Summary: More than ten years after the last one, Cathedral City is contemplating a pay raise for its council. Despite sensationalistic headlines about a 47% increase, the total amount in controversy is roughly $22,000. In fact, the entire council’s pay per annum is less than the pay of a single cop or firefighter. In her typical pandering way, outgoing Mayor Kathleen DeRosa (who pulls down I handsome pension from Southern California Edison) is attempting to oppose the increase. Opposing adequate pay for city Council members is both racist and classist. If only the white and the well-off can afford to serve in elective public office, it sends a message to Cathedral City’s Latino majority that “no Latinos need apply.” This position, apparently held by both DeRosa and outgoing New Yorker councilmember Sam Toles, does not reflect well upon our community. While the screamers and low information voters may try to make an issue of this, more reasonable residents should understand that councilmembers, like anybody else in the workforce, deserve to be adequately compensated.
After more than a decade, the issue of a pay raise for Cathedral City’s astonishingly ill paid council is back on the agenda. Because there has been no salary increase for council members and Cathedral City in that lengthy time, the proposed increase — which simply accounts for inflation — is approximately 47%.
Almost immediately, the comment threads on social media networks lit up.
Gratifyingly, many of the comments from within Cathedral City were supportive, well thought out, and articulate.
Of course, nonresidents and the occasional resident Tea Partisans, including well-debunked perennial council wannabe Jens Mueller, were quick to weigh in with predictable attack talking points lambasting the “greediness” of the council.
Also weighing in against the salary increase was outgoing, lame-duck, so-called Five-Star Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa.
That DeRosa would weigh in against the salary increase is not surprising. Her reputation for pandering to her base, a group of low information voters often referred to as her “Flying Monkeys,” has become almost legendary. Yet, DeRosa’s opposition to the salary increase says as much about the pervasive streak of racism in her character as it does about any concern she might have for fiscal discipline.
For indeed, the fiscal discipline argument essentially goes nowhere. The total increase in salary outlay for the Council comes to a little bit more than $22,000. The total salary burden for the city is less than that which the city bears to write paychecks for one single cop or firefighter. Let me say that again. The city pays less for the entire council per annum than it does for one single cop or firefighter.
Because, when it comes down to it, Cathedral City, like many other cities, premises the highest levels of its municipal governance on a series of assumptions that are both racist and classist.
Traditionally, elected representatives of the public were either unpaid or were paid nominal stipends. One commentor, casting his two cents in on The Desert Sun’s comment thread, urged that councilmember should be paid a single dollar per annum. The problem with paying no salary or nominal stipends is simple. It automatically restricts elective service to the white and the well-off.
Cathedral City is roughly 55% Latino; it is also a working city, many of whose residents cannot afford to take on the added burden of service on the Council unless service on the Council pays enough to make it worthwhile.
Having served eight years as a city councilmember, I can attest to the fact that service on the Council comes close to being a second full-time job. In addition to having to represent the city on numerous regional boards and commissions, councilmembers are expected to read about, learn, and be able to cast an informed vote on a whole variety of issues that come before the Council in the course of its duties.
And here is where DeRosa’s objection to the Council raise becomes so blatantly racist and hypocritical. DeRosa has made no secret of her disdain for Cathedral City’s substantial Latino population. Indeed, in a city that is roughly 55% Latino, the Council musters only one member with a Latino surname. DeRosa prefers it that way, and knows that if Council salaries are kept low, many otherwise qualified Latino candidates will be deterred from running.
The record of the other New Yorker on the Council, lame-duck Sam Toles, is no better. At seemingly every Council meeting in which he was actually personally present to participate, Toles would deliver himself of a self-congratulatory monologue to the effect that his six-figure private-sector job spared him from having to accept the city’s benefit package. Toles would also break his arm patting himself on the back to remind his constituents that he, well compensated as he was in the private sector, gave his municipal salary away to charity.
Aside from being noblesse oblige bullshit, Sam Toles’s message to the community was also just about as dog whistle racist as he could have made it. In effect, what Sam Toles was saying to our Latino-majority constituency was “I am far too wealthy and far too entitled for the likes of you. You should be grateful that I, the White Knight from New York, am here to govern you. No Latinos need apply.”
As racist as the DeRosa position may be, it’s also classist. Now history teaches us that traditional policies of restricting elected public service to non-stipendiary or nominal salary status were largely intended to ensure that only “the best people” were able to serve. The so-called progressive movement of the early twentieth century adhered to the notion that society’s best people were also its best off people.
Even today, many low information voters continue to believe that the wealthier you are, the more incorruptible you are. Nothing could be further from the truth. Much always wants more, and the empirical evidence of generations of experience tells us that independent wealth is no guarantee that an elected public official will not be corrupt. Every now and again, a corruption scandal involving conspicuously affluent members of Congress or a state legislature erupts to remind us that your probity is not a function of the depth of your pocketbook.
Indeed, we should not even assume that the DeRosa position on the salary increase is the result of anything more than craven political calculation. Of course, DeRosa pulls down a handsome pension from Southern California Edison, and her presumptive successor, former police chief and now-councilmember Stanley Henry, pulls down a PERS pension in excess of $17,000 a month, all of it paid for by us, the taxpayers of Cathedral City. Moreover, a number of declared Council candidates, several of them DeRosa Flying Monkeys, have spouses who are also compensated in the six-figure range by other employers. (More on that as the campaign moves forward.)
Thus, we should view with a very jaundiced eye any claims or comments DeRosa has to make on this issue, and we should also reject out of hand any statements Sam Toles may utter in opposition to the salary increase. Neither one of them has a legitimate thing to say.
The laborer is worthy of his hire. Luke 10:7. So is a Cathedral City city councilmember. The salary raise will probably pass on a 3-2 vote, and the screamers will try to make a campaign issue. The rest of us should not allow dime wise and dollar foolish thinking to carry the day.
Saturday, August 9, 2014
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Bob Silverman - An Appreciation
It’s easy to take somebody’s presence for granted. Until they’re gone. Then you realize there is an indefinable gap, a sense that things are not as they had been, a sense of dwindling.
Long time Desert Stonewall Democratic stalwart Bob Silverman passed away last week. Bob was one of that small original cadre of us who were present at the creation and in the earliest days of Stonewall here in the Desert.
I cannot remember Desert Stonewall without Bob, because there never was a time when Bob was not an integral, crucial member of Desert Stonewall Democrats.
Some activists tend to be high-maintenance; such people are often quick to take offense, excruciatingly politically correct, ready to duke it out with friends and allies, and inclined to push for the perfect at the expense of the good. Bob was not this kind of activist.
But if Bob was not a prima donna, Bob was a rock solid, committed Democrat who had the quiet courage of conviction and rocklike constancy that are at the core of all that is good and true and praiseworthy within the Democratic Party. He was also pragmatic, urbane, and considerate of others.
The institutional life of Desert Stonewall Democrats will continue, but for a good long while at least, it will to some degree be impoverished in the wake of Bob Silverman’s going from us. I shall miss him; may he rest in peace.
Long time Desert Stonewall Democratic stalwart Bob Silverman passed away last week. Bob was one of that small original cadre of us who were present at the creation and in the earliest days of Stonewall here in the Desert.
I cannot remember Desert Stonewall without Bob, because there never was a time when Bob was not an integral, crucial member of Desert Stonewall Democrats.
