Given the publication of Peninsula Community Planning Board (PCPB) member Geoff Page’s critical response to my recent letter to the Beacon regarding the election fiasco at the PCPB, please allow me to respond. Mr. Page characterizes my letter as “heavy on rhetoric and short on facts.” Indeed, as will be shown below, the irony built into that statement is profound. My letter memorialized the following facts: First, Ms. Conger did not receive enough votes to remain on the PCPB. Second, Darrold Davis collected enough votes to take Ms. Conger’s spot.
Third, after the votes were counted and Mr. Davis’ election confirmed, Ms. Conger claimed that Mr. Davis’ campaign was illegal because he had not attended a board meeting during the prior month. And fourth, the city attorney opined that Mr. Davis had, in fact, attended an PCPB event that qualified as a board meeting.
Mr. Page, in his response, does not dispute these facts. Rather, he initiates an attack: First, he defends Ms. Conger’s action, challenging the community’s election of Mr. Davis by pointing to her community service. He does not address the fact that had her challenge been successful, she would have kept her seat. A fairly obvious conflict. Second, he characterizes the legal opinion of the city attorney’s office, with which he disagrees, as “idiocy.”
Third, he bellies that I have “no idea” what the board does and questions my comprehension of the fact that Ms. Conger has “preserve[d] the quality of life [that I] enjoy.” Finally, he demands to know “how many hours of community service [I have] put in,” stating that it is my “kind of thinking” that has created this “mess.”
Initially, Mr. Page’s personal attack of me is telling. It is fully irrelevant to the issue at hand. His opinion that the objective legal analysis generated by the city attorney’s office is “idiocy” is fully conclusory and lacks foundation.
His claim that Ms. Conger can not be “power hungry” because the PCPB has “no power” is insulting. Does he honestly believe that an advisory board to the City Council is powerless? Said another way, Mr. Page’s letter is heavy on rhetoric and short on facts.
I suspect that the election of Mr. Davis is proof that the Point Loma community is ready for a change, as many residents have grown tired of the philosophy employed by certain current board members, including Mr. Page. In closing, Mr. Page’s condemnation of those not willing to simply create an additional seat on the board, in order to seat both Davis and Conger, is misguided, given that the number of board seats is specifically guided by statute.
If I recall correctly from my civics class at Point Loma High School, the democratic process requires a bit more in order for statutes to be changed. But hey, we certainly don’t want the law to get in the way of the PCPB’s divine mission of protecting the bumbling folks of Point Loma from themselves. I encourage all members of this community to take a closer look at the PCPB in order to determine if a little more housecleaning is in order.