Does she or doesn’t she?
Back in August the Fullerton Rag criticized Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva for joining other state lawmakers in signing a letter or support to the California Coastal Commission for Poseidon Water’s dismally ill-conceived plans for a desalination plant in Huntington Beach. The Sierra Club, who endorsed Sharon Quirk-Silva’s 2012 election bid, considers the proposed project so environmentally destructive that they have dedicated an entire campaign to defeat it…
From Mr. Leslie:
“I asked whether or not, in fact, Sharon Quirk-Silva supported or opposed the Poseidon desalination plant. I was told that she “had reservations” and “mixed feelings about it,” but that “her name was still on the letter” of support for it, and that she had not asked to have it removed.”
Sounds pretty wishy washy to me. What say you, Vern? I thought you had this resolved?
sounds a bit “brackish” to me…(rim shot)
What a pain. First I have a call in to Matt to find out who he talked to in which office, then I’m gonna call Sharon. Is her staff misinformed, is she saying different things to different people, or did she lie to me?
Okay. Matt just texted – “Local office. Don’t recall the name.”
Let’s see, here’s Sharon’s text to me from August 13: “We have told the Poseidon VP that my name should not be used on any future correspondence.” And she had told me on the phone before that that she had “tried to remove her signature” from that first letter, and they wouldn’t allow her, they said it was too late.
But her person tells Matt that “her name was still on the letter” – apparently yes against her wishes – and that she had not asked to have it removed – wait, that’s the opposite of what she told me.
Staff person not completely informed, or something worse? I’ll find out.
This seems like a good place to put this:
Congratulations to Duane Roberts for being named the Weekly’s Best Gadfly of 2013!
http://www.ocweekly.com/bestof/2013/award/best-gadfly-1585061/
They didn’t name a “Best Blog” this year, which confirms my suspicion that it was us.
I think Duane deserves a story of his own, Greg. Let’ stick to the subject here.
OK, would you like to write our story on Duane? If so, we’d like to be able to publish more than 1-2 paragraphs.
You and Duane are political allies, the previous WOT is crammed, the new WOT wasn’t yet up, comments on this one were sparse, I didn’t have time to write a full story (if it warrants that), and I wanted to note the honor right then. You presumably think that I was trying to bury a lively discussion about the topic of your post. Well, even if I were so inclined (as I’m not), there would first need to be a lively discussion to bury.
Really? C’mon, dude.
Admit it. Sharon needs to be equipped with a satellite tracking device.
I presume that that’s a joke, but I don’t get the reference. She goes back and forth to Sacramento a lot?
I’ll hazard a guess he means that she changes positions a lot on some things, and a satellite device might make it easier for us to keep track?
Yes, I will get an answer today or tomorrow on whether she did try to get her signature off that Poseidon letter like she told me, and whether or not her staffer was just never told about that.
Oh. Well, in that case, I think that she generally doesn’t need one — although on some tough issues with competing considerations she might. She’s not alone in that.
That was my thought. I mean if it really is our job to keep our representatives on the straight and narrow, then we’d better be able to find them.
OK, I talked to the staffer Matt talked to and I talked to Sharon after. I got the name of the staffer Matt talked to, but I won’t write it because it sounds like he’s in a little bit of trouble for erroneously saying that Sharon didn’t try to get her name off the letter.
Now he just repeats two things. “All I can say. Her name is still on the letter. And she has SERIOUS concerns with the Poseidon plant.” (I’m not supposed to write this either, but the aide who hastily gave Poseidon permission to include her name when she was still wanting to think thru the pros and cons – a fellow I know who’s very labor-connected – is no longer with her, because of this – the separation was cordial and we do not mention his name either.)
She did try to get her name off that first letter, with TWO calls to Poseidon VP Scott Malone (dark-skinned fella we’ve seen at a million water meetings – who’s the President?) Both times he told her it was too late, couldn’t be removed. He’s under notice not to use her name again. That includes any claims that Poseidon has the “unanimous bipartisan support of the county’s Sacramento delegation” which will just be an out-and-out lie if he ever says it.
