Candidate for
Director; Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District; Ward 3

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

Public officials should show respect for everyone's freedom and property rights.

Public officials should regularly poll their constituents to ascertain what they want, and try to accommodate their wishes within limits imposed by applicable constitutions and charters.

Persuasion is preferable to force in getting people to do things. Because government is by nature the use of force, government should be mostly limited to enforcing and protecting the freedom and rights of individuals; when wanting to go beyond that, and use force, officials should first persuade their constituents to get their support for such exceptions.

A BALANCED APPROACH TO MANAGING THE OPEN SPACE DISRICT

My approach would be a balanced approach.

What do I mean by balanced?

Well first let me say that I'm neither a rabid real estate developer or builder nor a rabid environmentalist.

I have no ties to special interests in any of those fields, and it is my policy to take no money from them or anyone else (the incumbent has received mailer ad money from the "League of Conservation Voters").

I love nature, and see it as mostly beautiful. I've occasionally visited and hiked on the open space trails with my family, and I like to see the mostly natural hills nearby and the Santa Cruz mountains in the distance without large high rises on them as one sees in Hong Kong. But at the same time not all nature is beautiful, or we wouldn't be pulling weeds from our yards, would we?

So what I propose to bring to the board is a bit of balance. From what I can tell, from the beginning the open space board has been composed of primarily rabid environmentalists who probably would like to expand the open space district all the way to downtown Mountain View if they could. In their eyes nature is always beautiful but man is alsways destructive and man made things are never beautiful.

Yes wild animals should have a space to live and the various life forms and species should be preserved. And we should have a nearby place to go to see natural wild terrain and species. But I also think some irrational extremes have occurred around our country to preserve a rare plant, butterfly, frog, or bird. And there is question of how large the set aside of space for this purpose ought to be. I think some sensible balance is needed, don't you?

The open space district belongs to you, not the board. The board should represent your views, which I suspect for many of you probably are more balanced than theirs and more like mine. If they are then please vote for me to represent you.