SUMMARY: plagiarizing or taking credit for the work of another has always been one of the gravest academic offenses imaginable, carrying with it a very severe sanction. Yet, politicians often take credit for the work of others. In a perverse sort of way, I was vaguely flattered by the way in which incumbent Councilman Charles “Bud” England saw fit to take credit for the work I performed making Cathedral City’s downtown energy conservation project a reality, numbering it among his own so-called achievements. In fact, Mr. England’s sole “achievement” in connection with the project was casting an affirmative vote to move it forward. That’s hardly much of an achievement. Mr. England must have a very dim view of the intelligence of Cathedral city’s electorate to try to foist off on it so it easily demonstrable an untruth. In an educational setting, that’s cheating. Voters should take such misconduct and cheating into account and give Mr. England a pink slip this coming Tuesday.
By: Paul S. Marchand
The American Heritage Dictionary defines a whopper as “a gross untruth.” Perhaps we should gloss the definition of whopper as constituting a gross, demonstrable untruth.
When Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney assured an Ohio audience that Jeep would soon be outsourcing its vehicle production to China, he told an easily rebuttable gross untruth.
Whoppers, it seems, are part of the armamentarium of American politicians.
They shouldn’t be.
When I was in school, plagiarizing another’s work or taking credit for the work product of others was considered an “honor code” violation. The sanction for such a violation could reach up to and include “separation from the institution.”
Apparently incumbent City Councilman Charles “Bud” England seems to have forgotten what a serious violation of good form and basic ethics it is to take credit for work done by others. In the same way Mr. Romney has developed for himself a malodorous history of whoppers, nasty little fibs, and demonstrable distortions of the truth. Writing in a New York Times column entitled “Is Romney Unraveling?,” New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow characterized the quondam Massachusetts Governor this way: “Evidence continues to emerge that Romney is one of the most dishonest, duplicitous candidates to ever seek the presidency.”
While Mr. England is no Mitt Romney, he does not seem to have felt a great deal of compunction about taking credit for one of my most significant achievements during my tenure on the city Council. Specifically, in a piece of campaign literature prepared by him on his behalf, Mr. England claimed as one of his so-called achievements one of the key components of the cathedral City’s downtown energy savings initiative, specifically a solar array composed of more than 1600 photovoltaic panels installed above the top level of Cathedral City’s downtown parking structure.
What makes Mr. England’s claim a whopper is that he took no active part in carrying the legislation that made possible the downtown energy project. If casting “yes” vote to move the project forward constitutes an “achievement,” then there are very few things that have happened in Cathedral City between 2002 and 2010 for which I could not personally claim credit.
But, in fact, England’s role in the downtown energy savings project was limited to his passive participation and casting the occasional affirmative vote. For more information on the downtown energy project, please follow this link to the June, 2006 issue of American City and County magazine: http://www.americancityandcounty.com/mag/government_harnessing_suns_rays. (NB) You'll need to copy the link and paste it into the navigation bar of your browser.
The irony inherent in Mr. England’s claim of credit for the work I did to bring the project to the Council and then to shepherd it to fruition lies in Mr. England’s close alliance with embattled Cathedral city Mayor Kathleen J. DeRosa.
DeRosa, a former employee of Southern California Edison, fought the project tooth and toenail. While she has been content to claim credit for work done by councilmember Greg Pettis, even she has apparently felt constrained from taking credit for a project she so vociferously opposed.
Perhaps, in a perverse sort of way, I should feel flattered that Mr. England felt the project for which I fought so hard represents a thing of sufficient political value for him to try to appropriate and foist it on the public as his own.
However, in an age where fact checking is as easy as clicking a mouse, Mr. England seems to think that the electorate is not smart enough to do its due diligence and catch him.
