First you say “Dan Kalmick looks like Steve Carrell playing Maxwell Smart” as though that’s a bad thing, which it is not. Then you ask why the entire Debbie Cook team is recommending not only that you vote for this brilliant young HB City Council candidate, but that you “bullet vote” for him – meaning giving him an extra leg up by NOT using your other two votes.
If you recognize Dan’s name it’s because he had the uncommon ch
utzpah to run against the popular Debbie in the Democratic primary, having some minor differences with her on a few issues and emphases; but since the primary he’s been a hard-working volunteer for the Cook campaign, tirelessly walking precincts for both himself and the Mayor.
On the flip, we’ll look at Dan’s vision for our town, the issues most important to him, and why we have so much faith in this 26-year-old volunteer firefighter, computer engineer and successful small business owner, but first let’s get an idea of the “lay of the land” in this race:
HB voters get to pick three council candidates this year, but given the likelihood that popular incumbents Don Hansen and Keith Bohr will skate to re-election, that leaves one open seat (vacated by Mayor Cook) to be won by either Dan Kalmick, Devin Dwyer, Bruce Brandt, Allan Bayliss, or some invisible guy who’s on the ballot for unknown reasons.
I’ll skip Brandt and Bayliss (for reasons I can explain elsewhere.) Devin Dwyer is Dan’s most serious opponent for the open seat. (Among other things, Dan and Dwyer are the only two challengers who put up the money to have ballot statements.)
A protégé of incumbent Don Hansen, Dwyer is an enthusiastic backer of any and all development, including the unpopular Poseidon desalination plant and the controversial Senior Center in Central Park. He has festooned the town with Dwyer signs the size of queen-size beds—an eyesore and a sign to me of financial irresponsibility. And he wears his GOP activism and membership in the Republican Central Committee on his sleeve, which I think is inappropriate when running for a non-partisan position.
In any case, observers of City Councils in general will agree that thinking of councilmembers as Republicans or Democrats isn’t all that helpful in predicting or describing their behavior. What we really see is some councilmembers (who may be D or R) who will go along with anything developers and other moneyed interests want; while the other sort (who may be D or R) pay more attention to the wishes of their constituents, environmental concerns, and the needs of small local businesses, and while the latter are often lampooned as “anti-development,” it’s really fairer and more accurate to characterize them as “pro-RESPONSIBLE development.”
So I think it’s most useful to divide local politicians into what I’ll call (till someone suggests something better) “Developer” party versus “Responsible” party. Interestingly, the “Responsible” pols usually turn out to be more FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE than the “Developer” pols. For example, of the seven members of the current HB council, only Debbie Cook and Jill Hardy would be “Responsible”; and the fiscal conservatives—who tend to vote for balanced budgets, lower taxes and unnecessary spending—are the same two ladies, joined from the opposite side by pro-developer Republican Don Hansen. (Sadly, still a minority.)
With Debbie gone, we need Dan Kalmick in council so that Jill has at least one “Responsible” ally, and the council doesn’t go totally hog wild.
Another thing I hadn’t noticed till Dan mentioned it to me, is the lack of attention and resources going to the northern half of Huntington Beach—that is, roughly, “North of Adams” (excluding Huntington Harbour.) Most of the councilmembers hail from the south and southeast—closer to the beach—and of all the current contenders, only Dan lives north of Adams and can advocate for those neighborhoods.
Dan’s Philosophy of Local Government
“The role of local government is to provide those services that private industry cannot do at a profit; it’s the Social Compact that we make in Huntington Beach. We give up something (in this case tax dollars) and by pooling thos
e resources we get roads, water and sewage, fire and police services, schools and building codes.
“The City should be there as a protection to its residents as well. Over the past several years or so, the city has taken on a massive development endeavor starting with the Sports Complex and Bella Terra and continuing onto the Strand, Pacific City and the Senior Center in the park.
“In the mean time, the city has been falling apart. The government needs money to provide services, but at what expense? The City should be trying to provide the highest quality of life possible for its residents. It’s a balancing act, but I feel the City has failed in some parts. The north end of the city is falling apart. The roads are in need of massive repair; in some areas the trees have ruined the streets; we don’t have ADA curbs in areas where there are high concentrations of disabled or elderly people. The list goes on.
