A County Supervisor Candidate Pool

Yesterday I received a call from a pollster, representing a Marin County Supervisor candidate, inquiring about a few local issues: a) would I prefer an experience supervisor with a steady hand or a an inexperienced with one new ideas; b) my level of support for increasing funds for schools; my level of support for affordable housing for firefighters, policeman, and teachers.

I would prefer an inexperienced with one new ideas, particularly if this person was my wife. She has more integrity and common sense that anyone I’ve met; it is unfortunately that my write in campaign to get her elected has not gotten very far. I enjoyed my discussions with the pollster about this subject and appreciated his closing remarks wishing my wife good luck in the election.

I remember the first time I was driven to read a newspaper article; it was a front page article with a picture of a ferocious german shepherd dog showing its teeth to a terrified woman on the street. The article related to the new city of Sao Paulo chief of police commitment to rid the city of the oldest profession and the new methodology he was using. Forty years later, back in Sao Paulo, I could not resist the temptation to check the results of his and his successors’ work; there it was, the same district, the same establishments, different ladies and customers. The story with funds for schools follows the same pattern; politicians dress the request on the importance of schools so that our children can have a better education; they talk about the children, but when they get the money only a fraction of it goes to the kids, with the vast majority of it going to feed an insatiable bureaucracy; as in the case of the chief of police in my home town, local, state and federal politicians in this country keep playing a silly game - ask more money for our schools to help our kids, that we all know we have no chance to win. It is no surprize that I told that pollster to change the question and ask me my level of support for an alternative that is actually working, charter schools. No comment on his part; perhaps the astute candidate might want to comment on it.

Intimately linked to the question of more money for schools is the question of affordable housing for firefighters, policeman, and teachers.  This is not only about them but they are being used the same way the kids are with school funding. The fact of the matter is that this problem could be easily solved it  firefighters, policeman, and teachers were paid market salaries and if poor performing professionals, particularly teachers, were removed from the system like any other non-performing professional is on the private sector. In fact, it is no secret that Novato firefighters and policeman once they are trained in Novato they migrate to cities that pay real money for their work. So we have a situation where our firefighters, policeman, and teachers are not paid well enough to afford living in our community and idea of affordable housing comes up; this is a commendable idea and I encourage the candidate to put up the money, in conjunction with hers or his supporters, buying the property, developing it, market it, and operate is as affordable housing. Unfortunately, when I asked the pollster whether this was the case or whether the shrewd candidate was actually asking me whether I supported the idea of commandeering private property and our taxes to solve this problem, he politely declined to answer it.

In both cases what we have here is a smart shell game being played with the public. Our candidates run on these lofty  ideals which are easy to support as apple pie and motherhood, get into office and then play the real game they got elected to play, which has nothing to do with their lofty campaign ideals, but rather ensure that they service the special interests that put them into office and then and be reelected.