Hats off III! Pinole's Council Members create a "Bully Pulpit"!

The purpose of the podium is to address the council. Council Members can address the council or the public from their seats at the dais, they do it all the time. How could anyone address a group they are a member of from a podium meant to be used to address them by non-members?

After a Council Member Donned the "NOT AS HAT" at the October 2 Pinole City Council Meeting, I tried it again, I went to another Pinole City Council Meeting on Tuesday night, October 16, and ....Deja vu! Then, deja vecu! The same City Council Member, Debbie Long, who left the dais to speak at the podium during the speakers to be heard portion of the agenda during the October 2, 2018 City Council Meeting, where all us common folk speak, instead of speaking from her dais seat, she did it again at the meeting on Tuesday. You all know she is still a City Council Member when she speaks at the podium, right? You think it could be all about timing? You know, the way she always manages to somehow conveniently be the last speaker so that no one can rebut what she says. The way that the last speakers oration is the most recent recollection when you think about what was said by the common folk, wait a minute during election season it appears that the Council Members have the last say even from the common folks' podium. But Wait!... There's More!...Tuesday night council Member Long had help from another Council member who isn't even up for replacement, yet, Pinole Council Member Roy Swearingen who spoke just before Council Member Long. The two of them taking turns in a sort of tag team to try to cause the most damage to the candidates they don't support. Speculating about and casting doubt about anything and everything from how they campaign for the elected positions to their qualifications for the position, and even about the people who support them, Pinole employees, Pinole citizens, Pinole Taxpayers and Pinole labor groups implying that they are all special interests.

The current council does not seem to understand that during Citizens to be Heard, that podium is intended to be used by the public to express there like or dislike for the performance of the council or services, to ask questions under a too short time limit and to criticize the council when the public sees fit, the council members should, but apparently don't realize that that's part of the job that they asked the public to hire them for, they signed up for it and need to suck it up and listen to the public's complaints. Instead, what's happening? In an apparently contrived coincidence so that the public cannot respond to their rhetoric, the council takes over the podium, that the public should control during this part of the agenda, after all it seems the council can and do speak their minds from the dais without time limits. These pretentious Council Members slinging mud, any kind of mud they can at a couple of candidates that they actually know nothing about. I've met the two candidates who are under attack by current City Council Members and the real "cabal" that successfully slung enough mud of their own to put them in office.

Who are the two candidates in the current council's cross-hairs? Vincent Salimi and Anthony Tave, who both seem to be genuine, very well qualified, knowledgeable of Pinole's issues and enthusiastic about pulling Pinole out of the mire that the current City Council has dragged us into. There was a bit of a twist to Debbie and Roy's strategy this time though, as they planned they had Norma Rubin Martinez, a candidate supported by Roy and Debbie, speak after them with no speakers following, seems rigged to me. Norma Martinez is married to the founding member of the oppressive political group the CCOP, Mr. Jeff Rubin. He's the current president of the Pinole Historical Society who is poised to take control of the Faria House once the current City Council gets done spending a half million dollars of taxpayer money to refurbish it for him. Remember the CCOP, the "cabal" who fabricated a false corruption allegation against three council members in 2008 to facilitate replacing them with council members who would support their plans.

Debbie Long encouraged listeners to read the anonymously authored op-ed in the East Bay Times, which not only supports the candidates that she and Pinole's current City Council support, but also dredges up their mud from their 2008 smear campaign against the three former council members who held office at the time. This unprofessionally done OP-ED article doesn't seem to be penned by a legitimate Editor at the East Bay Times, but rather like the product of a spoiled fit thrown by a vengeful council member who is termed out at the end of this year after Measure P was profoundly rejected by the voters. The voters were unhappy, I get that, why Don't they? Why doesn't Debbie? As for the smear campaign of 2008, don't take my word for it, read the Huffington Post article written 2/1/2008 entitled "All Corruption is Local" and penned by Larry Womack. This article has me checking into what the real motives for the recall push of Mr. Rubin's group could be, I see no evidence to support the old allegations of corruption and I don't understand why that "old mud" appeared in the recent OP-ED by the East Bay Times. It's been 10 years! I suspect it's vindictiveness over the crash and burn of Measure P.

If you agree that council members should not have the last say from the podium, then you should probably let them know. Come to the next council meeting, October 30, 2018, and tell them yourself during Citizens to be Heard or send them the message at the ballot box on November 6, 2018.