I met with my Team Chuck and we decided the only way we can fool people into being scared is to make up a panic about the budget. So I wrote this letter to act like a neutral person who just happened to fall into this forum and was curious about how courageous Chuck is the only person who cares, while the evil council is throwing our hopes away...

Chuck put his own analysis together based upon numbers that (and I quote from the council meeting) are "incomplete and reflect numbers without full receipts from sales and hotel tax".

This the most absurdly lame campaign attempt. The budget is off, yes. But Chuck's analysis only proves how dangerous he would be...

Having read the recent news quotes by Rojas not being sure he wants to continue for much longer struck me as a pretty clear indication that he wants to be long gone by the time Menlo Park figures out how much trouble it is in. I think your financial concerns are likely warranted. We are in the same sinking boat with captains jumping overboard, here in Atherton.

This present council is accountable for all the financial problems the city faces. Why in the world would anyone vote to reelect the 2 incumbents, Cline and Robinson. As the Daily post put it, it is time to sweep them out.

Robinson is incredibly arrogant, hot-headed as well and tried to use his position as Mayor to force his way onto the CalTrain board. It was a real black mark.

Just remember, this council, hired the City Manager, raised the pension benefits, granted the police sergeants a 35% raise, installed red light cameras to raise money, increased the master fee schedule, allowed the City manager to hire a full time ass't City manager and now a deputy City manager as well as ass't city clerk. In other words its has been build a bigger bureaucracy. Quite frankly our city manager has been a outright disaster, and council goes ahead and gives him raises, and extends his contract.

Take Bernstein's analysis for what it is worth; at least he has looked hard at the numbers, and he has the professional back ground to make one believe he is right.

I'm not voting for either Cline or Robinson.

And don't forget that $1.27 million loan to Mr. Rojas...

Rojas hired (with Council's approval) a 'Community Engagement Manager' to help staff gloss over financial news. This is one position that's easy remove and won't be missed.

When Chuck is proven to be wrong, which is far too easy even given my small peek into the current budget, will he admit it? Or will he argue the facts?

This all just keeps proving to me why I should never vote for Chuck. Even though he knows he is distorting the truth, he is willing to manipulate residents and try to use their emotions just to get a seat on a town council?

C'mon Chuck. Disgraceful desperation.

Chuck has been asking good questions about the city budget for many years. It's a cheap shot to suggest otherwise.
One reason I support him for Council is that almost none of the Council members have sufficient financial backgrounds to know what to ask, and don't seem willing to use the talents of residents on the Budget committee to help them out.
Budget information is always fluid, but it's critical to monitor it closely and frequently to ensure that what may be missing information is just that, and not unexpected shortfalls. Chuck understand the difference.

I'd vote for him in a flash if I lived in town. If I recall, he installed Zero Based Budgeting...the most effective budgeting system we ever had...one that all council members could understand.

Also, pension reform needs to happen. Putting it to a vote is a clear idication MP has a council that cannot run a city....They voted in a huge enhancement and don't have the guts to vote it out.

Lastly, I am no friend of unions but management has its faults. Who do you think was on the other side of the bargaining table when the huge enhancement was granted?

Do we think Glen Rojas took the job to boost his final year pension? It is possible.

Chuck's grandstanding at the council meeting Tuesday was disgusting and revealing.

Not only did he not have the facts right (admittedly guessing and incomplete), he was simply using the opportunity to produce video of himself being concerned about the budget. At the same time he showed himself to be grossly wound up and unable to control his temper. He used demeaning and rude comments about community members, staff, and council members.

He attacks council for giving a well deserved proclamation to Art In Action. He acts as though council hasn't paid attention to the budget, conveniently forgetting the transparent budgeting process instituted by this council that has allowed them to react more quickly when projections are different than planned. He does all this with name calling and very divisive language.

He would be the worst council member this town, nay, this region, has ever seen based only his apparent inability to control his rage in a public setting alone.

He is NOT the only candidate that understands and is concerned about the budget. In fact, they all are!

The only incumbent who has a grasp on financial matters is Boyle and he's departing the Council. Sure, the rest may be concerned but they don't understand finance or budgets. Of all the candidates for Council, Bernstein has by far the most experience, including working with city budgets. The others have a steep learning curve.

Having served with Peter Ohtaki on the Fire Board, I can guarantee that he has a superb grasp of budgets and he will bring a very strong hand of fiscal responsibility to the Council.

