By Stuart Soffer
E-mail Stuart Soffer
About this blog: Growing up in Brooklyn, NY I lived in high-density housing and experienced transit-oriented services first hand. During high school and college summers I worked in Manhattan drafting tenant floor plans for high-rise office buildi...
(More)About this blog: Growing up in Brooklyn, NY I lived in high-density housing and experienced transit-oriented services first hand. During high school and college summers I worked in Manhattan drafting tenant floor plans for high-rise office buildings. This could have been a career option, but my interest in computers - unusual at the time - led me to the computer science program at the University of Wisconsin. A programming job on Page Mill Road brought me to Palo Alto after college. Since 1993 I consult on bridging law and technology, and serve as an expert witness in Intellectual Property litigation. We moved to Menlo Park's Linfield Oaks neighborhood in 1994. Neighborhood traffic issues motivated my initial volunteering as a Menlo Park Planning Commissioner, followed by a stint as a Chamber of Commerce board member and most recently a finance/audit committee member. I advocate community volunteering for meeting people, the neighborhoods, and understanding the myriad issues that somehow arise. As hobbies I collect contemporary art and vintage cameras. And? fly helicopters, which offer rare views of the nooks and crannies of the Bay Area.
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I agree with former councilmember Lee DuBoc, who distributed an email outlining the risks of this behind the scenes, but impactful, folly.
Our Menlo Park City Council will deliberate whether to support a financial power grab that eliminates local council control over outsourcing incidental and specialized tasks to outside services. This eliminates our flexibility solve some staffing requirements without the city inheriting long-term pension obligations. The League of California Cities actively opposes AB 1250 – and so should we - and so should our city council.
This is micromanaging and yanking control at the same time. The purpose of the AB 1250 is to increase union membership in outside services. It’s about the unions getting membership fees. It will add additional long term pension and entitlement burdens. It wall add to management costs.
It’s fixing something that isn’t broken, which usually has unintended consequences.