I said “ok, your guy says you have SERIOUS concerns, what are they?” And she did go on at length with more stuff than I could write, starting with the eventual cost to ratepayers and ending with environmental concerns.
I can report that the famed Water Summit will be Dec. 6, place to be decided. She and Debbie would have liked to do it in October, but too many people they really wanted to be there could not. It will address many water-related issues, but will certainly touch on Poseidon’s proposed desal plant, with voices for and against (and whenever people hear both sides, the choice is pretty clear.)
I am relieved not to have been a fool.
Vern, she could clear this up very quickly by issuing a statement that either supports or opposes the Poseidon project.
What if she thinks that it’s inevitable and hopes to gain some ability to soften its damage by remaining on the fence, holding onto the threat to testify to the commission separately unless changes are made? (Limitations on sea-water, shut-offs based on monitoring, consumer protection conditions, etc.?
People do this in politics, you know — and sometimes it works to improve a bad deal even when, based on the raw votes, it shouldn’t. Do you really doubt that that sort of approach could possibly be valid?
Based on the information I have, I’d like her to oppose it — but depending on circumstances there can be valid reasons why someone in her position wouldn’t. This isn’t a Coyote Hills style referendum; it’s a commission decision. A different toolbox comes into play.
It’s not inevitable at this point. Come on, you’re working too hard making excuses for her. I’m working just hard enough.
Then she should say that.
Honesty is the best policy………except in politics.
The fact is this never shoulda been her problem, it’s got nothing to do with the assembly, and they already have WAY TOO MUCH to deal with. This was a stupid gesture of a letter for propaganda purposes, and the other whores we have representing us had no problem with it. Sharon stepped in it thru NOT THINKING ENOUGH (and having a hasty staff) – not by OVERTHINKING IT as Greg seems to suggest.
And yeah, nameless, if she WAS thinking all that, she should tell us. but she’s not thinking all that.
I agree that she stepped into it without adequate thought. Now, though, she’s in a situation where they really want her silence to the Coastal Commission — and that gives her some leverage. It’s one of the few areas of leverage that “the good guys” have here, in fact.
If you could choose between her making what she strongly believed would be a futile gesture of token opposition and a potentially substantive negotiation, would that decision at least give you pause? I don’t know if that’s what she’s thinking and I’m not asserting that it is. But if you think it’s not at least possible, I think that you need to more carefully consider the sausage-making progress.
If what she’s thinking IS along these lines, then the way to convince her not to trade silence for concessions would be to convince her that we are well-positioned to win. That would take a lot more than your assertion and a lot more people to get off their butts and get active.
“All I can say. Her name is still on the letter. And she has SERIOUS concerns with the Poseidon plant.”
Why not just say she opposes it, instead of “serious concerns?” Still sounds a little waffly.
Maybe a little waffly — still putting her at the very top of the distribution for OC’s state legislative delegation.
She’s clearly unsatisfied with it or she wouldn’t have asked that her name not be used as a proponent. Does she want to be in a position to play a mediation/negotiation role, for which her not being a full-throated opponent might be preferable? Could be. I want the damn thing dead and buried, but if the fix is in — and it does look like it, doesn’t it? — then her being in a position to improve the deal may be the best she can do, better than failing nobly to have any effect.
That sounds like Sharon’s sort of calculus; I don’t know whether she has this in mind. But if she wouldn’t be able to stop it, then making it 20% less worse would be 20% better. I do think that it’s odd that our energy is going towards debating her position on this rather than all of the others. Can’t we muster up a little denunciation for the brunt of the delegation while we’re here? Or is it only useful to undermine the Assemblywoman from Fullerton, who can’t work miracles?
You can’t work a miracle if you don’t know who’s sick.
When I hear the word “calculus” I start to think “triangulation.”
I associate triangulation more with geometry, myself. Maybe trig, too.
I associate it with the Clintons.
I associate it with a triangle.