Political quote of the day

“Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times. ”
– Winston Churchill

Let your voice be heard at next city council meeting

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

City of Fremont is having a “special” city council meeting on October 3, 2011 at 6:00 pm (prior to the regular city council meeting) discussing two things: Councilmember Dominic Dutra’s proposal to move city hall to Warm Springs and methods to finance the city hall/civic center on Capitol.

If you have any interest in any of these issues or if you want to give your input, this special meeting may be worth your while. Afterwards, if you like you can attend the regular city council meeting which features a bazillion proclamations on green technology.

Fremont City Council race 2012

Everybody and their dog wants to become a city council member of Fremont. Sentiments of candidates range from wanting to serve to remove sitting incumbents from office to serving to solve an issue or concern in the community. Some candidates are narrow in focus while others have broad appeal.

In 2012 there are two open seats for Fremont city council. One of those two seats is currently occupied by incumbent Councilmember Sue Chan. The “vacant” seat is currently occupied by Appointed incumbent Councilmember Dominic Dutra. The seat will stay open if Dutra sticks to his promise to vacate the seat as declared in the press and city council meetings.

The breakdown of the candidates for the city council race goes something like this:

Heavyweight contenders
(alphabetical order)
Vinnie Bacon
David Bonacorssi
Yogi Chugh
Dirk Lorenz
Raj Salwan

Middleweight contenders
Teresa Cox
Moina Shaiq
Rakesh Sharma

Featherweights
Fazlur Khan
Linda Susoev
others

I will feature a profile on each of the “heavyweight” candidates in the near future.

Fremont Mayor’s race 2012

2012 is going to be a great year in the political hemisphere. Not only are we going to see presidential candidates duke it out, we also will witness a contested congressional election, city council races, and the mayoral elections of Union City and Fremont.

Although there have been no official declarations from any camp, I suspect the following candidates to run for Mayor in 2012:
1. Steve Cho
2. Bill Harrison
3. Anu Natarajan

Potential wildcards:
1. Dominic Dutra
2. Vinnie Bacon
3. Others?

I mention the wildcards to be complete, but I don’t expect anyone will take them seriously.

Former city council member Steve Cho will invariably pickup support from Republicans and possibly Chinese Americans. Recall, that although the Citizens for Better Community supported him for Mayor 2008, city council member Sue Chan didn’t. The only thing going against Cho is that he is not a sitting incumbent and he has been “out of sight, out of mind” for a while.

The real battle is between Council members Bill Harrison and Anu Natarajan. Each is jockeying to be the frontrunner. Both share support from similar base of people with some minor differences. I will dissect this further in a followup blog post. To be continued…

Eric Swalwell for congress

I don’t know if this is true, but the Around Dublin blog has this to say about Eric Swalwell:

http://www.arounddublinblog.com/eric-swalwell-us-congress-candidate/

It can’t be good if members of your own community are turning against you.

Eric Swalwell story by Josh Richman

Eric Stalwell got some press over his decision to run for Pete Stark’s congressional seat.

Quote by Pete Stark in the story:

“He (Swalwell) called me some time ago and said he was thinking about it, and I  told him then I hoped that he wouldn’t,” Stark said. “I think I’ll beat him  handily. As far as I know, I have most of the Democratic endorsements, for how  much that helps, and I guess he’ll have to raise a lot of money. And my guess is that if he gets in the race, a lot of people will get in the race, which helps me and makes his job even tougher.”

Ouch!! Pete Stark is sending a message.

According to the article, Ellen Corbett filed papers to begin fundraising, but doesn’t plan to run until her senate seat is termed out in 2014.

Fremont man wins appeal to keep beehives

It’s hard to believe that Russell Shaffer was able to persuade Fremont city council to appeal the decision to keep his beehives. Wes bowers has a nice story explaining the details of the council meeting.

Who wants to have a neighbor that has beehives?!

Mayor Quan – Queen of blight?

Matt Artz’s home town Mayor was called out by neighbor for failing to clear brush from her overgrown property. Matt does live in Oakland…doesn’t he?
Read more here: http://www.foxreno.com/news/29262558/detail.html

Eric Swalwell joins the circus to run for Congress

Dublin City council member and Alameda county Deputy District attorney, Eric Swalwell, announced his candidacy today to run for congress in 2012 in the new 15th district. Since 45% of voters live in the Tri-Valley, Swalwell is well positioned to take some votes away from the Hayward and Tri-cities area.

http://www.pleasantonweekly.com/news/show_story.php?id=7801

Signed copy of papers filed by Ellen Corbett to run for Congress

Here is the link revealing the papers filed by Senator Ellen Corbett to run for Congress:

http://www.sanleandrobytes.com/archives/Corbett_11030662039.pdf