Commentary
Judge council by its actions
By Jack Walker
I must respond to the commentary by Sun editor Jesse Ducker April 24 issue about what he referred to as Sunnyvale City Council "bickering." Calling Councilmember Vorrieter's actions "shocking" and "petty" is actually amusing, coming from Mr. Ducker. What Pat was questioning, and rightly so, was a request by the mayor and vice mayor for an increase in their travel budget, with no justification whatsoever. The reports that they had generated gave no explanation of why they had exceeded their budget or why they needed even more. A responsible newspaper would have noted the omissions and challenged the requests themselves!
The council has historically set a travel budget based on actual council travel. What Mr. Ducker failed to point out was that many of the present and previous Sunnyvale City Council members have sat on a variety of state and national committees as well. Council members have, as Councilman Tim Risch did recently, traveled to Sacramento to offer testimony before state legislators. The travel budget is therefore set at a level that can easily accommodate those types of activities. It is the council's policy to require any council member who exceeds his or her travel budget to account for that to the council and, as a result, to the public. In the past, council members who asked for additional money provided reasons, as well as specific explanations as to how they had used their existing budget, and provided a detailed explanation for the budget increase. The report submitted by the mayor and vice mayor did not provide any explanation of any kind.
There are probably hundreds of conferences that a council member can participate in and attend during any year. Some are geared toward providing council members with opportunities to interact with their elected representatives as well as to talk with their peers from around the country about common issues.
Some offer tutorials and classes to allow elected officials to acquire and improve their governing skills. Some, however, are more geared to providing opportunities for elected officials to further their own political careers and have less to do with city governance, while others simply provide an opportunity to see and to be seen with nationally recognized elected officials and potentially be photographed on national TV.
Participation in committees is certainly of great value to the city, provided that a council member participates effectively. Very few council members have the breadth of knowledge and the time to effectively participate in many committees. In fact, it can be more effective if a council member reduces participation in many committees in order to concentrate on important ones. This was certainly the case of Councilman Manuel Valerio, who last year dropped most of his intergovernmental responsibilities so that he could more effectively serve as the chair of the VTA. Measuring a council member's contribution by the number of committees they participate on is the wrong yardstick.
While I disagreed with Pat on whether or not the money should be advanced to the mayor and vice mayor, Mr. Ducker's criticism of Councilwoman Vorrieter's actions were unfair and unreasonable. The Sunnyvale Sun itself should be asking if Sunnyvale is really benefiting from council travel if the only justification for a trip is that a council member got to ask a question on national television or that they "learned a lot" from a conference session. More importantly, The Sunnyvale Sun should be asking: If council members can't manage their own travel budget, how can they hope to manage the city budget effectively? As a citizen, I expect a newspaper to play a watchdog role toward local government, not criticize when someone else has to do it for them.
Jack Walker is a city council member and former mayor of Sunnyvale.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
