Monday Press Democrat: "Challenger shakes up Sebastopol council race"

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Challenger shakes up Sebastopol council race
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/3002971-181/challenger-shakes-up-sebastopol-council#page=0

BY MARY CALLAHAN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

October 26, 2014, 7:59PM

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"Two short years ago, the campaign for Sebastopol City Council boiled down to three letters: CVS.

The race this year is somehow both simpler and more complex.

In the absence of a central, polarizing issue such as the unpopular CVS drug store plan that helped reshape the council in 2012, three incumbents defending their posts against a single challenger say they want to stay the course toward economic revitalization, community vibrancy and environmental sustainability.

Vice Mayor Patrick Slayter and council members Una Glass and Sarah Glade Gurney have the support of one another in their re-election bids, as well as the endorsements of Mayor Robert Jacob and Councilman John Eder.

They cite, if not consistent unanimity, a common commitment to progressive ideals, collaborative decision-making and past success maintaining relative financial stability through a universally trying economic time.

“During the last couple years of budget hearings, it’s been an overwhelming response from the community that, ‘Yes, we appreciate prudent financial planning,’ ” said Slayter, an architect and former planning commissioner finishing up his first council term.

But community activist Jonathan Greenberg hopes to win a seat for himself — specifically Slayter’s — and has cast the entire council in a dim light, saying he wants to bring transparency and oversight to a body he believes lacks independence.

He also has come out against a council-supported utility tax measure on the Nov. 4 ballot, in part because of campaign literature that greatly overstates the share of general fund revenue the existing tax provides.

Former City Councilman and Mayor Craig Litwin, who is consulting on the Measure R campaign, acknowledged that fliers promoting the tax initially included an inaccurate percentage — 15 percent — which was furnished by a staff report presented to the City Council last July. The existing utility tax actually provides about 6 percent of the city’s general fund revenue, while the new one, if approved by voters, would contribute about 10.8 percent of the general fund.

Greenberg said the issue driving his campaign, however, is his interest in reopening the emergency room at now-shuttered Palm Drive Hospital, a facility owned and formerly operated by an independent, elected health care district. Greenberg says he believes the council has a role in the debate, whereas council members do not.

“If I get elected to the City Council, I think I’m going to empower that body,” Greenberg said.

With many progressives backing the incumbents — including Slayter, a liberal who on this council is deemed somewhat conservative — it’s unclear how much traction Greenberg can get with the election just 9 days away. But his critiques have come amid complaints that he is prone to creative interpretation of facts and figures, as well as claiming credit some say more properly resides with others.

The mayor, saying he felt an obligation to speak despite some reluctance, recently called out what he said were “misleading” assertions about city spending and the hospital issue presented as “fact when they are not fact.”

“I think,” said Gurney, a 10-year council member, “it’s important to elect people whose values you trust, because their values are going to drive the decision-making, and I think it’s important to pick people who intend to work well together. I can say this as an attorney: You wouldn’t have a law partnership and put people together on purpose who were opposed to each other and intended to be dysfunctional and frustrate each other.”

MORE HEREhttps:// https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/3...stopol-council

And my comment on the article here:

I would like to comment on Sarah Gurney’s inference that because I vocally disagree with some major City Council policy decisions, I am not fit to serve on the City Council. Disagreement and deliberation are the cornerstones of democratic governance. My disagreement with the current Council’s decision to play absolutely no active role in helping reopen an emergency room at Palm Drive Hospital, is the main reason I am running for City Council. Please click here
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/...

to read my five point plan on what our Council could-and should-do to help open our hopsital:

A year ago, I expressed repeated and loud disagreement with the Sonoma County Library Commission and the County Board of Supervisors about the need to find funding to resolve the library’s worst funding crisis in history and restore Monday and evening hours. The Restore Library Hours Campaign that I started was joined by thousands of petitioners, letter writers and callers. We eventually found common ground with our public officials. We worked together to get Measure M on the ballot, and for months, have been working hard, with scores of library leaders and dedicated volunteers, to get it passed on November 4. I think that our community can--and will-- come together to restore an urgently needed life saving emergency room at Palm Drive, as well. Solving the huge challenge of reopening a thriving hospital will require expressing--and then resolving--disagreements. Not ignoring them.

Ms. Gurney stated: “You wouldn’t have a law partnership and put people together on purpose who were opposed to each other and intended to be dysfunctional and frustrate each other.”

I disagree. I do not think that our elected representatives are elected to agree with one another and the city staff 100% of the time. I want to assure the public that I have no intention of being dysfunctional or frustrating anyone. Instead, I believe that my participation and independence will empower our Council to better practice responsive government in a more transparent manner. If this means more public debate about budget priorities and staff funding recommendations, I have full confidence in my proven ability, and the ability of the other Council members, to work through such deliberations in a functional, effective manner.

In response to Robert Jacobs’ suggestion that I recklessly attack staff and budget issues, this stems from my repeated attempts to provide transparency to an opaque budget, and what I consider a deference to city staff on budgeting and priority issues.

For example, passing a budget with a six year $8 million capital plan that does not earmark a single dollar for bike lanes strikes me as unrepresentative of a “green Sebastopol.” Is it “reckless” to inform a public that has been promised our City’s first bike lanes for years of this unknown budgetary fact? Or to tell them about large staff salary increases which were passed by our Council without any information about how much they wold eventually cost the City?

I am surprised that the article portrayed me as being irresponsible for being the only candidate to oppose Measure R’s four new taxes (just two years after a major half cent sales tax was passed). The Press Democrat’s editorial page also came out against Measure R. This was for the same reason I oppose it: a lack of transparency in how the money will be used.

In addition, the article notes that I have “also engendered protests on the part of council members by using the term “budget surplus” to describe a $1.2 million general fund reserve the council worked hard to set aside after reserves fell to zero during the recession.”

As an award winning financial journalist, with more than 30 years experience writing for national publications, I would like to ask what term Mayor Jacob thinks is more appropriate for a one year surplus of $1.2 million, as reported in the City’s annual budget for the year ending June 30, 2014?

My transgression, it seems, it to be providing transparency by speaking inconvenient truths to the public. If this is a political crime, then I plead guilty, as charged. If it strikes Sebastopol citizens as a public benefit, than I ask you to vote for me, Jonathan Greenberg, for City Council.