Vorderbrueggen: Hercules in political firestorm
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 9 January 2011 — 3 comments below »
Lisa Vorderbrueggen has suddenly discovered that politics exists on this side of the hills:
Several of [Hercules'] major redevelopment projects and the intermodal station are underfunded and the redevelopment agency and the city are also millions of dollars short of what’s needed to pay bond and other obligations.
There seems no end to the political fallout.
Angry residents have mounted a recall campaign against Hercules Mayor Ed Balico, Councilman Don Kuehne and Councilwoman Joanne Ward. [...]
Hercules community activist Dan Romero wishes a recall weren’t necessary. It’s hard and it’s messy.
“But in the span of three city managers, we, as a city, are broke, and it’s embarrassing,” Romero said. “I’m not OK with what’s happening. If our leaders are not willing to do the job, then we have people who are willing to step in and do it.”
As could be expected from her limited interest in the area, Vorderbrueggen goofed significantly with one line in her column: “The city whose logo features its historic namesake dynamite company threatens to implode and blow a hole in its government.” Uhm, no it’s not. (A little research would’ve solved that.)
My impression is that the City needs to focus on getting it’s act together, getting the right people in the right places, and stop making foolish decisions like paying a million dollars (est.) to the outgoing City Manager. We need to figure out how to make much better decisions in future. Whether our waterfront actually gets developed or not, is in the balance. I’d rather have them focus on just being better managers and directors, and making better overall decisions for the sake of our City, and not just get hung up with the Waterfront development. Without better leadership, we stand to lose the waterfront, and the rest of the services a City should provide it’s citizens.Naturally I support the recall efforts for those who are not moving the City in a more positive direction.
@ Susan Tarvin — The waterfront is a private development (surrounding the planned Intermodal Transit Center). There is little reason to consider its “loss” as an element of necessary reform. Its benefits are immense; the City’s continued stonewalling of the project harms the community.
I agree with Jeff,
Correcting the problems at hand is a definite must do but moving forward on the waterfront is time critical and to important to let minor issues like hiring the next manager, Market Hall, or Sycamore North get in the way. Those things can get handled properly as soon as we have a council in place.
The city might not know how to pat its head and rub its belly at the same time but hopefully it can walk and chew gum at the same time.