"Due to the city's term-limit rules, current councilmen John Inks and Mike Kasperzak are ineligible to run for reelection" to Council. The same term limits, in spirit, would equally preclude Margaret Abe-Koga (who served the same amount of time on the Council as those two candidates), except for the timing technicality of when the term limiting became effective.

Apparently Abe-Koga isn't comfortable out of public office, even though another past Council candidate commented in the Voice 'I remember vividly during my council candidacy listening to her repeatedly utter the words, "I am not a career politician".' Web Link Everyone should remember that quotation, and that the same Voice article eventually brought out Abe-Koga's overlapping filings to run both for 2014 El Camino Hospital District board and for 2016 County Supervisor. That in past Council races, "heavily supported by organized labor" including unions of public employees, she out-spent opponents. And that when some of this factual background surfaced in Voice comments two months ago, from responsible community members concerned about our City Council, someone posting as "Fran" labeled it all "personal attacks" and even "hate and maybe even racism." That's how some Abe-Koga supporters answer factual testimony about Abe-Koga's own actions: with name-calling, augmented sometimes by playing games with organized "Like" clicks on their own posts. It all acts to validate our concerns about this candidate.

Almost all instances of the phrase "career politician" archived on this website are from articles about Margaret Abe-Koga.

Correcting my first paragraph above: served the same amount of time on the Council as disqualified those two candidates from reelection.

As a furriner, I am confused by the fact that "career politicians" are looked at askance. I would only use a "career plumber," a "career lawyer." or a "career doctor." Length of time in public service is not necessarily a bad thing. A politician with bad intentions can do plenty of damage before he or she is unable to run because of term limits. I'm not intending to be argumentative, but can someone please tell me why "career politician' is a negative description?

How about follow the Athenian model which always tried to eliminate "professional" candidates in favor of real people with real life experience...by randomly picking people to serve for 1 year. We do have a highly paid staff who (assumedly) more skilled at city affairs than our "leaders". Perhaps have a rule that to be appointed to the Council you would need to have graduated from High School and be at least 21 years old.
Worked pretty well for them... and the professional politicians would be free to get real jobs and spend more time with t heir families.

Using " career politicians " and " professional politicians" within the same paragraph as " real jobs " is a contradiction .
To AEH. Career politicians usually means people who can not succeed in the real world. . Usually , not always.

For decades ago, Mountain View voters amended the city chater (section 500) to impose a two successive term limit for city council. The amendment was proposed by initiative petition. As I told the current City Council at the July 14 special meeting concerning possible alternatives to the rent control initiative headed for the November ballot, councilmembers long ago tried to sabotage the term limit initiative by giving voters additional "choices" (i.e., a one-term limit, a three-term limit and no limit (already the situation). The alternative measure trick did not work. Voters saw through it and adopted the two-term limit by a 2-1 margin. Because it only limits successive elective terms, councilmembers can seek a third term after a 2-year break. Councilmember Pat Figueroa did so. Councilmember Mike Kasperzak did the same. Evidently, Margaret Abe-Koga will run again as well.

Four decades ago. Time flies.

It's good to read that Jose Guiterrex will run for school board. I've had a chance to speak with him at a few school functions and he is very knowledgeable on the issues and a very kind, professional, balanced and personable figure. He really cares about the entire community and all the children and schools. I'm glad he has not been turned off by the negativity that some like to spin.

To AEH: You asked, "please tell me why "career politician' is a negative description", and I'll take a shot.

First, people who are running for re-election have a BIG advantage: They already have the job. You would think this means politicians generally are doing a great job. (I do.) Of course, there are exceptions, and there's the rub. Even politicians who are not doing a great job are more likely to be re-elected than rejected.

Voters have long ("four decades" to quote Gary) recognized this, and decided it was better to take a chance that a new candidate would be an great politician than to take a chance that a bad politician would be re-elected.

Of the 6 candidates running for city council, the choices are very easy.

If you believe that the job of a council member is to represent everyone fairly,equally, and with equal rights for everyone, then the only choices are
Clark, McAlister, Abe-Koga and Matichak.

If you believe that residents are nothing more than groups of people that you can take rights away from and give them to others, then you would vote for
Cornes and Ramirez. These are the 2 candidates that the Voice will endorse!?