Peter, has to be elected first and that is anything but assured.

Almost for certain, Keith will elected --- she has the DuBoc and well as the Slocum crew all working for her and she is female, which will work for her. She will get the most votes. Slocum, as mentioned below, may wish she hadn't pushed to get her group to endorse her.

Cline and Robinson, might somehow prevail, but surely MP voters will hopefully remove Robinson.

Cline will survive. So you are left with Ohtaki vs. Bernstein.

Tough to figure, but Chuck probably has the edge with him deeper history in the City.

Stick to the topic at hand, Peter - start another thread if you want to promote your BFF for city council again.

The topic is "Menlo Park facing serious deficit -- is it being covered up?"

And in my opinion the BEST candidate to uncover the truth about that is Ohtaki. He saved the Fire District millions because of his sharp financial skills.

Staff will announce the new CALPERS 'subsidy' after the election. Rojas has been sitting on this, even not saying that Calpers will come and ask for more money.

That is why it is so important not to vote for the incumbents who got us into this financial quagmire. Do not reward incompetence and union cronyism with another term for Heyward Robinson and Richard Cline. Please vote for Ohtaki and Bernstein. For the third vote it should be either Russ Petersen or Kirsten Keith.

There are people who are trying to make Chuck Bernstein out to be a villianous, conniving politician. I worked with Chuck very closely on the petition gathering effort for Measure L (Pension Reform). I had formerly held opposing views from Chuck with respect for development. I am here to write that having worked with him closely for several months, I found him to be a sincere, intelligent, and respectful individual. At no time when he disagreed with the group of 10-12 people working on the pension reform issue did he exhibit bizarre, temper issues. I think this myth is being perpetuated to discredit him. At the League of Women Voter's Forum, Chuck did strongly express what is wrong with the current council. Thank God he did because for a while there I thought I was watching a group at a prayer meeting singing kumbaya together. I began to wonder why others were running for council. Chuck has the courage and integrity that so many people lack who run for political office. I would trust Chuck with my life. He is as golden as they come.

BERNSTEIN/OHTAKI/PETERSON are the ONLY 3 candidates who are fiscal conservatives and will hold the line on expenses and continue to address pension reform with the residents/taxpayers as a priority. It is vital to elect individuals who know financial issues and are not willing to bandaid the problem with taxes such as the UUT (as Kirsten Keith suggested at League of Women Voter forum). Cline and Robinson had their chance for 4 years to address budget and they only made it worse. We need to elect people who believe their constituents are the taxpayers and not the SEIU.

If it was John Boyle saying there was a fiscal crisis, I'd definitely care. Chuck? It's just politics- an 'October surprise' to make up for dwindling enthusiasm and his failure to secure a Boyle endorsement (it wasn't for lack of effort, from what I've heard). Ohtaki and Keith are making legitimate noise, and Robinson had better be worried, but Chuck Bernstein? If he gets more votes than David Speer did in 2002, I'll be surprised.

Council Prediction in order of most votes:
1) Kirsten Keith
2) Peter Ohtaki
3) Rich Cline
---------------------
4) Heyward Robinson
5) Chuck Bernstein
6) Russ Petersen

Chuck Bernstein is right on. His arguments are cogent and based upon facts. The Menlo Park City Council has been inefficient and wasteful. I like the idea that Bernstein has a Ph.D. and is an educator. I agree with his analyses. He is acutely mindful of efficient and valid uses for money while protecting the beauty of Menlo.

It will be a loss for Menlo Park if Dr. Bernstein fails to get on the City Council.

Why would John Boyle admit to a fiscal mess. He was on council and the finance audit committee; to admit he didn't know what was going on would really hurt whatever left of a reputation he still possesses. As the leader of a bankrupt venture capital group, that should have been enough information for the voters of Menlo Park to not elect him 4 years ago.

A complete obstructionist, who to this day thinks High Speed Rail through our City in any form is great, that any kind of development is just fine, he represents the kind of council person that should have never been on the dais. He is also responsible for hiring the present incompetent City Manager, being a swing vote on that decision.

Hopefully we will have a major change next month when the new coulcil takes office.

Thank heavens he didn't try to get elected again.

How is that Keith should win? She has no platform, doesn't say why she's running or what she will do, and doesn't state her position on almost anything. I get that a lot of people like her, but the election should not be a popularity contest. Those belong in high school.

