Some 2008 morsels
By John Horgan
Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 5:51 pm in Uncategorized.
As we commence the new year in San Mateo County, perhaps this is as good a time as any to voice some hopes for progress in the coming 12 months along the Peninsula. Here goes:
1. Let’s have a final resolution on the future of the Bay Meadows race track in San Mateo. It’s high time. The citizens (and the owners) of the county’s second-largest city deserve to know the fate of that historic property. Continuing legal challenges to development of that land have clouded things.
2. If Jackie Speier is going to challenge the venerable Tom Lantos for a congressional seat, let’s get that out in the open ASAP. Lantos, who turns 80 in February, is one of Congress’ leading lights. Though controversial and certainly not universally loved, he has represented the northern portion of the county with dedication and aplomb for a full generation. He is owed at least that much by Speier and her supporters.
3. As Hispanic students continue to grow in number in our public schools, an all-out academic blitz ought to be undertaken to bring these kids up to speed in the classroom. They are now the largest single ethnic group in our public schools but their performace lags badly behind Asians and whites.
4. There ought to be some big-time reality checks regarding our municipal and county budgets, specifically in the areas of employee retirement and health care benefits. The annual increases in those areas are skyrocketing. They are not sustainable. Let’s get real here. Red ink is very much in our future.
5. And, speaking of health care, if the county is really serious about providing such services for poor, uninsured adults, perhaps it ought to examine a provision mandating legal residency status, or progress in this regard, as part of the equation. Without it, adults who are here legally and lack health insurance are being discriminated against.
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January 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Speier now has the green light, as Congressman Lantos has just announced he has cancer and will not run for re-election. If I catch Speier toadying to anti-democratic activist groups like Daily Kos, I will _NEVER_ vote for her, either this year or at any time in the future. If Nancy Pelosi can stand up to those folks… and, so far, she has… I expect no less from Speier.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Good points. It will be interesting to see which way Speier leans regarding U.S. foreign policy. She may surprise us.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I didn t know Daily Kos was “anti-democratic.”
Care to elaborate?
January 5th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
After the Democrats won control of the House in the 2006 elections, a large convention of net.roots folk in Berkeley, prominently featuring Daily Kos, implored Nancy Pelosi to begin her term as Speaker with the joint impeachment of Bush and Cheney as war criminals. A joint impeachment and trial of a sitting President and Vice-President is anti-democratic because its intent is to thwart the 25th Amendment. Gavin Newsom’s cynical nullification of state marriage law was also anti-democratic (his lawsuit against the law, which seems likely to succeed, was not).
January 6th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
You haven t established that Daily Kos, a democrat blog that conveys a variety of opinions (including those of Nancy Pelosi), is particularly associated with the attempt to impeach either or both Bush and Cheney.
What was the name of the “large convention of net.roots folk in Berkeley” in which you claim Daily Kos was prominently featured. Cite an article which describes the convention.
I personally don t trust many of those advocating for impeaching the president or both and I am a democrat.
Still, even if, as you claim, impeaching both a president and vice president at the same time is not constitutional, I still don t see how advocating such a position necessarily makes it “anti-democratic.”