Oh noes. Not a google employee and his open source thinking.

"I was shocked to discover that the 2011 budget was formatted in a manner that inhibited searching."

Ah yes, calls to mind a pithy aphorism: When you have a hammer the world looks like a nail

It is about time to have a non-lib on the council.. MtnView used to be a conservative city with the likes of Nick Galioto, Matt Pear, Angie Frosolone, Bill V, Chuck Gordon, etc. In recent years the yuppie liberals have had free reign and have advanced "progressive" agendas..

We need a new approach.

Congratulations to the new contestant

It's time for a change of direction, good to see new faces in politics.

Libertarians - the selfish children of politics. No thanks.

"selfish child of politics". That's news to me . John Inks is a lib and stands for a free society of limited government, personal liberty and personal responsibility. I presume daycare stands for all of the opposite, statism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, take your pick because that's what the dems abnd repubs offer.

Lordy, 105 days until the election and so far we have a pot head lawyer and a data searcher. I fell a bit silly now for having called Abe-Koga clueless.

anything would be better than Abe-Koga or Bryant

Daycare, why do you find libertarians to be "selfish children of politics"?

Two comments:
1. I would vote for anybody who would prevent our fine city from becoming another Los Angeles with all it's big city problems. I am not anti-growth, but cities need to grow responsibly.
2."I was shocked to discover that the 2011 budget was formatted in a manner that inhibited searching." Well, aren't all government documents SUPPOSED to be written in such a way that the taxpayers will never be able to figure it out how their hard earned money is being wasted, er, spent?

re: "Well, aren't all government documents SUPPOSED to be written in such a way that the taxpayers will never be able to figure it out how their hard earned money is being wasted, er, spent?"

Good point. The problem I've seen is government financial reports with insufficient breakdown of expenses. Specifically:

* Caltrain contracts its daily operation to Amtrak. If you look at Caltrain's annual report, the largest slice in its budget pie, Amtrak operation expenses, is completely opaque. There's no way to find out what the heck Amtrak is spending money on.

* Mountain View contracts waste management to Recology. If you try to find out how much Recology profits or loses from recycling, no luck.

""I was shocked to discover that the 2011 budget was formatted in a manner that inhibited searching."
how dumb and frivolous is his reasoning.

It seems to me this google employee is not outraged by the generous pensions and perks city employees have been giving themselves for all these years. 180K pension for a librarian? It seems to me MOuntain view is being run like a middle east countries run by Sheikhs (princes).

kanack,

He expressed concern about the sustainability of the city budget, which indicates that he probably IS concerned about overcompensation of city employees.

I don't know if you've ever been interviewed, but everything you talk about with the reporter doesn't make it into the amount of space allocated for the story. I'd give the guy a chance. Perhaps write to him yourself to ask what he thinks, or show up at an event at which he is appearing.

A Google-Geek-libertarian may or may not be a good thing for Mtn. View. Sounds as if he'll keep an eye on the budget (possibly reign in the ridiculous public employee pension system we have?) which couldn't hurt!

With some notable exceptions, the Mountain View city budget is pretty well managed. Despite the city council, the budget manager has managed to keep an even hand and has helped the city survive the state and federal cuts without too much pain.

The budget is available on-line and is humanly readable. Realistically, most people would not read it even it it was computer parsable and would not understand the complexities even if they did read it.

USA is more than right. The city budget - including the budget projection worksheets in Excel format (hex on Microsoft) is available from the city Finance Department. I've had a copy myself since late 2009 when the City Manager and the Finance Department held open public meetings on budget pre-planning for the 2010-11 budget! Download and run your own projections or future cuts. (It doesn't calculate the citizen outcry)

The issue in the city budget is the cost of public safety employee operations, benefits, pensions. With the same tax load - Calif. government spends a much higher % of revenue on public safety employees that back East. Less money for teachers and education - more money for 90% 55 year old retirees. If you review the last budget - fire dept has had the least reductions over the last 5 years. Is a candidate willing to address efficiency issues in this dept??? (look at Sunnyvale comps)

Thanks for commenting, even if you don't agree with my background or statements. I believe that a healthy debate is always beneficial (or at least amusing).

Please feel free to contact me directly (dan@waylonis.org) if you'd like to discuss any issues not (or sufficiently) covered on my website (http://www.waylonis.org). I've been updating the contents based on these discussions and other private conversations, and I'll continue to update the pages as I further refine my positions.