I’m voting for Julie Caskey for the School Board, and I’d like to tell you why—she’s effective at getting things done for our kids.  Having four kids of her own spanning Piedmont’s elementary, middle, and high school, Julie is 100% vested in our schools.  She also understands a personalized approach is critical to unleashing each child’s potential.

I’ve worked with Julie for the past eight years as a fellow board member of Piedmont ALPS (Advanced Learner Program Support). As president for two years, she brought stellar organization, a collaborative style, and a relentless drive to implement changes that will better prepare our kids for the world they will inherit upon graduation.

Julie gets things done.  She raised money and helped create a position for K-12 called a differentiation coach. As a result, Amy Symons Burke now works with teachers and students to create differentiated learning plans, and gain access to resources to support those plans–whether the students are advanced, challenged, or just need something different, as many kids do. Julie was also an instrumental math task force member, implementing a new compression math option for 6^th graders. We have amazing teachers in Piedmont. Julie works to make sure they have the support and resources they need to help every child reach their potential.

As our teachers know, best practices in education are changing and evolving rapidly.  Our teachers are no longer standing at the front of a classroom, lecturing students.  Learning is interactive, collaborative, differentiated.  Chromebooks enable new opportunities for learning, allowing children to better learn at their own pace.  As a current parent, an active member of ALPS, The Beach Parent Organization, and other school groups, Julie understands how these changes and opportunities should best be implemented.  She isn’t afraid to embrace change if it leads to better outcomes for our kids and pushes Piedmont to continue evolving so that we can maintain our standards as a top school district. 

Julie also worked for 20 years as a lawyer, assisting women, children, and families that had been marginalized, excluded, and left behind. Julie will bring the passion, intelligence, and energy she brought to her career to her role as a member of our school board.

I feel confident that having Julie on our school board will enable our schools to provide a better learning environment for all our students.  I hope you will join me in voting for Julie Caskey for school board.

Kim Fisher, Piedmont Resident

The City Charter has not been revised in more than 30 years.  It is out of date and contains inconsistencies.  The City Council had several meetings over a two year period to consider changes to the Charter, and actively sought and considered citizen input.  For a detailed analysis of these measures, I recommend the Piedmont League of Voters website, at https://my.lwv.org/california/piedmont/lwvp-pros-cons-city-piedmont-measures-bb-and-cc.

I believe there are two “hot buttons” regarding Measure BB.  The first “hot button” concerns competitive bidding.  Measure BB would remove language that says Piedmont will follow state law on competitive bidding.  As a Charter City, Piedmont has the authority to set its own thresholds for competitive bidding.  By removing that language, Piedmont makes clear that it is exercising its Charter City authority.  It is my understanding that Piedmont does a full competitive bid for any projects exceeding $75,000, and has had trouble getting contractors to bid for low dollar projects.  In my opinion, a $75,000 threshold sufficiently balances the need to wisely spend public funds against the administrative burden on the City and bidders.  The second concerns how long a termed-out Council member would need to wait to run again for the Council.  Measure BB would change the four year waiting period, to an eight year waiting period.  While I don’t agree with this change, I still support Measure BB because this situation hardly ever arises, and I believe that the other changes in Measure BB are desirable and necessary.

Measure CC addresses personnel issues, and it clarifies ambiguous and outdated language in the City Charter.  If Measure CC passed, the City Council would be responsible for hiring all department heads and managing and firing the City Administrator and City Attorney.  The City Administrator would be responsible for managing and firing all City employees except the City Attorney. It is not unusual for a board of directors to hire a CEO of its organization, and to give the CEO the authority and responsibility for hiring, managing and firing all of the organization’s employees.  We cannot expect our City Council, a group of five volunteers, to manage the City’s department heads.  With these changes to the City Charter, we should expect that the City Administrator would confer with the Council in exercising his/her authority, and the Council holding the City Administrator responsible for how that authority was exercised.

Kathleen Quineville, Piedmont Resident

Megan Pillsbury and I worked together on the School Site Council at Havens more than a decade ago.  I am excited to hear she is running for School Board. We’d be lucky to have her as a trustee of our school system!  She will bring a unique viewpoint to the board, since she combines classroom teaching experience with the understanding of a parent, as well as taking a systemic perspective of education.

Though we didn’t know one another at the time, we volunteered to work together to research the impact and benefits of homework for elementary school students. She was not only interested in thoroughly researching the topic so our work would be grounded in facts, but also attentive to gathering input from all those invested in the topic – from students, to parents to teachers to administrators and other staff.  She worked extremely hard to understand people’s interests, and to think through how we might design a comprehensive and flexible program at Havens to meet as many people’s needs as possible, in the context of the evidence of what works best for students.  Then she worked to document and implement a system for homework at Havens – so that parents knew what to expect and why, so that teachers had supports in place and didn’t have to reinvent, so there was consistency from classroom to classroom from an administrative perspective, and so that students would have homework that made a difference in their learning.  I was impressed at every stage of this project: by Megan’s commitment and dedication, by her thoroughness, by her systems thinking, by her focus on meeting interests and needs.  Based on these, we delivered an excellent and comprehensive homework program at Havens.

