Yolo Sun: No justice, no peace in council candidate selection

The Yolo Sun has infused some cerebration into the otherwise blasé platforms of the two city council candidates, David Sanders and Tom Stallard, in the latest posting called "Council appointment process qualifies two best resumés, but candidate replies raise concerns."

The two candidates chosen by councilmen Bill Marble and Art Pimentel may be the best of their six finalists of yes-men, but they are void of any true representation of those concerned with city affairs.

Among the 26 residents who applied for the vacant council seat left by Jeff Monroe, Marble and Pimentel ignored two people who have regularly kept pace with the city council on a variety of issues - Bernadette Murray and Bobby Harris. Both, in their own styles, have provided checks to the imbalanced council. It's a shame that such an appointment comes down to who is agreeable with council, rather than who has consistently provided alternative solutions to civic debacles. Sanders and Stallard could not articulate any particular action that council has taken that they disagreed with.

Sanders could only muster up "an area of concern" as the public's perception that council is "cozy" with unnamed developers. Sanders unwittingly criticizes himself since he is the chair of the planning commission - the governmental body that exemplifies the collusion with developer Paul Petrovich. (C'mon, name him for crying out loud). And Stallard only came up with an issue that council has no control over - the location of the Opera House annex that was approved for Measure E money by Woodland voters. Both are attorneys.

Here are some excerpts from the Yolo Sun article:

Sanders unctuously refuses to specifically identify any “decision or action that the Woodland City Council has taken that you have disagreed with” (and why) — “because [he] do[es] not have access to all the information the council had to reach any individual decision.”

Sanders, of course, has closely participated within the previous decade of planning and development within Woodland, often as chairperson of the Planning Commission.

Among his civic goals and directions, Stallard would: “Be a force for calm and stability in our community.

Installing calmness at city council chambers seems perversely redundant.

Stallard continues, explaining that: “’how’ we do things is, in fact, as important as ‘what’ we do. The feelings of people matter. I want to make progress, but I want us to have as united a community as possible.”

The feelings of people certainly matter a very great deal; but of course, not as much as their genuine (public) interests.

What quickly comes to mind when confronting Stallard’s call for calm and civility in the troubled face of entrenched problems described above, within our municipal development, is this hopefully accurate political slogan: No Justice, No Peace.

Read much more at YoloSun.wordpress.com.