Times: Targeted by recall, two Hercules City Council members defend their records
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 2 February 2011 — 14 comments below »
Tom Lochner reports:
[Don Kuehne] said he questioned the city’s arrangement with the Oliva daughters’ company in closed session as far back as October 2009, but got no support from his fellow council members.
“Up to this fall, I was the lone voice,” Kuehne said.
He had not spoken out publicly against the arrangement or against any actions by Oliva because, he said, like in the private sector, “publicly, you support your manager until the governing body reaches a no confidence consensus.”
“As long as I am a lone voice, I cannot undermine Oliva’s authority at City Hall,” Kuehne said.
I think Don Kuehne is confused about who he works for as a council member. He says he questioned some of the Oliva actions in closed session but did not voice his disapproval in open session because he felt he needed to support the governing body. He apparently doesn’t realize that voicing concerns in a public forum would help keep the citizens of Hercules informed of the issues. That should be his primary role, not keeping peace with the other city council members. Don impresses me as an educated person who asks some good probing questions. He just lacks the ability or conviction to hold his ground.
Don’s “abstain” vote to rehire Charlie Long is a perfect example. He could not bring himself to even vote against the rest of the council when he has made it quite clear that he believes Mr. Long was fired for good cause. I don’t agree with Don on this issue, but would have respected him if he held his ground.
The Lochner article says that the council was upset with Long that he went public with the information that the Powder Keg and Hercules Fitness were behind on their rent. In the case of Hercules Fitness, they are apparently so far behind that the City (and more importantly the citizens of Hercules) is essentially providing a subsidy to their business. That might be the best business case if the building cannot be readily leased to someone else and it may be that Hercules Fitness has a reasonable recovery plan. But this is an issue that the citizens should know about and be able to voice their opinion. Otherwise it has all the appearances of a backroom deal that is easily subject to nepotism and favoritism.
This type of thinking concerns me greatly. The dictators of the world are supported by people who never speak up! Going along to get along only leads to trouble in the end. It is not showing a lack of support to ask an employee to provide more information, provide more time to consider the information, study the information and ask questions. It is not lack of support to disagree. And who was he supporting? It turns out that Hercules had in place at the time of Oliva’s hiring very specific Conflict of Interest rules which should have ruled him out as a candidate for City Manager immediately! Where was Cabral’s sage advice to the Council? Dan Romero turned up that information, which is available at City Hall. Its extremely detailed on what is regarded as a Conflict of Interest! No relative of the City Manager can have any business dealings of any kind with the City! Oliva’s daughters were running the Affordable Housing Agency, a clear violation, and that was cleared by Cabral!!!!! But Kuehne went along. So did Ward.
Support the recall!!! herculesrecall.com
A ‘yes’ vote is in support of an item, to vote ‘no’ is to say you are against. Very simple. I did not vote to put someone on the council to ‘abstain’ from voting. If they are going to do that then they might as well step down. A perfect example of this was at the last council meeting were some did not quite understand what happens when you ‘abstain’ from voting. You don’t even need to be there. Yes there are exceptions, but very few. I hope all members of the council learned something about voting at the last meeting and we will see it not happen in the future.
This is as good a place as any for this: Susan Keeffe’s contributions to the recall campaign and to the future of Hercules make her one of Hercules’ very best. Her handling of volunteer operations for the recall campaign show her to be a skilled organizer and manager. I propose that we draft Susan to run to fill the vacancy that Don Kuehne’s departure will leave. Kuehne clearly must go; why not replace him with someone who’s incredible?
You have my vote for Susan!!
“[P]ublicly, you support your manager until the governing body reaches a no confidence consensus.” No, Mr. Kuehne. Publicly, you do your job and vote against policies that are not in the best interest of your constituents. Rubber stamping is not your job. There is a reason why all five council member’s votes are recorded, instead of just any three “ayes.” Council members and other government officials expressing their concerns over government policy is a big part of what makes a democracy function properly. Hiding behind the recalcitrance of the other council members and concealing the failures, shortcomings, and other irregularities that supposedly concerned you privately, all in the name of not “undermin[ing] Oliva’s authority at City Hall,” is not your job. In fact, it is the opposite of your job.