If you discredit candidates for the only reason of calling them "career politicians" then you will obviously not be voting for Hillary Clinton.

Me, I choose candidates that will do the best job for the city and ALL of its residents and not take away rights from anyone.

Here it comes, right on schedule. Note details in the last comment, from "Gladys:"

1. "Clark, McAlister, Abe-Koga and Matichak" recommended based on an assertion that they're good. (Not one word of factual data to substantiate this claim.)

2. "Cornes and Ramirez" criticized, with assertion they'll only "take rights away" from residents. (Not one bit of data to support any such vague attack.)

3. "If you discredit candidates for the only reason of calling them "career politicians" ..." (The first comment posted here only pointed out Abe-Koga's quoted claim of being "not a career politician" versus a record of relentless quests for elected office, any elected office -- including, at one point, two simultaneous offices. That is not a matter of labeling the candidate -- Gladys's own modus operandi -- but of examining her actual record.)

4. Incongrous, abormally high count of "Like" votes appearing promptly on Glady's comment (just as I predicted above).

Or many people remember Abe-Koga as council woman and liked the job see did, henceforth the "likes".

The statistically anomalous "Likes" count in THIS comment thread so far appeared on the comment from "Gladys" (labeling four candidates positively and two negatively, offering no basis at all for any of the labeling). It immediately got 50 "Likes" during a slow, overnight interval, when few if any "Likes" surfaced on any other comments -- this also at a time of the year and week with below-average activity of any kind on the Voice's "Town Square" forum.

Of course, it's always possible that 50 different people just happened to read the comments thread during that very slow time, and all of them, independently, agreed with "Gladys's" specific appraisals of six candidates, done in that particular (peculiar) way. If you believe that, well. . .

Similarly improbable instant "Like" accumulations appeared on other Voice comments in recent months (including a May article focused on Abe-Koga). This will continue, unless and until the Voice institutes a registration requirement for "Like" votes (standard on most news-media websites today) so that the "Like" votes, for a change, must come from separate people.

Until the website institutes such a policy, sudden high "Like" counts do have value -- as a tip-off, to associate the comment with gaming/manipulation, rather than the views of readers at large.

It's certainly plausible that the dark money and political "machines" that have figured in some recent Council races would instinctively make use of such gimmicks.

It is safe to assume when there is an unusually large number of "likes" on a comment that an individual is circumventing the method we use to limit "likes" to one per computer per comment. Short of requiring that a visitor be logged in to "like" a comment, there's really nothing we can do to prevent this if a visitor is determined to modify their computer settings and cheat. Unfortunately, as was pointed out, this kind of gaming is not limited to the Voice's Town Square and occurs on just about every forum that doesn't require registration to comment or to "like" something.

@Andrea Gemmet,


Still no response from you.

It is very clear that the Voice and it's surrogates have the knives out for Abe-Koga and Matichak and will do everything they can to get Ramirez and Cornes elected. Long time followers of this site know the story and to what extent they will go to get their agenda accomplished. The Voice is an outside group who does not live in our city and do not respond to any request for transparency as other outside groups are now required to.
There was a thread here that discussed rent control about 2 months ago, 2 new posts came up pro rent control, and in 2 seconds it had 400 likes and when someone made an immediate post and commented about those likes, the Voice deleted that post pointing out those 400 "likes".


You have not answered any previous questions from another post. I will copy and paste those here with the link. I have seen many instances of censorship from this website. If the Voice does not want to answer questions, they erase,delete, and lock threads. You have completely removed posts by me, not deleted but erased, so I know that it happens. I have provided that post below. I keep all hard copies from the threads here. Link,

Web Link


Andrea, your organization is not one that provides facts from both sides of an issue then lets residents decide issues, instead, you have an agenda and you push it thru no matter what. I will wager you that you do not have the guts to leave my post up and investigate these issues.


Posted by Andrea Gemmet
Mountain View Voice Editor
on Jun 3, 2016 at 2:53 pm
Andrea Gemmet is a registered user.


I'd like to quickly clear up a couple of misconceptions in this thread.

