Opinion: Irrational Decision Making Merits No Vote From Me

(June 1, 2014) -- Council incumbent/Assembly-candidate Suja Lowenthal has done and said some nice things - her mass-mailed promo-bio (however it magically got funded) on the whole is impressive and does make a good read. [The bio of course never mentions her caper of a few years ago wherein in mid-term of public service she suddenly ditched her alleged passion - the LB public schools - in favor of jumping to the LB city council.]

However, like all but one of her colleagues on the Long Beach city council, Suja has established a track record of ignoring basics of rational decision-making. They decide to whim. Maybe their own, or maybe Mayor Foster's or Manager West's, but anyhow whim, not reason. Sometimes good decisions, sometimes bad decisions, but guided by whim, not rational examination and analysis of alternative solutions.

Neither Suja nor Council incumbent/Assembly candidate Patrick O'Donnell - who also has the Sierra Club's endorsement - will get my vote. Nor will Council incumbent/Mayoral candidate Robert Garcia or Council incumbent/City Attorney candidate James Johnson, who all also have such endorsements (for different offices).

Environment is my passion, in my front yard and beyond. I have long been (and will continue to be) a member of Sierra Club and other environmental groups. I am indeed grateful for the good things that happen whimsically to have occurred here in Long Beach (like the plastic bag ban). However I cannot in good conscience endorse the idea of deliberately giving over public decisions to folks (including some who have the temerity to boast academic doctorates) who have a track record of not only ignoring but indeed deliberately rejecting really basic rational procedures of decision-making.

Lowenthal and O'Donnell and colleagues just rubber-stamped a vague but costly plan to build a new Long Beach City Hall without examining any alternatives to achieve the same functions. Indeed they deliberately rejected calls to examine alternatives. Both Lowenthal and ODonnell accepted and essentially rubberstamped proposed muni budgets for three years in a row - pseudo-budgets which revealed next to nothing about what actual muni functions would thereby get done - or not done.

This season's various and sundry endorsements of these and like candidates simply prove to me that the endorsers are just back-slapping and don't really know or perhaps don't care, or perhaps don't dare to care, with whom or what they are dealing.

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