I enjoy hearing from concerned, passionate citizens sharing their views. By carefully listening we can all move our city forward and face the challenges before us.

Over the last few days, I’ve received many emails from folks proclaiming their enthusiastic support of tennis. I’m looking forward to meeting with tennis enthusiasts to understand their requests for tennis facility improvements and see how they may be addressed.

As a general note: if you want to support a particular idea – please write! I would caution however “cut and paste” email is sometimes looked at at “spam” by blockers and get routed to… well, wherever spam goes…

When writing to advocate a position – it helps to hear what your concerns are, what your position is and why you choose to advocate a particular view.

So please write! I look forward to hearing from you soon!

While the administration took a moment to read reports from scientists and (finally) acknowledge climate change – it appears the notion of acting as a steward toward flora and fauna is something Mr. Bush feels can be ignored.

These points were reported in today’s Washington Post:
WashingtonPost Article

With little-noticed procedural and policy moves over several years, Bush administration officials have made it substantially more difficult to designate domestic animals and plants for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

As listings have slowed, lawsuits challenging the administration’s practices have skyrocketed, according to the biodiversity center, which specializes in endangered-species issues. There have been 369 listing-related suits against Bush, compared with 184 against Clinton. “The Bush administration has effectively killed the listing program,” said Suckling, whose group’s petitions and suits have driven 92 percent of the listings under Bush.

Well, only 301 days left until a new administration….

Folks have called and written to me regarding the athletic fields in response to the City/School Board discussions regarding Heather field.

It is interesting to hear some of the conspiracy theories being floated about. While amusing, these notions are grounded neither in fact nor the intent with which the agreements were negotiated.

To be clear – to move forward there needs to be a win-win for all parties. Schools needs to achieve certain objectives to serve students and the city needs to realize return on significant investment that would be placed into the new facility. After a long while it became clear we were still apart on how to achieve this mutual goal.

While win-win deals can always be negotiated – timely decisions would be difficult and other alternatives ought to take mindshare of the City moving forward.

So what’s next? Candidly I’d love to hear your ideas on what you think ought to be a next step as San Carlos moves forward.

On Monday night, the San Carlos/Belmont Fire Chief, Doug Fry, presented his quarterly report to council regarding the activities and milestones achieved by the department.

• Quarterly Update of Fire Activity and Accomplishments for the City of San Carlos – March 2008
• Quarterly Report for the San Carlos City Council – March 2008

We can all be proud of our fire department and the dedicated professionals working to keep our community safe.

A point we all need to ponder: Fire protection is the biggest single expense of the San Carlos budget. In my mind, this department should lead by example in pushing Green advancements. Chief Fry and his team are doing great things to move these points along – and I’d like to support his efforts to make our Fire department the greenest fire department in the nation.

What ideas do you have to help move this forward? Please contact me with any thoughts you may have!

I had intended this blog to be about city policies, issues of city interest and my thoughts regarding them. Today – a policy of moral importance has hit me hard and I feel compelled to write.

I am proud to be a citizen of the USA. Our country adheres to the rule of law and respects individual rights. Our constitution, and ability to adapt has been a shining beacon for so many who have yearned to “breathe free.”

When our founding fathers put our constitution together, they reached back in history. Habeas corpus (ad subjiciendum) is Latin for you may have the body (subject to examination). It requires a person detained by the authorities be brought before a court of law so that the legality of the detention may be examined. It is interesting to note the notion came about during the reign of King Edward I. Essentially while the King could imprison someone, he had to stand and tell why the accused was being held. The reason had to stand the scrutiny of the courts.

The King is at all times entitled to have an account, why the liberty of any of his subjects is restrained, wherever that restraint may be inflicted.

We have seen the rules of Habeas – our constitutional rule – thrown out with Guantanamo. Long, uncharged detentions are the practice of the day. We have seen our civil liberties throw out with unwarranted and unchecked wiretaps among other incursions. Anyone remember the 4th amendment?

Today – the slide away from our core values went further. The 8th Amendment states:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

This notion is further defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 5.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Today the President decided to throw away centuries of law, demonstrated a lack of moral courage and took a flying leap from sound judgement when he vetoed a bi-partisan bill outlawing techniques that constitute torture.

Bush’s Veto of Torture Bill

The fight against the country’s enemies will not be won by abandoning our constitution and the rights so many of our predecessors bled to preserve. Everyone wants to ensure those who commit crimes are brought to justice. But neither our burning desire for justice nor want to avenge those who have fallen are enough to abandon those principles upon which our great country was founded. As Benjamin Franklin so eloquently stated:

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Shame on you Mr. President. Shame on you…