It is said that the cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Are we spending too much time on the investigations into the events that have recently happened at City Hall? This is a question that is being posed in the community. Let’s look at the cost: the Cisco investigation was $150,000, the Norcal scandal, so-called Garbagegate, was at a $100,000 limit, and the Terry Gregory affair was a bargain at $60,000. The Gregory investigation ended in his resignation after a very late response by the mayor and council. In the Cisco affair, the plug was pulled by the council at what many thought was the penultimate moment.
There is an independent investigation into the garbage contract that could lead to some very interesting revelations. As Chuck Reed commented a few days ago, “I think it is a function of trying to give a higher level of confidence for the public.” Ya think?! Reed has been excellent in all these matters, looking at the sensible way to proceed, except for his one uncharacteristic vote to close down the Cisco investigation. He knows very well that the public confidence in City Hall is at an all-time low. Moving forward would have helped.
Not that the crises is sinking in with all the council. In the same November 21, 2005 front page Mercury News story (“Ethics Probes Carry Price Tag”), Council Member Ken Yeager said, “ If it ever looks like it’s going to touch the council and the city manager’s office, then it makes more sense to use somebody else.” I would respectfully suggest to Mr. Yeager that past councils often chose the more direct method of doing some of the work that they were charged to do when they were elected. Kicking the can down the road may be particularly painless, a la Gregory, but it is not the route of courage or of restoring confidence in the council. Doing your job might be alien to this council but how can they know if they don’t try it.
Again, understanding that the true cynic does not know the value of anything, but does know the price, it would be good if the people at City Hall started off the new year with a resolution: “Suck it up and try doing what is best for the city.” You may find that it is also the most politically astute way to deal with the crises in confidence that the city is now suffering. Remember also the first law of holes, if not cynics – please stop digging.
Thanks for the new vocabulary word….“penultimate”, without it this article was a complete waste of my time.
Spartan
Happy to be of vocabulary service. And I watched your team lose to Santa Clara at the buzzer last night – a bit of sports to make this site more meaningful to you. Don’t be a cynic. TMcE
The plethera of ethics laws, rules, processes and investigations makes criminals of every public official.
To paraphrase Bum Phillips there are two kinds of politicians, those that have violated the law and them that will violate the law.
We have created a cottage industry of lawyers, accountants, journalists and investigators whose sole goal in live is to send some “crooked” politician up the river.
It makes for great headlines, but it makes government inefficient snd public officials paranoid.
The ethics rules and laws differ in every government jurisdiction. As we have over 4000 governments in the State of California alone, the ability of public officials to inadvertently violate ethics rules in infinite, especially since we make them responsible for the actions of third parties.
Many of these ethics rules and laws conflict, many have different or overlapping enforcement agencies. Filling out an Fair Political Practices Report takes a researcher, an accountant and a lawyer.
Many, people complain about the money in campaigns, but a relatively high percentage of dollars now goes to accountants, lawyers and fundraisers who are charged with ensuring compliance with the various laws. A simple inquiry by the District Attorney or Fair Political Practices Commission can cost thousands of dollars in accounting bills and legal fees.
And the enforcers don’t care. Many times it is cheaper to pay a fine for something you didn’t do than to fight it in Administrative or Cour proceedings. The headline that follows gives the impression somebody did something wrong.
What we need is transpency, not new laws or enforcement. We need to be more sophisticated on our definition of corruption.
One extreme instance, no one has shown me any harm that has come to the residents of San Jose based on the deal made by Joe Guerra with NorCal, despite the sensationlist headlines and fodder for this blog.
People have argued that the additional money given NorCal was a “gift”. Even if that were so, NorCal’s price for garbage pick-up (including the gift) was still lower than the second bidder.
Is the price of the NorCal investigation worth the cost to the City? Is Ron Gonzales removal for office a necessity because he and his aide failed to follow an cumbersome and expensive process of rebidding the contract?
