I didn’t endorse any candidate for the county’s District 4 supervisor primary. I thought newcomer Daniel Recht needed a better platform since he had no previous record and neither the incumbent, Supervisor Jerry Muenzer, nor other challenger, Councilmember Victor Gomez, had demonstrated the leadership desperately needed to move ahead under difficult circumstances.
Primary survivors Muenzer and Gomez both expressed satisfaction that it had been a clean campaign as they got ready for the November runoff, but it now appears the slim 100-vote lead was too close for Muenzer. Rather than address county’s very real and serious issues, he has opted for maximum pandering and, worse, to unleash surrogate Supervisor Anthony Botelho to attack his opponent from a board seat.
These common deals have two inherent problems. The first is that they can interfere with the public’s business. The second is that when you unleash an attack dog you may end up being a lapdog; both may be in play.
All pretense went out the window when Chairman Muenzer inexplicably sat on his gavel as Botelho recently launched a personal and political attack on Gomez who is the chairman of the Council of Governments (COG). Botelho was upset that the COG director had resigned, but both Botelho and Muenzer are also on the COG board and could have aired their complaints when COG was in session; you know – man up.
Worse, Botelho also targeted a private consultant and local law firm, neither of whom were present nor asked about their versions of events. As is his usual M.O., Botelho used belittling, derogatory terms against a private citizen – terms that the chair would never allow the public to direct toward a board member. This was a clear violation of the “respect rules” that Chairman Muenzer had set for everyone else.
Botelho has been anything but a casual bystander in the political food fight at COG, sowing much ill will by repeatedly trying to kill critical projects using a slash-and-burn tactics. He’s no White Knight protecting employees; he’s the ultimate political opportunist selling himself as supportive in public while poisoning the well behind the scenes and he’s certainly no friend of District 4 voters.
It appears from Botelho’s blatant demands for changes to the General Plan that Muenzer may have already agreed to play second fiddle to Botelho’s no-growth agenda in exchange for his support.
Everyone panders, but Muenzer is taking it to new levels. He was instrumental in ill-advisedly lowering of the county’s bonding requirements for oil and gas exploration, but now says he has no position on the critical local oil and gas initiative. That’s simply not credible.
He certainly should be concerned about constituent Ridgemark homeowners, but specifically identifying protecting golf courses as a priority item during an historic drought and skyrocketing water costs is just too much.
Muenzer recently voted, without explanation, against allowing a developer to pay for and obtain an environment impact report apparently because a small number of District 4 voters opposed the project. Good thing he lost 4-1. It was a lawsuit waiting to happen. You cannot deny someone the right to gather evidence without very good cause. Curiously, he voted to accept the project’s application only a few months ago.
Muenzer still has time to recover his bearings, but if he looks in the mirror right now he must wonder who’s sitting in his board seat and who stole the real Jerry Muenzer.
