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Councilman's rage against the machine results in faltering recall campaign
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_26415436/sunnyvale-councilmans-rage-against-machine-results-faltering-recallPatrick Meyering had been a duly sworn member of the City Council here for exactly 90 seconds when he stood before the happy conclave that had come to celebrate his inauguration and began to speak.
Taking note of the warm tributes others had paid to four departing council members, Meyering said, in effect, good riddance: "We didn't hear about literally the tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions that they took from the Sunnyvale City Employees Association, and how during their eight years on the council the salaries of those employees doubled." For good measure, he added that his predecessors had pocketed thousands more from developers, then signed sweetheart, no-deadline contracts with the same developers....
After receiving close to 9,000 votes in his council race, Meyering hasn't felt sufficiently threatened by the recall effort to do much about it, though he has attracted one supporter who is vigorously defending him, setting up a website that compares Meyering to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Meyering's true believers view him as a much needed bulwark against a council too cozy with special interests....
Unlike other city councils, which typically feature droning discussions about "infill" and "EIRs," Sunnyvale's bi-weekly meetings are filled with what one councilman called "performance art." Mostly, this involves Meyering's incendiary attempts to throw the machinery of local lawmaking -- well-oiled by political action committee money -- into chaos, while other members rebut, reject and ridicule virtually every claim he makes. His council foes decry his endless volley of charges that they are a bunch of crooks as a distraction, while Meyering counters with a question: "Why are these people so sensitive?"
Taking note of the warm tributes others had paid to four departing council members, Meyering said, in effect, good riddance: "We didn't hear about literally the tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions that they took from the Sunnyvale City Employees Association, and how during their eight years on the council the salaries of those employees doubled." For good measure, he added that his predecessors had pocketed thousands more from developers, then signed sweetheart, no-deadline contracts with the same developers....
After receiving close to 9,000 votes in his council race, Meyering hasn't felt sufficiently threatened by the recall effort to do much about it, though he has attracted one supporter who is vigorously defending him, setting up a website that compares Meyering to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Meyering's true believers view him as a much needed bulwark against a council too cozy with special interests....
Unlike other city councils, which typically feature droning discussions about "infill" and "EIRs," Sunnyvale's bi-weekly meetings are filled with what one councilman called "performance art." Mostly, this involves Meyering's incendiary attempts to throw the machinery of local lawmaking -- well-oiled by political action committee money -- into chaos, while other members rebut, reject and ridicule virtually every claim he makes. His council foes decry his endless volley of charges that they are a bunch of crooks as a distraction, while Meyering counters with a question: "Why are these people so sensitive?"