Some activists tend to be high-maintenance; such people are often quick to take offense, excruciatingly politically correct, ready to duke it out with friends and allies, and inclined to push for the perfect at the expense of the good. Bob was not this kind of activist.
But if Bob was not a prima donna, Bob was a rock solid, committed Democrat who had the quiet courage of conviction and rocklike constancy that are at the core of all that is good and true and praiseworthy within the Democratic Party. He was also pragmatic, urbane, and considerate of others.
The institutional life of Desert Stonewall Democrats will continue, but for a good long while at least, it will to some degree be impoverished in the wake of Bob Silverman’s going from us. I shall miss him; may he rest in peace.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
SAM TOLES, GO AWAY
Summary: The unexplained absence of council carpetbagger Sam Toles from last night’s city council meeting caused the Council to deadlock two to two on the question of whether to allow marijuana dispensaries in Cathedral city. This is an issue that has been percolating since long before carpetbagging Sam Toles was ever on the Council. Yet he couldn’t be bothered to attend, even to phone it in. We are not receiving honest services from Sam Toles, who flaunts in the face of Cathedral city voters his non-residence in the city he was elected to serve . Maybe it’s time federal and state prosecutors took a look at our New Yorkers on the Council, whose bona fide residency in Cathedral city continues to be a subject of speculation.
Sam Toles, it’s time for you to get off the city Council in Cathedral City with what little dignity you have left and hope that your behavior does not give federal and state prosecutors a certain incentive to make an example of your wrongful conduct.
The misbegotten political career of councilmember George Samuel Toles reached its predictable, ineluctable low point last night when his absence in New York City caused the Council to deadlock two to two on the much-discussed issue of whether to end Cathedral City’s ban on medical marijuana dispensaries, an issue that has been percolating in our community since long before George Samuel Toles carpetbagged his way onto the Council in 2010. Toles was not in Cathedral City to do the work the voters of this community had elected him to do. Instead, carpetbagging nonresident Toles was in New York on the job he took knowing that he had a prior responsibility to the people of this community.
Thus, predictably, the four council members present split right down the middle. Not surprisingly, lame-duck Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa chose to pander to her low-information religious right constituency by voting “no.” Presumptive mayoral nominee Stan Henry, a former police chief, pandered to his police union by also voting “no.” The two yes votes were Mayor pro tem Chuck Vasquez and councilmember Greg Pettis. Sam Toles couldn’t be bothered to show up.
Now Toles has already submitted a resignation to the Council, but his actual departure date is a matter of some speculation. If being a no-show (after having assured his colleagues that he would be present by teleconference) is how Sam Toles thinks he gets his job done, then we wonder how long he can be expected to last in his new job in New York.
At all events, it really is time for Sam Toles to get off the Council and stop insulting the voters of Cathedral City by “phoning it in.” Of course, Sam Toles, who carpetbagged his way on to the Council after living in Cathedral City for less than two years, never really had any commitment to the people of this community. Instead, he traveled extensively outside the United States for his private-sector employer. Worse, while Sam Toles should have been doing the job we in Cathedral City elected him to do, he was busy looking for other lucrative employment on the other side of the country.
We have not received honest services from Sam Toles, and that ought to be a matter of some interest to the United States Attorney for the Central District of California; “honest services fraud” by a public official is a federal crime. Moreover, we have also been victimized by Mr. Toles ostentatiously moving to New York while trying to hold on to his council seat here. California law on the subject is very clear: you must reside in your constituency. Failure to do so has gotten a number of politicians, including Democratic state Senator Roderick Wright and Los Angeles councilmember Richard Alarcon into some fairly serious hot water. Wright has already been convicted, and oddsmakers predict that Alarcon will also be found guilty.
If prosecutors can have the hardihood to go after Roderick Wright and Richard Alarcon, then surely prosecutors in Riverside County can have the hardihood to go after Sam Toles. Of course, both of our New York-born councilmembers, Toles and lame-duck mayoral incumbent DeRosa, find themselves confronting swirling rumors about their residency. Already, Facebook chatter has begun to produce sharp speculation about the extent to which DeRosa really maintains a bona fide residence in Cathedral City. If the rumors are correct, and DeRosa actually primarily resides elsewhere, she, too, may potentially be subject to prosecution for non-residency.
To the extent that both Toles and DeRosa have residency issues, such issues also raise a legitimate question about the extent to which they may also be potentially subject to prosecution for honest services fraud. Do we not, as honest to God Cathedral City residents, have a right to expect that we will receive honest services from elected officials who actually live in this community? Apparently, with the New Yorkers on the Council, the answer may be “no.”
The question of medical marijuana dispensaries has been before the Cathedral City electorate for years. After much hemming and hawing, to-ing and fro-ing, and a great deal of handwringing by drug warriors peddling outdated and indefensible notions, the matter finally was before the Council for an up or down vote. Yet Buffalo native and Cathedral City nonresident Sam Toles could not even trouble himself to phone it in and permit a legitimate, up-or-down vote. Such conduct is reprehensible.
Sam Toles, it’s time for you to get your ass off the Council and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. You might also want to start looking for a competent criminal defense lawyer.
Sam Toles, it’s time for you to get off the city Council in Cathedral City with what little dignity you have left and hope that your behavior does not give federal and state prosecutors a certain incentive to make an example of your wrongful conduct.
The misbegotten political career of councilmember George Samuel Toles reached its predictable, ineluctable low point last night when his absence in New York City caused the Council to deadlock two to two on the much-discussed issue of whether to end Cathedral City’s ban on medical marijuana dispensaries, an issue that has been percolating in our community since long before George Samuel Toles carpetbagged his way onto the Council in 2010. Toles was not in Cathedral City to do the work the voters of this community had elected him to do. Instead, carpetbagging nonresident Toles was in New York on the job he took knowing that he had a prior responsibility to the people of this community.
Thus, predictably, the four council members present split right down the middle. Not surprisingly, lame-duck Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa chose to pander to her low-information religious right constituency by voting “no.” Presumptive mayoral nominee Stan Henry, a former police chief, pandered to his police union by also voting “no.” The two yes votes were Mayor pro tem Chuck Vasquez and councilmember Greg Pettis. Sam Toles couldn’t be bothered to show up.
Now Toles has already submitted a resignation to the Council, but his actual departure date is a matter of some speculation. If being a no-show (after having assured his colleagues that he would be present by teleconference) is how Sam Toles thinks he gets his job done, then we wonder how long he can be expected to last in his new job in New York.
At all events, it really is time for Sam Toles to get off the Council and stop insulting the voters of Cathedral City by “phoning it in.” Of course, Sam Toles, who carpetbagged his way on to the Council after living in Cathedral City for less than two years, never really had any commitment to the people of this community. Instead, he traveled extensively outside the United States for his private-sector employer. Worse, while Sam Toles should have been doing the job we in Cathedral City elected him to do, he was busy looking for other lucrative employment on the other side of the country.
We have not received honest services from Sam Toles, and that ought to be a matter of some interest to the United States Attorney for the Central District of California; “honest services fraud” by a public official is a federal crime. Moreover, we have also been victimized by Mr. Toles ostentatiously moving to New York while trying to hold on to his council seat here. California law on the subject is very clear: you must reside in your constituency. Failure to do so has gotten a number of politicians, including Democratic state Senator Roderick Wright and Los Angeles councilmember Richard Alarcon into some fairly serious hot water. Wright has already been convicted, and oddsmakers predict that Alarcon will also be found guilty.