“Sales tax and bed taxes are great revenue generators for the city, but we must shift our priority away from loaning money to developers or giving no-bid contracts to build the senior center and move to a infrastructure improvement focus. This will create jobs and increase property values…helping some residents to refinance at a critical time.”
Dan’s Vision for HB: Public Transportation
“Our public transportation system in the city is literally ‘second to none‘. It’s almost non-existent. The OCTA buses are setup for people without cars or who cannot drive, not for the average person who has the option to take a car. We need to step up and make public transit a priority.
“I want trams running down Beach Blvd from Bella Terra to PCH and then up PCH to Main. This will allow us to have tourists park far from the beach and then 15-minute tram down to the beach and shopping. This will allow us to demolish the parking structures and add more retail (and thus more sales tax) and cut down on the car traffic downtown.
“We’ll need more density on Beach Blvd to qualify for federal funding for this project, but the money will be coming in the next 2 years so we must have a plan in place so that we’re ready to go. More cars in HB is not the solution. We need tourist dollars without the car traffic. Also, we need the trams to run until the bars close downtown so as to cut down on drunk driving and give people a way to spend money downtown late and be able to get home safely.
“The Union Pacific rail line down Gothard isn’t really an option for three reasons. 1) no one has called Union Pacific to see if we have the right to use their ride-of-way; 2) contractors are going to be hesitant to put more freight and people on the same tracks in light of the tragedy in Chatsworth a few months ago; 3) that ride-of-way isn’t near anything. Gothard is about a third of a mile from Beach Blvd and there’s only commercial businesses down the line. Plus the line stops at Ellis, and up in Anaheim it’s about 1/5 of a mile short of connecting to Disneyland. We need our own system down Beach.
“If we can get with Westminster and Buena Park to connect up to Knott’s and the MetroLink station…that would be even better. Ideally we need a way to get to the ARTIC (Anaheim Regional Transit Intermodel Center) that they’re constructing south of the Honda Ponda in Anaheim. We need a great way to get people from there to HB and our residents to Angels and Ducks games without having to get in cars. It’s about quality of life sometimes, not about the almighty dollar.”
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For Dan’s (and the other candidates’) positions on other contentious local issues—i.e., Poseidon De-sal, Senior Center in the Park—consult these helpful, thorough articles from the Orange Coast Voice:
http://ocvoice.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/huntington-beach-city-council-election-issue-water-privatization-and-the-poseidon-desalination-plant/
http://ocvoice.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/huntington-beach-city-council-election-issue-senior-center/
and
http://ocvoice.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/huntington-beach-city-council-election-guide-08-part-1/
And VOTE KALMICK for Council—nobody else—Nov. 4!
Hey😛
Well I guess we are entering the final stretch 🙂. As always it will
come down to the swing voters, though I have to admit that I have never seen a presidential race loose as much steam
in its final moments as this one has. Once again we seem to be choosing between the lesser of two evils and we are
simply shooting for everyone to walk away unhappy🙁. Regardless of your
political affiliation I would simply encourage you to get out and VOTE on November fourth, and show your support for
American political institutions.
Kalmic is a good guy and will be a great addition to the council.
Dan will make a great council person. Much better than Dwyer or Hansen. Take a look at how much moeny Hansen gets from real estate pals. Talk to my real estate agents co-workers and you’ll understand why they like him….because he wants the city to cut their business tax! I pay my tax every year to the City Treasurer’s Office and I feel good about that but the real estate PAC must have the goods on Hansen as they somehow figureout a way to give HB tax dollars away. Gee thanks dh. Vote for Kalmick, maybe Bohr but stop there before you see Hansen and Dwyer pave the wetlands.
Kalmick lost and he will lose again and again. He is not a bad guy, but he is nowhere near being city council material. He is just an attention starved and misguided wanna-be-anything-that-he-can-be who hopes to find himself in public service. He has no class and not much character. Are OC Democrats really so desperate that they are willing to pretend to see the makings of a leader in Dan Kalmick??? If so, they should just go ahead and drink a big tall glass of hemlock right now because it will have the same effect on the DPOC as drinking the Kalmick coolaid in the next election.