Sunday
Jul132008
« Do you really know Doug Stacks? »
Sunday, July 13, 2008 at 10:42PM
Gwinnett political observer, Bob Griggs, recently sent out an edition of his newsletter entitled "Do you REALLY know Doug Stacks?" Reading his newsletter, Bob is obviously not a supporter of Doug Stacks. However, some of the points he makes about Doug are either spin or opinion and demand a response. I am grateful, however, to have comments from my commission endorsements quote in Bob's newsletter! I just wish he would have characterize my views more accurately:
Interesting. I did not realize that I am a "pro-developer" blogger. I thought I was just an advocate for property rights! As much as some in Gwinnett don't want to admit it, developers have property rights too. Thus, I guess being fair to developers qualifies as being "pro-developer."
In addition, I did say Mike Beaudreau is a the kind of person we need in politics. Bob, however, left out the balance of my comments that outlined Beaudreau's questionable brand of conservatism and how his own record makes him undeserving of reelection. If Mike were up for Man of the Year, he would have a much more credible candidacy.
Moving onto Bob's other comments on the District 3 candidates:
While I cannot speak for Doug Stacks, I did an analysis of Mike's contributions. I came to the conclusion that Mike may not have taken donations from developers directly (a donation from MHC Development notwithstanding) but he sure seems to have taken donations from those that benefit from developers. Bob only quotes a portion of Mike's promise regarding developer contributions. The full comment on Mike's website is:
That smacks of splitting hairs to me. Perhaps Beaudreau has not violated the letter of his promise, but I ask, does it not appear that he may have violated the spirit of his promise? I won't go into the detailed reasoning here - you can read my previous analysis for that - but basically I would not care who his donors are, developer, developer's interests, or Joe Citizen had Mike not made an issue of it and then danced on the periphery of his promise. I am not suggesting he has done anything unethical, but we must question why the discrepancy, explicit or implicit, between his promise and his actions.
Bob then goes on to contradict himself on several points.
Bob apparently supports my conclusion on the donations when he says that Mike has taken donations from developer interests. Given that, why does Bob not seem to have any serious issue with Mike Beaudreau taking such donations while simultaneously criticizing Doug Stacks for taking development money?
Bob also says that Mike has not hidden any donations because he disclosed them on his campaign finance forms. Doug Stacks has dong likewise as Bob notes yet Bob accuses Doug of "purposely [hiding] his campaign contribution report?" This makes no sense. Perhaps Doug did wait to the last possible day to file, but isn't that what the purpose of a deadline is? Bob's issue should be with Gwinnett County elections office and its deadlines and time to post the forms online. However, Bob implies that Doug Stacks has done something underhanded by being in compliance with the county's requirements.
I am not an expert on election finance by any stretch, but ,reviewing past disclosures on the Gwinnett Elections website, it appears that candidates in active campaigns file quarterly reports. The Mike Beaudreau report which I analyzed and which is being questioned is dated March 31, 2008. I note that Mike Beaudreau nor Doug Stacks has a June 30 report posted as yet. Did Mike have to file a June 30 report? If he did and even if he filed it on June 30, no such report is posted. So assuming both candidates have to file a second quarter report, why the criticism for Doug Stacks when no June reports for either candidate have been posted?
Now let's look at Bob's list of reasons not to vote for Doug Stacks:
1. Wow. Doug is a real estate broker. The horror of having an legitimate profession! Mike Beaudreau is in sales? I deal with sales people all the time in my job? Should I toss a blanket characterization on Mike because of his legitimate career? To hear the Gwinnett anti-private property rights crowd talk, real estate brokers are down there with drug dealers and ladies of the night on the profession scale. Selling real estate, commercial or residential is a perfectly respectable and needed profession. No harm here.
2. Oh no! Doug deals with those horrible, nasty developers! Since Bob dislikes developers so much, I am amazed he has time to keep his website up to date since I am sure he grows his own food, milks his own cows, and makes his own clothes, lest he patronize those terrible stores that...*gasp*...a developer was involved in building. Better yet, next time someone goes shopping, goes bowling, goes to a movie, or goes out to eat, thank a developer and the businesspeople who have places to operate their business thanks to a developer.