Cathedral City voters deserve better than that, and because taking credit for the work of others is an honor violation, should give him his pink slip next Tuesday.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served from 2002 until 2010 on the city Council, and where he is a candidate for council this fall. Between 2003 and 2005, Mr. Marchand was instrumental in introducing and carrying Cathedral City’s downtown energy conservation plan, which is saving the city well over $100,000/year off its Edison bill, and which is also helping to reduce Cathedral City’s carbon emissions by more than 500 tons/year. The views set forth herein are his own, and not necessarily those of any organization or entity with which he is associated.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Thursday, November 1, 2012
A FAILED EFFORT AT TRIANGULATION: CATHEDRAL CITY MAYOR KATHLEEN DeROSA’S ATTEMPT TO AVOID TAKING A FORTHRIGHT STAND ON MARRIAGE EQUALITY
Summary: Embattled Cathedral city Mayor Kathleen J. DeRosa’s attempt to triangulate on the issue of marriage equality, by declaring that as a Catholic, she cannot support marriage equality, but might support some sort of “Civil Union” for LGBT couples is unsustainable. It fails on two critical grounds. First, “Civil Unions” is no longer an acceptable “Plan B.” fallback position behind which an un-forthright politician may hide. Second, to the extent that Ms. DeRosa seeks to justify her position on dogmatic sectarian grounds, her conduct is at unacceptable variance with the obligations she voluntarily assumed when she took the oath of office prescribed in Article XX of the California Constitution. Ms. DeRosa’s constituents deserve better from her then such tergiversation and triangulation.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Speaking to constituents at a candidate forum in Cathedral City the other night, embattled fourth-term Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen J. DeRosa responded to a constituent question about her views on marriage equality. DeRosa stated that, as a Catholic, she could not support same-gender marriage by that name, but that she might be open to calling it something else. Such a position is unsustainable on two equally compelling grounds.
DeROSA’S POSITION FAILS BECAUSE IT ADVOCATES LESS THAN EQUAL PROTECTION
Unfortunately for DeRosa, her effort to triangulate has been overtaken by events. “Civil Unions” is no longer an acceptable Plan B fallback position. Politicians must now take unambiguous, non-triangulating, positions on whether Ruth and Naomi or Jonathan and David should be able to get civilly hitched and call themselves married. Marrriage, by that name, not some other, such as “Civil Unions”, is now the default position.
“Civil Unions” came to us in December 1999, when the Vermont Supreme Court ordered that state’s Legislature either to extend the liberty of marital contract to same-gender couples or to come up with a legislative equivalent to marriage for same-gender couples. Vermont’s solution, “Civil Unions” has now entered America’s political lexicon as a shorthand for something that comes close to being same-gender marriage, without using the M-word.
It was perhaps inevitable that the Vermont Legislature and then Gov. Howard Dean chose “Civil Unions” over the M-word. Yet, what has rightly concerned the community about civil unions per se is that they represent a risky and problematic “separate but equal” status for gay and lesbian families; the history of “separate but equal” is one in which “separate but equal” has invariably become separate and unequal. Yet, politics is always about the art of the possible; great advances are often the result of incremental, evolutionary, steps: as a former senior staffer for the City of Cathedral City used to put matters: You eat the elephant one bite at a time.
Yet, with more American jurisdictions embracing marriage equality, the elephant is going down. Politicians can no longer indulge in the squishy luxury of attempting to avoid taking a forthright position on marriage equality. Because “Civil Unions” inevitably become “separate and unequal,” DeRosa’s position is unsustainable as a matter of sound constitutional law and principle.
DeROSA’S POSITION IS UNSUSTAINABLE BECAUSE IT INAPPROPRIATELY INVOKES A RELIGIOUS SANCTION TO DENY THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF A SUBSTANTIAL PART OF THE COMMUNITY.
In attempting to rationalize her opposition to marriage equality, the embattled mayor invoked her religious confession, declaring that “as a Catholic” she could not support full marriage equality. Invoking any denominational dogma to justify denying or abridging the civil rights of a significant and identifiable group within a body politic is inappropriate and unacceptable.
Posting recently on Facebook, The Rev. Canon Susan Russell, of All Saints’ Church, Pasadena, opined that “Religious persecution is when you're prevented from exercising your beliefs: not when you're prevented from imposing your beliefs.” Too many denominational adherents have falsely claimed that marriage equality represents some kind of attack on their religious freedom. Such claims of victimhood are trite nonsense. The free exercise right guaranteed by the First Amendment was never intended as a sword, but only as a shield. There is no free exercise right to deny, infringe, or abridge the fundamental rights of others in the Commonwealth in order to assuage the claimed religious discomfort of particular sectarian adherents.