It is all well and good that you were (supposedly) “the lone voice’” in private council meetings, but where the rubber meets the road is when you are sitting in your comfy seat in open session, in the council chambers, and cast your vote. Not understanding that most basic precept of representative democracy betrays a staggering ignorance of our government.
Glenn,
Thanks but no thanks! I can’t handle all those night meetings. I didn’t get involved for a personal agenda. I will be happy to support good candidates and happily go back to watching events on TV!
So Kuehne claims to have been the “lone voice” questioning inappropriate actions/decisions? Where was Joanne Ward when he was voicing his dissent? Is he saying she willingly went along while he was the only one to question things? I wonder if she has the same recollection of Kuehne being the “lone voice” during those meetings? For someone to be the “lone voice” he sure didn’t do a great deal for the citizens of Hercules. From his statements, it seems like Kuehne is grasping at straws to save his own ass and he is willing to throw Joanne Ward under the bus to do it. Says a lot about his character.
I sit here aghast reading Kuehne’s ‘lone voice’ oratory. Disgusting to say the least. Mr Bright and Ms. Keefe, I applaud and completely agree with you regarding your synopsis of Mr. Kuehne’s take on matters. Anonymous, it is true, Mr. Kuehne did not do a great deal for the citizens for Hercules by not dissenting at ‘open’ council meetings. All he had to do was say NO instead of AYE. He never did. We the public would have seen this recorded openly and now, perhaps would not be recalling him. By not voting NO in open council meetings, I totally throw out his ‘woe is me’ sympathy card and can only hope he realizes he needs to remove himself from office before it is officially done for him via recall.
It is interesting how casually Kuehne talks about having had these discussions in closed session. That has been the essential problem for years, that all major decisions are made in closed session, reserving time at City Council meetings for reports of which members attended which community barbeques or scouting award ceremonies. Issues such as the awarding of multi-million dollar contracts are supposed to be discussed in the open, in front of the public. Our City Council has never understood this requirement of the law and of their responsibility to the citizens of Hercules.
You know what is really unfortunate about all of this – that Kuehne will hold out and not resign, because he is actually the ignorant party here. He does not believe that he has done anyhing wrong. WE CAN AND WILL CONTINUE TO POINT OUT WHY HE IS BEING RECALLED, BUT HE JUST WONT SEE IT. Such a shame because what it will ultimately do is make him a laughing stock in Hercules – a place where he and his wife and family will have a hard time showing there face. How sad. He can do the right thing – like Balico and resign. I still am angry about Balico and all he has done, but at least he had the intelligence to know when he was beat and resign – save his family and move on. Mr. Kuehne – its your turn. By the way – the more you talk, the bigger the whole you dig. Keep talking!!!
Nothing else than another tool to distract the recall process and hopefully for Mr. Kuehne, a way to promote himself as the only one against Oliva behind the scene, therefore removing the need to be recalled.
My answer is: The 5-0 votes for years on everything are what the residents saw, not the so-called “behind doors disagreements” with previous CM.
That would have been an excellent idea to translate that into Council with a 4-1 vote, but we did not see that.
Politicians are judge from what they did, wrote or said, not from what they should have done.
Let the voting record speak for itself. Has either of the Council members voted against the issues they now state that they were against?
There is no doubt we will collect the necessary signatures for the Recall. The interactions with the public, as reported by all our volunteers, has been overwhelmingly supportive and positive. We are hoping we can collect enough to make the deadline for the general election on June 7th or possibly June 14th so as to save the City money. Otherwise, it will be a special election. For all readers please encourage your friends, neighbors, relatives to sign the petition. We will have a station set up again this Saturday outside City Hall. Look for a car with baloons and signs! Volunteers will be collecting there all day Saturday. Volunteers are also continuing at scattered locations around the City. And as always, go to herculesrecall.com.
Thanks to everyone for your support! Please keep the votes and donations coming!