Certainly they made mistakes, but the real fault lies in a system that requires process before efficiency.
Is the investigation into NorCal worth the price? Call me a cynic, but I say nay.
But I agree with Tom, we must look at ethics in a global sense, reduce the number of overlapping and onerous laws, yet provide the necessary transparency in government the public requires.
Mr. Robinson,
Your statement that ethics rules and laws differ with every jurisdiction must mean you believe in ethical conduct by decree and not by an individual’s core values of right and wrong.
It is a sad commentary on city government if ethical behaviour must be legislated, and I think perhaps that’s what is wrong with the current political and administrative leadership at city hall.
Good to have Rich back, even if he continues to defend the Gonzo school ethics as merely getting confused by the rules. The GG boys knew exactly what they were doing—they weren’t bogged down, confused, or anything else by the rules. They just decided the rules don’t apply to them and the Council, City Manager, and the public have let them get away with it time after time.
It is amazing that one can dismiss the secret, back room dealings of the Gonzo boys as just doing business and the rules got in the way. If it weren’t for a “special” council and a lackey city manager, these guys would have gone long ago. If these guys were ethical and followed a few simple rules we wouldn’t have to have investigations in the first place.
Elected officials who make a mistake in attempting to follow the rules/laws is one thing. Guys like Gonzo who no intention of following the rules is another and they deserve every punishment coming to them.
Next is Rich going to defend “poor” Duke Cunningham for getting bogged down in those complicated bribery “rules.” A gift of public funds is not much better than bribery. It’s just a matter of whom is giving and whom is taking.
Spartan –
Just because your school sucks don’t take it out on us!
Those fifteen words contained in the first sentence of reply #3 identified Rich Robinson to a certainty usually attainable only with a DNA sample. Good thing he lives on the right side of the law—had he got into the kidnapping business the cops would have picked him up minutes after reading his very first ransom note.
Though there may be a lot of truth to what he claims about the “plethora of ethics laws, rules, processes and investigations” clogging up the political process, what he didn’t say is that there is no plethora of politicians sitting in our jails. And by omitting that fact he left out of his argument a key piece of supporting evidence, that being that the existing approach to reform is hopelessly ineffective. It is an omission that is understandable. After all, as a political carnivore it is not in Mr. Robinson’s best interests to admit that many of those putting meat on his table belong in jail.
But should he be forgiven for writing the following?
“One extreme instance, no one has shown me any harm that has come to the residents of San Jose based on the deal made by Joe Guerra with NorCal, despite the sensationlist headlines and fodder for this blog.”
Nah. If he doesn’t see the harm it’s only because he won’t take his eyes off the accounting ledger. Very safe place, that bottom line. Of course, there is no deficit entry in that ledger for compromised city management, usurped council authority, or deceived taxpayers.
If the end justifies the means at the highest levels of city government, then what message does that send to the lower levels? It was bad enough that so many rules were ignored during the construction of the new city hall, but imagine if that wink ‘n nod philosophy penetrates our public safety services? Does anyone want a fire department that falsely reports its staffing levels to keep an insurance rating? Or a police force that skirts the Constitution whenever a criminal is caught in the act? After all, where’s the harm when someone’s guilt is beyond doubt?
No coronation was held the day Ron Gonzales took office, no matter his thoughts to the contrary. He has since broken the rules and demeaned the office of mayor. That’s the bottom line.
And that’s real harm.
Aline,
That was my point. . .
ohno,
You can’t defend Duke, but I have on a number of occassions defended Tom DeLay.
Though I despise him personally and politically. Delay seemed to use the rules at his disposal to funnel money to candidate’s he supported.
Whether he is technically guilty of a crime will be determined, but Democrats should not be self-rightious in their condemnation, for every Caucus, interest group, congressman, congresswoman, the DNC, the DCCC and the DSCC try in everyway possibel to get money to candidates within the letter of the law—not the spirit.