If prosecutors can have the hardihood to go after Roderick Wright and Richard Alarcon, then surely prosecutors in Riverside County can have the hardihood to go after Sam Toles. Of course, both of our New York-born councilmembers, Toles and lame-duck mayoral incumbent DeRosa, find themselves confronting swirling rumors about their residency. Already, Facebook chatter has begun to produce sharp speculation about the extent to which DeRosa really maintains a bona fide residence in Cathedral City. If the rumors are correct, and DeRosa actually primarily resides elsewhere, she, too, may potentially be subject to prosecution for non-residency.
To the extent that both Toles and DeRosa have residency issues, such issues also raise a legitimate question about the extent to which they may also be potentially subject to prosecution for honest services fraud. Do we not, as honest to God Cathedral City residents, have a right to expect that we will receive honest services from elected officials who actually live in this community? Apparently, with the New Yorkers on the Council, the answer may be “no.”
The question of medical marijuana dispensaries has been before the Cathedral City electorate for years. After much hemming and hawing, to-ing and fro-ing, and a great deal of handwringing by drug warriors peddling outdated and indefensible notions, the matter finally was before the Council for an up or down vote. Yet Buffalo native and Cathedral City nonresident Sam Toles could not even trouble himself to phone it in and permit a legitimate, up-or-down vote. Such conduct is reprehensible.
Sam Toles, it’s time for you to get your ass off the Council and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. You might also want to start looking for a competent criminal defense lawyer.
Friday, July 4, 2014
THE BOOBOISIE ARE IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT AND ARE RUNNING US OVER A CLIFF.
Summary: On this Independence Day, there may not be a lot to celebrate. We seem to live in a time in which, at least according to the Supreme Court, “sincerely held belief,” even if it denies the sphericity of the earth, trumps scientific literacy and understanding. We are engaged in a headlong flight from the ideals of the Enlightenment that called forth the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. 40% of Americans reject evolution and embrace creationism. On both the left and right, anti-vaxxers and homeschoolers put their children at risk for adverse health consequences or being religiously trained but otherwise illiterate. George Clemenceau was more right than he knew what he described America as the only society that has gone from barbarism to decadence without the customary interval of civilization. The booboisie are in the driver’s seat, and they are running us over a cliff. That’s not something one prefers to celebrate on Independence Day.
This Independence Day, it’s hard to get into a mood of flagwagging American Kiplingism.
Almost twelvescore years ago, our forebears initiated perhaps the most singular and progressive work ever undertaken by the art or wit of humankind. Bringing forth what Abraham Lincoln famously described as “a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” the signers of the Declaration of Independence can have had only the faintest idea of what might become of the independent country they called into being on a sweaty, steamy, muggy Philadelphia afternoon in the summer of 1776.
Unfortunately, the idea that we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights is not one that sits well with a large number of Americans.
In the days since the Supreme Court announced its egregious Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby decision, the somber predictions set forth in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent has started to come largely true. Social conservatives —- the kind who have never quite reconciled themselves to the presence of women or people of color as first-class citizens in our American commonwealth —– now find themselves lining up to argue the extraordinary proposition that if “sincerely held belief” can trump basic scientific literacy, then “sincerely held belief” can also be invoked to allow all manner of invidious discrimination against people of color, women, and, most particularly, queerfolk.
Because in Hobby Lobby, the five male Roman Catholics who made up Court majority in that case apparently decided that it is more important that a corporation should enjoy constitutional and statutory solicitude for being wrong, as long as a corporation can veil its wrongness in a gaudy chasuble of ostensibly sincere so-called religious belief.
By declaring that so-called sincerely held beliefs trump science, the Court has given legal sanction to flat-earthers, climate change denialists, wild-eyed conspiracists, and nut cases of just about every conceivable description a wholly unjustified legal leg to stand on. The Court has also contrived to make itself complicit in America’s headlong flight from the Enlightenment ideals and principles that were so instrumental in calling forth the revolutionary document that was and is the Declaration of Independence.
Today, an estimated two fifths of Americans reject the basic notion of Darwinian evolution. Millions of Americans process a touching, yet wholly unsupported, belief in so-called Young Earth creationism. Indeed, so deep has the creationist rot penetrated our body politic that in South Carolina, a relatively anodyne measure to declare a form of mammoth to be the official state fossil has become a flashpoint for a protracted and embarrassing debate in that state’s legislature over creationism and evolution. Clearly, if unsurprisingly, there is something wrong in South Carolina.
Yet, South Carolina isn’t the only place where what H.L. Mencken famously derided as the Booboisie seems to be in control. The inmates are out of the asylum all over the country. When Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s reboot of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos played on millions of American televisions this spring, the creationist right, with some help from their friends in the Republican Party, went batshit (or, perhaps, to use Rachel Maddow’s more polite phrasing, psycho-guano) and started demanding equal time for creationist views.
And if the creationist right feels comfortable making itself look foolish going psycho-guano over Dr. Tyson’s television series, it feels equally comfortable depriving millions of Americans schoolchildren of a quality scientific education by encouraging fearful parents either to homeschool their children or to send them to sectarian schools which, in terms of the educational rigor of their curricula, are often little more than right wing Jesus madrassas. As much as left-wing anti-vaxxers have put their children at risk by subscribing to debunked and fraudulent theories about links between autism and vaccinations for childhood illnesses, right-wing homeschoolers have put their children at risk by “teaching” them only those few disprovable notions which comport with a religious right weltanschauung.
Who is to say which parent does worse by his or her child and by the body politic at large? Is it the right wing homeschooler or the left-wing anti-vaxxer? Either way, both the anti-vaccination movement and the homeschooling movement reflect the dangerous extent to which America has a willfully and deliberately turned her back on the Enlightenment. Is it any wonder why the other industrialized nations of the world look at us with a scornful wonder? Is it any wonder why, the better part of a century ago, Georges Clemenceau described America as being the only society which had gone from barbarism to decadence without the customary interval of civilization?
We are, after all, the country the treated the world to the unedifying spectacle of the Scopes monkey trial, and we are the same country that today treats the world to the unedifying spectacle of high-profile conservative politicians mouthing creationist drivel. There is something seriously wrong when Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee can blather on about Young Earth creationism, and where school boards all around the country can try to teach either outright Genesis-narrative creationism or promulgate so-called Intelligent Design curricula that are nothing more than stalking horses for Young Earth creationism. The booboisie seem to be in the driver seat; they’re running us over a cliff, and that’s not something I prefer to celebrate on this Independence Day.
This Independence Day, it’s hard to get into a mood of flagwagging American Kiplingism.
Almost twelvescore years ago, our forebears initiated perhaps the most singular and progressive work ever undertaken by the art or wit of humankind. Bringing forth what Abraham Lincoln famously described as “a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” the signers of the Declaration of Independence can have had only the faintest idea of what might become of the independent country they called into being on a sweaty, steamy, muggy Philadelphia afternoon in the summer of 1776.
Unfortunately, the idea that we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights is not one that sits well with a large number of Americans.