1. Voice staff members are not allowed to comment anonymously on Town Square threads. If an editor or reporter makes a comment, it will be under his or her own name.

2. It is against our policy for any member of the newsroom staff to participate in political or advocacy groups in areas we cover. Daniel DeBolt has not been employed by the Voice for over a year. He recently has taken a volunteer position with the Tenants' Coalition, which, as private citizen, he is free to do.



Report Objectionable Content

Email Town Square Moderator


53 people like this
Posted by MTN VIEW Resident
a resident of Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Jun 3, 2016 at 5:44 pm

@Andrea Grommet,

I am glad that you have posted here to address the community's concern.

However, your non answers to questions posted here have not been answered.

Will you commit to total transparency from your organization?

Will you state what city all involved with the paper, live in?

Do you have an employee named Angel S. and is it appropriate that he locks a thread if the posts do not go his way? Will you also have a rule that states any employee posting on the web site will state that he is an employee of the paper?

Why has there been no coverage from the Voice regarding what is needed and costs from running an apartment business? The paper has been extremely biased and one sided. Your paper is pro rent control.

Your paper has asked council to make more laws so elections can be more transparent, will your paper do the same? Or will the Voice stay out of politics and stop endorsing candidates and measures?

Will you be open and state any conflicts of interest in stories?

Why has there been no stories as to who these people are calling themselves the Mountain View Tenants Coalition, and where are they getting the money from. You would do this if this group was spending money against one of the papers candidates that got endorsed from you.

These are just some inconsistencies from your paper. Since you are very involved with the political scene in our city, it is important for transparency that you start to address these issue's.


On 6/15/2016 at 12.45pm. I posted the information below onto the thread at the Voice titled,


"Rent-control measure expected to go to voters in November" The powers that be at the Voice, removed my post.


These people at the Voice, calling themselves a news organization should no longer be trusted by any resident of Mountain View. When the media starts to use censorship to end debate, the people should be afraid. Below is what I posted earlier today.


This is a third request, as the first one posted on 6/2/16 has not been answered.


I CALL ON THE MOUNTAIN VIEW VOICE TO ENACT IT'S OWN TRANSPARENCY RULES FOR THE BENEFIT OF MOUNTAIN VIEW RESIDENTS, FOR ALL ISSUES POLITICAL.


There is no bigger "Shadowy Group" than the Mountain View Voice paper.


Could it be their intention to install a "Publishers Council and or Publishers Candidates?


The city council has passed a set of new disclosure rules for elections, and candidates. The Voice should adopt similar rules themselves if they continue to be actively involved in writing editorials telling the council how they should vote, what new ordinances are needed, and telling voters how they should vote.



The Voice is the single most powerful, influential media print in our city. Their candidates that they endorse are mostly approved by voters who have no information about the people at the Voice. As residents in our city, we need to have information as to who the people are in the Voice so we can make an informed decision.

Their free, one sided stories, that they give to their candidates and or agenda, is no different than outside groups spending their own money on mailers, yet council did not address this. This is not free speech but politico speech with the intent to have power in government.


1- The publisher and editors, Bill Johnson, Andrea Gemmet and Associate Editor Renee Batti, need to state what city and state they live in.

They also need to state what committees-boards-organization that they are on, or advise to, past and present. They should similarly comply with the new requirements that the city passed and list their donors.

In all articles that they write in the Voice, at the bottom of it should be clearly stated any conflict of interest in that story, for current and past persons involved with the paper.

2- All reporters should state what city they live in. State what committees-boards-organization that they are on, or advise to, past and present.


All articles they write should state any conflict of interest.


3-Ballot measures and candidates that the Voice supports and asks residents to vote for, opposing point of view on those measures and candidates should have their view and closing statement stated as well, on the same page at the same time.


4-Any Voice employee who logs onto the Voice website and makes any comments in any of the threads, that they shall only use their real name for the screen name and state that they are an employee of the paper.


The residents of our community needs full transparency from everyone involved that affects our community. The Voice has been the least transparent to date, and it is time for that to be corrected.


Why should we give any credibility to the Voice, for issues that they say we need to vote on, if the editorial board does not live in our city?


