Kathleen Shaffer acts more like a real estate lobbyist than a Council Member

(This letter was just sent to the members of the Sebastopol City Council)

I recognize that the Pellini family has economic rights to sell their property for millions of dollars. But it is the job of government, especially local government, to balance individual rights with community rights. Like a majority of Sebastopolians, I feel a big box store at our crossroads would be inappropriate to our authentic "green small town" appeal . Moreover, I am deeply concerned about the effect of the carbon monoxide increase from hundreds more cars idling on Bodega Highway west of the crossing, and the impact this toxic air pollution will have on the adjoining downtown streets. What is the point of a small amount of extra tax revenue if we make our entire city less aesthetically and ecologically hospitable and more difficult to access?

I am equally concerned about the unethical actions Council Member Kathleen Shaffer took by organizing and agitating members of our community "under the radar" (her words) to turn out in support of CVS. Ms. Shaffer took similar actions in organizing opposition to any leaf blower restrictions earlier in the year. Despite appeals by dozens of seniors at Burbank homes and dozens of residents of Petaluma homes for a compromise that would limit blowers on the walkways and parking areas of multi-unit homes and large commercial properties, Ms. Shaffer insisted that any form of regulation would be "bad for business.”

Whose business does Ms. Shaffer really represent? In the case of her role in leading opposition to restricting leaf blowers (not for homeowners, but, in the compromise that she rejected out of hand, for owners of multi-unit complexes and commercial properties) she went to far as to read, to the council and public, ridiculous propaganda posted by Echo, that "brooms cause as much air pollution" as leaf blowers. She argued repeatedly and counter-intuitively that restrictions would cost jobs, because landscaping rates would go up to cover more labor. That if really conglomerates which owned multi-million dollar parcels would have to pay for more human labor for their landscaping work, this would-um-cut jobs. In fact landscape workers we spoke to said that they would be given more hours, and a healthier work environment, if they switched to rakes and brooms and did not have to use the toxic dust spreading blowers.

At that time Council Member Shaffer was acting on behalf of the 1% who own and manage multi-million dollar commercial and multi-unit residential properties, as well as a few owners of major landscaping companies. Now, she is acting on behalf of her friends, the well-regarded Pellini family.

As a financial journalist who investigated a number of major real estate projects in New York and wroite about them for national magaizines like Forbes and New York, , I have seen how paid advocates for real estate projects inflate tax receipt and construction job numbers every time. I feel this is being done in this case, and that this info is being repeated by paid project advocates and, disturbingly, Council Member Shaffer herself.

It is the role of elected council members to provide an independent analysis of these numbers, not to parrot them! And to explore how traffic and air pollution will really be affected, not to work "under the radar" to advance the agenda of your rich friends. Again, I have nothing against the Pellini family, but their economic right to sell their property must be balanced with the ecological and city design rights of thousands of us.

If Ms. Shaffer insists on acting as a lobbyist for her wealthy friends (large real estate owners and managers) she ought to do so after she leaves office. Given her anti-environmentalist, anti-public health positions, I hope this happens soon after next November's election, when we, the majority who like our city green, healthy, and prosperous, replace her.

Meanwhile, given her demonstrated unethical conflict of interest in this matter, I ask that our City Council (and not Ms. Shaffer's friend, the city attorney) publcily vote to have Ms. Shaffer recuse herself from the CVS vote.

Sincerely,


Jonathan