My First Blog Entry: Why I Opposed Measure E, Osama bin Laden and Other Musings

My name is Michael Austin and I am married and have been a resident of Pleasanton for 12 years in the Muirwood neighborhood. I am a recently retired Polymer Chemist, former Vice President and Plant Manager for the Yayoi Corporation of Japan, at the YPC San Jose Plant. I have published scientific research journals on the Polymer Industry for the Kansai Research Institute of Tokyo Japan.

Here is my first blog entry.

Measure E failed. It was a close one — two percentage points short of the required 67 percent approval to pass. Now the school board can get down to the real business of making the necessary cuts that will enable them to operate within their budget.

I did not support the measure E proposal.

There are a lot of us folks here in Pleasanton paying $7,000 and higher in property taxes every year, some of us for 10 years and longer. Lumping additional tax on top of that is not going to solve the real problem  — the school board has to get the job done with making cuts.

Now for the smart meter issue. PG&E has reversed itself and admits there is a flaw on the new smart meters that makes the meter spin faster than it should, registering higher fees for the user. This comes a year after they denied there were any flaws with the smart meters. PG&E said they would be issuing refunds to those folks that were overcharged due to the flawed meters.

In other news, Osama bin Laden is dead.

That is a good thing.

We should employ similar tactics to extract Moammar Gadhafi from Libya. Unfortunately the war on terror remains in its infancy. There are probably a lot of terrorists in the Middle East throwing away their cell phones, turning off their pacemakers, etc., — no more Facebook or Tweets for them.

Now for local traffic. I do not necessarily want to increase traffic into the Muirwood neighborhood but if you have never been in the area, you should check it out. Whenever I have a visitor from out of the area, they always comment, “My, what a nice neighborhood.” It is right behind Foothill High School, has large parks and is a very quiet neighborhood.

The Pleasanton Police Department patrols through the neighborhood three times a day. From time to time, they will set up to write citations for the cars that roll through the stop signs and exceed the 25 mile-an-hour speed limit. Unfortunately or fortunately, a lot of the citations are issued to Foothill High School students and their parents.

There are no on ramps and no off-ramps from the Muirwood neighborhood to any freeways, and the West Los Positas Boulevard overpass is just that. It passes over Interstate 680 and as long as anyone lives in this neighborhood, it will remain just that.