In the days since the Supreme Court announced its egregious Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby decision, the somber predictions set forth in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent has started to come largely true. Social conservatives —- the kind who have never quite reconciled themselves to the presence of women or people of color as first-class citizens in our American commonwealth —– now find themselves lining up to argue the extraordinary proposition that if “sincerely held belief” can trump basic scientific literacy, then “sincerely held belief” can also be invoked to allow all manner of invidious discrimination against people of color, women, and, most particularly, queerfolk.
Because in Hobby Lobby, the five male Roman Catholics who made up Court majority in that case apparently decided that it is more important that a corporation should enjoy constitutional and statutory solicitude for being wrong, as long as a corporation can veil its wrongness in a gaudy chasuble of ostensibly sincere so-called religious belief.
By declaring that so-called sincerely held beliefs trump science, the Court has given legal sanction to flat-earthers, climate change denialists, wild-eyed conspiracists, and nut cases of just about every conceivable description a wholly unjustified legal leg to stand on. The Court has also contrived to make itself complicit in America’s headlong flight from the Enlightenment ideals and principles that were so instrumental in calling forth the revolutionary document that was and is the Declaration of Independence.
Today, an estimated two fifths of Americans reject the basic notion of Darwinian evolution. Millions of Americans process a touching, yet wholly unsupported, belief in so-called Young Earth creationism. Indeed, so deep has the creationist rot penetrated our body politic that in South Carolina, a relatively anodyne measure to declare a form of mammoth to be the official state fossil has become a flashpoint for a protracted and embarrassing debate in that state’s legislature over creationism and evolution. Clearly, if unsurprisingly, there is something wrong in South Carolina.
Yet, South Carolina isn’t the only place where what H.L. Mencken famously derided as the Booboisie seems to be in control. The inmates are out of the asylum all over the country. When Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s reboot of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos played on millions of American televisions this spring, the creationist right, with some help from their friends in the Republican Party, went batshit (or, perhaps, to use Rachel Maddow’s more polite phrasing, psycho-guano) and started demanding equal time for creationist views.
And if the creationist right feels comfortable making itself look foolish going psycho-guano over Dr. Tyson’s television series, it feels equally comfortable depriving millions of Americans schoolchildren of a quality scientific education by encouraging fearful parents either to homeschool their children or to send them to sectarian schools which, in terms of the educational rigor of their curricula, are often little more than right wing Jesus madrassas. As much as left-wing anti-vaxxers have put their children at risk by subscribing to debunked and fraudulent theories about links between autism and vaccinations for childhood illnesses, right-wing homeschoolers have put their children at risk by “teaching” them only those few disprovable notions which comport with a religious right weltanschauung.
Who is to say which parent does worse by his or her child and by the body politic at large? Is it the right wing homeschooler or the left-wing anti-vaxxer? Either way, both the anti-vaccination movement and the homeschooling movement reflect the dangerous extent to which America has a willfully and deliberately turned her back on the Enlightenment. Is it any wonder why the other industrialized nations of the world look at us with a scornful wonder? Is it any wonder why, the better part of a century ago, Georges Clemenceau described America as being the only society which had gone from barbarism to decadence without the customary interval of civilization?
We are, after all, the country the treated the world to the unedifying spectacle of the Scopes monkey trial, and we are the same country that today treats the world to the unedifying spectacle of high-profile conservative politicians mouthing creationist drivel. There is something seriously wrong when Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee can blather on about Young Earth creationism, and where school boards all around the country can try to teach either outright Genesis-narrative creationism or promulgate so-called Intelligent Design curricula that are nothing more than stalking horses for Young Earth creationism. The booboisie seem to be in the driver seat; they’re running us over a cliff, and that’s not something I prefer to celebrate on this Independence Day.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
ANOTHER DeROSA/DESERT SUN HIT PIECE: A SWING AND A MISS
Summary: Another Desert Sun hit piece bylined from Tatiana Sanchez seeks again to carry sociopathic mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa’s water against councilmembers Greg Pettis and Sam Toles. According to the Desert Sun, traveling on behalf of the city is apparently a bad thing. The Desert Sun, in its contemptibly simplistic and dependably right-wing mindset, cannot or will not understand that part of what we expect our public servants to do is travel and champion our interests in the councils of regional governance where the decisions that affect our destiny are often made. Of course, it would be too much to expect any kind of careful or considerate reporting from the Desert Sun, which routinely assigns reporters to cover Cathedral City who neither know their beat nor much care about it, instead regarding covering Cathedral City as beneath them. Cathedral City residents who know the truth need to be prepared to push back hard against such propagandistic misreporting.
Tatiana Sanchez’s breathless reportage in the Desert Sun about “absenteeism” among various local city council members demonstrates once again how poorly that Gannett newspaper’s reporters know their beats, and how easily they can be bamboozled by ambitious, conniving, prevaricating politicians such as Cathedral City’s Kathleen Joan DeRosa into becoming dependable foot soldiers in local political conflicts.
The article purports to detail the attendance records of various Coachella Valley Council members. Not surprisingly, since the piece obviously was inspired by a whisper from DeRosa into the year of dipsomaniacal Desert Sun executive editor Greg Burton (with whom, oft-repeated rumor has it, DeRosa is engaged in a meretricious social and personal relationship), Sanchez has concentrated on DeRosa’s political rivals in Cathedral City, councilmember Greg Pettis and lame-duck councilman Sam Toles.
As usual for the Desert Sun, Sanchez’s reportage lacks any sort of nuance whatsoever, but appears intended to call forth a kind of visceral, condemnatory reaction from Desert Sun readers, including low information voters in Cathedral City.
If Ms. Sanchez knew her beat at all, and had she been diligent in doing her job, rather than being contends to accept spoon feeding from DeRosa, she would have understood that many council members, including Cathedral City’s Pettis, do in fact travel frequently as part of their jobs. We say this again, as part of their jobs. We constituents expect our council members to participate actively in regional governance activities. Now some Cathedral City Council members make a point of not traveling. Our question for these councilmembers is simple: are you aware that history is made by those who show up?
Since history is, indeed, made by those who show up, travel and participation in regional governance activities are critical to ensure that the views of this community are heard when the decisions that affect our destiny are made. By participating in a regional boards, commissions, and other activities, Mr. Pettis has been able to ensure over the years that Cathedral City’s voice is heard, and that Cathedral City is neither forgotten nor sacrificed on the altar of other cities’ interests when critical policy choices are made. Of course, it would be too much to expect the simplistic minds at the Desert Sun to understand any such thing.
Apparently, being uninformed, unwise, and just downright foolish is a job qualification in our local Gannett newspaper, whose editorial-page editor, James Folmer (who claims to be a California native) made a gross editorial gaffe, a few years back, referring to California’s Legislature in print as the “General Assembly.” Such a gaffe demonstrated, as if he at shouted it from the house tops, that Folmer did not know much about the community about which he presumed to editorialize.
Of course, we in Cathedral City are not without resources of our own to push back against the efforts of a bitter, frustrated sociopath of a mayor to scorch the earth to the greatest extent possible before she leaves office. It is an open secret in Cathedral City that Kathleen Joan DeRosa believes she should have been Mayor-for-Life, and that she regarded councilmember Stan Henry’s decision to run against her this fall as a personal betrayal.
