Dear Editor,
I’m writing on what the city council did this past Wednesday, for at least the second time, and it was something that should never have been done in the first place. The first time that this took place was back in September of last year, and now sadly history repeated itself again this past Wednesday during a vote. What was it that repeated itself; it was a vote to waive the annexation fees that Dunivan would’ve had to pay like everyone else.
The vote was 3 to 2 for waving the fees, basically making it where someone that not only has the money to spare, but as it was pointed out during the council meeting during public comment; they could’ve gone into their desk drawer and pulled out the fee money right then and there.
Now what makes this even worse by far is the fact that the only reason this waving took place in the first place is because not only is Dunivan a personal friend of da mayor’s, but at the same time, a huge campaign contributor to Rob Schroder in the first place. So of course Schroder isn’t going to want to do anything to get rid of his personal cash inflow, even if it means making sure that a friend happens to get what he wants and the city ends up suffering for it.
At the council meeting, it was brought up that this should never have been made political and that we the public were making it political, yeah…no the mayor made it political the moment that he said yes to waving the fees for joining the city proper in the first place for a friend that happens to donate large sums of money to his campaign. That right there is how he made it political. Now if the mayor had recused himself from the vote in the first place, it would’ve been a tying vote, and only because of one person that really doesn’t understand what’s going on voting for his friend in the first place.
Now I’ve been told that I’m against the entire city council, that I don’t like any of them at all, that right there isn’t true at all. I’m not against the entire council, only two of them and that’s it, and mostly just the mayor. The reason for this is because of not only all of the money mis-management, but at the same time, the favors that Schroder seems to be pulling these days for his friends. That and the fact that it seems to be a “Good ‘ol Boy” club that seems to be going on with the mayor. Now from what I’ve noticed, that “Good ‘ol Boy” club seems to be consisting of the mayor Rob Schroder, Council Member Mark Ross, and (at least at this point, there maybe more) Mr. Dunivan. The reason I put it to those three is because of the fact that Ross and Schroder have consistently voted the same on everything dealing with the city funds. Even when he should be voting something down, he’s voting for it instead. Now he may say that he’s not always voting for the same things as Schroder does, however if we were to take a look at the past year when it comes to the votes, we would see that his light on that board is just as green as Schroder’s happens to be. When during this past meeting Vice-Mayor Lara Delaney voted the fee waving down, along with Debbie McKillop, Council Member Mark Ross voted for it along with Mayor Rob Schroder. That right there is extremely telling and very bad as well. It tells you that yes there is a “Good ‘ol Boy” club going on right now.
In the end, this whole decision that the council made, not only is it very short sited, but it leaves our city short on funds, and eating its own money, of which we don’t have the funds in the first place. Why was this done, only so that mayor Schroder could make sure that he didn’t lose his cash cow. Shoot he does these things, not in the city’s interests, but in his own. All these things are more of cash cows for his own ambitions. Despite having been mayor of this city for so long, really not much has actually happened. Yes he gives a good talk during the election times, and his donors make sure that he happens to have the money in order to run. However after each election that’s taken place, what exactly has happened in order to benefit the city of Martinez? Brown St still needs MAJOR work (from Pacheco Blvd, all the way to Alhambra. The marina, not only is in disarray, but at the same time has grown worse over the years. Yes, it’s currently being worked on, but it’s taken just about forever to get there in the first place. It’s honestly taken bond measure after bond measure to get where we needed to be, and that’s been too long. Personally, I’m thinking that everything for the marina was delayed to make sure that he could get his baseball team down there. Otherwise, everything could’ve already been taken care of ages ago. However that’s only what it looked like to me.
So yeah, I’m thinking that the mayor didn’t want to lose his cash cows that have been keeping him as mayor in this city for many years. I know that he’ll say that it’s not true. However after what happened at the council meeting, it seems to me that he needed to pay up for all the money that was donated to him during both his past election runs, and his current one right now. This meant waving the fees for someone that has been donating large sums of money for him to keep his seat as mayor, so I’m thinking it’s time for him to be voted out. Heck, just vote out the “Good ‘ol Boys” club completely and bring in new blood to the council so that we can get things back on the right track again.
– Felix Sanchez
