Of hawks and priuses

I've been commuting to Sacramento at least a couple of days a week for 20 years, but will kick that bad habit soon. As my commuting days wind down, I've been thinking about the Amador-Sacramento drive.

I've recently noticed a decided increase in the number of Toyota Priuses (Prii?) on the road. There are many more in Amador than just a few months ago. Blue, dark red, white, gray, green, silver, black -- I think I've seen them all now. It's an interesting trend, considering that just a year ago they were still relatively rare.

I've also been thinking about the things I will miss about commuting. I will not miss much about driving to and from work in the dark.

But I will miss watching the spring bloom move from the valley to the foothills. I'll miss the wildlife, too -- not the crazy drivers who've run me off the road several times, but the herons, egrets and occasional belted kingfisher. And I'll miss the hawks that perch on Highway 16's power poles in the early morning hours.

Two weeks ago, I started intermittent commute counts of Priuses and hawks. On the first day, the Priuses scored 4, the hawks 6. Monday saw an 8-8 roundtrip tie, including Priuses spotted in a lunchtime outing in town.

Seeing eight Priuses in a single day is a sign of the times. Seeing eight hawks on any day is a gift.

New "business council" forming

Word is there's a new organization forming in the county, the "Amador Business Council." There's not much publicly available on the group yet, but from what I've seen so far, the organizing personnel seem to have a great deal of overlap with the executive council of the Amador Citizens for Responsible Government, those fine folks who call smart growth advocates Fascists on their website and offended the General Plan Advisory Committee by using the term enviro-Nazi at the final GPAC meeting.

Maybe the businessmen associated with that group are trying to develop a more moderate, civil public face. After all, smart-growth people do spend money locally.

Rumor has it that the group is being "facilitated" by a consultant, Jim Conklin, who has done similar work in other counties. Here's what I found about him on the Internet:

• Conklin lives (or at least used to live) in Stockton.
• He's the former (or current?) executive director of the Santa Cruz Business Council. There are various posts about this group online. Widening Highway 1 seems to be one of their big causes.
• He's started similar councils in a variety of places.
  

I truly wonder whether we really need another "business" organization in this county. I do think we could use a comprehensive, broad-based group like Valley Vision. That group's board of directors represents a community cross-section with an in-depth understanding of what the Sacramento region needs to thrive in the future. It even includes (gasp) environmentalists.

One thing I find interesting about groups that purport to organize "leaders" in our community is how they tend to exclude people who don't agree with them because they don't consider those people to be leaders. We'll see if this group follows that pattern or can reach beyond it.

Here's the only thing about the group posted on the Internet so far, in Rosalee Pryor-Escamilla's response to the campaign questions posed by the Ledger Dispatch.

Stay tuned for more.

Oneto conflicted on both casinos

When Brian Oneto ran for District 5 supervisor two years ago, he promised to fight the two new casinos proposed for Amador County.

"As your Supervisor, I will continue to fight against new casinos in Amador County!"

That's a direct quote from Brian's campaign website.

Problem is -- Brian has conflicts of interest on both the Buena Vista and Plymouth casinos due to his and his family's ownership of adjoining properties. This issue was raised during the 2006 campaign, but as you can see on Brian's website, he pledged to fight the casinos -- and evidently, voters thought that's what he would do.

Amador Ledger-Dispatch Publisher Jack Mitchell brushed off the conflict concern when he endorsed Oneto that year (he and I had a rather spirited e-mail exchange about the subject).

This last year, Oneto stepped down during the Buena Vista process after participating in a number of closed sessions. And now, the Fair Political Practices Commission has opined that he has a conflict on Plymouth as well.

Here's what the HomeTown Radio website had to say about it:

Supervisor Oneto will not participate in Plymouth Casino talks due to conflict of interest

Due to a conflict of interest as determined by the Fair Political Practices Commission, FPPC, District 5 Supervisor Brian Oneto will not participate in the governmental decisions facing the Amador County Board of Supervisors related to the efforts of the Ione Band of Miwok Indians to take land into trust for the construction of a proposed casino. According to the Supervisors Office, Oneto has not and will not participate in closed session decisions and open session discussions. Oneto has been stepping out of meetings on this issue from the start.

