Missing the Point
Editor:
Several media outlets, along with several members of the City Council have called for Valerie Stallings to resign. That’s missing the forest for the trees, and worse. It’s a blatant attempt to focus the public exclusively on Councilwoman Stallings’ Neon Systems stock transactions.
As all of these people calling for resignation know, the real significance of the Neon IPO option rights, and Stallings’ quick sale of the stock at a large profit, is the question of whether the Padres were possibly rewarding her for disclosures in 1998 and 1999 of valuable confidential information affecting the negotiations between the Padres and the city.
If there were disclosures from city closed sessions by Councilwoman Stallings, that confidential information may have been used by the Padres to gain a multimillion-dollar financial advantage over the city in these negotiations. If made, any use of the disclosures by the Padres would seem to have tainted Proposition C, voted on in November 1998, and the agreement it approved between the city and the Padres (the MOU).
The point is that Stallings’ resignation will not resolve the fundamental question raised by her alleged activities: Was the 1998 agreement with the Padres tainted by illegal activity? If so, and even if all other council members were to swear the alleged disclosures didn’t impact their votes, the public still would be owed brand new negotiations, free of corruption. Then there would have to be a new vote by the public on a renegotiated Proposition C and the billion-dollar financial commitment by the city and its agencies as currently proposed.
Both the questions concerning disclosures from council closed sessions in 1998 and those arising from the Neon stock transactions require thorough investigation, preferably by a federal grand jury, but possibly via a civil lawsuit challenging the validity of votes by the City Council. The truth needs to be known, but that truth is not advanced merely by Stallings’ resignation.
Additionally, and regardless of the assertion in the Union’s editorial that Stallings’ resignation would not signal her guilt, the call for her resignation undermines the presumption of innocence that Councilwoman Stallings enjoys. No public good can come from driving an elected representative from office just for the sake of the financial convenience of the community.
The Padres at present have a wonderful stadium in which to play. And, let’s remember that even under the present agreement between the Padres and the city, taxpayers are protected from construction cost overruns. Under Proposition C, overruns are the sole responsibility of the Padres. So, appropriately, it is the Padres who bear the financial cost of delay , appropriately because if there was wrongdoing, it is the Padres who appear to be the ones overwhelmingly to blame.
The Padres should do everything they can to clear the air and assure San Diegans that the process leading up to Proposition C and the many negotiations with the city thereafter were all free of corruption. To the extent that the Padres are unable to accomplish that goal, the Padres should agree to renegotiate their contract with the city and put it back on the ballot for a new vote.
J. Bruce Henderson
San Diego
(Editor’s note: Henderson is a tax activist who has actively opposed the agreement between the city and the Padres.)
Third Party Influence
Even when absent, third party candidates influence the debates.
Why did Bush, after first declining, suddenly agree to the Presidential Debate Commission’s original proposal? The most likely reason is that the commission probably threatened to invite Libertarian Harry Browne to debate Gore if Bush didn’t comply.
By definition, a debate requires two or more people. If only two people are invited and one refuses to show, and it doesn’t matter which one, no debate can happen. George W. Bush assumed he could control the location and timing of the debates by simply refusing any date or format not acceptable to him.
Viewer ratings for the debates are decreasing while public opinion polls supporting inviting participation by third party candidates are increasing. So inviting a strong third party candidate and dynamic public speaker such as Harry Browne would draw a lot of viewers and Bush’s absence would be quite conspicuous.
Browne would be the logical choice to use against Bush, instead of either Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan, since Browne’s message of smaller government and greater personal freedom and responsibility is more likely to attract votes away from Republicans. That’s what happened to the senior Bush when, in 1992, Ross Perot’s 19 percent of the vote put Bill Clinton in the White House. And that’s one history lesson George W. doesn’t want repeated!
So when Bush stalled, the commission could have merely suggested that they’d invite Harry Browne to take his place. That would have caused Bush to immediately change his mind so that Harry Browne wouldn’t be invited. Bush did change his mind very suddenly and Harry Browne was not invited, so that’s probably what happened.
But whatever the commission did to win Bush’s acquiescence, the real losers are still the American voters who, as in most elections, won’t get to experience any real choice as long as the two major parties control the Presidential Debate Commission.
Edward M. Teyssier
