Un-Endorsement Matrix – Los Altos City Council Candidates 2012

Los Altos City Council Candidates 2012, top – Megan Satterlee, Jerry Sorensen, Jan Pepper. bottom – Jeannie Bruins, Anabel Pelham, Jon Baer

Here is a Non-Endorsement Matrix of candidate positions I developed by listening to six of the eight Los Altos City Council Candidates 2012 Forums, reviewing some of those tapes and transcripts and exchanging an alpha version of the draft matrix with the candidates.  It captures over 70 questions, teasing out real differences between candidates.

How to  Approach the Matrix – You Weigh the Positions

The items are classified into six categories. Downtown, Civic Center, Los Altos School District, Historical Preservation,  Fiscal Fitness, Design and City Planning, Transparency and Good Governance, Miscellaneous including Green.  You should apply your own weights to the rows.  Many rows might be irrelevant to the way you think about choosing candidates. Only you know what’s important to you. And there are few if any right and wrong answers in a row.  For example, is it better for a candidate to be super frugal or more ready to spend?  Lalahpolitico thinks there are good arguments for both. If you are a climate change denier, you might not want the most green candidate. Etc.  And the matrix is about YOU deciding. On the other hand, If you are in a hurry, Lalahpolitico has talked to many differing people and has often heard them express the often contradictory list of goals below – the popular single issues. Of course, no person can agree with the goals of all the single issues. For instance, if the only issue you care about is historical preservation…lalahpolitico indicates which candidates seem most on board with that goal. The paragraph that  follows this one is the Single Issues with Lalahpolitico’s read on the candidates positions.  You are free to weigh and ignore the various rows any way you see fit.  The purpose of the somewhat “black and white “rows is to tease out differences between candidates and to nudge candidates into taking some kind of position rather than just pursuing evasion. You are always free to listen to all of the tapes of 6 forums which were recorded!  Go for it!

Single Issue Voters – Our Candidate Picks For you

Although this is an unendorsement matrix, I was able to develop several Single-Issue Voting Assessments.  That means if that’s the only issue you care about or care the most about,  vote as assessed. [These are not positions that I necessarily personally favor, just ones that I know are popular in the community. The positions are often contradictory.]

Best for a Charming Downtown – Baer, Satterlee, Pepper ( in that order)

Best for a Vibrant Downtown – Sorensen, Bruins, Pelham ( in that order)

Best to Stop the Civic Center Plan – Sorensen, Pepper, Bruins, Pelham ( in that order)

Best to Support LASD Board Goals & Policies – Sorensen, Bruins, Pepper ( in that order)

Best for Historical Preservation – Baer, Satterlee, Pepper ( in that order)

Best for Fiscal Fitness – Satterlee, Pepper, Sorensen ( in that order)

Best for Low Residential Density – Satterlee, Baer, Sorensen ( in that order)

Best for Government Transparency – Sorensen, Pepper, Satterlee ( in that order)[ happily all candidates are sensitized to the need]

Best for Green City Initiatives – Pepper, Bruins, Pelham ( in that order)

Teasing Out the Candidate Differences.

Teasing out differences was sometimes hard. As the campaign wore on, candidates started to copy parts of competitors’ messaging.

LALAHPOLITICO found that Jerry Sorensen was the most direct and plain spoken and stayed on message; he’s been easy to represent.[He did not review the alpha version of the matrix.UPDATE: but did review the beta version]  Incumbent Megan Satterlee was nearly as direct and plain spoken, not obscuring her positions as the campaign wore on. Astonishingly, from the beginning Jon Baer has been using the “vibrancy” language of downtown growth proponents, when Jon is actually the champion of “keeping downtown Main and State pretty much the way it is – charming.”  Anabel Pelham seemed to support everything and never said no to anything or anyone; that’s hard to represent. Jeannie Bruins started with some well-defined positions which seemed to become more tentative.  Jan Pepper was not too revealing and came across as very middle of the road.

LALAHPOLITICO heard lots of “I agree, that needs study, we need more community input on that.” The fact is, lots of the time, lots of the candidates don’t want you to know their position. Why? The political wisdom is — don’t give any voter a negative message or a reason to disqualify you from consideration.   Anabel Pelham probably was most successful in being totally upbeat, delivering no bad news, and seeing endless possibilities.  Jon Baer was probably next upbeat, deciding to bring everyone the “Good News” about downtown – there used to be a problem, everything is already being fixed,  and it was fixed by Jon.

User Guide to the Matrix

UPDATE Oct. 22: Jerry Sorensen did not comment on the alpha version of the matrix, but did on the beta version. He comments did not change any of the Single Issue Candidate Picks above, just the contents on some cells below. The major substantive change is that Jerry now has a more nuanced approach in his support of LASD Board Goals and Policies. He is now more similar to the other two candidates – Bruin and Pepper that Huttlinger Alliance endorse.  All three candidates are willing to meeting with BCS.

This is a still a beta matrix, now version1.3.

A row with red text means there was NO DIFFERENCE in candidate positions.  I decide to include some no diff rows.

Pink rows are highly subjective. I’ve spent tens of hours with these people and their messages and you haven’t.  I thought I should give you my gut on a few things. Obviously you are free to ignore these rows.

Here is the link to the UPDATED Excel File version of the matrix shown as images here below. There are no Checkmark changes, just verbiage.

Here is the link to the verbatim alpha draft matrix responses from candidates . [UPDATED with most of Sorensen’s comment language now. ] You will notice, candidate responses generally made position differences less clear. They were told this was not a writing exercise, not a place for more “messaging” It has more rows than the beta, because some rows were thrown out by me.