Saturday, March 26, 2011

San Mateo County Supervisor District 1 Candidate's Forum

Hosted by Bay Area Youth Summit, 3/19/11

The Bay Area Youth Summit forum includes video comments from county supervisor candidates Gina Papan and Richard Holober. No other candidate videos for this forum were available. If you have limited time, check-out the introduction and question 2 first. The human equality and conservation questions are agreed.   

Pressing county issues, and reasons for running for office
Introduction
  Meet the candidates".  (7:45 minutes).  
Question 2  Can you identify 3 instances where the county can save money, without cutting viable programs?  (7:44 minutes).

H
uman equality and conservation issues
Question 1
 
If elected, how will you push for a pro-equality agenda and what is your stance on Proposition 8?  (7:08 minutes).
Question 3  How will you decrease the county's carbon footprint? Can you provide 3 examples?  (7:22 minutes).

References, and candidate websites
Candidate ballot information: 
League of Women Voters of CA. Candidate who can win with websites:  Richard Holober.  Terry NagelGina Papan.  David Pine. Candidates who are running, some good ideas, but zero chance of winning:   Demetrios Nikas.  Michael Stogner.

Posted by Kathy Meeh

7 comments:

Kathy Meeh said...

Have you seen the confused "hit piece" flyer from the Richard Holober's campaign against Supervisor candidate, Gina Papan? Terry Nagel and David Pine, Gina Papan and Richard Holober are all formidable candidates for County Supervisor. Others have yet to mail such negative advertising (and I suspect they will not); this "hit piece" is politics at it worst (again).

On one hand, while Holober is a San Mateo community college trustee, his claim to balancing budgets is the result of: 1) a San Mateo county property tax (6/8/2010 ballot), 2) cutting student classes, and low-income programs, and 3) an infusion of Federal grant money.

On the other hand, his campaign "hit piece" flyer against Gina Papan claims:

1. "A State agency mismanaged federal grants" (from a SF Chronicle (2/3/05, 6 years ago). Huh, where are the violation, what are the specifics, what is the direct connection to the candidate, and where is the newspaper link to be found-- NONE, oh, just a political smear by association, "got it".

2. "The City of Millbrae considers a utility tax" (2/22/11). Compare to the city of Pacifica, which tried to pass a 1% sales tax last year, added a utilities tax this year (because the city could without a vote). Then, there was the visitors tax passed last Fall. Now the city has proposed a Fire Tax (fee). Two more proposed taxes or fees coming in the Fall, then what?

3. The city manager of Millbrae received "compensation in line with other department heads". Isn't that only fair?

Who knows, maybe Richard Holober will mail additional "hit pieces" against David Pine and Terry Nagel as well, but from my view this flyer makes him the least desirable of the four (4) candidates.

What I know of Gina Papan over several years is that she has a solid political background. She is well informed, and responds quickly to human and fiscally responsible issues. This is a person who "gets it" and supports doing the right thing. I'll be voting for her.

Laurie Frater said...

Kathy wrote:
"Have you seen the confused "hit piece" flyer from the Richard Holober's campaign"?
and
"...his campaign "hit piece" flyer..."

Look closely, Kathy: It specifically says that it's not from the Holober campaign, and Richard Holober publicly disowned and criticized it as soon as he found out about it!

Whether it's from a group (California nurses, it says) that supports him, or from one that opposes him and knew it would make him look bad, who knows? With the current laws allowing just about anybody to mail out a hit piece without a candidate's knowledge, I know that he's more annoyed and upset about it than anyone else.

I've already voted for Holober, and there's no doubt in my mind that he's the best choice for the county.

Kathy Meeh said...

So, you're right, this did not come from his campaign, but from a support group...who did not run the "hit piece" by him?

Okay, your vote is yours, I'll stand by mine for Gina Papan-- except, I haven't received a ballot yet. Laurie, are you in my neighborhood?

Laurie Frater said...

The ballots were scheduled to be mailed out on Monday, April 4th, Kathy. Mine arrived (in Vallemar) on Thursday. Anybody who hasn't received theirs by next Monday or Tuesday should probably check with the county registrar. Ballots are due back by May 3rd, so there's plenty of time.

Back to the "hit piece": Richard Holober only found out about it when people called him to complain about it. He immediately issued a statement confirming that it didn't come from his campaign, that he had no prior knowledge of it and that he urged that no more similar negative pieces be used by any candidate or group in this campaign. I hope that no-one else is misled by it as you were!

And I hope that we can all agree, regardless of which candidate we support, that the only other item on the ballot - Measure C for the high schools - should be a Yes vote!

Steve Sinai said...

I got mine Thursday. I'm voting for Trump!

Lionel Emde said...

I'm voting for Dave Pine. He was part of the commission that recommended the end of the Supes practice of appointing another insider to vacant postions on their board. That practice resulted in virtually no competitive races for supervisor in recent years.

I also think he's in favor of separate district races, as opposed to the present county-wide vote on every seat. The present situation ensures that only well-connected "machine" candidates have any chance.

If you think this county is well-run by the "machine" look at its fiscal condition; it has the lowest-funded public employee pension fund in the state. We have a county sheriff who ran unopposed even though he was popped in a Las Vegas brothel. Some of the present candidates, previously critical of Mr. Munks, have backed away from their criticism as it's apparent that the fix is in. And the county sports a huge deficit.

We need change, and I think Mr. Pine's candidacy is a good place to start.

Kathy Meeh said...

Lionel, the current system is "at large" (whole county), so I'm interested in who will govern and view Pacifica's needs best.

Political machine? The candidates are supported by various organizations, officials, and individuals. More Democrats in this county? That's the population strata. Sheriff Greg Munks and his scandal (2007)? He ran for election unopposed in 2010 and won, no surprise.