If Delay committed a crime, there is a good chance individual Democrats attempting the same ends did as well. The real problem may not be in the actions, but in the need to get around the rules to fund a campaign.
Finfan,
Many advances in government are prevented by the elaborate systems put into place to ensure integrity.
If before you went to a store to buy milk you had to have every vendor who sells milk submit a RFP, had a committee of bureaucrats evaluate the milk, the price and terms by which you could consume it, then pass that recommendation on to an elected body who further scrutinized the deal—your milk would cost far more than it is worth.
That is what is happening in government, to insure we have the best deal at the lowest price and that the purchase of anything was not “influenced” by money, we are paying far more than we should for services we are receiving.
Joe and Ron tried to alleviate this absurdity and many feel it was unethical and illegal.
However, by the time they had gone through the “correct” process we might all be drinking sour milk or standing in the stench of uncollected garbage.
But put them in jail—another enormous cost to taxpayers for no apparent reason.
Rich,
It is interesting but weak defense that you as a political consultant complain about the ” plethera of ethics laws, rules, processes and investigations makes criminals of every public official. “
Who wrote all these ethics laws – politicans and their political consultants
Why were additional ethics laws written –
because after past scandals and ethics violations where city / county / state / federal attorney’s found that the prior ethics laws were unenforceable or had convenient loopholes so that there were no ethics violations. The public / voters who could clearly see the ethics violations demanded the same politicans and their political consultants fix the ethics laws – so more laws were written again by politicans who left more convenient ethics loopholes
The ethical behavior of public officials, in a democracy, is the touchstone of governmental accountability and is a vital component in the maintenance of citizen trust and confidence in public institutions.
Does anyone other than you trust Ron and Joe or think their are ethical?
The growing crisis in the ethical behavior of our elected leaders is widely apparent especially in San Jose.
The Gonzales-Guerra administration has the worst recent San Jose government record of actual and apparent ethical impropriety as well as individual and official unethical and immoral behavior.
Your weak defense of their record as – doing no harm ( in the Norcal garbage contract ) by taking ” shortcuts” or being confused about the rules of conduct or the ethics laws shows how unethical political consulting and the current political process has become in San Jose.
If the current ethics laws and systems are the problem then change them but as most of us have seen is is not the current laws and suystems but the people who manulapulate the system or write the loophole ethics laws
Abraham Lincoln ” You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time ”
Politicians and their Political Consultants are the ethics problem, not the solution
You might also want to stop fooling yourself that a ethics problem does not exist in San Jose and other governments
PC,
It is easy to say that everybody is corrupt—it’s just untrue and intellectually dishonest.
You are right, politicians do write the laws.
Here is how it works in real life.
The Mercury News finds something they believe to me unethical and they write a story.
This is followed by an editorial calling for clean government.
The local politician, sure that he has the backing of the SJ Mercury News couragiously calls for an investigation—even though most of the facts are known. (See Cortese, Reed).
The other politicians, so as not to be seen as unethical, agree to a process, investigation etc.
An investigation takes place—something is found—usually the same problem already explained in the first news article. Politicians seek to understand the issue.
Once understood, new policies, procedures and laws are enacted—to the delight of politicians, good government officials and the public.
Repeat the cycle for State Government, County Government, Regional Government, other City Governments.
Result: a morass of confllicting ethical standards that each politician must independently evaluate and assess.
Here is a great catch-22. A City Councilmember cannot accept more than $500 for his or her race—but if they run for State Assembly the rules are different.
So they start collecting $5,000 checks for their Assembly Race. What is the point? Are they any more or less likely to sell themselves for $500 or $5000.
As the punchline goes, we’ve already established that—now we are just talking price.
That’s why transparency is important. If everybody knows what everybody else is getting you don’t worry so much about someone being overly “influenced”. If they are, then some smart political consultant is going to use it against them in their next campaign.
I guarantee it. . .
