Editorial: East Palo Alto's chance to widen leadership Editorial: East Palo Alto's chance to widen leadership (October 27, 2004)

City Council on a good track but needs to focus on communications and 'people needs' and better reflect the community's demographic balance
With three four-year seats and one two-year opening, the East Palo Alto City Council faces a significant vote of confidence on Nov. 2.

The current leadership of incumbents Duane Bay, Pat Foster and Donna Rutherford has provided a positive direction for the community, but with major gaps in communication and consensus-building and with growing concerns about a resurgence of crime.

The 21-year-old city also is facing a major challenge of "gentrification," the displacement of lower-income residents by those financially able to outbid them for available housing. And the city continues to have a budget shortfall of several million dollars, despite infusions of sales-tax revenue from "big box" retail stores such as IKEA and Home Depot.

We feel the existing council, while still divided on some issues, has come a long way toward ameliorating the longstanding polarization of "personality" politics, in which people take positions completely for or against individuals. It is important that the community and its leaders continue to move beyond this destructive, blame- and suspicion-ridden pattern of past years.

It would be easy to endorse all three incumbents. Duane Bay and Pat Foster have been particularly visionary and strong in pushing for the economic development that has generated real revenues for the young city. That push, however, has created an angry, suspicious response from many residents, and Donna Rutherford has been a strong voice of caution about overdevelopment and unwanted side effects.

But the community continues to change, and the Latino population is now approaching 60 percent -- yet still lacks any representation on the City Council, as we pointed out four years ago. We were impressed then by Everardo Luna, a United Parcel Service driver who at the time was the youngest of three Latinos running as a slate -- and who were soundly trounced in the election. He had earlier served on the city's Human Relations Commission, until the council disbanded it.

Since then, Luna has matured, married and now has two young children -- and is now running independently, with strong union support. He has solid ties to a younger generation of East Palo Alto residents, and an impressive energy and positive outlook that would bring new zest and interest to the council, we feel.

Rutherford has provided good service to the community, and it is regrettable there aren't four seats open in the four-year category. But there aren't. And we feel Luna would reflect some of the cautionary positions on development/over-development concerns that Rutherford has voiced while extending the council's reach into younger segments of the population.

Both Bay and Foster state they now feel the council needs to focus increasingly on supporting programs that expand and enhance community services for residents and deal with social issues such as inadequate child care for the many young families, as well as services for older persons.

For the single two-year opening, we support the candidacy of Ruben Abrica, a former member of the Ravenswood City School District Board of Education during the divisive final years of former Superintendent Charlie Mae Knight's tenure. Despite his public support for Knight, he and one other board member were working to expedite her retirement, but time ran out and three "reform" candidates were elected to the school board.

Time and hindsight have mellowed him, Abrica says. His long history of community involvement, predating incorporation, and his perspective as a college instructor in international and Hispanic studies, give him a solid perspective on community needs -- and a campaign theme of his is "building positive relations among all residents." We take him at his word in his desire to move the community forward in a positive way.

The Weekly recommends Duane Bay, Pat Foster and Everardo Luna for the City Council's three four-year seats and Ruben Abrica for the single two-year opening.

Re-elect incumbents to Ravenswood board Re-elect incumbents to Ravenswood board (October 27, 2004)
A new superintendent and two years of progress has made a world of difference to the Ravenswood City School District -- which at last seems to be back on track toward assuring an adequate education for future generations of East Palo Alto children.

Despite the bitterness two years ago over the forced retirement of former Superintendent Charlie Mae Knight, both incumbents -- Jacquie Wallace Greene and Chester Palesoo -- now believe the district and its board are moving forward well and that they can help provide stability and background knowledge to the district.

The two challengers, Mary Varela, a retired executive secretary for Mexicana Airlines, and Antonia Brass, a director or supervisor in the child-development field for more than 20 years, are both longtime residents of the East Palo Alto community who could offer good ideas to the board. But neither would provide the perspective and depth of experience of the incumbents to move the district forward in its new directions.

We recommend ther re-election of Jacquie Greene and Chester Palesoo to the Ravenswood school board.

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