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Like you, dear reader, I saw it too.
The Almanac has come out calling for a NO vote on Measure M.
Those who oppose it could not be happier with it, and now flash The Almanac’s recommendation in still one more flood of their expensive campaign.
But I couldn’t help noticing also, that in its 836-word editorial, The Almanac does not make one single reference to the elephant sitting in the middle of the room: The fact that we are about to experience what already is a rigged election because of how and by whom the opposition to Measure M is being financed.
When a single developer throws $200,000. into a race in a town the size of ours, and in its crucial endorsement the main local publication decides it has nothing to say about it, I have to wonder how deep big developers’ whims have seeped into Menlo Park’s fabric.
And by the way, since the race still is not over, it’s likely that as the final campaign finance reports come in, we will find out that in the last days Greenheart redoubled its efforts to render inaudible those opposed to their plans. Just watch. And if Measure M gets defeated, it will be too late to do anything about it.
Don’t take me wrong please. I sincerely think that The Almanac has worked hard to be an excellent and impartial medium for the residents of Menlo Park to express their views. But as our City was about to prove that in America citizen’s initiatives might still have a chance against big money, I will confess that The Almanac has let me down.
Had the developer who stands to benefit the most from a defeat of Measure M not been so obsessed in interfering with the dialogue between opposing views, please be assured that I would have been given those speaking against this citizens’ initiative the benefit of the doubt, and maybe even my vote. But in view of how all that money has been utilized to confuse the common voter, what’s at stake here could not be clearer to me.
There is also the risk that those who didn’t listen to the citizens, would be emboldened by a defeat of the Measure, and see it as a mandate to cater to the developer without the required checks and balances.
But as I recommended in my previous blog: don’t take my word for it. Just find the source and destination of the money being spent during the current campaigns, and then vote according to your understanding of what democratic elections are supposed to be.