Recently the City Council received a letter from someone taking us to task for approving the Sares Regis Group as the developer to negotiate with on the central 15 acres in our City. Taking us to task on this issue is certainly acceptable and I am sure in the writer’s mind, appropriate.
What did not seem appropriate to me was to accuse the City Council of being “dictators” and implying that we “…..were all paid off.” That’s a pretty harsh judgment; however, we can deal with that. The real problem with the letter was that the writer did not have the courage to sign it or to provide a phone number or email address so that members of the Council could enter into a dialog.
In my five and a half years on the Council, I cannot remember a time when a member of the Council was unwilling to discuss any issue with a citizen. As all responsible people know there is no way to please all the people all the time but reasonable people can have a dialog and disagree.
My point to this column is that it is alright to criticize the Council; however, I would suggest that it would seem more constructive to have the courage of your convictions and provide an opportunity to the City Council to discuss issues openly rather than addressing the Council anonymously.
Oh, by the way, just for the anonymous writer’s benefit, the City Council did not act in a tyrannical manner and no one was “paid off”!
Rick Wykoff can be reached via email, rwykoff@fostercity.org
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