Rich—One of us just doesn’t get it. As I understand it, NorCal underbid their contract, then made a secret deal with the GG twins, that in effect made a gift of public funds to make up the difference in their bid and what they said was their actual cost of doing business. It stinks to me and not just because it deals with garbage.
OhNo,
The part you’re not getting is that this involves south bay labor, their council lapdogs, and assorted lobbyist apparatchiks.
My dream would be to see GG close out the last day of their term riding off into the sunset in a NorCal garbage truck.
How appropriate that would be?
Mr. Robinson,
If that was your point, why precede it with blah, blah, blah. Be succinct, Man.
Oops, I forgot. You’re a consultant and probably get paid by the word.
The City Manager’s office is not asleep at the switch. That would imply that they didn’t know what was going on and were simply victims. The manager enables the Mayor to circumvent the City Charter and the Council looks the other way. It would be better if these folks were asleep at the switch. At least then we could just chalk upthe state of City Hall to incompetence. Unfortunatley it is much worse than that. They know exactly what is going on and they carry out the orders. For the most part, anyone with integrity left the manager’s office long ago. Only the loyal soldiers and those desperate for a job remain. What professionalism is left is ignored. The sooner Gonzbert goes the better off we will be.
Mr. Warner,
Given that my anonymity offends you, please feel free to ignore my comments. Actually I would prefer that, given the inaccuracy of your analysis. To interpret my response today as a “personal attack on Robinson” is absurd. I challenged his words—something I would have done whether he posted under his true name or not. That I acknowledged Mr. Robinson’s occupation in how I posed my argument does not make it a personal attack.
But I see now that you belong amongst the ranks of those who object to a forum where only ideas matter. Well, if you haven’t already started ignoring me, I wonder if you could tell me exactly how valuable your post (#13) was to the issues being discussed? You had a chance to respond to any one of the many intelligent posts above but you instead chose to jump in and condemn me not for my words but for my anonymity. Bravo! The fact that you signed your post with your real name and an email link changes nothing: your post was a waste of space.
The folks at the San Jose Mercury News use their real names everyday but they seldom say anything worth reading. We know the names of our important political leaders but they seldom say anything that is absolutely true. In today’s politically correct world, only the anonymous voice can afford to always be brutally honest about what he knows and thinks and feels. Maybe that’s too much for some of you. Perhaps the world is a bit less frightening when everyone wears a name tag and is thus susceptible to personal ruin for questioning the approved truth. As history has demonstrated time and time again, it is a whole lot easier to discredit a speaker than it is the truth he speaks.
The day SanJoseInside bans anonymous posters is the day it will cease to be interesting.
Finfan,
No offense taken. I chose my profession and understand the stereotype most uninformed people have of it.
But do come out of the shadows. The only thing you have to fear is fear itself. If I can get away with my postings and still survive, you can too.
Aline—Point taken
PC—replace the wordd politician/s with voters/citizens/people and we will agree.
If your looking for fault, look to the masses.
“Frustrated finfan” in item 17 above seeks to have us ignore the fact that he often speaks in a high moral or ethical voice. And that’s a problem because one of the key requirements for the moral & ethical voice is that the speaker be identified. It’s called transparency, and readers are entitled to know the speaker’s identity when he makes proclamations in the name of higher morals or ethics.
How do we know that “frustrated finfan” is not a competitor of Robinson’s, eager to undermine his community standing?
How do we know if the remarks by “frustrated finfan” really reflect some kind of agenda, political or financial or personal?
We already know that “frustrated finfan” is content to have another person publicly accused of being him, and then to quite unethically allow the accusation to stand in the public square.
No anonymous gentleman would allow another person to be named in his place without clarifying the situation. That’s unethical.
Rich,
The Norcal deal with Gonzo and Guerra was more than trying to avoid “…process before efficiency.” The G Team were cooking up a way to get brownie points from the unions, a political chit from Norcal and advantage over the City Council by controlling the information. The City Manager was serving the Mayor’s office, rather than the full Council and the community at large. That’s what makes the general public suspicious about the many “insider” deals at City Hall.