The Voice has already shown how dishonest they are with the current issue of rent control. They have never done a story on the other side, which is the business side of the rental business.


The Voice has not done one story on who the group called the"Mountain View Tenants Coalition" is.

They have not mentioned that there are staff and or former staff from the Voice paper working for this group. The Silicon Valley Business Journal has mentioned this.


They have not done any reporting as to how many people from the Mountain View Day Worker Center make up this MVTC group.


They also have not stated any disclosures on any of these stories regarding if any of the reporters are involved in any conflict of interest.


They have not run any stories on where this group is getting the money needed to pay the signature gathers the $4 per signature, or to mention the outside-faith based groups pushing this issue.



The Voice, and their activist candidates only want to know if any money comes in from any type of real estate group so that they could automatically call them names and discredit them.


The ommunity needs to know all of the truth.

@VOICE,

Instead of censoring and deleting peoples post about this subject, either answer these questions, or admit you are an activist on this issue and will not cover this issue fairly? That is a question to you!

Link here,


Web Link


Uploaded: Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 2:26 pm

Tenants' group to submit signatures for rent-cap measure

Mountain View Tenants Coalition reports collecting about 7,100 signatures to put initiative on November ballot.


+ 172 people like this
Posted by NoTrustInTheVoice
a resident of Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Jun 13, 2016 at 10:17 pm
NoTrustInTheVoice is a registered user.

This is a second request, as the first one posted on 6/2/16 has not been answered.


I CALL ON THE MOUNTAIN VIEW VOICE TO ENACT IT'S OWN TRANSPARENCY RULES FOR THE BENEFIT OF MOUNTAIN VIEW RESIDENTS, FOR ALL ISSUES POLITICAL.


There is no bigger "Shadowy Group" than the Mountain View Voice paper.
Is it the editors intention to install a "publishers council?"
The city council has passed a set of new disclosure rules for elections, and candidates. The Voice should adopt similar rules themselves if they continue to be actively involved in writing editorials telling the council how they should vote, what new ordinances are needed, and telling voters how they should vote.

The Voice is the single most powerful, influential media print in our city. Their candidates that they endorse are mostly approved by voters who have no information about the people at the Voice. As residents in our city, we need to have information as to who the people are in the Voice so we can make an informed decision.
Their free, one sided stories, that they give to their candidates and or agenda, is no different than outside groups spending their own money on mailers, yet council did not address this. This is not free speech but politico speech with the intent to have power in government.

1- The publisher and editors, Bill Johnson, Andrea Gemmet and Associate Editor Renee Batti, need to state what city and state they live in.
They also need to state what committees-boards-organization that they are on, or advise to, past and present. They should similarly comply with the new requirements that the city passed and list their donors.
In all articles that they write in the Voice, at the bottom of it should be clearly stated any conflict of interest in that story, for current and past persons involved with the paper.

2- All reporters should state what city they live in. State what committees-boards-organization that they are on, or advise to, past and present.
All articles they write should state any conflict of interest.

3-Ballot measures and candidates that the Voice supports and asks residents to vote for, opposing point of view on those measures and candidates should have their view and closing statement stated as well, on the same page at the same time.

4-Any Voice employee who logs onto the Voice website and makes any comments in any of the threads, that they shall only use their real name for the screen name and state that they are an employee of the paper.

The residents of our community needs full transparency from everyone involved that affects our community. The Voice has been the least transparent to date, and it is time for that to be corrected.

Why should we give any credibility to the Voice, for issues that they say we need to vote on, if the editorial board does not live in our city?

The Voice has already shown how dishonest they are with the current issue of rent control. They have never done a story on the other side, which is the business side of the rental business.

The Voice has not done one story on who the group called the"Mountain View Tenants Coalition" is.
They have not mentioned that there are staff and or former staff from the Voice paper working for this group. The Silicon Valley Business Journal has mentioned this.

They have not done any reporting as to how many people from the Mountain View Day Worker Center make up this MVTC group.

They also have not stated any disclosures on any of these stories regarding if any of the reporters are involved in any conflict of interest.

They have not run any stories on where this group is getting the money needed to pay the signature gathers the $4 per signature, or to mention the outside-faith based groups pushing this issue,as they did in the late 1990's.