3. Doug works for the City of Lil burn which has its own planning and zoning oversight. Even on issues the Board of Commissioners might hear that would impact the city, LIlburn is in District 2. With district courtesy, most if not all of Doug votes for any District 2 issues would fall inline with the District 2 commissioner. Thus, the threat of conflict of interest is minimal.
4. Bob basically acknowledged that Mike Beaudreau's campaign was financed by developer interests' dollars.The point?
5. Debunked above.
6. Bob, this is the best you can do? Should Doug just mail out nine pages of a document to every voter so as not to have to do any editing to highlight the pertinent info? This is a silly charge. Bob has inferred that Doug was trying "to make it look like Beaudreau had received nothing but contributions from developers." That is nothing more than his own interpretation. More reasonably, Doug simply highlighted the material to fit the space.
7. This falls under the live by the sword, die by the sword. Homeowners try to hold hostage other property owners even remotely close to their property. Ever heard the saying "be careful what you wish for because you just might get it?" Well if the homeowners want to be sticklers about the planning and zoning rules and try to block everything they happen to not like, then why shouldn't a developer say "Fine, we will just use this land for whatever the law allows..That ok? Hmmm...looks like it is zoned for a trailer park." The Bay Creek HOA did not have an investment in that property at stake. In fact, aside from their personal preferences, I doubt they had little material gain or loss from this decision. I fully suspect their opposition was more about what they liked and did not want in their area. Well that is why we have private property rights. My rights should not be infringed unless it harms another; someone not liking something is not enough of a reason to block those rights. I don't live far from Bay Creek or the strawberry fields. They are nicel but I don't own them and I have no right to tell the owner that he has to keep using that land for strawberry fields. I can vote with my wallet and patronize the business (which I don't mainly because I don't care to play farm laborer for a morning!) but that is all I have a right to do.
A local pro-developer blogger endorsed Stacks, saying about Beaudreau: "Mike has been beholden to homeowner special interests and basically brags about this." But even the blogger had to admit: "...Mike is the kind of person we need in politics."
Interesting. I did not realize that I am a "pro-developer" blogger. I thought I was just an advocate for property rights! As much as some in Gwinnett don't want to admit it, developers have property rights too. Thus, I guess being fair to developers qualifies as being "pro-developer."
In addition, I did say Mike Beaudreau is a the kind of person we need in politics. Bob, however, left out the balance of my comments that outlined Beaudreau's questionable brand of conservatism and how his own record makes him undeserving of reelection. If Mike were up for Man of the Year, he would have a much more credible candidacy.
Moving onto Bob's other comments on the District 3 candidates:
I believe that Beaudreau has accepted contributions from "developer interests." He and I have had this discussion on a couple of occasions. I have a much stricter definition of "developer," it seems.
While I cannot speak for Doug Stacks, I did an analysis of Mike's contributions. I came to the conclusion that Mike may not have taken donations from developers directly (a donation from MHC Development notwithstanding) but he sure seems to have taken donations from those that benefit from developers. Bob only quotes a portion of Mike's promise regarding developer contributions. The full comment on Mike's website is:
In order to avoid conflicts of interest between the citizens he represents and those who stand to gain financially by the decisions he makes as commissioner, Mike has refused to take campaign contributions from developers, and will continue to do so in the future.
That smacks of splitting hairs to me. Perhaps Beaudreau has not violated the letter of his promise, but I ask, does it not appear that he may have violated the spirit of his promise? I won't go into the detailed reasoning here - you can read my previous analysis for that - but basically I would not care who his donors are, developer, developer's interests, or Joe Citizen had Mike not made an issue of it and then danced on the periphery of his promise. I am not suggesting he has done anything unethical, but we must question why the discrepancy, explicit or implicit, between his promise and his actions.
Bob then goes on to contradict himself on several points.
