or, Two Sides of Sid

It’s appalling and frankly it weakens our discourse and the diversity of perspectives.

sid espinosa on lack of women and asian and overall candidates or mark weiss on Measure D Amendment backed by Roger Smith, Betsy Bechtel, Liz Kniss, Walter Hays, Peter Drekmeir and Sid Espinosa.

source: Palo Alto Weekly op-ed “If you are not running for Palo Alto City Council, why not?” June 9, 2009 by Sid

Sid, don’t turn your back on the inclusive basis of Democracy

edit to add: somehow forgot Mike Cobb and Judy Kleinberg. Don’t get me wrong, I like Sid, and feel there is some amount of mutual respect. I just don’t get him here. His June, 2009 column is one of the things that drew me into this process, now five years in. (And for the record, I got 800 votes that year, 5,700 in 2012 so that projects geometrically to about 35,000 projected votes by November 4).

Mike Cobb I met initially when, from fall, 1994 to January, 2001 I was producing two concerts a month at Cubberley; he practically was Cubberley in those days; they almost changed the name to Cobberley. (Actually, Del Thorpe was the facility manager, reporting to Barry Weiss, Richard James, Paul Thiltgen). Recently, apropos of the current discussions of The Cub, I said, running into Mr. Cobb at Midtown Coffee shop, that I would be willing to do research for a white paper on arts at Cubberley, if that would help him, but we never followed up or Cobb-sumated the deal. He did give me some advice: go along to get along. I’m trying.

Judy Kleinberg I met around that same time, 1995, 1996 in that she was running Safer Summer which produced teen band concerts at Just Desserts on Bryant and we traded notes on teen talent. When my relationship with Del Thorpe went completely sour, I wrote Judy about intervening on my behalf, but September, 2001 as we recall brought a bigger problems, or so I thought, and I just dropped the notion and became an artist manager (a B2B model, so to speak) before or beyond concerts per se.

Someone advised me recently that Measure D (this is our third Measure D — the first, my mnemonic is “demeaning” was about pensions and the public safety cba, the second about Maybell) because it is so gradual is kind of a red herring and probably trivial, but even so. (I wrote a proposed ballot argument against the amendment but was apparently outflanked by the higher-ranking group, if City Clerk persists in letting them call themselves something other than a campaign committee dressed in drag, talk about clear story).

Sid gave me a pep talk in the aftermath of 2009 fall, when I applied to Library Commission in early 2010; he even through me a softball question at the interview — what did I think of the recent commission white paper? — but I somehow whiffed on that. I’ve written on him at least three times here, and mentioned him 20 times, in first 830 posts. (I tried to get him to co-sponsor a visit by his Wesleyan colleague the basketball trickster Bobbito Garcia). I’d love to have Sid over (to Terry’s actually, I have no tv) and watch either “Sweet Smell of Success” or “All the Kings Men”. Or sit with him at a Stanford Theatre co-bill of such — after I become mayor if not before. This is a funny way to issue the invitation.