YeahRight,
That may all be true. But they still got San Jose the best deal on garbage pick-up.
There is nothing illegal about trying to cater favor with an interest group, enhancing the power of your office through information dissemination or yanking on the chain of a bureaucrat.
That’s called politics. While you might not agree with them, to the Mayor and Joe these factors might have made the deal even more attractive from their standpoint.
Rich,
Gonzo and Joe want to exercise the power of a strong Mayor form of government without the political effort to involve voters or the repercussions when things go sideways. Jerry Brown got elected and changed the Oakland City Charter to place him in a position to hire and fire the City Manager and Oakland Departmen heads. Jerry did not pull a fast one on the Council or the public. He took an initiative to Oakland voters and changed the Charter to reflect a strong Mayor form of government. That’s (ethical and open) politics!
Mr. Warner (#21),
1. I don’t seek to have anyone “ignore” anything. How a reader interprets the words posted under the pseudonym of Frustrated Finfan has more to do with the individual reader than it does with me. For example, should I opine that affirmative action cannot be justified because it victimizes the innocent, one reader might interpret my argument as moral, while another will read the same words and conclude that I am a racist.
2. A “moral or ethical voice” is required to be nothing other than moral or ethical. If a couple of citizens are kicking the hell out of a captured thief, it doesn’t really matter who it is amongst the onlookers that yells, “That’s enough!” All that matters is that the voice is heard.
3. “Readers” are entitled to nothing other than a message of substance—something with real content. The cheap name-calling that occasionally surfaces here is out of place, but other than that all I see is a free, healthy exchange of ideas.
4. Your “how do we know” argument is weak. If readers want to spend their time speculating or fretting over who it really is behind one pseudonym or another, that’s their choice. Paranoia is not a crime.
5. What I notice most about those who vigorously attack my anonymity is that they seldom challenge my opinions, which convinces me that what they really long for is a flesh and blood individual they can slander and libel. I don’t put you, Mr. Warner, in that category for the simple reason that the name-calling, finger-pointers have previously accused you of being Frustrated Finfan. I understand your position, but please, tell me you saw through that cheap tactic. By accusing you, someone with opinions contrary to theirs, they hope to shame me, an anonymous voice with opinions they loathe, to surface. Allowing them to succeed in this would have nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with stupidity.
6. “No anonymous gentleman would allow another person to be named in his place without clarifying the situation.” C’mon, Mr. Warner, the matter was not all that serious. It wasn’t as if paternity was at stake.
Anonymity is not a problem on this site (or any). In fact, if everyone used a pseudonym when posting, all these problems would disappear. Nonetheless, how each person posts is, as we know, a matter of choice. And I have made mine.
Finfan Can’t Come Clean…
Unfortunately, “frustated finfan” continues to fail to do his gentlemanly duty and clarify that I am not he. Had he the grace to have an email address, we could have communicated privately and arranged for him to clear my name of his opinions.
To refresh his memory, postings #30 and #32
on 11/16/05 identified me as “frustrated finfan.” As a gentleman, much less one who upholds morals & ethics, he would have long since cleared this matter up.
His statement that those posters were using a “cheap tactic” is not good enough at all. And I’ll continue to ask him to clarify his intentions until he makes a persuasive statement that he and I are most certainly not the same person.
Mr. Warner,
Take a look at what you wrote:
“And I’ll continue to ask him to clarify his intentions until he makes a persuasive statement that he and I are most certainly not the same person.”
I would be happy to make a “persuasive statement” that you are not me, but I simply can’t stop laughing at what you wrote. To prove I am a good sport, however, here are a few suggestions:
1. Have a loved one go into the next room and loudly summon “Frustrated Finfan.” If you react by looking around to see who, if anyone, responds, or perhaps by simply ignoring the call, that should help you figure out that you are not me. (If you do respond, no need to panic; they are doing marvelous things with psych drugs these days.)
