Times: Former mayor says working for a city contractor won’t affect serving on finance panel
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 27 January 2011 — 11 comments below »
This is the best part:
“The council relied on information that was available at the time and up-to-date, and the decisions were made in a rational manner,” Batara said.
“To say that my involvement created the problem is a bit of a stretch.”
He described the criticism as “armchair quarterbacking.”
That is exactly right. The council screwed up. Perhaps anyone could have done better. Criticizing the council — certainly when criticism is warranted — is part of the citizens’ role in government. Armchair quarterbacking is what citizens do.
The council voting in Batara unto the Finance Ad Hoc was the business as usual in Hercules. To many times in recent years we have seen various council keep their control of projects and studies by planting their people onto committees. Why didn’t any of the council members ask the recruits if they had any business relations with Hercules. This committee was suppose to have community members with a free and clear mind, bringing in Batara will have him push his agenda and try to change the history of what occurred. This commission also gives Batara the perfect platform to use for another run at the council. Thank you City Council for setting up one of your cronies. Add Charlie Long to the Finance Ad Hoc panel and you might be able to balance the panel. I think Charlie Long’s finance background and level headed thinking would help. But last why would the City of Hercules allow a person that publicly makes bigoted statements toward another member of the community and reward that person with seat on a public panel. Lets just compound what other communities think of Hercules. By adding Batara, we are now telling everyone in the Bay Area if you want to make a bigoted statement come to Hercules and we will let you make your statement at a council meeting and then let you continue to speak for another 5 minutes and also give you a position on a vital Finance Ad Hoc panel. Thank you Hercules City Council
Three of the five members are part of the Recall movement; and Mr. Batara holds an MBA and has been CFO of at leapt one large corporation. The council was tasked to lock for advisors on financial matters and Batara’s carrier has been about finance.
What does it matter that 3 of the 5 are part of the recall movement. The recall moved will soon be a group of over 2500, fully 20% of the population. This group by and large has no conflicts with the managing of the city. Most are just citizens trying to correct problems. The recall movement is not made up of the insiders that have been running city hall. Frank Batara is.
I see no reason to view the recall as an issue in any way in regards to the choices of the ad-hoc committee. There is no conflict simply because you support the recall effort. The potential for conflict is not being raised because of Batara’s points of view. Points that he has not made clear except for his support of Ed Balico and his distrust for the media. The potential for conflict raised because he was involved in the very issues being financially reviewed and as we now know has busines with the city now, this very day.
It does not matter that he has an MBA in finance and it is obvious that he is a smart guy with strong skill sets. There are certainly other choices that have credentials equally as strong that are not conflicted from the start. A choice was to consider a candidate free and clear of past involvement verses one that was involved in the past issues. I can see NO LOGICAL REASONING that would conclude in choosing the candidate that was involved in past issues.
Very bad decision by this council to select Batara. I advise the rest of the members to watch close. I am glad C. Long is coming back and I will say that is a good decision by the 3 members of the council that voted yes.
Frank Batara is paranoid and prone to personal attacks; listen to his rant against Patrick Tang. And how many folks are going to take credit for the library!? Check out the following from 2/26/08:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgIb2j1CXpY
Looks like Ward let him exceed the 5 minute limit; that seems to be a pattern with Batara.
He may have a financial background but I do not see how he will be able to make an in-depth and objective evaluation of the financial situation.
He wont be objective because his company has a city contract for the street sweeping and he was in at the beginning of all these issues. Forget about his stupid rants, he is a fox in the hen house people. How someone can be put on a panel that is meant to help make things more transparent etc, and he has a direct connection to the city via his own livlihood is beyond me.
If Batara has such great credentials, and such a fine grasp of public finance, he should have been putting the brakes on the out of control city managers Sakamoto and Oliva. That he has those credentials makes him even more suspect. Ward may not have had the tools, knowledge or experience to ask the right questions about Catellus and Red Barn and HMU. Batara did, and he still voted for all those bad deals, he still let them sail through on the consent calendar without opening his mouth.
This was a very unfortunate decision. The Ad Hoc committee must have absolutely no financial ties to the City so right away we have a conflict of interest. In addition his demonstrationof his biases and Hitler reference indicate to me his character is suspect. I don’t know how deep his involvement was with the Red Barn decision but to be objective there should be no connections at all. The Committee serves at the will of the Council and any member can be terminated at any time. I recommended that since now it is learned he has an active business with the City of Hercules that he be disqualified under Conflict of Interest and another candidate selected.The Council has an opportunity to correct a bad decision> I certainly hope they will take advantage of that opportunity.
Well said Susan – I hope they will correct it also.
looks like mistakes are still being made….I would have expected more….I did expect more….its very disappointing to see that we still have a city council that cannot see beyond their noses…..couldn’t they figure out that this was a conflict of interest? do they really need the citizens to tell them what is right and what is not?
Anon,
I reread Lochner’s article and it looks like Batara deliberately withheld that information. I wouldn’t necessarily expect Myrna and Dan to know his connections but Kuehne and Ward have been on the Council a number of years and after all those “yes” votes I would expect them to know who works for the City. So, in my view, this is a deliberate withholding of information by an applicant. This is a very smart, well educated individual so I feel we can safely rule out this was not just an “over-sight”. So we have an otherwise qualified applicant who deliberately withheld the information indicating a conflict of interest. To me this means he is disqualified. There are three other candidates who applied and interviewed so there are options for the Council to consider and I sincerely hope they will. I think making this correction would be a very positive step, but again, this is just my own personal observation and opinion. I recommend folks read Locher’s article!