East Bay Conservative

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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Everyone knows by now that a friendly neighborhood “ex”-con here in Oakland shot and killed three veteran police officers today.

The swat team did apparently track down and kill the responsible party — a positive development, but too little too late for our city. I will not list the dead cretin’s name, but suffice it to say that he will not be missed.

On behalf of the reasonable citizens of Oakland, let me extend thanks, condolences and outrage to our dead officers: Sgts. Erv Romans, Dan Sakai and Mark Dunakin. Let it be known that there are ordinary Oaklanders who will mourn these officers and would like to clean up the streets if only we had the leadership and direction to do so.

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Today I decided to go for a nice 15-mile ride on my road bike.

As I usually do on such occasions, I took a direct route to Piedmont and cycled around the lovely homes, parks and schools of that well-maintained community.

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When you get right down to it the East Bay is really composed of two totally separate communities.

The flatlands consist largely of “diverse” neighborhoods fighting day-to-day battles against urban problems such as crime and joblessness. Then there are the hilly areas to the east, which look a lot more like the wealthy suburbs of the peninsula.

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I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t really know where the money goes in the Oakland school district.

Somehow, no matter what happens at the state or local level, the district is always out of money. And it always underperforms other nearby districts by a significant margin.

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