The Simpleminded Mockingbird: Bill Wilkins

#23 in a series of occasional reports

Bill Wilkins

This profile was originally written some weeks ago, but got pushed back by the rush of intervening events.    During that period, Bill Wilkins did Three Good Things, and I was happy that I had deferred finishing this, because I thought that he had seen the light and changed; but, as it turned out (on July 24), he had perhaps done one Good Thing for the Wrong Reason, and he cancelled out another by his actions on July 24.   Whatever his motivation may have been, on July 24, he reverted to form, and Form Wilkins is something unpleasant for Hercules.    This is not a person who should be reelected.  

Bill seems to be, in the mold of John Delgado (who has shown signs of reforming) and Gérard Boulanger (who hasn’t), another casual hobbyist of a councilman, someone who doesn't bother to do the research which would be necessary to come up with a conclusion that differs from the conclusion supplied to the councilmen by Steve Duran.   (I say "councilmen", because the lone councilwoman is very different from the boys.)    Bill asks questions which make it look like he’s very smart (and he probably is), but which also show that he is not well-informed on the issues under discussion.    I was especially concerned by his angry address on Parcel C.    Bill Wilkins focused on bankruptcy...which is arguably a nonissue now...while failing to address the real issue:    the effect of building apartment complexes on Parcel C, which would add significantly to the population of Hercules...and, hence, the demand for services, while displacing the retail which could have provided the revenue that would have given us a future.   Putting apartments there would also help kill the overall vision for Hercules, the plan on which we have worked since 2000 (which was about a decade before Bill Wilkins even began living here).   Out of all that, Bill chose to focus on the nonissue of bankruptcy.

Bill has abundant relevant experience from his work in Oakland; but, so long as he fails to prepare himself for independent decisionmaking, he will be unable to deploy that experience to our benefit.

His anger is not pretty, and it has been showing up pretty consistently in the council sessions of the last few months, and it looks like he may be on a permanent Big Cranky; but, I have no reason to believe that the anger of Bill Wilkins is as toxic and uncontrollable as that of Dan Romero.   

Bill is very supportive of Steve Duran.    Perhaps this is because Bill's background, as "staff" to a municipal government, is similar.    Whatever the reason, Steve Duran is murdering Hercules with his rush-rush fire sales at low prices of our best properties; his sneaky and secretive form of government, in which he acts first, and then only afterwards informs the community of what he has just done to them; his pandering to developers who want to build apartments instead of retail, and the consequent moneysuck which the new tenants will impose on our treasury when they begin demanding services, but fail to contribute properly, since the ad valorem property taxes will be taken by the county for 30 years (because this is former RDA property), and the Utility User Tax provides a pathetic amount of revenue, and the renters produce no sales tax.    Steve Duran’s autocratic rule is bad for Hercules, Bill Wilkins strongly supports Steve Duran, and that makes Bill Wilkins bad for Hercules.

The Three Good Things?   First:   at the July 24 council session, Steve Duran had wanted the council to authorize his sale of Parcel A (Civic Arts Building, currently serving as Sala Restaurant).     In past sessions, Duran would have gotten his way, by a 5-0 vote or (since the mess he made with Sycamore Crossings was exposed) a 4-1 vote.    (The 1 is Myrna, and I have some hope now that John will continue with his commendable new habit of preparing for council sessions, and turning those 4-1 votes for Duranigan’s schemes into 3-2 votes.)     With Parcel A, Bill Wilkins (normally a reliable vote for whatever scheme Duran was pushing) asked that the city explore, with its “development counsel” (I didn’t know we had one.), letting the property revert to civic use.    This would be a great move (if it can be done):    the city could retain the property, instead of being obliged to sell it to satisfy RDA debt; and, it would serve the public interest, and not that of Steve Duran’s developers.   Myrna wanted to bring the participation of the community into the decision, and Bill seconded that.

The second Good Thing:    at the July 10 meeting, Myrna wanted to discuss Bill Kelly’s letter of June 28, in which Bill requested that the council censure Dan Romero for 1^st Amendment violations committed against citizen Phil Simmons at the June 26 meeting.    Dan tried to suppress the discussion of the letter and the requested censure, John tried to get it on the agenda for the July 24 meeting, Dan did some more suppressing, but then Bill Wilkins seconded John’s motion, and Lori Romero stormed out of the council chambers in a huff, thereby proving that something wonderful had just happened.    Then at the July 24 meeting, Bill Wilkins switched sides, thereby cancelling out Good Thing Two.     I don’t know why he seconded the motion in the first place and I don’t know why he switched.    The switch just brought Bill back to his normal form.

The third:    Tom Lochner had made a records request for council and staff emails which, given the time period targeted, could expose Brown Act violations by Dan Romero in his pursuit of the mayor’s chair.    The city attorney tried to block it with an alleged attorney-client privilege, which could only be waived if the council chose to do so.    It was Bill Wilkins who put a discussion of waiver on the agenda.    He then tarnished his new glow by saying something to the effect that he supported the waiver because doing so would show that the city had nothing to hide.    I don’t really know what he meant by that, but my sense was that he thought that the records release would shut up some critics of the Romero Council, perhaps especially that guy in “the blogosphere”.   As for there being nothing to hide:    I think Bill will be getting a surprise.

