Santa Clara, is a great place to live.
There is so much to love about our City, from our soccer parks to the Senior Center, a lot of thought has been invested in the planning of our community.
We have been fortunate to have a police department that has maintained their vigilance and kept our citizens protected. Our firefighters are among the best in the country and serve Santa Clara so effectively.
Our schools have proven to be among the best in the region and our school board continues to seek ways to meet the growing demands of an increasing population.
Our residents are community minded and share the spirit of sharing and helping. The many active service clubs, churches and civic organizations in Santa Clara are a testament to this.
Santa Clara also happens to be home to one of the country’s best universities. Santa Clara University ranks among the best of the best, graduating some of our most notable leaders.
Perhaps we have downplayed the successful business element of our community, which is responsible for so much of our City revenue. Revenue that supports our City services, staff, offices, equipment and maintenance.
Often we forget that some of the world’s leading companies reside within our borders, bringing notoriety and recoginition to themselves and to Santa Clara.
These companies also create and provide tens of thousands of jobs for our residents and non-residents alike.
From our marvelous pool of residents, we are fortunate to have a thousand or more skilled and qualified community leaders who are capable of transferring their talent to the public sector.
While some of these are elected officials, the majority are volunteers who give of their time to serve as commissioners, special committee members and task force associates.
These volunteers are actual representatives of our City. They may not be voting members at the Council level, yet there is an inherent responsibility accrued to each of these offices.
This responsibility includes similar, if not the same, treatment of fair and objective application and treatment of law, City code or ordinance being reviewed or applied.
When a volunteer commissioner exceeds the bounds of balanced behavior, interpretation, or application of guideline rules, they should be removed.
A reprimand is not enough.
Every City Commissioner and volunteer serves at the pleasure of the City Council. It is the Councils intrinsic duty to keep the scales of justice and behavior in balance.
To ignore misbehavior is to reward it. To retain bad behavior in volunteers is an endorsement. That in turn reflects directly back to our Council.
It is possible that in the selection of candidates for these volunteer positions, mistakes are made. No Council action to remedy these mistakes becomes the greater error.
Continual Council review and evaluation makes us an even better community.