through many hoops, each time paying more and more fees.
Now for the frustrated applicant’s letter:
“Dear Kay,
This letter commends you on your letter to the Aptos Times in the September 1, 2002 issue.
The county expenditures have indeed become outrageous and I agree 200% with you that things should be different. Hardly any citizen knows how high the employees’ salaries have become, especially the management salaries.
Your attention is invited to the liberal benefits of such employees in our county, especially the retirement pensions. It is my understanding that if one stays around long enough, they can retire on about 95% of their salary. In the last year or so, I know of several people in planning who did just that. This is found nowhere in private industry.
Wouldn’t you like to get 2-1/2 months vacation each year if you work only 15 years? Again, this is found nowhere in private industry.
The county’s spending habits have irked some of us for years. The Board of Supervisors must take responsibility for this, for the Supervisors are the CEOs of the organization. We can complain about the proposed closing of libraries in recent years and everyone gets upset and holds car washes, bake sales, etc. to raise money for libraries. But no one looks to see what the county is spending money on instead of libraries.
While you properly described the sad story of the management greed, the Planning Department has caught the attention of many citizens. For many years, nearly anyone who has applied for any permit in the Planning Department has met with frustration. Why does the Planning Department have more employees per capita than any other county in California except L.A. County?
I can’t sign this letter because I have an application pending. I am a simple citizen, not a developer. I know full well that if I become known as a resister, my name goes on a black list informally maintained in Planning and I will be hit with even more unreasonable demands to any of my plans. Many property owners have this problem, especially those with property which might be developed. We are at the mercy of the planners who hold all the authority over us. We can’t negotiate but must submit to whatever they demand, which already costs us many thousands of dollars for no purpose.
Many of us will donate toward the cost of an ad or other actions if we are not identified. (Isn’t this a sad state of affairs?)
Again, thank you for publicizing the facts as you did. The public needs such facts to judge our government. I’m sorry I can’t stand up and identify myself.
~Unsigned for fear of reprisal”
So my friends, remember again, the planners take their orders from the supervisors, the ones on top. And when the fish stinks, it starts from the head down.
So now, what can We the People do about this sorry mess? For starters, come November 5th, let us express our anger and disgust by voting out of office each incumbent supervisor who is running – and hope that the new supervisors will be more reasonable and responsive to the needs of the people.
22
(October 25, 2002) For three decades, We the People have been held hostage to a political majority of extreme leftists who have ruined our business community and continued a destructive no-growth policy. Roads are in disrepair and in constant gridlock, rents are outrageously high, real estate prices are the highest in the nation, our beautiful downtown is now a scary and filthy disaster, people are afraid to go there — the whole city is a mess! And We the People are saddled with more and more taxes. All this because our leaders have been irresponsible, inept, totally lacking in any business sense, and their immature and foolish priorities have made Santa Cruz the laughing stock of the entire nation. Sometimes it feels like the inmates are running the asylum.
If you are satisfied to continue this same old charade, then bring back Mike Rotkin and Cynthia Matthews. They are both drooling to come back and rule us again. They also both know that this time, someone might challenge their right to seek office on the City Council because of a clause added to the city charter in 1948 which states, quote, “No member of the City Council shall be eligible for reelection for two years after the expiration of the second full term for which such person was elected.” Rotkin and Matthews left office on November 28, 2000 and therefore would not be able to run until November 28, 2002.
Another council candidate, Aldo Giacchino, did challenge their right to seek office 21 days before the end of the two-year moratorium. The issue was taken to court because Aldo felt that the letter of the law should be upheld. The court, however, ruled that a few days more or less did not matter, so Rotkin and Matthews were permitted to stay in the race. I am sorry that the court saw fit to trivialize the letter of the law. Two years means two years and not one year and three hundred and forty-five days.
A similar issue came up in another California jurisdiction where the period in question was only one day short of the two-year ruling and in that case, the law was upheld. Here in Santa Cruz, it appears that the law was bent to accommodate two politically correct fixtures.
A resident of Santa Cruz for 24 years, Rotkin has ruled on the City Council for 18 of those years, twice as mayor. In his first term, his stated intention was to implement the subject of his doctoral dissertation and make Santa Cruz into a socialist city and he did just that. So, it can be truthfully said that Rotkin is the architect for the socialist mess which We the People have endured for so many years! And now he wants to serve again!
About Matthews, she served on the council for eight years. Jointly, they have been our local leaders for a total of 26 years, and look what we have now.
They point to their experience as being a benefit. I believe it is really a detriment. One who enters the political arena for the first time can vote honestly and responsibly simply by studying the issues.
One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand how to implement laws. As novice lawmakers, they are not influenced by, or beholden to, the “old buddy network” which sooner or later infects incumbents and career politicians.
About Mardi Wormhoudt, running again for supervisor: she has been a total disaster. Her no-growth and anti-business philosophy has emasculated the business community and kept Santa Cruz in a time warp.
It is bewildering how she sustains a level of adulation from the foolish left while she cuts programs for the needy and handicapped. She still will take her 31% raise to $98,000 starting next year, plus an enormous pension, bonuses, health benefits, and Social Security, all of which We the People pay for! San Francisco supervisors get $33,000 per year, by contrast. Where is the outrage? This repeated information bears remembering on November 5th when you must remember to vote!
Wasn’t it during the Rotkin, Matthews, and Wormhoudt watch on the City Council that the badgering and demonstrations against the Miss California Pageant were allowed? The unfriendly situation became so intolerable that the pageant was forced to leave Santa Cruz and move to San Diego. Now San Diego is the happy recipient of the yearly millions of dollars that we have lost! Thank you, Santa Cruz City Council for your continued stupidity and lack of business sense! And who suffers? ‘We the people’ with more and more and more taxes!
KSCO recommends a ‘yes’ vote on Measure P. It has been unfair for too many years for all taxpayers, especially the poor, to continue to pay for a never-voted-on additional tax on daily essentials.
Rather than threaten to eliminate police and firefighter services that they legally must provide, why not eliminate some of the many non-essential non-profits who should get their funding from private donations? The city leaders are resorting to lying and scare tactics instead of considering other viable solutions to raise money, like normal communities do.
KSCO recommends a ‘yes’ vote on Measure Q. That’s a nobrainer. Hotel users will pay an extra one percent and it will provide a much needed infusion of money to business.
For City Council, a huge