Impressions From the Council Debate
Political debate suffers when candidates aren’t able to address each other directly because of format constraints. A moderator asked questions. Tuesday night, candidates answered serially, one question, one answer per candidate. In this format, later respondents can make debatable statements without challenge. This frustrates the candidates and the audience. Even so, clear differences emerged from the discussion.
Opposition candidates George Muteff, Naomi Patridge and Bonnie McClung suggested land use planning (the Local Coastal Program) hasn’t been open to public scrutiny. “The public needs to be invited to the table,” McClung said. Mayor Grady noted over 70 public meetings on it in the last four years. Muteff, Patridge and McClung alleged closed-door decision-making is the chief problem, and they say they are the answer.
Their evidence? They say the City is causing too many lawsuits, costing taxpayers too much money. Patridge proposed firing the city’s law firm (one that specializes in defending small cities) and hiring permanent staff instead (with all this implies about overhead, office space, pension funding, etc.—hard to see any savings here since the City’s pending structural deficit is due to escalating pension costs).
Mike Ferreira pointed out that the City has successfully defended itself, and that it has chosen the legal option rather than caving into special interests that routinely use legal challenges as a bullying tactic. Patridge, Muteff and McClung also said the City should compromise more often with those wanting to build, and proposed liberalizing zoning to allow anyone wanting to build on their property the ability to do so easily. Naomi Patridge’s past record includes having approved large developments the current council has fought to whittle down.
Muteff expressed hostility to “unnecessarily involving the Coastal Commission with local planning decisions,” as if there is another choice—he said the Commission will go along with strong leadership from the City. This rugged individualism overlooks what it takes to adhere to the Coastal Act, the law affecting every square inch of Half Moon Bay.
The challengers want to be elected, but presented an entirely negative set of reasons to vote for them. Patridge talked about what she wants to do, not about what she did in her sixteen years in office. In contrast, the incumbents, Grady and Ferreira, spoke to their positive record of accomplishment
The surprise of the Tuesday evening debate was the overwhelmingly positive response elicited by articulate newcomer Steve Skinner. Skinner unequivocally supported Ferreira and Grady’s vision of working with the school board to achieve the rebuilding of Cunha Middle School, continuing to tackle the LCP and submit it in bite-sized pieces to the Coastal Commission for approval, fixing Highway 1 after the Highway 92 project is completed, seeing our parks and trail systems improve, and to continue building better relations with the special districts and state and federal agencies Half Moon Bay needs to work with to continue improving our way of life.