Of course, DeRosa’s political viability has been declining since the fall of 2012, when voters rejected her transparent effort to pack the city Council with a permanent three-vote majority. When voters gave former councilmember Charles “Bud” England his pink slip, they knew what they were doing; they were getting rid of a dependable toady and controlled vote of DeRosa. By replacing England with Henry, voters chose a more independent voice whom DeRosa could not automatically control.
Given that DeRosa has acknowledged that she prefers to burn bridges rather than build them, and given Henry’s willingness to see things through his own eyes, and not through the prism DeRosa sought to impose on him, it was hardly surprising that the bloom should have been off the relationship between the two of them fairly soon after Stan Henry joined the Council after retiring as Cathedral City's Chief of Police. The relationship between a Mayor and a chief of police is far different from the relationship between two Council peers.
Of course, while the nuances of politics in Cathedral City matter to those of us who live here, they are apparently far too dull for reporters from our Gannett newspaper to be willing to do the due diligence to find them. The Desert Sun has never bothered to appoint a beat reporter to Cathedral City who knows well the dynamics of this community.
Indeed, Cathedral City has been ill-served by a succession of callow, naïve, and easily fooled novice journalists. More than one of these novices made it clear by both word and action that they considered being assigned to cover Cathedral City an imposition, that paying attention to this community was beneath them. That sense of condescension made such Desert Sun reporters as Rasha Aly, Bill Byron, and Tamara Sone, among others, easy targets for a sociopathic mayor for whom the telling of deliberate, politically targeted lies has become second nature.
Because we are not without resources to push back, using social media and other instrumentalities, we should do so. By pushing back, we were able to push DeRosa water carrier Tamara Sone out of Cathedral City and out of her job at the Desert Sun altogether. Additionally, we should be sending acidulous letters to the editor in sufficient number that James Folmer cannot simply spike them to satisfy his desire to protect our sociopathic mayor, or to give expression to the evident personal antipathy he entertains toward me and toward those who have dared to question his integrity and professionalism. We need to do some digging, and to bring out into the light of day the true circumstances of our mayor’s residency and to hold her accountable. If the Desert Sun cannot, or will not, make a commitment to fairness and accuracy in its reporting, then we need to push back, hard.
Tatiana Sanchez’s breathless reportage in the Desert Sun about “absenteeism” among various local city council members demonstrates once again how poorly that Gannett newspaper’s reporters know their beats, and how easily they can be bamboozled by ambitious, conniving, prevaricating politicians such as Cathedral City’s Kathleen Joan DeRosa into becoming dependable foot soldiers in local political conflicts.
The article purports to detail the attendance records of various Coachella Valley Council members. Not surprisingly, since the piece obviously was inspired by a whisper from DeRosa into the year of dipsomaniacal Desert Sun executive editor Greg Burton (with whom, oft-repeated rumor has it, DeRosa is engaged in a meretricious social and personal relationship), Sanchez has concentrated on DeRosa’s political rivals in Cathedral City, councilmember Greg Pettis and lame-duck councilman Sam Toles.
As usual for the Desert Sun, Sanchez’s reportage lacks any sort of nuance whatsoever, but appears intended to call forth a kind of visceral, condemnatory reaction from Desert Sun readers, including low information voters in Cathedral City.
If Ms. Sanchez knew her beat at all, and had she been diligent in doing her job, rather than being contends to accept spoon feeding from DeRosa, she would have understood that many council members, including Cathedral City’s Pettis, do in fact travel frequently as part of their jobs. We say this again, as part of their jobs. We constituents expect our council members to participate actively in regional governance activities. Now some Cathedral City Council members make a point of not traveling. Our question for these councilmembers is simple: are you aware that history is made by those who show up?
Since history is, indeed, made by those who show up, travel and participation in regional governance activities are critical to ensure that the views of this community are heard when the decisions that affect our destiny are made. By participating in a regional boards, commissions, and other activities, Mr. Pettis has been able to ensure over the years that Cathedral City’s voice is heard, and that Cathedral City is neither forgotten nor sacrificed on the altar of other cities’ interests when critical policy choices are made. Of course, it would be too much to expect the simplistic minds at the Desert Sun to understand any such thing.
Apparently, being uninformed, unwise, and just downright foolish is a job qualification in our local Gannett newspaper, whose editorial-page editor, James Folmer (who claims to be a California native) made a gross editorial gaffe, a few years back, referring to California’s Legislature in print as the “General Assembly.” Such a gaffe demonstrated, as if he at shouted it from the house tops, that Folmer did not know much about the community about which he presumed to editorialize.
Of course, we in Cathedral City are not without resources of our own to push back against the efforts of a bitter, frustrated sociopath of a mayor to scorch the earth to the greatest extent possible before she leaves office. It is an open secret in Cathedral City that Kathleen Joan DeRosa believes she should have been Mayor-for-Life, and that she regarded councilmember Stan Henry’s decision to run against her this fall as a personal betrayal.
Of course, DeRosa’s political viability has been declining since the fall of 2012, when voters rejected her transparent effort to pack the city Council with a permanent three-vote majority. When voters gave former councilmember Charles “Bud” England his pink slip, they knew what they were doing; they were getting rid of a dependable toady and controlled vote of DeRosa. By replacing England with Henry, voters chose a more independent voice whom DeRosa could not automatically control.
Given that DeRosa has acknowledged that she prefers to burn bridges rather than build them, and given Henry’s willingness to see things through his own eyes, and not through the prism DeRosa sought to impose on him, it was hardly surprising that the bloom should have been off the relationship between the two of them fairly soon after Stan Henry joined the Council after retiring as Cathedral City's Chief of Police. The relationship between a Mayor and a chief of police is far different from the relationship between two Council peers.
Of course, while the nuances of politics in Cathedral City matter to those of us who live here, they are apparently far too dull for reporters from our Gannett newspaper to be willing to do the due diligence to find them. The Desert Sun has never bothered to appoint a beat reporter to Cathedral City who knows well the dynamics of this community.
Indeed, Cathedral City has been ill-served by a succession of callow, naïve, and easily fooled novice journalists. More than one of these novices made it clear by both word and action that they considered being assigned to cover Cathedral City an imposition, that paying attention to this community was beneath them. That sense of condescension made such Desert Sun reporters as Rasha Aly, Bill Byron, and Tamara Sone, among others, easy targets for a sociopathic mayor for whom the telling of deliberate, politically targeted lies has become second nature.
Because we are not without resources to push back, using social media and other instrumentalities, we should do so. By pushing back, we were able to push DeRosa water carrier Tamara Sone out of Cathedral City and out of her job at the Desert Sun altogether. Additionally, we should be sending acidulous letters to the editor in sufficient number that James Folmer cannot simply spike them to satisfy his desire to protect our sociopathic mayor, or to give expression to the evident personal antipathy he entertains toward me and toward those who have dared to question his integrity and professionalism. We need to do some digging, and to bring out into the light of day the true circumstances of our mayor’s residency and to hold her accountable. If the Desert Sun cannot, or will not, make a commitment to fairness and accuracy in its reporting, then we need to push back, hard.