2. Should you be too embarrassed to reveal your dilemma to anyone else, try this: take out your driver license, confirm that it belongs to Dale Warner, memorize the face of the person pictured, sneak up on a wall mirror, then pop-up in front of it real fast (that way the mirror won’t have time to trick you again). The reflected image should be you.
3. If another encounter with a mirror is too daunting a prospect, then I suggest you take a look at posts 7, 17, and 25 above, and try to remember if you wrote them. If the writing style does not look like yours, and the opinions are contrary to those you hold, then there is no reason for you to be confused about whether you are Frustrated Finfan.
4. Lastly, if short term memory is not a problem for you, try to visualize the content at this website, then click on it and go there.
http://www.degeneratepress.com/identity_crisis/images/identity_crisis.jpg
If what you see is a total surprise to you, then this email couldn’t have been sent by you, and that should give you the proof you seek.
What if frustrated finfan had been using a proper sounding name such as “Richard Williams”. Who would know that he was not who he said he was? Would those obsessed with finfan’s identity now be asking for his passport or driver’s license?
By the way “Richard Williams” is a famous pseudonym in the southern part of San Jose. The name was used by a Calpine project manager posting comments to a community web site. Nobody knew or cared until “Mr. Williams” started posting untruths that opponents of Calpine’s power plant beat a CAISO engineer unconscious in the parking lot of city hall. After some sleuthing he was exposed in the Mercury News.
One telling difference between “frustrated finfan” (see #7 above) and Richard Robinson is that Robinson comes out and says what he thinks and gives his name. “Frustrated finfan” wants to attack posters like Robinson without telling us who he is.
That alone is sufficient difference to allow us to ignore “frustrated finfan” and his personal attack on Robinson, his views, and his clients.
“Frustrated finfan” seems to be claiming the higher moral ground in his assessments, but how can this be true when he hides his name and provides no email address. How ethical is that?
Novice – Oh, I get it all right. You are correct about the labor influence. This is definitely a labor deal that Gonzo decided he would get in the middle of. That’s the reason that Cindy has been so quiet about this and why she has supported it. Not only do we, the taxpayers, get stuck paying for a union issue, we also get reduced service. Pretty good deal the Mayor brokered—free money to appease the union and reduced service for us.
Tom, let’s continue to spend the time and money necessary to ferret out the bad deals, those that affect all San Jose residents in one way another. In these lean times, I think we could fire the entire City Manager staff and spend the money, instead, on investigating backroom chicanery. After all, the City Manager staff doesn’t appear to add any value… seems as though they’re asleep at the switch whenever a bad deal comes to light.
Rich,
I did not say every politican or political consultant was corrupt or unethical just part of the government ethics problem.
Most politicans are good ethical individual people but we have a few that are not and a few more that because they do not follow the ethics rules, as confusing as their fellow politicans have make them, have the appearancce of being unethical
The Gonzales -Guerra administration has for their own political ambitions, abusive political management style and inflated egos gone beyond misunderstanding the ethics rules to use the existing political system to abuse the trust San Jose residents have historically put in San Jose local government which will take years to repair
Your using the justification that it is ok to not follow the confusing ethics rules drawn by other politicians reacting to a scandal while very likely does not either justify
a) ignoring the ethics rules, b) make up for the lack of well drawn and easily understood rules or c) the gross inefficiency of have over 4000 California local governments make ethics rules rather than have a state wide set of well drawn ethics rules / sunshine laws which our California legislature seems incapable or unwilling to do
Politicans created the ethics problems – they need to be held accountable which we in California seem unwilling to do to fix our government ethics problems and as you correctly point out having government transparency is very important.