Megan Pillsbury has the experience, talent and perspective to serve us well on the Piedmont School Board.

Dana Serleth, Piedmont Resident

I am writing to ask my fellow Piedmonters to re-elect Amal Smith to the Piedmont School Board. First, Amal has demonstrated here commitment to Piedmont’s children for over 18 years. Beginning as a room parent volunteer when her children went to Beach, Amal’s commitment continued as she served in leadership positions on the Beach Parents Organization, the Piedmont Education Foundation, as member of the District Budget Advisory Committee, and as a member of the PUSD Wellness Center Advisory Board.

With over twenty eight years of experience in the field of higher education, currently as the Associate Dean of Financial Affairs at the School of Medicine at UCSF, Amal brings a wealth of financial management experience to the school board. More importantly, over the last four years as a school board member, Amal has demonstrated her strong leadership skills as she has navigated a variety of issues including our district’s financial challenges and curriculum transitions.

Amal is working to serve ALL of Piedmont’s children and takes her responsibility very seriously. She is open, honest, and smart. We need people like Amal on our school Board. Please join me in voting for her on November 6 th .

Cathy Michelotti Glazier, Piedmont Resident

Where is the Disaster Preparedness Information Citizens Need?

October 18, 2018 is the 10th Anniversary of ShakeOut, officially occurring at 10:18 am.  By understanding your risk, you can minimize or avoid injuries, damage, and long-term financial consequences.

California Office of Emergency Services alerts Californians:

“Preparedness is everyone’s job. ” ​

The State suggests that refer to this website to learn the hazards in your area.

San Francisco offers its citizens the latest information, detailed preparation information, and training through a series of neighborhood emergency response team classes:

San Francisco Disaster Preparedness & Response Curriculum:
The goal of this program is to help the residents of San Francisco be self sufficient in a major disaster situation by developing multi-functional teams, cross-trained in basic emergency skills.  Through this program, individuals will learn hands-on disaster skills that will help them as members of an emergency response team and/or as a leader directing untrained volunteers during an emergency, allowing them to act independently or as an adjunct to City emergency services.  There is no cost  for the neighborhood training, and the class sessions are approximately 3 hours.

Council authority or City Administrator authority?

Piedmont City Charter changes are in voters’ hands.

Piedmont ballot Measure CC on the November 6 ballot, if approved by a majority of Piedmont voters, will end the City Council’s authority to both hire and fire key-employees.  Voters will find Measure CC at the end of their Piedmont ballot. 

Piedmont’s City Administrator initiated the City Charter amendment removing the City Council’s authority to evaluate, direct, and fire the Council-hired key-employees – Fire Chief, Police Chief, Finance Director, Recreation Director, etc. 

Under Measure CC, key-employees chosen by the Council would no longer serve “at the pleasure of the City Council;” they would serve “at the pleasure of the City Administrator.”

Opponents to Measure CC, changing the City Charter’s reporting authority, have emphasized the need to retain the City Council’s authority and not transfer their authority to a City Administrator on key Council chosen employees – Police Chief, Fire Chief, Finance Director, Recreation Director, etc.  

Piedmont’s system of governance is based on a “strong” five member City Council. Unlike many other cities, Piedmont does not have a  “strong” mayor. The Council elects Piedmont’s mayor from amongst their five members.  Piedmont’s mayor has little authority, except by City Charter or Council direction.

Neither the City Council, nor the mayor, directs the day to day administration of the City. This task is designated by Charter to the City Administrator. Working collaboratively with the City Administrator, the City Council currently hires, evaluates, compensates, directs, and fires key employees. Individual Council members are not allowed by Charter to individually direct City employees. 

Measure CC would remove Council authority in interactions with key-employees except hiring.  Council authority over key-employees, including evaluations, direction, and firing, would be transferred exclusively to the City Administrator.  Under the proposed Charter change, the Council would be forbidden to govern as currently allowed and long practiced.  This change would essentially transform Piedmont into a version of City Manager government.

Piedmont’s current City Administrator originally proposed that the City Administrator would have total authority to hire, evaluate, direct, and fire key-employees without Council involvement thinking this would be a better administrative process. 

The Council chose to retain their hiring authority of the key- employees, while in the proposed Measure CC, relinquish to the City Administrator their authority over evaluations, directions and terminations of their Council hired key- employees.

The concept of Measure CC – the Council hires, but cannot fire law – is a new and untested system.  There have been no reports of problems resulting from Piedmont’s current form of government.  Rather, Piedmont’s successful government structure has been sought out by others.

Measure CC is presented as a package on the ballot, meaning the various parts are inseparable from the whole, and must be voted upon as a whole.