Friday, June 20, 2014
PLEASE, NOT ANOTHER SAM TOLES: WE NEED A TRULY COMMITTED COUNCILMEMBER IN CATHEDRAL CITY
WE NEED A TRULY COMMITTED COUNCILMEMBER IN CATHEDRAL CITY
Summary: Departing councilmember Sam Toles has managed to put his foot in it with his suggestion that the Council should appoint his mother, Carol Lang, to fill out the remaining few weeks of his unexpired term when he finally moves to New York to take up the job he was looking for while ostensibly serving this community. We have been disappointed by Toles; his commitment to this community was always thin at best; is repeated Facebook posts of his forum travel and his frequent absences from the Council left voters wondering if they got what they had been led to expect they would get in 2010 when Toles marketed himself as “the only choice” for voters. We Cathedral City voters have a right to expect that our Council members will be wholeheartedly committed to this community. We also expect that they will have far thicker skins than our two New Yorkers on the Council, Toles and lame-duck incumbent mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa. At all events, our next Council members should not have the personalities of a Sam Toles or a Kathleen DeRosa. We deserve a lot better than what we’ve had.
Departing councilmember Sam Toles’s suggestion that the city Council should appoint his mother, Carol Lang, to fill out a small fraction of his unexpired term prior to the November elections has really worked a nerve with me. That’s not how democracy is supposed to function. Because it displays a kind of unsurprising tone deafness, Toles’s pending resignation raises the issue of the extent to which Cathedral City voters should expect Toles’s successor to be more committed to this community than Toles ever was. Indeed, we may do more than expect it; we may demand it.
Let’s be blunt. Sam Toles has been a serious disappointment to this community, notwithstanding some of his more hyperventilating supporters. Voters have a right to expect that their elected representatives will make a commitment to the community that ought to preclude job hunting on the East Coast and taking a job 3000 miles away while attempting to hold on to a Council seat here in Cathedral City. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.
Of course, we probably shouldn’t have been surprised that Toles would have left us while still serving on the Council. Facebook posts from the departing councilmember were full of references to European travel on behalf of his then full-time Los Angeles-based employer, and his frequent absences from the city and from Council meetings certainly raised eyebrows in the community to which he moved in 2008 before running a highly successful marketing campaign to get himself elected in 2010 as "the only choice" we feckless Cathedral City residents had to save ourselves. He managed to market himself to the electorate over concerns in some quarters that he was carpetbagging, which he was.
Questions about Toles’s commitment to the community arose not only from the frequency of his foreign travel, but also from statements by him during the 2012 election cycle that he was contemplating his “next political move.” There has been speculation that Toles had been eyeing a primary challenge to Coachella Mayor Eduardo Garcia, the presumptive successor to current 56th Assembly District member Victor Manuel Pérez. According to sources within the Coachella political community, Toles was either warned off or chose not to pursue a candidacy in a district in which he had no name recognition.
Voters have also been disappointed by the thinness of the councilmember’s skin. Toles has a reputation for not handling criticism well. When, after having heard from Toles a whole litany of rather Republican sounding rhetoric, I expressed passing doubts about Mr. Toles’s commitment to the Democratic Party to mutual acquaintances back in 2012, Toles delivered himself of a “Valley Voice” piece in our local Gannett newspaper that constituted 12 column inches of earsplitting “he hurt my feelings” snit, in which Toles suggested that anyone with an authentic commitment to Democratic values must necessarily be some kind of “extremist.” For me, and for others in the community, it was Toles’s “macaca” moment, a gross political gaffe not to be forgotten. Toles also cemented his reputation for being unable to handle criticism by resigning in another earsplitting snit from the Energy and Environment Committee of the Coachella Valley Association of Governments early in his term. Another “macaca” moment that left his elected peers wondering about his basic fitness for office .
As disappointed as we have been by George Samuel Toles’s performance, and by his reputation for self-righteous arrogance, we have an opportunity to elect a councilmember who will be far more committed to this community than Toles ever was. At the risk of sounding parochial, perhaps it is time we elected another native Californian to the Council. Buffalo native Toles seemed happy to spend a great deal of time looking for a job in New York City rather than performing the duties his Cathedral City, California electorate expected him to perform. Now, full disclosure, Toles edged me out in the 2010 Council election, and has managed since then to be a very sore winner, impugning both my integrity and my character, calling me a “sore loser” on more than one occasion.
In truth, I did not mind leaving the Council. At a certain point, being even a bit player in a real life “Game of Thrones” becomes tiresome. What I do mind is Toles’s apparent conviction that the Council seat is his property to dispose of as he sees fit. His suggestion that the Council should gift that seat to his mother, Carol Lang, was the last thing needed to bring my disappointment with his performance and his attitude to public expression.
Council seats are not the property of their occupants. The decision on who should fill a Council seat properly belongs to the electorate, and Toles’s suggestion that the Council should simply bestow “his” seat on a member of his family betrays not only a sense of arrogant entitlement, but also a fundamental lack of understanding of how democracy is supposed to work. We, the voters, not the Council and certainly not George Samuel Toles, are the owners; we are the deciders; we get to choose, not him.
And when we exercise our right of choice, let’s make sure we don’t elect someone who has been in the city all of 22 months before stepping up to try to exploit a political opportunity. Let’s make sure we elect someone whose commitment to California and to Cathedral City is absolute and undiluted by employment out of area or by a job search on the East Coast. Let’s make sure we don’t elect another Sam Toles. Let’s also make sure we don’t elect another crony of the outgoing Mayor. Our New Yorkers on the council have not served us well. Let’s make sure we elect somebody whose heart is here, whose home is here, whose work is here, and who is truly committed to representing this community in a spirit of humility and authentic service.
Summary: Departing councilmember Sam Toles has managed to put his foot in it with his suggestion that the Council should appoint his mother, Carol Lang, to fill out the remaining few weeks of his unexpired term when he finally moves to New York to take up the job he was looking for while ostensibly serving this community. We have been disappointed by Toles; his commitment to this community was always thin at best; is repeated Facebook posts of his forum travel and his frequent absences from the Council left voters wondering if they got what they had been led to expect they would get in 2010 when Toles marketed himself as “the only choice” for voters. We Cathedral City voters have a right to expect that our Council members will be wholeheartedly committed to this community. We also expect that they will have far thicker skins than our two New Yorkers on the Council, Toles and lame-duck incumbent mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa. At all events, our next Council members should not have the personalities of a Sam Toles or a Kathleen DeRosa. We deserve a lot better than what we’ve had.
Departing councilmember Sam Toles’s suggestion that the city Council should appoint his mother, Carol Lang, to fill out a small fraction of his unexpired term prior to the November elections has really worked a nerve with me. That’s not how democracy is supposed to function. Because it displays a kind of unsurprising tone deafness, Toles’s pending resignation raises the issue of the extent to which Cathedral City voters should expect Toles’s successor to be more committed to this community than Toles ever was. Indeed, we may do more than expect it; we may demand it.
Let’s be blunt. Sam Toles has been a serious disappointment to this community, notwithstanding some of his more hyperventilating supporters. Voters have a right to expect that their elected representatives will make a commitment to the community that ought to preclude job hunting on the East Coast and taking a job 3000 miles away while attempting to hold on to a Council seat here in Cathedral City. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.
Of course, we probably shouldn’t have been surprised that Toles would have left us while still serving on the Council. Facebook posts from the departing councilmember were full of references to European travel on behalf of his then full-time Los Angeles-based employer, and his frequent absences from the city and from Council meetings certainly raised eyebrows in the community to which he moved in 2008 before running a highly successful marketing campaign to get himself elected in 2010 as "the only choice" we feckless Cathedral City residents had to save ourselves. He managed to market himself to the electorate over concerns in some quarters that he was carpetbagging, which he was.