Moreover, invoking some sort of sectarian sanction to justify a particular position on policy -- especially one that denies basic civil rights to discrete and insular minority groups within the Commonwealth is not constitutionally sustainable. Elected public officials in California take an oath to uphold the Constitutions of the United States and of the State of California. Each of those constitutions contains clauses forbidding governmental establishments of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
For a public official to justify a discriminatory policy because he or she is an adherent of a particular religious denomination is a naked violation of the oath required of every office holder under Article XX of the California Constitution. We have a right to expect our public officials to comply with oaths duly taken; we deserve better than such tergiversation and triangulation.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served two terms on the city council and is running to return to the council after a two year hiatus. In 1993, he was one of the first California attorneys to challenge California’s same-gender marriage ban. The views set forth herein are his own, and not necessarily those of any organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as constituting, legal advice.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Speaking to constituents at a candidate forum in Cathedral City the other night, embattled fourth-term Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen J. DeRosa responded to a constituent question about her views on marriage equality. DeRosa stated that, as a Catholic, she could not support same-gender marriage by that name, but that she might be open to calling it something else. Such a position is unsustainable on two equally compelling grounds.
DeROSA’S POSITION FAILS BECAUSE IT ADVOCATES LESS THAN EQUAL PROTECTION
Unfortunately for DeRosa, her effort to triangulate has been overtaken by events. “Civil Unions” is no longer an acceptable Plan B fallback position. Politicians must now take unambiguous, non-triangulating, positions on whether Ruth and Naomi or Jonathan and David should be able to get civilly hitched and call themselves married. Marrriage, by that name, not some other, such as “Civil Unions”, is now the default position.
“Civil Unions” came to us in December 1999, when the Vermont Supreme Court ordered that state’s Legislature either to extend the liberty of marital contract to same-gender couples or to come up with a legislative equivalent to marriage for same-gender couples. Vermont’s solution, “Civil Unions” has now entered America’s political lexicon as a shorthand for something that comes close to being same-gender marriage, without using the M-word.
It was perhaps inevitable that the Vermont Legislature and then Gov. Howard Dean chose “Civil Unions” over the M-word. Yet, what has rightly concerned the community about civil unions per se is that they represent a risky and problematic “separate but equal” status for gay and lesbian families; the history of “separate but equal” is one in which “separate but equal” has invariably become separate and unequal. Yet, politics is always about the art of the possible; great advances are often the result of incremental, evolutionary, steps: as a former senior staffer for the City of Cathedral City used to put matters: You eat the elephant one bite at a time.
Yet, with more American jurisdictions embracing marriage equality, the elephant is going down. Politicians can no longer indulge in the squishy luxury of attempting to avoid taking a forthright position on marriage equality. Because “Civil Unions” inevitably become “separate and unequal,” DeRosa’s position is unsustainable as a matter of sound constitutional law and principle.
DeROSA’S POSITION IS UNSUSTAINABLE BECAUSE IT INAPPROPRIATELY INVOKES A RELIGIOUS SANCTION TO DENY THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF A SUBSTANTIAL PART OF THE COMMUNITY.
In attempting to rationalize her opposition to marriage equality, the embattled mayor invoked her religious confession, declaring that “as a Catholic” she could not support full marriage equality. Invoking any denominational dogma to justify denying or abridging the civil rights of a significant and identifiable group within a body politic is inappropriate and unacceptable.
Posting recently on Facebook, The Rev. Canon Susan Russell, of All Saints’ Church, Pasadena, opined that “Religious persecution is when you're prevented from exercising your beliefs: not when you're prevented from imposing your beliefs.” Too many denominational adherents have falsely claimed that marriage equality represents some kind of attack on their religious freedom. Such claims of victimhood are trite nonsense. The free exercise right guaranteed by the First Amendment was never intended as a sword, but only as a shield. There is no free exercise right to deny, infringe, or abridge the fundamental rights of others in the Commonwealth in order to assuage the claimed religious discomfort of particular sectarian adherents.
