Last week, I filed papers with the city to begin a petition for a mayor to be elected by the citizens of Watsonville, not selected by a few.

Currently, our form of city government prevents citizens from holding either the city manager or the City Council fully accountable and/or responsible. Our city manager continually, and conveniently, washes his hands from responsibility by saying it is the City Council that makes the decisions.

Meanwhile, council members render decisions based on information provided by our city manager, who meets with council members each week and also recommends how we should vote through a staff recommendation. If information in staff reports is biased, lacks information, or misrepresents facts because our city manager decides to take a certain course of action, the voice of the people, through their elected council members, can be drowned out.

Just recently, the city spent tens of thousands of dollars on consultants and staff time. One of the consultants met with business owners and council members to “brand” Watsonville. After staff provided a report on the consultant’s findings, Mayor Pro-Tem Luis Alejo stated, in essence, that he was anticipating a marketing tool to attract companies that generate jobs instead of just a logo which cost the city $34,000-plus dollars. We paid another consultant to tell us we should have flowers downtown to make it more attractive. I asked why we hadn’t done that, and the response by our city manager is that we can’t afford to pay staff to water the plants.

So, we spent all this moeny to find out that we need flowers that we can’t afford to water, and a logo?

Instead of aggressively focusing on developing a diverse economy, we have plodded along attempting to build affordable housing on Buena Vista and Atkinson Lane to generate revenue. The result is two lawsuits, one of which we lost, and has cost the city approximately $1 million dollars, if not more, in legal fees and staff time. And in June 2008, the state, via the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments, reduced the required amount of affordable housing for our area by 40.2 percent. The state, which works about as fast as a jar of frozen molasses, realized some time ago that it had to stop building housing, otherwise our economy will continue to flounder. But Watsonville hasn’t figured this out. We are still holding hands with the county, incurring more legal fees, in the continual attempt to develop Atkinson Lane. If the appeals court upholds the Buena Vista/Pilot’s Association lawsuit against the city, both Atkinson and Buena Vista can cost the city well over $2 million in legal fees and staff time.

Watsonville will not recover from the recession like most surrounding cities because we have a history of poor decisions, have a well-earned reputation for not being business friendly, and lack the needed aggressiveness to diversify. We have missed the boat on manufacturing and tourism. In less than a year, Salinas’ new city manager has attracted an electric car manufacturer, is in the process of building a sports complex that will cater to large, regional youth soccer tournaments — and did it with some federal stimulus money.

In contrast, our city has the highest unemployment rate in the tri-county area, an empty downtown, and nothing in the wings that will attract new businesses that create jobs. Mannabe-Ow? The Raiders have a better chance of winning a Super Bowl before that project ever has of creating the 21,000 promised jobs.

An elected mayor is the needed change to get Watsonville back on a good economic track. It’s incomprehensible when our mayor states that the current system is working. If the current system is working as Mayor Antonio Rivas claims, why are he, our mayor pro-tem and Council Member Manuel Bersamin working in Monterey County? Also, what about integrity and being held to a higher standard; is cutting in front of the line exemplary and above board conduct?

Much of our time is spent standing in line, waiting our turns at grocery stores, theaters, restaurants, and anything worth waiting for. Very few of us would tolerate cutting in front of the line because it’s considered cheating. Alejo wanted to be mayor pro tem on his very first day as a City Council member, in essence cutting in front of the line while council members Dale Skillicorn and Greg Caput waited for years, patiently, for their turn.

Rivas, a two-term mayor who opposes a mayor-elect initiative, cut a deal to get himself elected mayor last November. He proposed that if elected mayor, he would vote Dale Skillicorn for mayor pro tem. After getting voted in, Rivas attempted to renege on the deal and was going to vote for Alejo. If not for council member Kimberly Petersen being courageous and deciding to “reach across the aisle,” Skillicorn probably would never have been elected mayor pro tem, leastwise mayor.

This nonsense should stop and our next mayor should be elected by the people.

•••

Emilio Martinez is the City Council member representing District 6. The opinions of columnists are not necessarily those of the Register-Pajaronian.

For the complete article see the 11-14-2009 issue.

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