Questions about Toles’s commitment to the community arose not only from the frequency of his foreign travel, but also from statements by him during the 2012 election cycle that he was contemplating his “next political move.” There has been speculation that Toles had been eyeing a primary challenge to Coachella Mayor Eduardo Garcia, the presumptive successor to current 56th Assembly District member Victor Manuel Pérez. According to sources within the Coachella political community, Toles was either warned off or chose not to pursue a candidacy in a district in which he had no name recognition.
Voters have also been disappointed by the thinness of the councilmember’s skin. Toles has a reputation for not handling criticism well. When, after having heard from Toles a whole litany of rather Republican sounding rhetoric, I expressed passing doubts about Mr. Toles’s commitment to the Democratic Party to mutual acquaintances back in 2012, Toles delivered himself of a “Valley Voice” piece in our local Gannett newspaper that constituted 12 column inches of earsplitting “he hurt my feelings” snit, in which Toles suggested that anyone with an authentic commitment to Democratic values must necessarily be some kind of “extremist.” For me, and for others in the community, it was Toles’s “macaca” moment, a gross political gaffe not to be forgotten. Toles also cemented his reputation for being unable to handle criticism by resigning in another earsplitting snit from the Energy and Environment Committee of the Coachella Valley Association of Governments early in his term. Another “macaca” moment that left his elected peers wondering about his basic fitness for office .
As disappointed as we have been by George Samuel Toles’s performance, and by his reputation for self-righteous arrogance, we have an opportunity to elect a councilmember who will be far more committed to this community than Toles ever was. At the risk of sounding parochial, perhaps it is time we elected another native Californian to the Council. Buffalo native Toles seemed happy to spend a great deal of time looking for a job in New York City rather than performing the duties his Cathedral City, California electorate expected him to perform. Now, full disclosure, Toles edged me out in the 2010 Council election, and has managed since then to be a very sore winner, impugning both my integrity and my character, calling me a “sore loser” on more than one occasion.
In truth, I did not mind leaving the Council. At a certain point, being even a bit player in a real life “Game of Thrones” becomes tiresome. What I do mind is Toles’s apparent conviction that the Council seat is his property to dispose of as he sees fit. His suggestion that the Council should gift that seat to his mother, Carol Lang, was the last thing needed to bring my disappointment with his performance and his attitude to public expression.
Council seats are not the property of their occupants. The decision on who should fill a Council seat properly belongs to the electorate, and Toles’s suggestion that the Council should simply bestow “his” seat on a member of his family betrays not only a sense of arrogant entitlement, but also a fundamental lack of understanding of how democracy is supposed to work. We, the voters, not the Council and certainly not George Samuel Toles, are the owners; we are the deciders; we get to choose, not him.
And when we exercise our right of choice, let’s make sure we don’t elect someone who has been in the city all of 22 months before stepping up to try to exploit a political opportunity. Let’s make sure we elect someone whose commitment to California and to Cathedral City is absolute and undiluted by employment out of area or by a job search on the East Coast. Let’s make sure we don’t elect another Sam Toles. Let’s also make sure we don’t elect another crony of the outgoing Mayor. Our New Yorkers on the council have not served us well. Let’s make sure we elect somebody whose heart is here, whose home is here, whose work is here, and who is truly committed to representing this community in a spirit of humility and authentic service.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
CUTTING AND RUNNING: THE POLITICAL MESS CREATED BY SAM TOLES'S RESIGNATION
Summary: the political mess created by the resignation of Cathedral City councilmember Sam Toles has triggered more “Game of Thrones” style politicking in Cathedral City. Speculation is rampant that Toles’s decision to cut and run may have been forced upon him by pressure from outgoing incumbent Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa and her political claque. Speculation is also rampant that DeRosa, whose term ends in December, will attempt to pack the council with her political supporters and attempt to continue to run things from behind the scenes once she is gone. Yet, as a practical matter, it may not be possible to appoint some dependable crony of DeRosa to serve out a short-term of barely 150 days before the election. It may also not be feasible to try to call a special election to fill out the unexpired terms of either Toles or Mayor pro tem. Chuck Vasquez, who has his own troubles to contend with, and who may be leaving the council as well. Since both Vasquez and Toles would have had to face the voters in November anyway, it makes no sense to waste taxpayer time or dollars on a special election. The council has functioned before at less than full strength, and it can doubtless do so again. The voters of Cathedral City should have the final say — at the regular general election already on calendar for November of this year.
News out of Cathedral City this morning is that first-term councilmember Sam Toles, who recently took a full-time job in New York City, has tendered his resignation from the council.
The resignation is not immediately effective, and is couched in so many weasel words that it leaves open the possibility that Mr. Toles may not actually leave the council for some time.
Of course, Toles’s decision to leave the council now raises a whole storm of political speculation involving him and the possible role of sociopathic “five-star-mayor” Kathleen Joan DeRosa in his decision to go.
Quite frankly, but for the “Game of Thrones” nature of local politics in Cathedral City, Mr. Toles should probably have laid down his council seat when he accepted full-time employment in Manhattan. Certainly, by remaining on the council, Mr. Toles put himself at ever-increasing risk of criminal prosecution for not residing in the constituency represents, an issue that may also confront the lame duck mayor in the future. At some point, something had to give.
And now, something has given. Six months from now, with Sam Toles gone and presumably forgotten by much of his erstwhile constituency, an objective examination of his legacy may prove less flattering to him than he and his supporters might have hoped. Considering the relative thinness of Mr. Toles’s legislative résumé, and Mr. Toles’s inability to handle criticism very well, it is doubtful that his legacy will be capable of being burnished.
Nonetheless, those of us who pay attention to Cathedral City politics are curious to know whether this sudden resignation may have been the result of pressure from the lame-duck incumbent mayor and her political claque, which has always been disturbingly ready to prostitute its own ethics to do her bidding.
Already, City Hall sources tell me, speculation is swirling that DeRosa and her claque may have applied pressure, even extortionate pressure, on Mr. Toles to depart. Speculation also has it that DeRosa and her claque will be pushing to appoint incumbent city clerk Gary Howell to fill out Mr. Toles’s unexpired term.
Such a preference is not surprising. Howell is the ultimate crony, who has been appointed to numerous remunerative boards and other bodies over the course of the last decade and a half. (Full disclosure, Gary Howell ran against me for Council in 2002 with DeRosa’s tacit support. I beat him and went on to serve two full terms as councilmember.) Howell was not elected city clerk, but was appointed to fill out the unexpired term of late city clerk Patricia Hammers, who died during the pendency of the Fair Political Practices Commission’s investigation of DeRosa’s campaign finance practices. If Gary Howell gets appointed to succeed Sam Toles, it will be not because of his qualifications, but to reward a dependable, longtime crony.
Also throwing a potential monkeywrench into matters is the possible departure of Chuck Vasquez from the Council as a consequence of the criminal proceedings currently in train against him. If Mr. Vasquez is convicted or if the matter ends with a plea bargained disposition, Chuck will have to go. If Mr. Vasquez goes, the Council will be down to a minimum quorum of three. DeRosa and her claque and allies will argue strenuously that appointments will need to be made to bring the Council up to full strength.
