In my judgment, all of Donna M Bischoff’s letter (Dec. 19) is designed to undercut the plan that was created for developing Bay Meadows. The reality is that a citizens’ advisory committee did meet over a period of five years spending hundreds of hours. The advisory committee was small as it should have been. A large one would have been unruly and unproductive. Rather than focus on the size and those who attended, why does she not focus on what they produced? Members of the Sierra Club. Greenbelt Alliance, the League of Women Voters may or may not have attended, but they like many other organizations have endorsed the product. Let it also be clear that the citizens of San Mateo had an opportunity to speak before the advisory committee, before the San Mateo Planning Commission before it voted 4-1 to support the project and before the city council before they voted 5-0 to support the plan.
Let me draw a parallel. When the Founding Fathers drafted the U.S. Constitution, they were few in number. They did not call in the public for comment. And as now there was opposition to the plan. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison then wrote the "Federalist Papers” to explain, defend and extol the plan. They did not look at the number of authors or the number of people who had attended. Instead they evaluated the plan itself.
Even if the question goes to the voters, I am confident the plan will prevail. The plan is a good one, the number of groups supporting it over the opposition is something like 8-2. And they have greater stature and greater resources and the plan has won twice before. But we may need to follow in the footsteps of Hamilton, Jay and Madison explaining, defending and extolling the plan. I will gladly do so.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.