Sorry about the typo in the headline . Should read " Corruption in San Mateo County."

You can sign up for the event here.

Web Link

Editors: can you fix title?

It is our understanding that victim's advocate Michael Stogner has been invited to speak at tonight's meeting.

It's a shame, but unless citizens of San Mateo County themselves become victims of a crime, they have no idea of the morass of corruption they have to deal with.

We urge citizens to attend tonight's meeting, 7:30- 9:30 at Spiedo restaurant in San Mateo.

The Ayres blog urges San Mateo citizens to attend the meeting tonight.

Be warned: you could be the next person to be a victim of the corruption. Be pre-emptive.

Web Link

Are the libertarians taking publicly owned roads to a diner inspected by the health department?

But seriously, isn't that the place with the ten buck dinner specials, across from draegers?

Ugh.

A reporter from the Half Moon Bay Review attended the meeting last night. Good to see that a reporter is taking the corruption issue seriously.

"....is taking the corruption issue seriously."

Or wanted the Friday night mileage, grub and laughs on her expense account.

How many libertarians are elected to state office? National office? If the libertarians are so proud and righteous, why not post with their name?

I was pleasantly surprised by the attendance at last nights meeting I would guess between 35-40 people that were interested in this topic. Not the Corruption part because that is commonplace but the "What can we do about it." We talked about Corruption at the Supervisor level with the example of a 2002 Grand Jury telling the Supervisor to put together a Whistleblower reporting mechanism which to this day has not been done. Recently Supervisor Don Horsley
wouldn't allow Controller Bob Adler and Supervisor Dave Pine to present a Whistleblower program to the Supervisors. SamTrans accountant whistleblower was ordered to contact Supervisor Carole Groom to report alleged fraud, this is a very bad idea because Groom contacted the management people at SamTrans to warn them instead of being there for the whistleblower, also she is a board member of the Transit District = Conflict of Interest. I'm not sure why anybody should report anything to a Supervisor especially if they are members of Service League, which Mike Scanlon is the President. We also talked about who controls the information about arrests, and booking info and special favors given to police officers by District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe, and what is newsworthy. We talked about the high percentage of people in our jail waiting for trial, and we discussed the fraud and perjury in our courts and nothing being done to stop it. Some suggestions Yelp of Elected leaders, Citizens Oversight meetings. Giving Grand Jury more power.
What I really liked was this group of people were there to solve corruption in SMC.

A big thank you to Victim's Advocate Michael G. Stogner, who agreed to serve as a keynote speaker at the Corruption in San Mateo County event last night. It seems from his report that there was a very productive discussion. San Mateo County is in the heart of one of the most highly educated and affluent parts of the USA, but in many ways is being run like a corrupt "back" county from the 1930s. It's time for this to change.

Here is just one simple example.
Web Link

This was 11 years ago, Why hasn't this happened yet, the answer is simple, the Supervisors.

The Grand Jury makes recommendations to the Board of Supervisors to:
Adopt a comprehensive policy or direct the County Manager to establish procedures to assure appropriate investigation of complaints and protection of those making complaints.
Establish a single point of contact for all such complaints within the Board of Supervisors offices or assign coordination to an outside agency under contract to the County.
Include coverage for members of the public, vendors and others serving the County.

Mr.Stogner:

The fish rots from the head. We ALL know which elected head fish has to be removed first in order that true change can take place.

"the fish rots from the head."

"This was 11 years ago"

That's a heckuva fish - it took a long time to rot. Remind me to order the chicken next time I'm up at Speidos listening to libertarians.

No answer on the state or national libertarian question.

Locally?

Thank you for your efforts, Mr. Stogner.

D Fallow:

do you think doing something about the on going corruption in this county is a good idea or would you just prefer to sit and take pot shots at Libertarians from the sidelines? At least these people are trying to do something about the problem. There's no question we have a bunch of corruptocrats running this county. Do you have no problem with that?

D. Fallow
I'm sure you are aware that I am a Democrat, that is why I was surprised and honored to be invited as a guest speaker on this subject. I don't think parties are all that important anymore I think how a person would vote or what issues are important to him/her is more important.

When is the election for San Mateo District Attorney? Has any paper written about this? Are there any candidates running against the incumbent?

I think San Mateo Supervisor President Dave Pine would make a far, far better DA than the one who is in office now.

Just about anyone would make a far better DA than the corrupt individual that currently occupies that office.

"Just about anyone would make a far better DA..."

Chris Christie? Scott Walker? Tom Delay? Barack Obama?

(sorry, the hyperbole is pretty funny...)

Liked going back and reading the newsletters on the SAN MATEO Libertarian party website. The old ones were mostly about taxes, tax cut issues, etc..

With a Santa Clara county mailing address. Web Link

One also notes SMLP has dropped this vow/requirement from the past newsletters:

...we request our members to sign the pledge below: I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals

Fascinating stuff.

David Vitter,

This is an American issue not a Political Party Issue. The title of this thread left off an important part of the title.

"What can we do about it." That is why I accepted the invitation as a Democrat to be the guest speaker.

I din't want to speak about corruption in San Mateo County, everybody knows about it. County History at the Museum
covers it well, no secret, it's who we are.

To have a District Attorney, that refuses to prosecute police officers equally with citizens is corruption, it's that simple. To stall two Samtrans whistleblower criminal allegations and lie to them about not having the funds to investigate that type of complicated crime is corruption.

Now I invite Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, all Americans to the question? What can we the people do about it? The current elected people are fine with it just the way it is.