The ballot language for Measure CC states:

Measure CC – 

CHARTER AMENDMENT MEASURE  CC “Shall the measure amending the Charter of the City of Piedmont to clarify the duties and reporting structure for officers and employees of the City be adopted?”

Arguments for and against have been filed.  Theses arguments can be read below by clicking on each item.  Additionally, the arguments can be found in each voter’s Voter Information Guide.

• Direct Argument in Favor < In Favor of  Measure CC
• YES Vote
• Direct Argument Opposed < Opposed to Measure CC
• NO Vote
• Rebuttal to Argument Opposed < In Favor of Measure CC   YES Vote
• Rebuttal to Argument in Favor < Opposed to Measure CC  NO Vote

Partial Outline of Measure CC items:

Read the full City staff report HERE

The League of Women Voters of Piedmont is hosting an election forum in advance of the November 6, 2018 General Election.

The Forum will feature candidates for City Council and School Board, as well as speakers for and against changing the Piedmont City Charter – ballot measures BB & CC. 

Piedmont Election Forum

Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018 

7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Piedmont City Council Chambers

There are four candidates for City Council and four candidates for School Board who will present their positions and take questions from the audience.

Names are listed below in the order found on the ballot. 

Candidates for City Council are:

Tim Rood    Incumbent

Betsy Smegal Andersen    Appointed Council member

Teddy Gray King    Incumbent

Sunny Bostrom-Flemming

“

Candidates for Board of Education are: 

Julie Caskey 

Megan Pillsbury

Hari Titian

Amal Smith    Incumbent

“

Measures BB and CC

Presentations will be made for and against Measures BB and CC, the proposed City Charter changes, followed by questions from the audience.

Home viewers can tune in live to the Forum on Piedmont Cable Channel #27 or by going to the City of Piedmont website under videos.  The Forum will be available after October 11 on the City website under videos:  League of Women Voters, October 11 Forum. 

Voters will decide November 6, 2018 on whether or not to change the City Charter by Measure BB.

Amendments to Piedmont’s City Charter require approval by a majority of Piedmonters voting on the proposed Charter changes, Measure BB.  If BB is rejected by voters, the City Charter stays the same until such time as voters approve changes.  All parts of Measure BB are presented as a package, meaning the entire measure is considered an inseparable whole.

The City Council placed Measure BB on the ballot following consideration of the proposed amendments at a number of meetings. The concepts for the changes were generated internally by City staff and the City Council.

Opposition has arisen against Measure BB.  Arguments opposing Measure BB have primarily focused on lack of transparency and expenditure problems associated with elimination of contract bidding requirements, removal of the Council’s bi-monthly meeting requirement, and extension of wait time for Council members seeking re-election.

BB changes a variety of Charter rules: removal of thresholds for City contract bidding, record-keeping, public notice requirements, elimination of the two required monthly Council meetings, and allowance of sole source contractors and consultants, plus more.

BB doubles the length of time a former Council member must wait before seeking re-election to the City Council to a wait time of 8 years instead of 4 years out of office.  The School Board did not choose to change the 4 year time period before former Board members could seek re-election to the Board of Education.

Look for Measure BB near the end of your Piedmont ballot to vote “Yes” or “No.”

Measure BB, as proposed on the ballot: 

CHARTER AMENDMENT MEASURE BB “Shall the measure amending the Charter of the City of Piedmont to modify procedures for filling of vacancies in elected offices for City Council and Board of Education for the Piedmont Unified School District, modify term limits for the City Council, and making other clarifying amendments regarding City recordkeeping, format of City ordinances, public posting, City contract approval, operation of City Council meetings, and other minor technical amendments, be adopted?”

Arguments both for and against Measure BB can be found in every voter’s Voter Information Guide. The arguments are also linked below:

• Direct Argument in Favor < In Favor of Measure BB      YES – Vote

• Direct Argument Opposed < Opposed to Measure BB    NO – Vote

• Rebuttal to Argument Opposed < In Favor of Measure BB     YES – Vote

• Rebuttal to Argument in Favor < Opposed to Measure BB     NO – Vote

~~~~~~

A partial outline of the proposed Measure BB Charter changes are noted below:

READ the entire City staff report HERE

We have lived in this beautiful city of Piedmont for twenty years. As working professionals, we don’t have hundreds of hours to attend long board meetings and read dense financial reports filled with complex financial calculus.  That’s how Dr. Titan found out about the expensive financing schemes that did not improve the schools but cost taxpayers unnecessarily high interest charges.  We’re grateful to Dr. Titan, a father and mathematician, for devoting his time and interest on the finances of our schools since 2013.  He helped save us $26 million once and he might save an additional $26 million dollars!  Piedmonters will be well served with Dr. Titan on the School Board.

Sincerely,
Wayne Leong and Suzanna Chan, Piedmont Residents