It is with a heavy heart that I come to this conclusion: 3rd District Supervisor Shirlee Zane needs to be recalled and replaced with a proven, genuine progressive -- and soon.
I used to support Shirlee and even worked on her first campaign in 2008. She was definitely the best candidate at the time. Her background that seemed like a good match with the job and something different than the usual suspects.
However, over the past year or so something has happened to her, and she has become emotionally unstable. That something probably has a lot to do with losing her husband Peter, an upper-crust Englishman with a classic upper-crust education. He was the brains of the operation, her de-facto intellectual NavStar. Without him, she does seem to have been cast adrift. In addition, she is in her early 50s; things change for women of that age, sometimes not for the better.
The medical marijuana regulations debacle (co-sponsored by Valerie Brown and balls-of-steel DA Jill Ravitch) and her conduct with respect to the water fluoridation proposal were the deal-changers for me. I was at most of the BoS hearing on Feb. 26th [fluoridation]; it became clear to me [i.e. personal gut feeling] that not only is Zane the driving force behind this crazy proposal, she also instructed the Dept. of Health to market it and promote the "social justice" bullshit as a way to win over, or at least neutralize, the bleeding-heart liberal contingent.
Another even more distressing thing became clear to me during that hearing: Shirlee's already considerable ego (a pre-req for public office) has bloated to the point that now she appears to believe she is Joan d'Arc or some such. At the Feb 26th hearing toward the end she's going on and on about how she was elected to protect the old and the young and get them social justice they deserve, blah blah blah. [update: the audio of Zane's rant is available on YouTube. Her turn starts at 35 minutes into the clip:
https://youtu.be/SzZh3CQLkzg?t=35m31shttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/youtube.png]
Memo to Shirlee: you were elected to represent the best interest of residents of the 3rd District, all of them, and implement the will of the will of the people. She's been so busy playing JdA that she has pretty much ignored the 3rd district. To her credit she has gotten some good things done for the county, much of which has gone unnoticed. The ombudsman position at PRMD and dealing with employee pension and "spiking" issues are examples. For these things and for her service over the past 4 years I am grateful.
But now things have changed and she's a loose cannon. If she resigns or is removed from office, it will leave a vacancy that will be filled by appointment by the governor or something of that nature. As some of you may remember, that's how we ended up with Valerie Brown as 1st District Supe. Once someone gets into office, it is virtually impossible to get rid of him/her. Having the office filled by appointment is *not* a good scenario. If she stays in office for the rest of her term, heaven knows what she'll do next.
Recall and replacement is an opportunity to get a genuine progressive, not a corporatist operative, onto the Board of Supervisors. Yes, that's a big job and the left-wing crowd is notoriously disorganized. Consider the alternatives and decide which you would rather have.
