By “disagreeable”, I had in mind the type of behavior that you might see on the Springer show. Yes, that should go without saying, but there are certain issues about which people have very strong feelings and, while these issues should be discussed, I do not feel that they need to be discussed in a confrontational way. I hope that clarifies my statement a bit. If you feel differently, let’s talk about it. I hope you can make it on the 11th.

While we can go to the city council and use our allocated 2 minutes to ask questions and raise concerns, and get no answers (most of the time), think of the FCN forum as a way for the people to invite and bring the officials out of their enclave and to meet the people who have real issues that they need to hear. Whether we get answers/responses to the questions we ask, only time will tell.

Over time I have seen a lot of interesting questions asked by all of you in this particular blog. Why not come to the meeting and ask her some burning questions in your mind and see what answers you get? I do understand that not everyone can make it to the meeting, so if you have a question that needs to be asked and you cannot be there, please email fremontcitizensnetwork@gmail.com with your name so we can ask them and get a response. We will attempt to transcribe all the questions and responses and publish them on the FCN site after the meeting.

The meeting details are found here:
http://community.fremontcitizensnetwork.org/events/fcn-forum-open-public-meeting

Matt, I hope you can come, it would be great to have you there.

Example – thinking that runs along the lines of something like – - “..let’s put a ballpark in a geography that will cause insurmountable traffic and parking problems for the most significant retailers in the proposed geography…” – but then let’s characterize those who point out these obvious flaws as “disagreeable”, or “a mob”.

My sense is that Anu and Bob and Bob and Bill just can’t handle scrutiny or criticism (however constructive) -

“Thin skinned” comes to mind.

In case anybody’s interested, Anu Natarajan, our Vice Mayor, will be at a meet-and-greet hosted by Fremont Citizen’s Network on June 11 from 6-8 p.m., location TBD based on the number of RSVP’s received. If you can’t attend, you can still submit your questions for Anu via the FCN website http://community.fremontcitizensnetwork.org/

The announcement says that “This Forum is meant to provide a positive atmosphere of engagement”, so I hope everyone will play nice together and not use this opportunity to do otherwise. It is FCN’s hope that this be the first of a series of meetings with local leaders, so please don’t give them a reason not to continue to meet with residents. It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable.

See y’all there?

Fred was cashing in his chips for having kept the Warm Springs alternative site for the A’s stadium a secret until after the election – so as to make sure that his old police chief from Tracey got re-elected – and also to hedge his bets just in case the election didn’t turn out as planned.

But what do I know?

anon – I am indeed serious about believing that my characterization is a reasonable facsimile of the process used to make the decision about City Managers’ pay.

Your response of seeming incredulousness when positioned alongside my personal guess of what went into this decision emphasizes one potentially significant decouple between constituency and City leaders – assuming, of course, that my guess is anywhere close to accurate…I’m sure I am completely off the mark and you have nothing to be concerned about.