July 26, 2010
Santa Clara Valley Water District
Board of Directors
Re: Proposed term limits are so unrestrictive that they are worse than doing nothing, and should be drastically altered
Dear Chair
Term limits have some disadvantages. In conversations I have had with Board Directors, I've been impressed with the breadth of experience and passion for their community that came with the length of service. However, the need for democratic accountability, the value of fresh ideas, and the virtual impossibility of defeating an elected incumbent mean the advantages of term limits, of meaningful term limits, outweigh their disadvantages.
For these reasons I advocate term limits of two or three terms as part of my own campaign, and I pledge to serve only two terms myself. While the District is to be applauded for its current consideration of term limits, the terms suggested are not truly meaningful and would do more harm than good by forestalling efforts at adequate term limits.
First, four terms are too many. Sixteen years plus additional years in office before the term limits come into effect simply provides inadequate opportunities for contested elections like the one we are seeing now in the District 7 election. The length exceeds other terms of office, including the three term limit set for the
Second, the limits fail to consider the terms served by sitting Directors, creating a situation where Directors who have already served for a decade or more could then be allowed to serve an additional sixteen years. If the Water District acknowledges that term limits should be imposed, then the argument for imposing them applies to sitting Directors and their terms served. I proposed that term limits should apply to anyone serving as Director beginning after the 2012 election, and should consider the previous terms. This would mean that all sitting Directors could participate in at least one more election (2010 or 2012) and serve one more complete term above and beyond the terms already served, while still ensuring meaningful restrictions apply to sitting Directors.
Third, the lack of a meaningful required absence period from the District board reduces the usefulness of term limits and opens the possibility of abuse. While the language of Section 1.B. states that District board members resigning after serving more than two years has served a full term, Section 1.C. overrules that by saying that any period of absence from the Board allows a Director to serve again. So a Director in the fourth year of the fourth term could resign right before the time to file for election and then file, because the language of Section 1.C. states the absence means the four terms "shall not disqualify" the candidate from serving. This problem could be fixed by clarifying in Section 1.C. that a Director who resigns after two years shall not be considered "absent" from the Board until after the conclusion of the Director's full term. This correction might solve one problem, but it is not enough.
There should be a required two-year absence from the Board, so the advantages of incumbency are given a real time period to diminish to an equal playing field, and the new voices on the Board have a chance to make a difference.
I hope the Board will consider these changes so that the proposed limits will have truly beneficial effects, instead of making meaningful limits harder to obtain.
Sincerely,
Brian Schmidt
Brian Schmidt for Santa Clara Valley Water District 2010
Three candidates have filed papers to run for a seat on the governing board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District in the November election.
Bern Beecham, Lou Becker and Brian Schmidt have thrown their hats into the ring to represent the newly created District 7, which covers Mountain View as well as Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Monte Sereno and Los Gatos.
Both Beecham and Becker are veteran politicians familiar with municipal water administration. Schmidt, a Mountain View resident, is an environmentalist and lecturer at Santa Clara University who is familiar with water issues.....Schmidt has served on the water district's Environmental Advisory Committee and the Performance Audit Committee. He, too, is concerned about finances, but wrote in an e-mail that he believes his experience working on environmental issues will give him "an opportunity to lead the way on mercury cleanup and water district environmental leadership."
Schmidt said he is interested in protecting the Permanente Creek Trail, as well as cleaning up Moffett Field and restoring wetlands in the area.
Additionally, Schmidt would like to make some changes to the way the board operates. Should he be elected, Schmidt said he would work to have public board meetings moved to the evening so citizens with day jobs can more easily attend. Currently, meetings are held every second and fourth Tuesday of the month at 9:30 a.m.
"Clean government is the only way you can get real fiscal reform," Schmidt said.....
For years, consumers have been urged to switch to CFLs, or compact fluorescent lights, which use about one-quarter of the electricity of incandescent bulbs. But unknown to many, CFLs come with a health risk if they're broken: They contain small amounts of mercury, a neurotoxin that can be particularly harmful to children and pregnant women....."It's a public health issue and an environmental mess if they are not disposed of properly," said Rob D'Arcy, the hazardous materials program manager for Santa Clara County.
California and several other states ban disposal of CFLs in the trash because they could contaminate landfills. But there's little enforcement.
....no one has called for CFLs to be banned because, on balance, they offer a wealth of environmental and energy-saving benefits. Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions in the air, so using CFLs, which use less electricity than incandescent light bulbs and last longer, is still a better deal for the planet.
....Heidi Sanborn, executive director of the California Product Stewardship Council, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to shift responsibility for waste management from local governments to manufacturers and producers, is among those who believe "we're still better off using fluorescents."
"But what's happened is that we're trying to keep mercury out of the air by not burning coal, and now mercury is in all of these lamps that are in people's homes," she said.
The regulations prohibiting CFLs from being disposed of in the trash went into effect in 2006, but there's no state funding attached to it. That means each county in California has had to develop its own consumer awareness and recycling program in a time of strapped budgets, and some have done a better job than others.
"This is a problem that cries out for a big, comprehensive solution," said Bill Pollock of the Alameda County Household Hazardous Waste program. "But no one has the funds to tackle it. Right now, the recycling is totally voluntary — people have to make an effort to do it."
The problem does indeed call for a comprehensive solution that solves the mercury issue and the funding issue, and the Extended Producer Responsibility proposal of my campaign can do just that.
-Brian
Almaden Lake, a popular San Jose city park off Almaden Expressway, has fish with the highest concentrations of mercury contamination in California, according to a new state study.
Four other bodies of water in Santa Clara County — Anderson, Uvas, Calero and Chesbro reservoirs — also rank among the top 20 lakes whose fish have the highest mercury concentrations in the state.
The findings come as part of a survey released Thursday by the State Water Resources Control Board. The agency tested 4,905 fish in 272 lakes and reservoirs during 2007 and 2008 for methyl mercury, PCBs, DDT and other contaminants, the most extensive such survey ever completed in the state.
When researchers wanted to test largemouth bass at Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir for mercury levels, the reservoir's managers in San Francisco figured the scientists were simply looking for a clean sample to compare with toxic results at other spots.
Instead, the study showed that the fish in the San Mateo County lake - which collects rainwater as well as water piped in from Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy reservoir - had some of the highest mercury levels in the state.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/07/MNU41E4CR4.DTL#ixzz0tIK1ktb6
Goodbye, Silicon Valley. Hello, Silicon Archipelago.
The low-density, land-wasting sprawl of Silicon Valley's past does not have to continue through the South Bay. A better model can be an archipelago: a chain of urban islands emerging from an ocean of green space, all interrelated but separated. This Silicon Archipelago model has a realistic chance of describing the future geography of our region as our high-tech economy extends southward.
