East Bay Conservative

By Mark Ross, Contributing Writer

Back in 1972 I had the occasion to visit the Security National Bank in Walnut Creek… as part of my environmental journalist responsibilities. I didn’t get to meet with its CEO, Fortney H. “Pete” Stark, but his presence was felt. A giant peace symbol greeted me as I approached the front door.

It wasn’t long before “Pete” received, from the voters, a lifetime appointment to the U.S. House of Representatives. Ol’ Pete is now in his late seventies. A lot of the Democrat hacks-for-life from the Bay Area are getting really, really long in the tooth. Ronald V. Dellums shocked the world by voluntarily retiring from Congress… presumably in order to hand pick his successor, Babs Lee, thus costing Alameda County millions in special election expenses. Then he woke up and knew he had to save Oakland. From what? It now seems from himself.

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Today, Chip Johnson became the first journalist to put the reality of Oakland’s financial situation in print. Chip says the city might need to file for bankruptcy, and I agree.

Bankruptcy is an unpopular option, and several other bloggers including V Smoothe have pointed out that it wouldn’t accomplish much because the city is not locked into long-term contracts with public employees. So, the argument goes, they can simply negotiate contracts which dig the city out of its fiscal morass.

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By Mark Ross, Contributing Writer

Driving along the communication trench we call Highway 580… west of High Street and East of Fruitvale… you’ll see, on either right-hand embankment, a CalTrans sign naming the bridge that 38th Avenue takes over the freeway.  The story behind this obscure memorial brings to light several issues currently in play in today’s Oakland.

Early on the morning of January 10, 1999, Officer Williams was fatally wounded while searching in the landscaping along Highway 580 for a discarded shotgun.  The assailant stood on the 38th Ave. overpass… from where he fired his illegal AK-47 communist bloc full automatic military rifle.  Officer Williams was killed and another policeman was injured after his hand cuff case deflected the round.

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Today’s Matier and Ross column does an excellent job of exposing what lies at the heart of the budget messes at the city, county and state levels in California.

Key points from the article — 246 former San Francisco employees receive pensions in excess of $100,000 a year. Fifteen are above $150,000.
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I usually pay relatively close attention to the ins and outs of local politics, but I complete missed the website that Bart has set up to inform riders and taxpayers about the excesses of its current union contracts.

Bart announced today that it will hike fares in the face of the recession, essentially increasing the fare to ride to SFO so high that I doubt many people will continue to use the service. The high cost of riding Bart is directly related to its union pay and benefits. And, it might surprise many readers of this blog to find out that the Bart station agents and train “drivers” frequently make more than $100k a year when counting pay, benefits and overtime.

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In the wake of the defeat of last week’s propositions, the LA Times ran a column on the front page of its website essentially arguing that California’s problem is that it doesn’t tax the rich enough.

There are so many problems with this column that it’s hard to know where to begin, but allow me to start with a bit of levity. In reading pieces like this, and those written about impending public-employee layoffs, it occurs to me that California may eventually wind up with just a single rich taxpayer paying for a single very well paid public employee.

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Like Oakland, California continues to stumble toward some kind of reckoning with profligate governmental policies.

By voting no today, or simply failing to vote at all, voters can help bring a dose of reality to our “leaders.”

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I’ve obviously been offline quite a bit lately tending to some things, but I wanted to let readers know that our local Chrysler dealer on Broadway will be closing as part of Chrysler’s round of dealership closings.

Here is a link to the full list of closures. Apparently Oakland’s is one of five or so in the Bay Area, including one in Livermore.

I can’t imagine this will be good for Oakland, and I would guess that the GM dealership is going to close too. We’ll see…

There are two basic ways to look at the spending priorities of a government institution.

The first is to examine the public’s underserved needs to determine where money should be allocated. The second is to consider where the money comes from to pay for it all.

Both perspectives are critical, and both perspectives help to shape the impacts of government policy. But few who analyze policy spend much time on the latter view.

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An interesting phenomenon took place over the past two weeks, as our new president was pressed on the question of legalizing marijuana.

To his credit, his administration has reversed the policy of pursuing local pot clubs because they are violating federal law. To his discredit, he indicated that he did not favor legalizing drugs, as he did not expect it would assist the economy.

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