Election aren't popularity contests?

What else would they be?

Let's see - my mother is well-liked, Paris Hilton is popular. Neither should be elected.

Keith is the same enigma as Cline.

Actually, there is no way out of this mess that 30 years and an educated new generation can't attempt to cure...but, I am not sure there is much hope but to admit that we mostly all have been too greedy.
Those who are not long for this life, are going to be better off than trying to rise from the status we hold as a third world country in most people's eyes around the world.
Try traveling and talking to people. We are a very sorry lot.

This was an OpEd piece that I wrote in 2008 and which I shared with the Menlo Park City Council - all except John Boyle chose to ignore it:

Palo Alto Weekly
Spectrum - Friday, December 5, 2008

Guest Opinion: Economic 'perfect storm' is brewing for local agencies

by Peter Carpenter

For many years I have been directly involved in local government agencies or in federal programs designed to support local and state agencies.
Never in that period have I seen such financial storm clouds as now appear on the horizon of local governments.
For the last eight years I have had the privilege and the responsibility of serving the citizens as an elected director of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District (which serves Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, Atherton and parts of San Mateo County) — one of the finest fire districts in the country.
Previously, I served as a Planning Commissioner in Palo Alto and, many years ago, as the federal official in the Office of Management and Budget who was responsible for coordinating all federal assistance to state and local governments.
With falling property values yielding less property-tax revenues, falling consumer and business spending yielding less sales taxes, increased retirement costs (because CalPERS has suffered significant loss of capital in the current financial downturn), continued demands for well-above-average salary increases by public employees, and the governor declaring a financial emergency, local governments in California are facing a Perfect Storm.
Unless local governments act promptly to respond to these dramatic changes we will see more of them joining Vacaville and Rio Vista in being forced into bankruptcy.
Housing prices and hence property taxes will be depressed for at least another two years — just about everywhere except the Palo Alto area, it seems.
And if a lot of the current homeowners request reassessments the decreases will be dramatic.
Similarly consumer and business spending are forecast to be depressed for the next two years.
And CalPERS, which is obligated to continue to pay out fixed-benefit retirement payments and which has seen huge losses in its capital, can only turn to local governments to make up the difference.
And local governments have no choice but to pay what CalPERS will demand.
And while this is all happening local-government unions are continuing to ask for significant increases in both salaries and benefits.
The total labor costs for most local governments are between 60 and 80 percent of their total budgets. While California's local governments are blessed with very talented and capable employees, the current process of salary-and-benefit negotiation has gotten out of hand.
Local-government employee unions insist that the standard for setting their pay be that they be above the average of other public employees. But if everybody is above average then the average goes up very quickly.
While we have many superb employees working for local government, those employees should not expect to receive salaries and benefits that are inconsistent with those of the citizens whom they serve or that will bankrupt their employers.
And in most cases those inflationary-spiral labor agreements are being approved in secret without any public input or scrutiny.
As an elected member of the Board of Directors of one of the finest fire districts, what do I think should be done to respond to this Perfect Storm?
First, local governments need to recognize that there is a crisis and act now.
Second, they need to involve their citizens in a careful look at each of their programs to determine which programs are no longer affordable — however nice or special they might have been in better times, or even how worthy any single program might be.
Third, they need to plan now for hiring freezes, elimination of overtime, reduction in services, layoffs, renegotiated labor agreements and, in the extreme, bankruptcy.
Fourth, they should consider accelerating essential capital-improvement projects (the operative word is essential), as construction costs during this downturn will be substantially less than if the projects are delayed until the recovery begins.
Finally, they need to move the review and approval of new labor agreements out from behind the current wall of secrecy from which the public is excluded.
Once new labor agreements have been agreed upon by the negotiators then those agreements should be simultaneously submitted to both the union members and to the public that will bear the costs well before the city councils and special district boards meet in public session to vote on those agreements.
The Perfect Storm can be weathered but not by sunbathing on the deck.
Peter Carpenter is a longtime resident of the Midpeninsula who currently is a member of the Board of Directors of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District. He can be e-mailed at peterfcarpenter@gmail.com.

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Sadly I predict that the Menlo Park deficit will continue to grow as the expenses increase and the revenues decrease. The Council has waited too long to act and now will need to take draconian actions - but those too will be deferred.