Drinking water and checkbooks – Martinez politics

The Martinez City Council proposes to annex portions of Alhambra Valley. The portions it proposes to annex are largely inhabited by residents precluded from voting for or against the annexation because they drink Martinez water. (Yes, you read it right.) Jonathan Swift, Al Franken, Bill Maher, anbd Howard Stern would have a field day with that one.

The sad truth: it’s true. Yes, Virginia, if you drink Martinez water in Alhambra Valley, you lose your vote.

Our City leaders are determined to annex only portions of Alhambra Valley for one simple reason. Locals who express their free speech through campaign contributions want it. They want to develop property there.

The majority of residents of Alhambra Valley don’t want it. They don’t want it because they want the Valley to remain pretty much the same bucolic place to live it is now. As a result, the City’s gerrymandered annexation area cuts most of them out.

The City’s proposal to the “Local Agency Formation Commission,” to be voted tomorrow, is unfair both to those caught within the carefully circumscribed area and to those caught without. Effectively, if Lafco goes along with the City tomorrow only a few of them would get to object.  Boys and girls, that’s the way free speech is practiced in Martinez, through water spigots and checkbooks.

Equity calls for residents of the entire valley to be allowed to express themselves.

As we know, the proposed annexation has been made for economic reasons to benefit politically connected property owners whose land will suddenly gain in value thanks to the city’s elastic zoning and permitting practices.

Faced with such a blatant grab, the Lafco Board should send the City’s copy back for wholesale revision.

Failing that, court action will ensue.