And now the residents of District 5 find themselves without representation on this important issue. Oneto can't even be in the supervisors' chamber when the matter is discussed.

I can't help but wonder what Butch Cranford is thinking today. Cranford, an ardent casino opponent and another District 5 supervisor candidate, endorsed Oneto after the June primary. I wonder if he's rethinking that decision now.

Where's AWA's water conservation message?

Update, June 10: I received a note from Amador Water Agency General Manager Jim Abercrombie today about -- as he put it -- my "complaining about him behind his back" for using this blog to suggest that the agency put water conservation information on its home page.

Apparently someone read this entry and mentioned it to Jim (maybe it's the AWA mystery daily visitor?) . So the agency has now added a Water Conservation link, buried in the small links on the left side of the home page. It's about time. One of the links on the conservation page was on the Foothill Conservancy home page for six months.

+ + + + +

Thanks to our unusually dry spring, it's a relatively dry year in the Mokelumne River watershed, from which the Amador Water Agency gets its water.

East Bay MUD, which supplies water to the East Bay, gets its water from the Mokelumne, too. That agency started a mandatory water rationing program this spring. According to its website,

"The District is seeking a 15 percent reduction in water use overall. Single-family residential customers are being asked to cut back 19 percent."

EBMUD's website also includes a link to water-saving tips on its home page.

So you'd think the Amador Water Agency would be urging its customers to conserve water -- especially since conservation and efficiency are now part of the agency's strategic plan.

Maybe the Water Agency is doing something along those lines, but you'd never know from looking at its website. There's not one new word about water conservation or efficiency on the AWA home page, and certainly nothing indicating that we might be in a drier-than-normal year.

The home page does include a link to information about AWA's demonstration water-saving garden, but that's been on the site for years. There's also some minimal information about water conservation in the site's FAQs, but it's truly that -- minimal.

Putting water conservation information on an Internet home page -- or a link to that information -- is really cheap. Excellent information is readily available (see the California Urban Water Conservation Council's H20 House site). Nearly everyone has Internet access these days. So why doesn't the Water Agency use its website to promote conservation and efficiency?

Surely an agency that is planning a $44 million dam project (raising Lower Bear Reservoir) can spend a few hundred bucks on a web link in a dry year.

Maybe the AWA employee who reads this blog nearly every day can comment and let me know what the agency is doing to encourage its customers to conserve this year.

How do newspapers endorse candidates?

I'm confused. I've read Amador Ledger-Dispatch Publisher Jack Mitchell's explanation of his support and future newspaper endorsement of David Pincus. I've also read Raheem Hosseini's column saying that Jack's endorsement isn't an endorsement from the paper.

Jack says that Ledger parent corporation Main Street Media isn't involved in the endorsement other than giving him authority to make it. But Raheem says the paper is subsidizing Pincus's ads. Confusing.

No one would dispute Jack's right to support the candidate of his choice. But how the paper endorses is a legitimate subject for public discussion.

So I thought it was worth looking into how most newspapers make political endorsements. As I thought, it appears that most newspaper political endorsements aren't made by the publisher acting alone. The endorsement processes vary, but what they have in common is the involvement of an editorial board. And they often include interviews with the candidates. That's clearly not the case with our local paper. At least not this spring.

Here's what a few newspapers and others have to say about political endorsements ...

Times Union (Albany, NY) editor's blog excerpt

So how do we make endorsements? The editorial board has seven members — the publisher, editor, opinion pages editor, editorial page editor, chief editorial writer, editor-at-large and editorial cartoonist — whose views may vary widely. Endorsements (and other editorials) are the result of discussion and debate among us.

