Civility in the land of Foster City

Councilmembers everywhere don’t always like each other, they don’t always get along and, like anyone, they don’t like it when they are challenged by their colleagues. Most of them manage to keep these feelings out of the public eye.

So it can be said that the high-test exchange at the most recent Foster City Council meeting, ably reported by the Daily Journal’s Zachary Clark, takes transparency to a whole new level.

Councilwoman Richa Awasthi was concerned there was a regional housing issue to be decided upon at the City/County Association of Governments, a body with representatives from each of the cities and the county, and that is intended to be a forum for regional collaboration. But the city’s C/CAG representative, Mayor Sam Hindi, hadn’t reviewed the issue with his colleagues. Awasthi had the matter put on the agenda, which appears to have rankled Hindi. She said the council should have had a chance to study the issue and set a consensus direction.

After Perez weighed in, Hindi was openly fuming. On more than one instance he told colleagues, usually Perez, to be quiet. He brushed aside a request by Perez for a recess. And he lectured Awasthi on how things really work at regional boards and commissions. Hindi asked if he was expected to get his colleague’s approval before he expressed an opinion at a C/CAG meeting. Yes, said Awasthi, when it’s an issue of consequence to Foster City, such as housing.

And this is where we note that Hindi, upon taking the mayor’s gavel in December, used the occasion to call for more civility in the council discussions and debates.

CROSS CURRENTS: The mainstream of the city’s politics is fraught with cross currents. Hindi is allied with Perez — he has opposed the recall and the two teamed up to take the mayor and vice mayor positions on 3-2 votes. The third vote was supplied by Awasthi.

Perez’s comments during the, um, discussion, came in his characteristic style in which he makes it clear his views are virtuous and disagreeing with him is craven or dumb, or both. This is at the heart of the effort to recall Perez. That, and his hard-charging advocacy for more housing in Foster City, an approach that comes with the usual Perez rhetoric.

Just as councilmembers usually keep to themselves how they feel about each other, they usually show considerable restraint when confronted at a council meeting with comments from critics and opponents. Perez appears to relish criticizing his critics at council meetings.

There is no question his manner is at the core of the recall. Yes, there are serious, complicated and testy issues in Foster City, particularly whether to build more housing. But it’s easy to imagine someone else with a different style could survive that dispute. At least one of the reasons Perez is facing a recall is that he openly enjoys jousting with his opponents.

Interestingly, Perez’s personal style is at the center of the argument made by opponents to the recall — just because you don’t like him is no reason to recall him, which is Hindi’s position. But the long-treasured right of Californians to recall is unrestricted. You don’t need a reason, good or otherwise.

There may be a lot of reasons not to do this — I’m not trying to endorse or oppose it. For openers, Perez will be out of office, due to term limits, in little more than a year. So why go forward? The short answer simply may be this: Because it’s Foster City. The politics there have always been distinctive for being disputatious.

THIS WEEK’S CORRECTIONS: I should not be allowed near a calculator without adult supervision. Last week’s item on the 13th Senate District misstated how much candidate Josh Becker has raised. The correct number is $660,000. And Annie Oliva did not speak at the recent Democratic Party endorsement meeting, although she did speak at others. One of these days, I might write a whole mistake-free column.

FLOPPY: Not to diminish all that went into it, but the winning pumpkins at Half Moon Bay’s annual weigh-off always look like flat tires to me.

Mark Simon is a veteran journalist, whose career included 15 years as an executive at SamTrans and Caltrain. He can be reached at mark@smdailyjournal.com.