Again when we elect unethical abusive style politicans and they hire unethical staffers in pursue of political power at either the federal or local level and the other politicians are unwilling to stand up for open honest ethical government – unfortunately many hard working good people get unjustly accused of potentially being unethical
Where is the ethics line between doing individual unethical behavior and those politicians that do not fulfill their expected elected responsibility for being part of a ethical government where the group sets a high ethical standard and requires fellow politicians to be ethical ?
When the group – City Council / state or federal government seems to accept low individual ethical behavior as a norm or willingly accepts unethical individual or political behavior justified as playing within the loophole ethics rules – Is it wrong for residents to believe that are all politicians are part of the ethics problem when they as a group have the responsibility and obligation to correct individual or government ethics problems ?
Are politicians who accept unethical behavior unethical ?
Frustrated Finfan is “John from Cupertino.”
Steve, you nailed it.
I don’t share all of finfan’s political views but he has in my opinion made many spot-on statements here. He’s no slouch and has made numerous articulate and valuable contributions to discussions on this site. Yes, I wonder who he really is, if maybe there are circumstances we don’t know about that would make it career suicide for him to use his real name, etc. but that doesn’t matter. I sure don’t lose sleep over it. What matters is that he provides a well researched point of view and stimulates the discussion. I haven’t found any reason to flame him here, and I know it would be a losing proposition if I did. He’s got my respect even if I don’t agree with all of his beliefs and I don’t know who he really is. This blog would have a serious void without finfan and people need to get over the need to know his true identity. There are plenty of other psuedonyms used here but because their posts are more on the fluffy side, nobody complains. Geez, nobody’s asking who Single Gal is, now are they? Something’s wrong with that picture and people need to stop attacking finfan for choosing to protect his identity, no matter what the reason.
Is this an “outing” forum or a place to discuss local issues? Sheesh!
BTW Tom gave one hell of a speech at the SJ Rotary Club Wednesday.
How do you know finfan’s a he? Maybe he’s a she. Or maybe he’s confused and he’s a he/she.
How do we know that dale is dale?
I DEMAND DNA!!
Bottom line who cares? (except dale)
Finfan,
According to finfan:
“What I notice most about those who vigorously attack my anonymity is that they seldom challenge my opinions, which convinces me that what they really long for is a flesh and blood individual they can slander and libel.”
Finfan,
As an avid reader of your opinions you have plenty of valid reasons to remain anonymous—
Sorry—couldn’t resist.
As for slander or libel, I will be happy to defend you free of charge as long as what you write is an opinion and/or factually based.
Personally, I don’t attack your right to be anonymous—I just don’t think it is necessary.
In my opinion, the past angry, threating and abusive or bullying behavior of a few in San Jose and the real potential of vindictive actions by others who are the subject of critizism is a valid reason that Finfan and others should, if they wish, remain anonymous when expressing his / her opinions on political Blogs
Many may not always agree with Finfan or others but they have a right to express their opinions and very often have very good comments,information or different viewpoints that add to the value of our political debate and discussions. Those that express controversial opinions may also learn from other Bloggers comments
Angry personal attacks, bullying or vindictive behavior are always inappropriate and we should all condemn those who behave in that manner
Hey #34, couldn’t agree more. Let’s concentrate on slamming those who deserve it—the people on the 18th floor at City Hall.
This whole blog has a distrubing slant to it! Politcal Cataracks always seem to follow when the focus is lost to the spinners of this valley. Let’s focus on the real issue.
“ETHICS” Top to bottom.
“Is it time to say your sorry? I wouldn’t know, I didn’t Lie!”
Well you know the rest of that song!
I have a few old horse blinders left hanging on the barn wall they keep disappearing of late! Highly recognizable in a party or podium!
The Village Black Smith
It is unbelievable what these people at city hall do. Why can’t they just straighten out there own house. I think if they left it to their aids or staff they might accomplish something. It is always staff that does all the work and puts all the words in the council persons mouth. they can’t speak up without consulting their staff who will soon be consultants.