An interesting but irrelevant anecdote since clearly communities do many things that aren’t economically advantageous or even sustainable, right Jon ?

The facts continue to reveal conclusions such as – “Much of the spending attracted by new stadiums simply is shifted from entertainment spending that already existed in other venues, such as theaters and restaurants. Furthermore, large portions of the subsidy leave the city in the pockets of owners and players who live in far-flung suburbs. ”

http://www.ntu.org/ntuf/stadiums-and-subsidies-strike-out-for-taxpayers.html

Oh, it’s plausible. I just don’t think it’s true. I also disagree about most people googling candidates hours before the election. Many but not most. If that were true, campaigning would be useless. As evidenced by Lara York’s crushing victory over me and four other candidates, a campaign can be quite powerful. As for the Asian factor, take a look at the votes the fourth place candidate got.

By my estimate, the voter pamphlet and google probably decide 1/4 to 1/2 of the votes, depending upon the issue. Propositions get more votes from google and the pamphlet because they both actually have information. In contrast, most candidate statements say little of value. The rest is campaigning.

Back when I ran, I spoke with quite a few people who had already committed to voting for Lara York long before the real campaign started. They weren’t terribly concerned with her policies. They just knew and generally liked her, having been reached by her and her network. This is not sour grapes; it’s admiration. I think she’s the best the school board has.

But in the end, like I said, we just don’t and won’t know.

West,

Honestly, you sound paranoid. Part of the responsibility of the city council is to help and guide the city’s development.

Do I support the council because they help Niles? No. I support them because they’re intelligent, hard-working, and realistic. The improvements in front of my store have not brought any business, but they have improved drainage and lighting, making the area safer and cleaner. Is that a horrible thing? It was, to my knowledge, among the worst if not the worst draining retail sections of the city. It also greatly affected the Niles Library.

You do raise an interesting point, that Niles is seeing a concentration of effort and funds. That comes from citizen and business action, working together to improve the area. Meanwhile, my house still has rocks instead of a sidewalk.

Jon, Voters are apathetic and unfortunately ignorant of the many details we dwell on, so I doubt a majority knew the association between Bacon and McDonald.

My point in post 13 is that most google candidates hours before voting. In this respect Kathy had it together with a good web presence. I’d say that McDonald’s website, message and race was probably enough to pull 836 votes away from Vinnie. Six no-names pulled 20,000 votes from the top four for no other reason than the fact that the existed.

Kathy cost Bacon 836 votes, that is beyond plausible.

Vinnie complained about the current council many times in comments on this blog. However, he never gave an alternative with specifics, or at least none that I saw. That’s why I didn’t support him.

His whole bit against developers is just a joke. If it weren’t for developers, we’d be homeless. Yes, they sometimes want to develop where and in ways many people dislike. However, that doesn’t make them evil. It just means they want money, like all of us.

The A’s in Fremont would have been amazing, totally worth all the headaches. Is NYC trying to get rid of the Yankees? Not last I checked.

The Centerville lot has been difficult to develop because the neighborhood is relatively poor, the freeway access sucks, and the economy is in the toilet, taking property prices down with it. People complain about sprawl, but anything other than sprawl costs money by the bucket. The building code and political process of developing are also stifling.

It’s certainly possible that McDonald cost him the election. It’s all speculation though. Did she take votes from Harrison and Anu, giving them to Bacon? Being Asian is worth a lot in this town, and being on a ticket with her is also worth something. Call it Asians by association. So what percentage of voters had McDonald as their 1st or 2nd choice and Anu or Harrison as their other favorite, all while having Bacon as the third? It seems likely that’s a small number. Unless someone did exit polling, we’ll never know. Did anyone here vote of McDonald but not Bacon? Anybody?

we all know that Wasserman gave Vinnie 2nd choice was to help his great pal Harrison.

You see they had calculated already that Dutra would win and therefore Harrison put Salwan as his first choice.

That is why they put Bonaccorsi as their number 4 choice.

while Harrison thinks that he can fool the local democratic party, he can’t fool anyone with a brain !

As you have said, and I repeat, Vinnie needs to quit portraying the Developers as evil. Like Judy Zlatnik said, these developers should be chanellized to work with the community when they build their plans. I hope Vinnie takes a cue from that the next time he runs.

And then his slogan “I do not take money from developers.” I am sure he would have droped that if he was made aware that Anu was already doing that when she was running her campaign. But she was not speaking about that to gain a political advantage and publicly making it appear that they are bad folks. Many live here in Fremont.