The following letter was sent to City Clerk John Tulloch, with copies to all Piedmont City Council members. It is reprinted here at the writers' request.
To: John Tulloch
Piedmont City Clerk
Re: City Council 9/18 Proposed change to 9/4 Minutes
We find it extraordinary the City would go to such dramatic lengths to alter the minutes for the Sep. 4 comments by Mr. Grote to Ryan Gilbert’s Open Forum comments concerning the misstatement of Council unanimously endorsing the Measure Y Parcel Tax.
Although the City’s lengthy addition to the minutes in this fashion is highly unusual in itself, important comments are curiously missing. Mr. Grote, Mayor Chiang and Councilman Wieler have acknowledged Sep. 4 that this statement is false, yet these important declarations are left out of the carefully crafted City revision of the minutes. The basic misinformation on the proponent ballot argument remains, that Council has unanimously recommended the Parcel Tax.
As this is evidently a highly sensitive issue at City Hall, as evidenced by the carefully crafted and relatively lengthy addition to the minutes, the information being omitted is significant in what appears to be an attempt to again editorialize official documents by the City. The job of altering facts and presenting unbalanced information is best left to the Piedmont Post.
Whether intentional or not, the ballot misstatement is important and follows the City’s misstatements on the Measure A ballot statements earlier this year. The EPA was not requiring Piedmont to replace its mainline sewer.
Mayor Chiang was informed directly by Eric Lindquist on Aug. 23 of this matter and had ample time to include correcting information by Aug. 27, the due date for rebuttals. Instead Mr. Grote now suggests that opponents should have taken used their 250 words to correct the acknowledged proponent misstatement.
Further, the City can still go to court, do a city wide mailer, post this letter on the City website at the ballot information page or place front-page ads in local media. The City has chosen to take no action and continues to place the burden on those to be deceived by the misstatement — Piedmont voters.
Respectfully,
Ryan Gilbert
Rick Schiller
See the draft minutes and proposed changes here.
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