Moreover, invoking some sort of sectarian sanction to justify a particular position on policy -- especially one that denies basic civil rights to discrete and insular minority groups within the Commonwealth is not constitutionally sustainable. Elected public officials in California take an oath to uphold the Constitutions of the United States and of the State of California. Each of those constitutions contains clauses forbidding governmental establishments of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
For a public official to justify a discriminatory policy because he or she is an adherent of a particular religious denomination is a naked violation of the oath required of every office holder under Article XX of the California Constitution. We have a right to expect our public officials to comply with oaths duly taken; we deserve better than such tergiversation and triangulation.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served two terms on the city council and is running to return to the council after a two year hiatus. In 1993, he was one of the first California attorneys to challenge California’s same-gender marriage ban. The views set forth herein are his own, and not necessarily those of any organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as constituting, legal advice.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
POLICE SHOULD STAY OUT OF POLITICS, DO THEIR JOBS, AND FIGHT REAL CRIME.
Summary: community residents should reasonably expect their public safety services to remain above the political fray. Efforts to present any candidate as “law enforcement’s choice” for a particular public office represent an unacceptable politicization of the public safety function. In Cathedral City, the embattled incumbent mayor and the other candidates running on her slate in this fall’s election have sought to present themselves as the implicit choice of Cathedral City’s public safety agencies, raising legitimate questions about the extent to which, should the incumbent mayor’s slate be victorious, our public safety agencies can be expected to remain impartial and resist the temptation to become political enforcers.
By: Paul S. Marchand.
In any community, residents should be able to entertain a reasonable expectation that their police and fire services will hold themselves outside political entanglement.
As one local resident put it on Facebook, “Police should stay out of politics. The need to do their jobs and fight real crime.”
Unfortunately, as we saw when a group of so-called “Law Enforcement” representatives spoke out publicly against Congressional candidate Dr. Raul Ruiz, the citizenry’s expectations that our local law enforcement will avoid injecting itself into the vortex of political debate have largely been dashed.
Perhaps we should not be surprised. A recent judicial retention election campaign presented to voters the unedifying spectacle of a challenger to one of our sitting judges unabashedly identifying himself as “law enforcement’s choice.” In this blog, I was highly critical of such campaign tactics, which I felt reflected poorly on the best traditions of the Bench and Bar, and which tacked unacceptably close to the line that separates permissible campaign conduct from a serious breach of the canons of judicial ethics.
Yet, as citizens, we should still be able to entertain that reasonable expectation that our public safety services will not seek to inject themselves into politics. I’ve read the unexpurgated Christopher Commission report produced in the wake of the Rodney King incident that rocked the LAPD to its foundations. I also remember how, on the night the jury in the Rodney King trial came back with not guilty verdicts, then-LAPD chief Daryl Gates --whose disdain for then-Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley was plain for all to see-- was not at LAPD headquarters at Parker Center, but rather was attending a political fundraiser on LA’s Westside. Such experience has caused me to take a somewhat dim, disapproving view of the politicization of the public safety function.
Here in Cathedral City, an embattled incumbent mayor wants to shoot the moon and take over our city government in its entirety by running a slate consisting of herself, her closest council ally, and Cathedral city’s former police chief. As offputting as the blatancy and cynicism of the embattled incumbent mayor’s takeover bid may be to many residents of Cathedral City, it also offends because it pulls our public safety services into a political vortex.
Our mayor has a long history of confrontational behavior, and of seeking to cast any disagreement with her as somehow wrong or even criminal. Can we expect that if the incumbent mayor and her slate are successful in their takeover bid that our public safety agencies will remain apolitical? Or will those who dissent from the mayor’s viewpoint, or whom she considers enemies, find themselves targeted for investigation and/or prosecution? Will their 911 calls me timely responded to? Will our public safety agencies view their role as impartial enforcers of neutral laws of general application, or will they see themselves as the mayor’s muscle, foot soldiers of a political machine?
