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Common sense returns to Pleasanton
I’d like to express my appreciation for Christian Trujano’s outstanding reporting of Pleasanton’s political scene and your board’s recent “…Time to move on” editorial.
Along with the futility of passing an increased sales tax, substantial resources have been wasted on the former city council’s endless power plays, including attempting to demand 5-0 votes (as Valerie Arkin tried to do to place Measure PP on the ballot a year ago), to silencing Jack Balch through various tactics including a non-televised “Code of Conduct” special meeting, where for some strange reason, the Brown Act press/public notification process was skipped.
When will politicians learn that haranguing colleagues and the public create toxicity and undermine teamwork? When Livermore voted to end the Pleasanton-Livermore liaison committee last year, a Livermore city councilmember indicated the behavior of Pleasanton elected officials to give direction to Livermore staff was “completely and utterly objectionable”.
Hopefully going forward, the new mayor and council with its new members will adhere to commonsense boundaries of what is appropriate and inappropriate and attend meetings to collaborate rather than to gripe. Sadly from Livermore’s perspective, that certainly does not seem to have been the case in its dealings with Pleasanton’s elected officials last year.
Though it is indeed time to move on, so much damage was done in the process, it will be a very long time before things are back to normal. Thankfully at last we have a new mayor and new city councilmembers to help move the city forward.
— Anne Fox
The public servant as trustee
In a representative democracy, citizens elect officials not just for their immediate wishes, but to use their own judgment, expertise, and conscience when making decisions.
This “trustee” model of good governance means officials consider public input seriously but ultimately make decisions based on informed judgment about what will best serve the long-term public interest, even if it’s unpopular in the moment.
This is different from the “delegate” model, where elected officials are expected to simply vote the way the majority of their constituents want, every time.
The trustee model goes back a long way. In 1774, Edmund Burke told the people he represented: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
In other words, we elect people not just to repeat what we say, but to weigh all the facts, draw on their knowledge and values, and make decisions they believe are right for the community’s future.
We choose representatives because we trust their integrity, their ability to sort through complex issues, and their willingness to sometimes make hard calls in service of the greater good — even when those calls aren’t the easy or popular ones.
This is how the Founding Fathers envisioned our republic.
– Jeff Nibert, Pleasanton City Council member
So let me get this straight,
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To Jeff Nibert – let me get this straight, when residents speak up, we’re “the opinion,” but when you dismiss us, it’s “the trustee model”? That’s not leadership, that’s arrogance.
Yes, we elect representatives to use judgment—but not to lecture us about Edmund Burke while ignoring the people who actually live here. Trust in government isn’t built by quoting the Founding Fathers, it’s built by listening, engaging, and respecting your community.
If you think the job is to rule over us instead of working with us, don’t be surprised when trust disappears.
If you are going to continue to talk about a tax measure, you might want to listen closely to the majority of Pleasanton!
Well said.
As for me I don’t trust several of the Pleasanton council members and City management. To regain some trust I hope they come up with something other than “let’s increase taxes” for every problem.