By Kathy Hooper, San Juan Capistrano
The more I hear about the ridiculous recall attempt against Mayor Sam Allevato, the angrier I get. Obviously, the charges against him are unfounded. Blaming Sam for increases in our water rates is completely unwarranted.
Also, trying to twist his support of the Groundwater Recovery Plant into something negative is just wrong. The GWRP is one of the major reasons why our city will go through this drought with minimal impact compared to other California cities. We should be applauding his foresight, not condemning him for it.
However, the thing that upsets me most is that the small group of people—not all of them are citizens of our town—who are trying to push this recall do absolutely nothing constructive for our wonderful city. Instead of using their time to help the community they say they love, they just sit back, criticize and try to tear down what so many dedicated residents have worked so hard to build.
I’ve met hundreds of wonderful people and volunteers while working in the community over the past 35 years, including serving 30 years on the Fiesta Association’s Board of Directors and many years on the city’s Parks, Recreation and Senior Services Commission. In all these years, I have never seen any member of the recall group lift a finger to help.
One of their complaints is that public open space is not made available to the public. However, wonderful projects like the Dr. Joe Cortese Dog Park, 2C Ranch and upcoming Reata Park and Event Center have been turned into wonderful public-use areas by the manpower and donations of the Open Space Foundation’s volunteers. You’ll see people like Sam Allevato, John Taylor, Larry Kramer and so many others physically working at these sites and so many other sites in town, but I have never seen anyone from the recall group offering to help there either.
Not only that, but they condemn the efforts of these volunteers. Again, these are volunteers working on behalf of the community. It doesn’t matter how much of their time these valuable volunteers dedicate or the amount of good work they do. The recall supporters don’t want to join in the good of the community. They just seem to want to destroy the good in the community.
It has been an honor and a joy to be a volunteer in our community for so long, and I know that Sam Allevato feels the same way. He truly has our city’s best interests at heart. Please see this latest vindictive stunt for what it is and say no to the recall.
Way to go, Kathy. It’s time for all the voices of sanity and reason to speak up and drown out the inane babble from the recall proponents.
I could not agree more with you Kathy. In a city strapped for cash, the law suits have not only wasted our tax dollars, they have created a distraction for both city workers and the council, keeping them from addressing pressing issues in a timely manner.
Have Sam, John and Larry made mistakes. Sure, but who hasn’t ever made a mistake. I have been disappointed that the council hasn’t passed the resolution I submitted that would ban fracking and use of injection wells within our city limits. The L.A. City Council passed a resolution on Friday, 2/28/2014 on a 10-0 vote, banning fracking, and they sent it on to their City Attorney to draft the regulation.
I found myself having to agree with Sam though. The City Attorney has enough on his plate thanks to the “Common Sense” group.
Overall, I believe they have done an above average job of running the city for us, and I hope that they will continue working for us all. As for me, I’ll keep on pushing for a local ban, so that we can send a strong message to the Governor who doesn’t appear to be listening, and I will get behind SB 1132, which will ban fracking statewide.