if he is re-elected).
Without the questionable “negative declaration,” the unpopular, traffic-increasing CVS project would probably never have proceeded beyond square one. Because if significant traffic--the truth of the matter--was established, a full CEQA review and comprehensive traffic report would have been required. A more thorough report would likely have found that corner was the last place in the area to add an estimated 2,000 new trips per day. Then there would have been no costly lawsuits, no design controversy, and probably no final sale of Pellini corner to a buyer that added significant new traffic to the busiest corner in town.
My expose on the CVS project, under the headline, “Is the Sebastopol Planning Director Rigging the CVS/Chase Project,” was viewed more than 2,000 times, and read by Michael Kyes and Sarah Gurney, the two City Council members who voted against the CVS project in the final 3 to 2 vote.
My public and vocal challenge to the traffic reportprovided the strongest legal argument to the Small Town Sebastopol lawsuit. Until that point, the lawsuit’s main contention was that the CVS traffic report failed to take into account traffic from the unbuilt Barlow project. Adding in that the traffic report did not measure EXISTING traffic correctly was a more persuasive legal argument.
Ms. Shane has somehow forgotten how and why the Committee for Small Town Sebastopol revised its lawsuit.
She writes, “Perhaps he was in the leadership of some group other than Committee for Small Town Sebastopol (STS) that opposed CVS. If not, his claim of leadership is not supported.”
Perhaps Ms, Shane has forgotten how her lawsuit was amended, and who provided the new information that caused it to be amended? Perhaps she might recall the public speeches that I made at one Council meeting after another talking about the suspicious traffic report? Or my calling out, in print and during public comment, the overstepping of our Planning Director Kenyon Webster’s role, from staff advisor , to one who directed our council in what “they had “ to do about the core policy decisions that they are legally entrusted to make.
Community leadership takes many forms--and many hands to raise public awareness and create public pressure on important issues. An online search with my name and the CVS controversy would turn up more than two dozen letters to the editor, columns, and extensive Wacco posts that I wrote, bringing new information to light about the CVS project, or challenging Council candidate Kathleen Shaffer about her real record on working “under the radar” to push the CVS project through.
Yet Helen Shane writes this letter to inform the public that my claims to community leadership in challenging the CVS project strike her as false. Herproof? That I never joined the leadership group of Small Town Sebastopol, or wrote them a check.
So, to be a community leader in Sebastopol, one must follow Helen Shane and write her group a check??
Helen, my public request to you is this: now that I have reminded you of the facts surrounding my leadership role in the CVS challenge, please reply to this post with a public apology to me for the incorrect, and misleading inference that you made in your post and letter.
As for Ms. Shane's final allegation,
"I am told that he refused to sign a petition to boycott CVS,"
It is sad to me that a distinguished community leader like Helen Shane, someone who lived through the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950’s, would stoop to this sort of meaningless innuendo.
Was the CVS boycott petition some sort of loyalty oath that one needs to take to be certified a bonafide leader by Helen Shane?
So for those with the patience to read this far who wish to hear more about the petition details….
At the time of the CVS controversy, as a (despite Helen’s inference to the contrary) community leader in the CVS fight, I initiated a petition at the Occupy Sebastopol tent, in which signers wrote how much money they currently spend at CVS, and signed that we would boycott the new store IF IT MOVED to a place which would add 2,000 new car trips a day to our most congested and dangerous crossroads. We wanted to pressure the top brass at CVS HQ to feel they would lose money from the move.
We got perhaps a few hundred names, representing nearly $100,000 of business, but some friends decided they wanted a straight boycott of CVS, and started another petition. I did not sign the second petition because CVS, where it is currently located, is less than a half mile from my house, and the only place in my neighborhood with medicine that is open till midnight. I have needed to use it late at night for my children’s emergencies on numerous occasions. So I did not want to sign a boycott petition, and then violate it by patronizing them. My quarrel with CVS was not that it was an evil company, but that it should not use its lobbyists and political muscle with our city government to add business crippling traffic to the most congested corner of our city. Hence, the idea of a petition to take or business elsewhere if they moved.
PS: I even SANG and played guitar for the many people who protested CVS’ project. Here's a picture of me at one of the for protests I attended, outside of CVS, singing an adaptation we made for Joni Mitchell's enviro-classic, "They Paved Paradise" (Big Yellow Taxi).
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Helen Shane:
Sebastopol City Council candidate Jonathan Greenberg's ballot statement lists among his accomplishments: “provided leadership” in challenging CVS.
Perhaps he was in the leadership of some group other than Committee for Small Town Sebastopol (STS) that opposed CVS. If not, his claim of leadership is not supported.
He was never in the leadership of STS, which filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of the project approval. Jonathan did once offer to STS a design to be used at a boycott or picketing event, but declined to take part in organizing such an action. His design was never used.
I am told that he refused to sign a petition to boycott CVS.
He did not contribute to the fund set up by STS, as many community members did, to prosecute the lawsuit.
Helen Shane
Co-founder
Committee for Small Town Sebastopol
Re: Jonathan Greenberg's leadership of CVS opposition questioned
I wonder if Helen's definition of "leadership" means being a recognized member of a declared organization? The wording of her post seems to suggest that.
I hope that we can all recognize that "leadership" can show itself in many different ways and does not require membership in any organization.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Helen Shane:
Sebastopol City Council candidate Jonathan Greenberg's ballot statement lists among his accomplishments: “provided leadership” in challenging CVS.
Perhaps he was in the leadership of some group other than Committee for Small Town Sebastopol (STS) that opposed CVS. If not, his claim of leadership is not supported....
Re: Jonathan Greenberg's leadership of CVS opposition questioned
This seems to suggest that the strongest definition of the word is leading a group. But there are other definitions. Leadership, from dictionary.com noun
1.the position or function of a leader, a person who guides or directs agroup:He managed to maintain his leadership of the party despite heavyopposition.
Synonyms: administration, management, directorship, control, governorship, stewardship, hegemony.
2.ability to lead:As early as sixth grade she displayed remarkable leadershippotential.
Synonyms: authoritativeness, influence, command, effectiveness; sway, clout.
3.an act or instance of leading; guidance; direction:They prospered under his strong leadership.
4.the leaders of a group:The union leadership agreed to arbitrate.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Orm Embar:
I wonder if Helen's definition of "leadership" means being a recognized member of a declared organization? The wording of her post seems to suggest that.
I hope that we can all recognize that "leadership" can show itself in many different ways and does not require membership in any organization.