Connecticut Post editor's statement (excerpt)

The editorial page essentially represents the institutional voice of a newspaper. It's a voice that speaks to the communities which we serve and tries, through our opinions on a wide variety of issues, to better those communities and their civic life.

There are six members of the Post's editorial board and each member has an equal vote in deciding issues, although the newspaper's publisher, as it is with nearly all newspapers in the U.S., can have more than a one vote if he so desires.

Board members don't sit in ivory towers and pontificate and pronounce. We are all active in the news product and in our own communities and we are interactive with our readers.

When we gather weekly to discuss issues, there can be swift unanimity on the editorial positions we take or there can be lengthy and passionate split votes and disagreements. That holds for political endorsements as well.

Our endorsements are not made with political bias, but with what the board members perceive would be best for our communities and state. We talk to the candidates, we research their records and we examine their leadership abilities

Here are reasons why we endorse:

• to fulfill our obligation and responsibility as a constitutionally-protected media enterprise to not only be a part of our communities but to also help improve those communities.
• to offer information and perspective that voters can use in evaluating candidates.
• to create dialogue with our readers.

Our endorsements are not made:

• to tell readers who they should vote for.
• to make a compact with any candidate.
• to figure out who's most likely to win a contest.

Houston Chronicle blog

Be that as it may, the Editorial Board (KE note: the board in this case includes all of the editorial staff plus the publisher) looks at the endorsement process as a public service to our readers. The process works like this: Several weeks before each Election Day (Nov. 8 in this case), we invite candidates vying for the various elected offices to meet with us. The purpose being to ask them questions about where they stand on issues germane to the office they're seeking. Doing so, provides us with insight regarding which candidate best will represent the interests of their constituents.

We don't endorse on a whim. Screening candidates and vetting propositions and constitutional amendments is an arduous, time-consuming and democratic process. We debate candidates and issues vigorously. Votes to endorse any particular candidate or proposition are seldom unanimous. Oftentimes, they are decided by a slim margin.

Ultimately, Publisher Jack Sweeney and Editor Jeff Cohen, have the final say. Fortunately, they rarely exert their power and usually accept the sentiment of the board and Editorial Page Editor James Howard Gibbons.

Concord Monitor (N.H) editor's column excerpt

The editorial board consists of Publisher Geordie Wilson, Executive Editor Felice Belman, Managing Editor Ari Richter, Editorial Page Editor Ralph Jimenez and me.

After every editorial board interview, some or all of us gathered to trade impressions.

Individually or in groups, we all attended some campaign events. I was probably the most active in this regard and used some of what I saw as the basis for columns in the paper. But time spent on the campaign trail helped all of us gain a sense of who the candidates were and how they were connecting with voters and honing their messages.

... Still, we don't sign our editorials because they represent the opinion of the Monitor as an institution, not the view of the writer or any particular editorial board member.

Excerpt from item by Richard Mial, opinion page editor of the La Crosse Tribune (Wisconsin)

That's where the structure of the process becomes important. Endorsement interviews are always done before as many members of our editorial board as can make it. Our board includes the opinion page editor, publisher, editor, city editor, news editor, and a community member who serves a three-month term. Interviews are taped, so that board members who could not attend can listen.

The board has some shared values, and these values influence the decision-making process. It's important to be clear about what those values are. We have what we call an agenda for the community, which is more like a mission statement that runs daily on the Opinion pages. The five items on the agenda: Encourage regional cooperation; spotlight the region as a diverse economic hub; hold public officials accountable; celebrate the arts and heritage of the region; and promote positive achievements and the value of diversity.

Is going to UC Berkeley anti-Amador?

The Amador Citizens for Responsible Government aren't too happy with Ledger-Dispatch Editor Raheem Hosseini. Raheem took the group to task for the questions they put to the county supervisor candidates in a forum last week (see my previous post).

The group's website contains the text of an op-ed scheduled for publication in the Ledger on Friday. Among other things, it says this:

So why was Mr. Hosseini so upset?