The Voice, and their activist candidates only want to know if any money comes in from any type of real estate group so that they could automatically call them names and discredit them.

The community needs to know all of the truth.


Report Objectionable Content

Email Town Square Moderator




+ 194 people like this
Posted by Agree with you!
a resident of Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Jun 13, 2016 at 11:14 pm

Agree with you, the Voice has been totally dishonest.

Just look at the story they wrote, "Tenants group to submit signatures for rent-cap measure"

What a lie, this whole story is about the new 5 panel rent board that will have power to make new laws. The voters will not have the power to vote them out or change these new laws if we do not like them. These powers should only be with the city council, those who we vote on directly. It will be just like San Francisco where you will not be able to evict anyone for any reason, including if the property owner wanted to move in any family into a unit. The rent board in S.F routinely denies property owners this right by saying that they have ulterior motives.

If this group wanted new laws, they should have stated that now, but they know if they did it now it would not pass in November. There are numerous laws that already protects Tenants,as an example landlords can not keep security deposits without a legal reason. Tenants can go to small claims court and Sue for treble damages. This is already law.

If council member Lenny Siegel had his first rent control measure pass in 1982 the city today would more resemble East Palo Alto than the vibrant city we have today.

There is a reason why people do not want to move to East Palo Alto, East San Jose, San Leandro, Alameda, Oakland and even San Francisco is the number one city in all of United States for property crimes. All these cities have rent control.

Everyone also needs to remember that this rent control will not apply to single family homes, condominiums, town homes, duplex's or granny units, and apartment complexes built in 1994 and later.

Get ready for a drastically different image for ALL of Mountain View if this passes. Think about the other rent control cities in the bay area, this will effect all property owners.

Report Objectionable Content

Email Town Square Moderator


+ 15 people like this
Posted by I'll likely vote no
a resident of Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Jun 14, 2016 at 7:04 am

I'm open to other options besides rent control; I've seen it work against cities in the past and don't want MV to be added to that list.


Report Objectionable Content

Email Town Square Moderator

+ 166 people like this
Posted by I Will Vote No
a resident of Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Jun 14, 2016 at 7:45 am

I will vote no for sure!

Get ready for all the hit pieces that will be coming out from the Voice, going after anyone from the other side, and to write one emotional story after another, and none of them will be fact checked for any truth, just repeat the same lines that the proponents say as the Voice is part of this group.



Report Objectionable Content

Email Town Square Moderator



+ 171 people like this
Posted by Take back MV, ignore the Voice
a resident of Rex Manor
on Jun 14, 2016 at 8:00 am

@NoTrustInTheVoice

Thank you for standing up for Mountain View. I have felt this way for a while now. I constantly feel I'm being manipulated by The Voice. With regard to elections and editorials, I've started doing the exact opposite of whatever they suggest. I am so certain this is how we have the current city council that we do. Most people didn't read up on the candidates and just voted for what the Voice recommended, thinking the Voice has the best in mind for Mountain View.

Does anyone in leadership at the Voice even LIVE in Mountain View??? If not, then why are we even listening to them??? They probably live in Atherton or Woodside and will NEVER have to actually live with any of the policies the support!

Is it possible that "Humble observer" is an employee of the Voice?
Or
Is Mr. Ramirez?
Or
Is Ms. Cornes?

For the Voice to comment on this is very telling.
It would be one thing to make an editorial comment on candidates, but to actively promote their candidates of the Voice to the public and to put down others while pretending to be an impartial news organization is doing a disservice to the residents of Mountain View.

See how the critiques have devolved:

(1) I had sympathy for earlier postings by the person writing here as "NoTrustInTheVoice." I firmly oppose rent controls, due to their very well established negative side effects (familiar to most people, renters included, who've looked into the realities of rent control, though not to its current advocates who bought into the mental blinders of ideological dogma). I'm not a landlord and have never been one, by the way. BUT, these belabored screeds posted OVER and OVER by "NoTrustInTheVoice" -- showing no perception of the dulling effect of a repetitive message, every single version of which is far too long anyway (no one reads tirades many screenfulls long) -- and their wild accusations showing little discernment between reality and fantasy -- completely undermine any message "NoTrustInTheVoice" wants to convey.

