I hear things, I read things, I put them here

STAND BY FOR CHAOS: In little more than a month, voters (and likely a small sliver of them) in Millbrae will decide whether to recall first-term Councilmembers Angelina Cahalan and Maurice Goodman. The recall proponents are abundantly clear — the recall is a backlash to support by Cahalan and Goodman for the efforts by San Mateo County to purchase a La Quinta Inn in Millbrae and convert it to housing for formerly homeless families and seniors. Interestingly, Cahalan’s ballot response to the recall makes no mention of the La Quinta controversy. Goodman doubles down on the issue, saying he took a “stand for human rights.” If one or both are recalled, the council has to either call a special election or appoint replacements, an invitation for continuing disagreements.

TRANSITIONING TRANSIT: Maybe I read this wrong, but a story about the search by Caltrain for a new headquarters noted that “staff had narrowed down about 16 properties of interest.” Thank goodness they narrowed it down.

One of the options is to stick with its old roommate, SamTrans, and move with the bus company to their new headquarters in Millbrae. This elicited the following comment from Caltrain board member Monique Zmuda of San Francisco: “In the scheme of things, we want to work with SamTrans as much as possible.” Well, gee. Maybe the San Francisco (and Santa Clara County) board members should not have engineered the break-up of SamTrans and Caltrain. As has been reported previously, Caltrain has a staff of 78, but that number is expected to grow to 177 “over time” as Caltrain starts to fill the jobs that have been handled by SamTrans staff. This is one more piece of evidence that SamTrans’ management of Caltrain was a huge bargain for the railroad.

FREE ADVICE: This week, the Board of Supervisors unveiled the seven members of its new Civilian Advisory Commission on the Sheriff’s Office (and I hope you are as disappointed as I am that they did not add four or five more words to the commission’s name). This is not an oversight body — the board, which already has subpoena power, will do that itself, at least, in theory. It turns out the board always had this authority, but I cannot think of an instance when it exercised it.

Anyway, the commission is wedged in between the Sheriff’s Office and the board; each of the five supervisors appointed one member, Sheriff Christina Corpus appointed one, and county staff, in essence, appointed one.

The lineup of commissioners probably does not reflect the hard-charging approach oversight advocates wanted, but it is likely to be more even-handed and less pedantic. The commissioners are: Marco Durazo, onetime San Bruno City Council candidate, a political science professor at University of San Francisco and occasional Daily Journal contributor; Rob Silano, a member of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District with a law enforcement background; Kalimah Salahuddin, a trustee in the Jefferson Union High School District and well-known in county political and social services community; Shirley Melnicoe, formerly associated with the Northern California Service League, which provides support services to jail inmates; Alexis Lewis, employed in biotech, a leader in the San Mateo NAACP and a member of the county Democratic Central Committee; James Simmons, a Belmont Parks and Recreation commissioner, who works at HIP Housing and is a certified conflict resolution mediator; William McClure, who served as the Menlo Park city attorney for 27 years; and Mike Fisher, who has worked in law enforcement in Mountain View, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

HONOR THE PAST: I admit, I am a little late to the controversy in which the Oakland Airport wants to change its name to include San Francisco Bay. But I think they should go for something that honors Oakland’s sports legacy. Change the airport name to Las Vegas.

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