Don’t ask questions, just do it! What? Are you stupid? Trust me
I know what’s best for you! These are some of the favorite terms
local royalty use to keep information from peasants like you and
me.
Personally, there is nothing I like better than asking questions
of those people that try to keep information from me. I’m sure you
know the type
– the
”
I know better than you
”
group. They’re a hybrid of the
”
what’s in it for me crowd
”
with many of the same members such as the county Supervisors,
Tracie Cone, owner of The Pinnacle newspaper, Rebecca McGovern,
Mandy Rose and several others. The only difference is that this
group is trying to protect something they have and don’t want you
to know about it or have for yourself.
Don’t ask questions, just do it! What? Are you stupid? Trust me I know what’s best for you! These are some of the favorite terms local royalty use to keep information from peasants like you and me.
Personally, there is nothing I like better than asking questions of those people that try to keep information from me. I’m sure you know the type – the “I know better than you” group. They’re a hybrid of the “what’s in it for me crowd” with many of the same members such as the county Supervisors, Tracie Cone, owner of The Pinnacle newspaper, Rebecca McGovern, Mandy Rose and several others. The only difference is that this group is trying to protect something they have and don’t want you to know about it or have for yourself.
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of putting some of these individuals on the hot seat with some of my poignant questions about Measure G. It was during one of the forums on Measure G at City Hall that I finally had my chance to ask a few of the questions that have been bothering me since the beginning of this attempt by Measure G proponents to seize land from property owners. Richard Saxe, have you ever subdivided your property? Richard Pitschka, when was the last year more than 100 homes have been built in the county by the same builder?
If you haven’t been to the chambers at City Hall before, just imagine a small auditorium that accommodates between 100-150 people. On this night, the room was filled with farmers worried about losing their land because of Measure G.
Proponent Richard Pitschka presented first. Showing picture after picture of scenic views of farmland, Mr. Pitschka acting as if he were a lawyer, mentioned that all that beautiful land would be lost if Measure G didn’t pass. Sitting a row down from me, I overheard a farmer say, “Hey, that’s my land. What’s he talking about?”
As the opponents of Measure G presented their argument, it was clear they had no intention of developing the land for homes. All the farmers wanted was the ability to continue farming their land and then pass it on to their children just as their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers had done before them. As the proponents squirmed in their seats, they had the look of deer caught in headlights. My chance had finally arrived – question time! Unfortunately, we couldn’t stand up and ask direct questions. Instead we had to send the questions to the moderator who in turn asked the questions.
I sat in my seat disappointed that I couldn’t get up and fire away dozens of questions, but I kept quiet and kept my fingers crossed that they would pick one of my questions. After about twenty minutes, I began to lose hope and figured the rascals were going to get away again. Then it happened, “Mr. Saxe, have you ever subdivided your property?” In case you don’t know, a major part of Measure G is to disallow property owners to subdivide their land. Mr. Saxe looked like a ghost sitting at the dais. Suddenly, the entire audience leaned forward to hear his answer.
“Well…well yes, but that was different,” he said.
Moans filled the room as everyone fell back in their seats in disbelief. Voices of anger echoed throughout the room, “How dare he tell us that we can’t subdivide our property when he did it himself.”
Home run on that question, but what about the others? As luck would have it, another one of my questions was asked.
“Mr. Pitschka, when was the last year that more than 100 homes were built in the county by the same builder.”
Stunned, Pitschka’s lawyer-like confidence was gone as he scrambled to put together a few words. I can’t quote Pitschka, since he mumbled most of what he had to say, but it went something like this – ah, ah, ah I’m not sure, but a plan was submitted to build a lot of homes.
Mr. Pitschka, lots of people propose to build projects, but there’s a 1-percent building cap in the county, so just be honest and say never.
What Mr. Pitschka doesn’t want you to know is that there have never been 100 homes built in the county by the same builder in one year. In the City of Hollister, yes, but Measure G doesn’t apply to land within Hollister city limits – it only applies to county land. Why doesn’t he want you to know that? Because if you knew it was a lie, the proponents of Measure G couldn’t scare you with the developer boogieman. I don’t even think any builder has ever built more than 50 homes in any given year in the county.
One question that was not asked, and is the most important question about the fairness of Measure G, is why does Measure G exempt a particular large portion of prime agriculture land? The answer is that a current supervisor owns that land! The same supervisor who secretly worked to have Measure G drafted and the same supervisor who is planning to build several hundred homes in surrounding counties.
My fellow peasants, are you starting to connect the dots? If Measure G passes, our current supervisor and his friends will own the only land in the county that is available to build homes on. Our supervisor will get filthy rich and perhaps his close friends will too. Friends such as Tracie Cone, Mandy Rose, who is a county official, and a few other select individuals, but the rest of us will become nothing more than indentured servants.
Does thou really want to make our greedy supervisors richer than thou are or will thou do the right thing and return the kingdom back to the people?
Ignacio Velazquez can be reached at [email protected].
