Harbor candidates choose campaigning over duties of office
Half Moon Bay Review - Editorial by Clay Lambert
The San Mateo County Harbor Commission scheduled a meeting on Sept. 17, but three members — all currently candidates for re-election — had other priorities. Consequently, there was no quorum. Voters learned more about candidate priorities from their absence than they ever would have from their presence at the meeting that night.
Jim Tucker was attending services for a friend who died and says he told staff he couldn’t make it. That is certainly understandable.
Instead of attending the commission meeting on the evening of Sept. 17, Robert Bernardo was at the Oyster Point Yacht Club for a gathering that was ostensibly meant to “celebrate the anniversary of the McAteer-Petris Act,” credited with stopping the fill of the San Francisco Bay. The announcement of the event praises Bernardo at least as much as any worthwhile legislation and, whatever the intent, Bernardo acknowledges that he used it to raise money for his own campaign.
When questioned later, he said he had hoped to make both the meeting and the fundraiser, and he acknowledged that attending to the fundraiser — instead of the office he hopes to win with that money — was not his finest decision.
“I was trying to do too many things,” he said.
Will Holsinger said that personal commitments “took me out of the county that day.” That’s strange because he appears in a photo taken that night and posted on Daly City Councilman Ray Buenaventura’s Twitter account. In the photo, Holsinger seems to be having a whale of a time, yucking it up at Buenaventura’s campaign kickoff event instead of attending the Harbor Commission meeting.
Will Holsinger standing next to the "Gone With The Wind" poster.
Just down the street at the Municipal Services Building in South San Francisco, the commission was to have discussed the soon-to-be-vacant general manager’s position behind closed doors. Staff was prepared to present a special rate for visiting boaters at Oyster Point Marina. Ironically, the commission was going to discuss canceling meetings in December and January.
Forget duty, it would seem to be common courtesy for commissioners with other priorities to tell colleagues Pietro Parravano and Sabrina Brennan they needn’t make the trip from the coast to South San Francisco. Fortunately or unfortunately, you needn’t worry about the district’s contracted attorney, Steven Miller. He plans to submit an invoice for his time, compounding the waste of tax dollars that night. (Reached on Thursday, Miller declined to say how much he would bill the district.)
What are voters to make of candidates who value the money used to attain office more than the duties of the office itself? What is the message from sitting elected officials who don’t bother telling their colleagues, let alone the public, when they have other commitments on meeting nights? What are they saying when they rack up campaign dollars even as they waste yours on staff and consultants called to meetings that don’t take place?
You will decide in November.