Given the often full contact nature of local politics here in the Coachella Valley, such questions are hardly unreasonable, given recent events, and they need to be answered. This incumbent mayor has a long and unhappy track record to account for. Do her slatemates wants to be held accountable for what they have not done? Do they want to have to answer for her misdoings, outbursts and F-bombs? Do they want to be responsible for that which they have not directed?
Sadly, the mayor and her slatemates have furthered the promiscuous politicization of our police and fire services by creating an unjustified impression that the mayor and her slate somehow represent “law enforcement’s choice,” and that those who do not support the embattled mayor and her slate are not on the side of “law enforcement,” and are somehow rooting for the so-called criminal element.
Do our police and fire departments really want to find themselves subject the lascivious ogling of a political machine?
One would hope that the answer is “no.”
-XXX-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served two terms on the city council and is running to return to the Council after a two-year hiatus. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily those of any entity or organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as constituting, legal advice.
By: Paul S. Marchand.
In any community, residents should be able to entertain a reasonable expectation that their police and fire services will hold themselves outside political entanglement.
As one local resident put it on Facebook, “Police should stay out of politics. The need to do their jobs and fight real crime.”
Unfortunately, as we saw when a group of so-called “Law Enforcement” representatives spoke out publicly against Congressional candidate Dr. Raul Ruiz, the citizenry’s expectations that our local law enforcement will avoid injecting itself into the vortex of political debate have largely been dashed.
Perhaps we should not be surprised. A recent judicial retention election campaign presented to voters the unedifying spectacle of a challenger to one of our sitting judges unabashedly identifying himself as “law enforcement’s choice.” In this blog, I was highly critical of such campaign tactics, which I felt reflected poorly on the best traditions of the Bench and Bar, and which tacked unacceptably close to the line that separates permissible campaign conduct from a serious breach of the canons of judicial ethics.
Yet, as citizens, we should still be able to entertain that reasonable expectation that our public safety services will not seek to inject themselves into politics. I’ve read the unexpurgated Christopher Commission report produced in the wake of the Rodney King incident that rocked the LAPD to its foundations. I also remember how, on the night the jury in the Rodney King trial came back with not guilty verdicts, then-LAPD chief Daryl Gates --whose disdain for then-Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley was plain for all to see-- was not at LAPD headquarters at Parker Center, but rather was attending a political fundraiser on LA’s Westside. Such experience has caused me to take a somewhat dim, disapproving view of the politicization of the public safety function.
Here in Cathedral City, an embattled incumbent mayor wants to shoot the moon and take over our city government in its entirety by running a slate consisting of herself, her closest council ally, and Cathedral city’s former police chief. As offputting as the blatancy and cynicism of the embattled incumbent mayor’s takeover bid may be to many residents of Cathedral City, it also offends because it pulls our public safety services into a political vortex.
Our mayor has a long history of confrontational behavior, and of seeking to cast any disagreement with her as somehow wrong or even criminal. Can we expect that if the incumbent mayor and her slate are successful in their takeover bid that our public safety agencies will remain apolitical? Or will those who dissent from the mayor’s viewpoint, or whom she considers enemies, find themselves targeted for investigation and/or prosecution? Will their 911 calls me timely responded to? Will our public safety agencies view their role as impartial enforcers of neutral laws of general application, or will they see themselves as the mayor’s muscle, foot soldiers of a political machine?
Given the often full contact nature of local politics here in the Coachella Valley, such questions are hardly unreasonable, given recent events, and they need to be answered. This incumbent mayor has a long and unhappy track record to account for. Do her slatemates wants to be held accountable for what they have not done? Do they want to have to answer for her misdoings, outbursts and F-bombs? Do they want to be responsible for that which they have not directed?
Sadly, the mayor and her slatemates have furthered the promiscuous politicization of our police and fire services by creating an unjustified impression that the mayor and her slate somehow represent “law enforcement’s choice,” and that those who do not support the embattled mayor and her slate are not on the side of “law enforcement,” and are somehow rooting for the so-called criminal element.
Do our police and fire departments really want to find themselves subject the lascivious ogling of a political machine?
One would hope that the answer is “no.”
-XXX-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served two terms on the city council and is running to return to the Council after a two-year hiatus. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily those of any entity or organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as constituting, legal advice.
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