Pinole's $300,000 Give Away of Taxpayer Funds!

Well now, it appears that hypocrisy has come home to roost with the candidates and supporters of Norma Martinez Rubin, Tim Banuelos and Maureen Toms. Their latest flier to come in my mail box is a photo copy of the East Bay Times Editorial, “Don’t let Pinole regress to the pre-recall days”, that endorses these three. This article, as I’ve said in posts before, I can’t understand why a professional editorial staff would want to make a ten year old smear campaign the primary focus of an endorsement, it’s amateurish, but I guess they consider that dark spot on the community to be “reusable” for political gain. The latest flier shows the article in two columns. The first column is where nice things are said about those being endorsed, divided by three, but the second column, on the right side, slightly less than <50% of the entire article is devoted entirely to the ten year old smear campaign. I guess that nice things said only go so far, and the rest is all they’ve got to bring to the table.

Unfortunately when bringing attention to that past, people may notice things that they never noticed before, like the $400,000 that keeps being mentioned, constantly hammered into our brains. That’s an interesting number. Sure sounds like allot of money don’t it. Well, it turns out that the amount that the proprietor of the Pear Street Bistro, Gary Wong, was in arrears on repayment was about $81,000 which included all of the interest on those late payments, I actually found that amount in the Times, https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2.... This is still a lot of money but it’s not the $400,000 being droned by recall proponents, The East Bay Times, the Times endorsed candidates and their supporters., In the end that proprietor paid back the arrears funds plus interest and the business was sold. The City got back all of the RDA funds that the taxpayers were entitled to.

And the “Give Away” of taxpayer money? Well I’ve mentioned in previous posts that after being entirely duped by the smear campaign ‘foolish me’ voted in favor of the recall in 2008. Over time other citizens, friends and neighbors were complaining to me about what was going on down at city hall, and they told me about the service cuts. I did my homework on the financial situation and service reductions and didn’t like what I saw. So I decided to attend a council meeting and speak to the council from the podium.

I prepared a short oration for the meeting. On July 20, 2010, http://pinole.granicus.com/Med...,I attended the Pinole RDA/Council Meeting and put in my speaker card. I was the only speaker during Citizens to be Heard. When I finished, then ‘Mayor Long’ informed me of the upcoming Fire Service Delivery Workshop on July 27, 2010, http://pinole.granicus.com/Med.... I walked away from the podium but I didn’t leave because a neighbor was there with supporters of her business to rally the council to approve it. See Item 8.-A. on the consent calendar,

Then it happened, the moment I realized I had been duped during the recall. Only two years after the recall, the 2010 Pinole City Council approved a resolution to enter into an agreement for my neighbor to open her restaurant and receive $300,000 in RDA funds as an Improvement Allowance, with no obligation to pay back those funds, whatsoever. Well I guess that’s one way to avoid bad PR if the proprietor was unable to make payments, you just give those funds away! What a concept! It’s brilliant! Only one thing though, the taxpayers are on the hook to pay off the bonds, including interest, from $300,000 of RDA funds. RDA money was never “free money” for municipalities, it was generated through public debt through bonds and the taxpayer pays off those bonds.

Tina’s Place became very successful and I really don’t blame Dale and Tina for accepting the agreement and the funds, it’s hard to fund, start and run a new restaurant while making loan payments, after all....just ask Gary Wong. I wonder if the Bistro would have thrived if given comparable latitude with RDA funds instead of loans. Where was this generosity with tax payer money when this other entrepreneur was struggling just a few years earlier? As yet it’s unconfirmed by me yet but I understand that Gary did try to work with the city to resolve the matter. I heard he wanted to restructure the loans but the city declined. Could it be that during the aftermath of firing a city manager, that a motivated entity seized a political ‘weapon of opportunity’, the smear campaign? I’m currently looking into the motivation aspect for the recall of 2008. Also unconfirmed as yet is the cost of the special election for the June 2008 recall to Pinole taxpayers, the number I’ve been told is around $100,000. That’s what it cost us in taxpayer funds for a change of power in June when council seats were already up for election in November when the cost was lower? $100,000 unnecessarily spent? Why? What was the hurry? And you know who were in the council seats when the $300,000 give away resolution was passed, all were supporters of the 2008 recall.

It was obvious to me at that moment of realization that this city was in trouble. Hypocrisy was, and still is, in full bloom in our city's current government. I'd say it's about time for some serious change. What do you think? I’d love to hear it.