“At this point I am focusing my campaign… on three points:
1) To question whether the developers have too much say and sway; 2) whether PC planned community zoning is the most concentrated form of abuse of the system and
3) as a recent, dramatic and potentially pernicious example, if the 27 University project, Arrillaga Towers{is indeed the worst proposal in 40 years}.”
“I believe it is disingenuous to flog the working class when most of the current financial problems in America are due to the fact that rich people don’t pay their fair share of taxes, corporations often don’t either and with expensive and life-costing campaigns (7,000 American dead) in two foreign nations, we do not receive an historical peace dividend as in more normal times.” My response to Palo Alto Weekly’s survey question number 1
“Our so-called leaders too often kowtow or capitulate to power including how we deal with the giant communications companies. I call it a “tap-out”. So I can think of other places they should put their hardware, thank you.” My response to PAW’s survey question number 5
Here is what I actually wrote as a response to the Weekly’s so-called survey. And as I stated previously, I was also interviewed for an hour by their editor and publisher, plus spoke to the reporter Gennady Sheyner about my reasons for not following the directions strictly.
Ok, so 3,103 words is a bit of a commitment here, but then again, do you really want to read five different versions, or not so different versions of the nine prompts for sound-bytes as posted on the Weekly site?
I felt the idea of reducing the discussion to too-processed 75-word boxes was reductivist and did the readers and public a disservice. Plus, I objected to the idea that their survey was creating or imposing an agenda, and called that “advertency”. There’s a political cartoon in this week’s The New Yorker (Sept. 24, 2012) with a similar point, in a feature by Ruben Bolling about politicians “SO EAGER TO PLEASE, THEY CAN EVEN BE TRAINED“.
Obviously my point was not well-taken and they chose to make me look bad rather than working with me or trying to include me. Certainly they have the right to cover or not cover my campaign as they see fit, but I think they can do better than claiming to treat all six equally and then letting their biases creep in.
Out of context of this long treatise I would not otherwise continue to use the jazz and rock musician Nels Cline as an inspiration or talking-point. I was merely stating that being a musician known for both rock and jazz there was a metaphor about my ideas being influenced by a diverse set of arts, rock and jazz, as well as poetry, literature and visual arts. To wit, or more simply:
“My campaign seeks to provoke a louder and more harmonized voice of dissent among the people who are dismissed as naysayers, gadflies, cranks and fuddy-duddies.
I’ve met Nels Cline but am not implying an endorsement (he of me; by all means, go listen to Nels!)
To: gennady sheyner <gsheyner@paweekly.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 1:35 PM
Subject: declining or nels-clining
Mark Weiss,Instead of asking a voter to read your 30 short essays, or rely on a 1984 referral,can you please state what you think about the Arrillaga/Stanford office complex plan on University and Alma?1) do you agree on giving away dedicated parkland for it2) on exempting height code from 50 feet to over 100 feet?3) do you think there are real and specific reasons Palo Alto “needs” such a complex?4) do these reasons outweigh the costs to the city?irrespective of how one feels about developers, at the end of the day it would be nice to know how people think about a specific situation. Or just how candidates think. |
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Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, 0 minutes agoRegarding 27 University, and in response to a posted comment directed to me here, I have read the full staff report, dated Sept 24, and have two hundred and seventy (270) places that I’ve marked that merit further looking into, questioning and in some segments and maybe in entirety simply ridiculing and denouncing as a travesty, as commissioner Bob Moss was quoted as saying.In fact, on March 6, when Council made public the existence of this proposal, (although now the report says secret meetings started in August, 2011!), I texted council members with my dismay, commented here at PAW site (some of which were subsequently deleted, for comparing their euphemisms about the instigator to pr for a famous historical figure –whether “philanthropist” was the right term, versus “developer” or “billionaire”), and wrote an indirect counter-attack on my personal blog — as distinct from my new campaign blog – by quoting from a famous Allen Ginsberg poem, where he compares the skyscrapers outside his window to Biblical monsters called “Moloch”.I hope to somewhere get the chance, or multiple chances, to speak more directly and oppose this project.Briefly, this is example of an oligarch and plutocrat basically taking government hostage and trying to force his way; I am concerned with process as much as product or outcome. I am concerned in many ways about Democracy, on local and national levels.We have already spent upwards of $200,000 in defense of this attack, staff and consultant time, not to mention three hours from the dais Monday.I would rather