Bob apparently supports my conclusion on the donations when he says that Mike has taken donations from developer interests. Given that, why does Bob not seem to have any serious issue with Mike Beaudreau taking such donations while simultaneously criticizing Doug Stacks for taking development money?
Bob also says that Mike has not hidden any donations because he disclosed them on his campaign finance forms. Doug Stacks has dong likewise as Bob notes yet Bob accuses Doug of "purposely [hiding] his campaign contribution report?" This makes no sense. Perhaps Doug did wait to the last possible day to file, but isn't that what the purpose of a deadline is? Bob's issue should be with Gwinnett County elections office and its deadlines and time to post the forms online. However, Bob implies that Doug Stacks has done something underhanded by being in compliance with the county's requirements.
I am not an expert on election finance by any stretch, but ,reviewing past disclosures on the Gwinnett Elections website, it appears that candidates in active campaigns file quarterly reports. The Mike Beaudreau report which I analyzed and which is being questioned is dated March 31, 2008. I note that Mike Beaudreau nor Doug Stacks has a June 30 report posted as yet. Did Mike have to file a June 30 report? If he did and even if he filed it on June 30, no such report is posted. So assuming both candidates have to file a second quarter report, why the criticism for Doug Stacks when no June reports for either candidate have been posted?
Now let's look at Bob's list of reasons not to vote for Doug Stacks:
1. Wow. Doug is a real estate broker. The horror of having an legitimate profession! Mike Beaudreau is in sales? I deal with sales people all the time in my job? Should I toss a blanket characterization on Mike because of his legitimate career? To hear the Gwinnett anti-private property rights crowd talk, real estate brokers are down there with drug dealers and ladies of the night on the profession scale. Selling real estate, commercial or residential is a perfectly respectable and needed profession. No harm here.
2. Oh no! Doug deals with those horrible, nasty developers! Since Bob dislikes developers so much, I am amazed he has time to keep his website up to date since I am sure he grows his own food, milks his own cows, and makes his own clothes, lest he patronize those terrible stores that...*gasp*...a developer was involved in building. Better yet, next time someone goes shopping, goes bowling, goes to a movie, or goes out to eat, thank a developer and the businesspeople who have places to operate their business thanks to a developer.
3. Doug works for the City of Lil burn which has its own planning and zoning oversight. Even on issues the Board of Commissioners might hear that would impact the city, LIlburn is in District 2. With district courtesy, most if not all of Doug votes for any District 2 issues would fall inline with the District 2 commissioner. Thus, the threat of conflict of interest is minimal.
4. Bob basically acknowledged that Mike Beaudreau's campaign was financed by developer interests' dollars.The point?
5. Debunked above.
6. Bob, this is the best you can do? Should Doug just mail out nine pages of a document to every voter so as not to have to do any editing to highlight the pertinent info? This is a silly charge. Bob has inferred that Doug was trying "to make it look like Beaudreau had received nothing but contributions from developers." That is nothing more than his own interpretation. More reasonably, Doug simply highlighted the material to fit the space.
7. This falls under the live by the sword, die by the sword. Homeowners try to hold hostage other property owners even remotely close to their property. Ever heard the saying "be careful what you wish for because you just might get it?" Well if the homeowners want to be sticklers about the planning and zoning rules and try to block everything they happen to not like, then why shouldn't a developer say "Fine, we will just use this land for whatever the law allows..That ok? Hmmm...looks like it is zoned for a trailer park." The Bay Creek HOA did not have an investment in that property at stake. In fact, aside from their personal preferences, I doubt they had little material gain or loss from this decision. I fully suspect their opposition was more about what they liked and did not want in their area. Well that is why we have private property rights. My rights should not be infringed unless it harms another; someone not liking something is not enough of a reason to block those rights. I don't live far from Bay Creek or the strawberry fields. They are nicel but I don't own them and I have no right to tell the owner that he has to keep using that land for strawberry fields. I can vote with my wallet and patronize the business (which I don't mainly because I don't care to play farm laborer for a morning!) but that is all I have a right to do.
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