Such arguments, while politically convenient to DeRosa and her allies, lack strength and honesty. Indeed, there is substantial precedent for the Council functioning, and functioning adequately, at less than full strength. In November, 2004, then-Councilwoman Kathleen Joan DeRosa was elected mayor. Because she was running from a safe seat in the middle of her term, it became necessary to address the vacancy created by her election as mayor. The Council deadlocked two to two on the issue of a successor, and so, rather than appoint a successor and thus anger at least half of the constituency, the Council went for a special election.
Because of the mechanics of a special election, it was not possible to hold such an election until the late spring of 2005; the council thus met as a body of four for a period of nearly six months, with no apparent long-term damage to our local body politic.
Thus, if history be our guide, there is no immediate need to rush to an appointment when the November elections are barely 150 days away. Even getting a special election up and running this close to the regular election at which both Toles and Vasquez would have been facing the voters anyway would take a great deal of time, cost a lot of unnecessary taxpayer dollars, and produce, in the end, Council members serving terms of almost derisory shortness.
By the same token, a council of four would probably deadlock two to two on the issue of who to appoint. Toles has suggested that the Council appoint his mother to succeed him. Such a suggestion is risible. We do not appoint dynastic successions in a democratic body politic, and the question of whether the individual in question has the slightest degree of political qualifications is very much an open one. Appointing Gary Howell, who tried unsuccessfully to get elected back in 2002, and who apparently assumes himself entitled to the seat, would be a slap in the face to Cathedral city voters.
Given the impracticality of calling a special election this close to the general election, and given the very real political fallout that might result from an attempt by lame-duck DeRosa to pack the council, the only defensible course of action for the council is to abide the outcome of the November general election. Even with a council of three, there is still quorum to do business, and the integrity of the political process remains unsullied.
Of course, City Hall sources are all well-nigh unanimous in telling me that DeRosa does not intend to go gracefully or quietly when she ceases to be mayor. Her apparent intent is to try to pack the council with as many of her supporters as possible so that she can continue to influence our politics from behind the scenes. Failing that, she intends to do what she can to scorch the earth and leave as many poison pills as possible behind for her presumptive successor Stan Henry.
The only way to prevent such political shenanigans is to let the people vote at the November election provided by law. We have survived a short council before; we will survive it again. No thanks or kudos to George Samuel Toles.
-xxx-
News out of Cathedral City this morning is that first-term councilmember Sam Toles, who recently took a full-time job in New York City, has tendered his resignation from the council.
The resignation is not immediately effective, and is couched in so many weasel words that it leaves open the possibility that Mr. Toles may not actually leave the council for some time.
Of course, Toles’s decision to leave the council now raises a whole storm of political speculation involving him and the possible role of sociopathic “five-star-mayor” Kathleen Joan DeRosa in his decision to go.
Quite frankly, but for the “Game of Thrones” nature of local politics in Cathedral City, Mr. Toles should probably have laid down his council seat when he accepted full-time employment in Manhattan. Certainly, by remaining on the council, Mr. Toles put himself at ever-increasing risk of criminal prosecution for not residing in the constituency represents, an issue that may also confront the lame duck mayor in the future. At some point, something had to give.
And now, something has given. Six months from now, with Sam Toles gone and presumably forgotten by much of his erstwhile constituency, an objective examination of his legacy may prove less flattering to him than he and his supporters might have hoped. Considering the relative thinness of Mr. Toles’s legislative résumé, and Mr. Toles’s inability to handle criticism very well, it is doubtful that his legacy will be capable of being burnished.
Nonetheless, those of us who pay attention to Cathedral City politics are curious to know whether this sudden resignation may have been the result of pressure from the lame-duck incumbent mayor and her political claque, which has always been disturbingly ready to prostitute its own ethics to do her bidding.
Already, City Hall sources tell me, speculation is swirling that DeRosa and her claque may have applied pressure, even extortionate pressure, on Mr. Toles to depart. Speculation also has it that DeRosa and her claque will be pushing to appoint incumbent city clerk Gary Howell to fill out Mr. Toles’s unexpired term.
Such a preference is not surprising. Howell is the ultimate crony, who has been appointed to numerous remunerative boards and other bodies over the course of the last decade and a half. (Full disclosure, Gary Howell ran against me for Council in 2002 with DeRosa’s tacit support. I beat him and went on to serve two full terms as councilmember.) Howell was not elected city clerk, but was appointed to fill out the unexpired term of late city clerk Patricia Hammers, who died during the pendency of the Fair Political Practices Commission’s investigation of DeRosa’s campaign finance practices. If Gary Howell gets appointed to succeed Sam Toles, it will be not because of his qualifications, but to reward a dependable, longtime crony.
Also throwing a potential monkeywrench into matters is the possible departure of Chuck Vasquez from the Council as a consequence of the criminal proceedings currently in train against him. If Mr. Vasquez is convicted or if the matter ends with a plea bargained disposition, Chuck will have to go. If Mr. Vasquez goes, the Council will be down to a minimum quorum of three. DeRosa and her claque and allies will argue strenuously that appointments will need to be made to bring the Council up to full strength.
Such arguments, while politically convenient to DeRosa and her allies, lack strength and honesty. Indeed, there is substantial precedent for the Council functioning, and functioning adequately, at less than full strength. In November, 2004, then-Councilwoman Kathleen Joan DeRosa was elected mayor. Because she was running from a safe seat in the middle of her term, it became necessary to address the vacancy created by her election as mayor. The Council deadlocked two to two on the issue of a successor, and so, rather than appoint a successor and thus anger at least half of the constituency, the Council went for a special election.
Because of the mechanics of a special election, it was not possible to hold such an election until the late spring of 2005; the council thus met as a body of four for a period of nearly six months, with no apparent long-term damage to our local body politic.
Thus, if history be our guide, there is no immediate need to rush to an appointment when the November elections are barely 150 days away. Even getting a special election up and running this close to the regular election at which both Toles and Vasquez would have been facing the voters anyway would take a great deal of time, cost a lot of unnecessary taxpayer dollars, and produce, in the end, Council members serving terms of almost derisory shortness.
By the same token, a council of four would probably deadlock two to two on the issue of who to appoint. Toles has suggested that the Council appoint his mother to succeed him. Such a suggestion is risible. We do not appoint dynastic successions in a democratic body politic, and the question of whether the individual in question has the slightest degree of political qualifications is very much an open one. Appointing Gary Howell, who tried unsuccessfully to get elected back in 2002, and who apparently assumes himself entitled to the seat, would be a slap in the face to Cathedral city voters.
Given the impracticality of calling a special election this close to the general election, and given the very real political fallout that might result from an attempt by lame-duck DeRosa to pack the council, the only defensible course of action for the council is to abide the outcome of the November general election. Even with a council of three, there is still quorum to do business, and the integrity of the political process remains unsullied.
Of course, City Hall sources are all well-nigh unanimous in telling me that DeRosa does not intend to go gracefully or quietly when she ceases to be mayor. Her apparent intent is to try to pack the council with as many of her supporters as possible so that she can continue to influence our politics from behind the scenes. Failing that, she intends to do what she can to scorch the earth and leave as many poison pills as possible behind for her presumptive successor Stan Henry.
The only way to prevent such political shenanigans is to let the people vote at the November election provided by law. We have survived a short council before; we will survive it again. No thanks or kudos to George Samuel Toles.
-xxx-
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