community via an inclusive and Democratic process decide our needs (be it office space, arts venue, intermodal transit improvement or whatever) and then find the way to enact our will and NOT as in this case merely be responding, as if under siege, to the will of a billionaire.Also, what is clear to me in the report as distinct from reporting on such is that there is nothing in writing that states that the 260,000 sq feet of office space (for a corporate headquarters of a mature tech company and not an incubator on innovator per se) will be donated to Stanford; if anything, that is between Stanford and the individual. Even if staff seems to in good faith think he is promising verbally to do that, it should not be a consideration in the merits of the proposal, and its drawbacks.So here is from March 6, since you asked, my posted response elsewhere, if you can work thru the long quote from a poem — since you asked how my or our, including my fellow candidates, minds work: and I think after hearing bureaucrats talk in double-speak and jargon on so many cases it is good to throw a little poetry and art reference into the mix, feel me?Web LinkFor “another voter” to be specific:1) NO!2) NO!3) maybe
4)Probably not. Or prove it to us. And don’t kowtow or capitulate to power. And for anybody still reading who is curious about Nels Cline:
edit to add, Monday, October 1: I am trying to get beyond the meta-issues of the lack of fairness or the unevenness of the way the local press covers the election. Regarding the distinction between PAW saying “Weiss declined to participate” and my claim that I responded quite fully but in a different format, here is more of the actual chain: From: mark weiss <earwopa@yahoo.com>
To: Gennady Sheyner <gsheyner@paweekly.com> Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 11:45 AM Subject: Re: Palo Alto Weekly – candidate survey Hi, Gennady.
1) Are you running our responses verbatim in a box that is like a collection of “Q&As”, or are you using our answers to re-write your own summations in the third person?
2) Can we answer with links? i.e. I would like to reference things I’ve already written on these topic, or link to youtube videos I’ve seen that address these issues…
Mark
I am still planning to finish this by my 2 p.m. appointment at your office, but my inclination is to respond more generally (as opposed to gennady-ishly) and fully with something more like 2,000 words that put questions 10and 7 at the top and 1 and 2 at the bottom — I may do that and post on my own site, which you could link to or read for reference…my answers to all 10 questions fall under a general and consistent way of looking at things that is hard to establish in this format — I don’t think your format meets its self-stated “goals” too well…
I kinda bristle at the attempts at advertency and reducing this all down, and then to call it “fairness” and “balance”.
sorry to hold you up, ‘though…my bad.
And they call this “railing”, or “declining”. Good job in getting five of six to in essence work for you! (Or is it a donation of space, and I don’t take donations?)
edit to add, Oct. 3: I should probably just move on here but I did post on their site:
Posted by Mark Weiss , a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, 0 minutes ago It’s a half-truth for the Weekly to state that I did not respond to their survey. I said that questions #10 and #7 about developers having too much sway and PC planned community zoning being particularly problematic were by far the most important issues to me, and that overall their format was reductivist. In a letter to the reporter, I also complied with the request for actual faux-soundbytes to two other questions. You can read more about it at my blog or the 30 minute video on their Youtube page gives a little more insight into my platform. Of course the fact that I was photographed and on a separate day talked to the editor and publisher for an hour contradicts the impression that they give that I was not cooperative. I’ve been a supporter of the Weekly for many years, as advertiser, source and reader — I was disappointed they played me like this, although I admit I kinda asked for it by suggesting a different format. They have the right to cover or not cover the issues as they see fit, but I bristle at the idea that they claim they will cover all six candidates equally then employ varying standards for that. They could obviously update the online version of this to include me, or could follow up with more info on my campaign, background and platform, if they want to. Maybe they will. In my letter to Gennady Sheyner I do mention my concerns with “the proposed arts district” a poster asks about, although that was not part of the survey either. It’s not really an arts district, by the way, it’s one type of art — theatre – -and one purveyor. I think they might have bid out the lucky tenant of the new proposed theatre, or had a rotating residency for world class companies from various parts of the world. It’s three times more office space than theatre. I might be paranoid about being mistreated and misunderstood, but readers can ask: why would the Weekly suppress these particular viewpoints? I think there is enough truth behind the things I believe will make our community better and enough people who agree with me and are equally concerned that I can probably survive the egg on my face here. |