(I was recently told, by someone who should know, that Bill has been good for schools.    Could be.    I don’t seriously follow WCCUSD news, so couldn’t comment.)

That’s pretty much it.    That’s all the good that I can say about the council career of Bill Wilkins.

Back to the Dark Side:    Bill Wilkins did one Great Big Dirty Trick, and since I was a part of that scheme, an essential tool, I know what happened.    I'm convinced that Bill knew exactly what he was doing, knew that it was false, and did it anyway.     The dirty trick was this:     I had volunteered to help with Bill's election campaign in 2011, after a conversation with Dan Romero indicated that Bill's presence on the council could be helpful to Dan's agenda.     (At that time, I expected Dan's agenda to be something very different from what it actually became.)    I met with Bill and his political wife, Sue Tarvin.    Bill had been one of the leaders of the recall, and for that reason he had (or told me that he had) a copy of the complete recall petition, with all signatures.    I don't remember who started it, Bill or Sue, probably Sue, but they both insisted that Virgil de la Vega, Bill's opponent in the election, had not signed the recall petition.    From the vantage point of today, having seen the negative consequences of the recall, I'm not so sure I would see that as a bad thing now; at that time, though, I did.    The idea was for me to spread the tale on the Patch, to expose Virgil as someone so lacking in commitment to reform that he had failed to sign the recall petition.    Because I have a deathly horror of libel lawsuits, I did all I could to ensure that Bill and Sue had looked at each and every signature on the petition, and were absolutely certain that Virgil did not sign.    And they said they had looked at every signature, and they were certain.    And because my horror of libel litigation is really quite deathly, I had them both confirm those facts...and then reconfirm those facts.   They did.

And so I posted the story in the Patch, and a very big deal was made of it.    Then, at the debate, Virgil said that, notwithstanding reports to the contrary, he had indeed signed the petition.    And Bill and Sue backed away from the no-sign story so quickly that they left skid marks.  (Is that a cliché?    Sounds like a cliché.  I try to avoid clichés.)  Virgil said he did sign, and, right after the debate, Bill was telling me that there was the possibility that not all signatures were legible.    Perhaps, but the printed versions written alongside were.    Anyhow, that possibility didn't seem to exist on the day the scheme was hatched, or at least, neither Wilkins nor Tarvin raised that excuse at that time.

Outside of that one seriously-bad experience, Bill Wilkins may not be as dishonest as Dan Romero…although all of the information with which Dan provided me in order to damage his opponents, all of it was true, which cannot be said of Bill’s Virgil story.   Bill surely doesn’t lie as much as Gérard Boulanger (but, hey! Who does?); but, Bill has demonstrated that he knows how to be dishonest.    In an email dated 2/3/12, from Myrna de Vera to Steve Duran, Myrna wrote:   “Steve, Who is this Nicky Mastay and did you perform a best hiring process before hiring her?   This action may be perceived as cronyism.”   At the July 24 council session, Bill twisted that into an actual accusation of cronyism.    Toni Leance, a private citizen, has criticized Steve Duran, on her own behalf; Bill Wilkins, on July 24, managed to make it seem that Toni’s comments were Myrna’s responsibility.

In spite of the dishonesty and dirtytricks politics of the Virgil-didn’t-sign scheme, as confirmed and reconfirmed by Bill Wilkins; and, in spite of Bill’s ability to contort facts into a shape which fits into his own agenda…whatever that may be…I cannot say that I totally distrust him now.     It's quite possible that the no-signature scheme was largely the product of Sue Tarvin, and that Bill went along reluctantly.    I say that because of a comment he made at the time the scheme was being concocted, to the effect that Virgil de la Vega had called him and that Virgil wanted to run a clean campaign.    That comment may have been Bill’s subtle suggestion that he'd rather not do to Virgil what we were about to do to Virgil.    Bill did confirm and reconfirm the truth of the no-signature allegation, and he did not waver; but it was really Sue Tarvin who was actively enthusiastic about this, like a kid in a candy store…yep, a cliché.  Like Charlton Heston in a gun store, with Mitt Romney’s credit card.   Maybe Bill would have preferred not to do the Virgil smear...but he did.

And that's Bill Wilkins.   Smart guy, experienced guy, but he doesn't invest the time necessary to be a serious councilman; and, in the smear-Virgil scheme, he did something dishonest and dirty; and, he has shown that he can make public statements which twist the truth (although that may be just because Bill doesn’t really read up on council stuff and so doesn’t know better, or it may be because he isn’t as smart as I think he is.)    It's enough to make me vote against him, and I think it should be enough to make everyone else vote against him.

My twelfth mailing was on Gérard Boulanger, and I emphasized what a great, interesting, fun guy Gérard is.    Well, I don't know Bill Wilkins very well, but judging by the anger he has displayed at council sessions and the anger he displayed when he learned that Gérard's lies had been exposed in the press, I would guess that Bill is less fun than Gérard.    Of course, these guys weren't elected to be our good friends, they were elected to be effective councilmen.    With Gérard, we got only the former.    With Bill, we got neither.