I do agree it'd be novel, and very helpful to readers, if the Voice did some reporting (for a change) on the rest of the implications of rent control, the economics of rental ownership, the downsides that MANY residents have recently reported who experienced rent control in action -- rather than mainly letting "Mountain View Tenants Coalition" frame the issues and the language of discussion.

However, some wild accusations thrown around in past article comments by that person are just bizarre. Facts: Daniel Debolt did once work for the Voice, and has advocated dogmatically for rent control (apparently motivated by paying increasing rent). His preoccupation with this personal issue led him, while still at the Voice, to unprofessionally insinuate "rent control" into many articles where the theme didn't otherwise arise. You can see that in his archived articles if you didn't at the time. But Debolt is only one of many past Voice employees; speculating about conspiracies with current Voice personnel, with no serious evidence, is fantasy. The Voice's editor even (patiently) corrected past assertions by "NoTrustInTheVoice" that were pure, unresearched speculation (including that DeBolt was still with the Voice, and that Voice editorial personnel actually gamed "Like" votes on comments). Anyone who has read the Voice for a few years and knows its customs and patterns will see such assertions as fantastic, reflecting mainly on their writer's judgment.

(2) Then there's "Gladys:" not content to post (in an earlier comment above) praise for four current Council candidates and attacks on two, without one fact or cogent argument to support those conclusions to readers who think for themselves. Nor, content to become a public case study (with Voice Editor testimony) of a comment with the instant high "Like" count that reveals gaming. Now, in a follow-up that could come from NoTrustInTheVoice's playbook, "Gladys's" only response to exposure of those behaviors is to add more! Wild speculations that (because I dared point out flimsy assertions and fake "Like" votes) I must therefore be one of the Council candidates Gladys tried to disparage! The logic is revealing.

I had a great laugh from that. Reality: I have nothing to do with any candidates, their campaigns, their dark-money or big-labor machine supporters, or the shills who post Voice comments supporting or attacking them. I'm a downtown area resident who votes, and who assesses candidates partly by the quality and integrity of the comments their supporters display.

The Voice has been shamefully remiss in it's choice to not report objectively on the rent control issue. This decision to show such a clear bias in favor of rent control while completely ignoring all other 'sides' of the issue not only does a dis-service to the community as a whole, but this lack of objectivity by our local newspaper is divisive and tearing our community apart. Furthermore, The Voice's choice to use it's powerful media reach to report on issues while choosing to tell only ONE SIDE of an issue should be a wake up call to everyone in the community...ask yourselves, "what AREN'T we being told, and why isn't anyone reporting the other side of this important issue?"

There is a wealth of solid - unbiased - information regarding rent control out there. I believe it is up to us as residents of the community to educate ourselves about the issue because, honestly, we"re not getting enough of the complete story here to be able to make a properly informed decision about this issue.

JMHO

I am so happy that Nelson's damage to the school district will not continue after November. I hope that the board will be a in a more positive and efficient place in December without him.

No, not a Voice employee, just a Mountain View resident volunteering my time to protect my community.

It really is amazing how dirty you're willing to get to defend your greed.
You have an issue with rent control? Of course! Voice your concerns and opinions, but to then go and try to intimate and demonize our local newspaper, our community's efforts, our leadership... Just nasty. Not surprising tho, your draconian tactics look the same everywhere.
I applaud The Voice for their coverage on this issue. The voice has been reporting in what is going on in our city, not whether rent control is good or bad. Great job everyone! I hope you aren't intimidated by those people with the nasty comments here and continue to report on what is going on regardless of their threats.
To the people writing letter sized comments here... Seems like you have waaay too much free time on your hands... Or is it paid time?

Jessica Speiser does not have my vote for the LASD Board. She is from Covington and we already have three board members that live in the Covington attendance area. Like the three other board members, Ms. Speiser supports purchasing property for another school. If property was cheap, that would be okay, but it isn't. The last bond ran out of money before many of the schools got the needed repairs and new facilities that they needed. It is foolish to waste it a second time. We need to use the property that we already have at Covington. We need a board with as few Covington residents as possible.

Do not vote for Speiser, Taglio or Luther.