Is it because the issues shed light on the anti-property rights agenda of certain groups in Amador County who he tends to support?

Or could it be because we underlined the concerns of the silent majority of Amador’s citizens with whom Mr. Hosseini appears to be out of touch?

He’s a 2003 graduate of UC Berkeley. Maybe that explains his
sympathies.

I just had to laugh when I read that last statement. Perhaps the "citizens" don't know how many local folks are graduates of UC Berkeley, or how many Amador kids head there each year -- or at least try to. After all, it is considered one of the finest universities in the nation, if not the world.

My guess is that some of the group's own members -- and even some of their primary backers --- graduated from UC Berkeley.

But maybe the group has a point. Perhaps a quality college education helped Raheem become the sharp, analytical, articulate young man he is today.

Raheem challenges us to make our county a better place. That's something we ought to value, not attack.

The Ledger endorses, or does it?

Update, May 25: Maybe it wasn't fair of me to imply that Jack Mitchell and the Ledger were being less than up-front about backing supervisor candidate David Pincus. That seems to have been a matter of timing.

However, it still troubles me that the paper is subsidizing Pincus's campaign with advertising space, according to Editor Raheem Hosseini. I don't think that's the normal practice for newspapers at all.

Update, May 20: Ledger Publisher Jack Mitchell has sent a clarifying e-mail to Amador Community News regarding the political support described in my post below. See what you think: Jack's note on Amador Community News website.

At most newspapers, an editorial board -- not the publisher alone -- determines the endorsements. That was the practice at the Ledger back when McClatchy owned the paper in the early 1990s. I know that in 1992, the editor, publisher and senior reporters voted on endorsements. Each had an equal voice.

Editorial board review helps ensure that a newspaper's endorsement is not simply the opinion of one individual who may put the profitability of the business above all other considerations. Can't say that's what Jack is doing here, but since his job is to keep the paper profitable, that's surely a risk.

My original post ...


In his excellent column in today's Amador Ledger Dispatch, Editor Raheem Hosseini revealed that the corporate owner of the paper, the Main Street Media Group, is "underwriting [David] Pincus' campaign and has helped pay for ads."

It was a shocking revelation -- or should have been.

Pincus, in case you don't know, is challenging incumbent Louis Boitano for the District 4 supervisor seat. Pincus is running for supervisor without a platform, without publicized positions on issues, and without revealing his campaign committee or supporters or contributors -- all the while beating up on Boitano. Retired District 3 Supervisor Richard Vinson, who served on the board with Boitano for years, recently wrote a letter to the Ledger decrying the negative campaign tactics employed in another letter by Pincus's campaign manager, Robert Mees.

You may recall that Ledger publisher Jack Mitchell briefly declared for the seat, then withdrew. Pincus then threw his hat into the ring. According to Hosseini, Mitchell will be writing an endorsement of Pincus soon.

Two years ago, when Mary Ellen "Mel" Welsh ran for county supervisor, Mitchell called the Foothill Conservancy "sneaky and shady" for doing something the group didn't actually do. Mitchell left the libelous editorial on the Ledger's website even after the Conservancy demonstrated that Mitchell's assertion was baseless. He never apologized to the group, its members, or its leaders -- including me -- and he never issued a correction (he did run the Conservancy response).

So I can't help but ask, "Just who's 'sneaky and shady,' Jack? People rely on your newspaper to be somewhat objective, and now we find out that the paper's Gilroy-based owners are actually funding a candidate for county supervisor?"

Hosseini was right when he called this "a breach of the public trust." It's appalling.

If you'd like to express your own opinion about this outside interference in our local politics, be sure to contact:

Jack Mitchell, Publisher, Amador Ledger Dispatch
jmitchell@ledger-dispatch.com
223-1767

or Jack's boss
Anthony A. Allegretti, President & CEO
Main St. Media Group
aaallegretti@mainstreetmg.com
408-842-0130