Delgado, Romero Running for City Council
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 1 July 2010 — 7 comments below »
John Delgado and Dan Romero will both be running for City Council this November. It is officially a horse race. Planning Commissioner Myrna de Vera has already announced her candidacy, and both incumbents — Kris Valstad and Joe Eddy McDonald — are assumed to be running although neither have announced their intention to do so.
Delgado lost in a recount in the 2008 election. Romero has established himself as a vocal critic of the current City Council (to the point that the City Attorney develops the urge to tase him). Both represent change with respect to City transparency and accountability, however both also have their faults. Delgado has been mostly non-existent in the city since his 2008 loss, and Romero has a tendency to be anti-growth and anti-tax, at least in his public comments during meetings, although he has not yet released a platform.
It is also not yet clear if Delgado and Romero plan on running separately or as a slate.
Ms. de Vera has on occasion shown herself to be independent but all too often she appears to be another one of Ed Balico’s “worker bees”. I suggest that given everything that’s happened, i.e. the Grand Jury report; “Tasergate”, all the money being directed to Nelson Oliva’s friends and relatives; that real; change is needed. I’d like to see all five of the current members and their clones out in November, but will settle for getting Dan and John — a great start to open City government.
Hercules, compared to other West Contra Costa cities, has done pretty well for the past decade. This, however, does not mean that we have a perfect local government. A lot of things need to be tweaked and changed. Primary to this may be the attitude and culture pervasive in city hall that needs to be refreshed.
Changing everyone in the current local government as suggested for change’s sake is not the answer.
Some of the current officials have been responsible in developing places like Victoria By the Bay, Promenade, etc and envisioning the waterfront, the train station, the ferry. The new downtown Hercules that would be finished by next year and the proposed New Town Center have all been hashed out by some of these officials.
Should the proposal to put in new people without much thought as to their competence or demonstrated commitment to the City of Hercules be accepted by the majority, then we may end up with a digressed community. It is easy for some candidates to say”Let us change” but it can turn into truly disastrous governance if incompetent, non-committed candidates are chosen..
Myrna de Vera has shown her commitment and competence in ushering change in her own small ways. Unbeknownst to a lot, her independent ways of thinking and actions have resulted in some flak thrown her way. Quietly, she has withstood her share of arguments and clashes that someone else would have grandstanded.
I would suggest keeping an open and rational thought process when we vote this November and not get carried away by emotional, knee-jerk responses.
Mr. de Vera’s thoughtful comments and well articulated points are exactly what we in Hercules need to see over the next few months. There is substantial reason to suspect that our City’s government is being run in private. Agencies that fail to operate in the open deny the public the opportunity to participate. That’s exactly what seems to be going on with our City Council. Let us have open debate about the issues and the qualifications (or lack of qualifications) of the candidates. The things revealed by Tom Lochner and the Grand Jury strongly suggest that all too much of the peoples’ business is being done without the peoples’ input. The various projects in process or on the drawing board represents $500 million dollars. Somebody is going to make a lot of money I’m wondering who that “somebody” is?
The early betting line (one person’s opinion) predicts the following results for the Hercules City Council race
1. Myrna de Vera
2. John Delgado
3. Kris Valstad
4. JoeEddy McDonald
5. Dan Romero
Ms deVera and Mr Delgado present very well in public and the voters will decide that they are the types of people that they want representing Hercules, both locally and regionally. Mr Valstad and Mr McDonald will be caught up in the ‘anti-incumbent” movement that is sweeping the nation. Mr Romero is too angry and will need to offer a positive tone if he wants to place any higher.
All of this is subject to change as November is still a distance away.
Hi Mr. de Vera:
Read your comments with interest.
I agree with much of what you said, but ultimately I think things need much more than “tweaking”.
And while your point is well taken that we don’t want incompetent, non-committed candidates to gain office, I don’t think Delgado or Romero, or your wife for that matter, fall into that category.
The council needs new blood; not one of the sitting councilmembers has raised an objection to what is going on.
The “good deeds” you attribute to sitting councilmembers are not enough to consider their further retention.
These good deeds are more the product of dedicated city staff and citizens (remember the charette), so there is a question as to how much credit they deserve for the various development projects.
It can be fairly argued that they are also responsible for much of the delay in the development of the Waterfront, as plans have been shifted to meet the whims of councilmembers, and architects and project managers with ties to city officials have been brought in as “consultants” to provide “oversight” and ended up mucking things up in a horrible way while siphoning off hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees (remember Szabo?).
Let’s not forget Walmart. Again, the council going off on their own without regard for the public, making overtures to Walmart that resulted in Walmart buying Parcel C and the city having to litigate its way out of the mess, once the council realized they screwed up. I think Herculeans would be shocked to know how much was spent in legal fees and costs related to the settlement of the matter, all completely unnecessary had the council been paying attention in the first place to the concerns of the citizens.
I hope Myrna will agree to embrace specific reforms meant to address the “stench” and when elected vigorously pursue ethics in local government. There really is no excuse for what is going on here in Hercules. If elected she needs to speak out strongly against this monkey business. Trying to do things quietly won’t work. She will need to NOT vote in lock step with these rogues.
I mentioned in a previous post another city that has been involved in controversy.
That city is Piedmont.
When the citizens got upset over cost overruns on a public works project that would have to be paid for by taxpayer money, rather than try to sweep it under the rug or promise that “everything will be clear” some day, city officials agreed to convene a board of inquiry that included not just city officials but citizens and retired superior court Judge Ken Kawaichi. They are addressing the issues head on. Granted, the issues are not of the magnitude as what we have here in Hercules. But because they take seriously the public trust, Piedmont officials will get to the bottom of it …. without the grand jury, without the DA.
Not so here in Hercules, where the game is to hide the ball and ignore the concerns of the citizens.
It really is simple. Hercules needs a quorum of city councilmembers who care enough about ethics to take appropriate steps that will prevent city officials from doling out public money for the benefit of cronies and family. Right now, there is not one councilmember with an independent voice. It is only fair to consider alternatives to the status quo. I am happy that Myrna is running, and I look forward to hearing from her how she plans to address the current problems.
Ditto to Patrick’s comments
Patrick as always right on target.
I would like to see some open town hall meetings with the each to find out more about them and ask tough questions.
It would also be interesting to have more than one debate.