Measure A Beta Version 2.0

Interesting. In this morning's Mercury News, "Drekmeier said he thinks voters rejected the measure because opponents created doubts with TV commercials featuring farmers and Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith, who said it would hurt family agricultural operations and could expose the county to lawsuits. He said supporters have not decided yet whether to come back in a future election.
If they do decide to try again, he said, ``We would involve the Farm Bureau the next time. We need to rebuild trust on both sides."


Both sides need to rebuild trust? A huh.

Of course the Measure A Empire will strike back. That's a given. But they now realize that they need the minority, those "puppets" of other interest who do not really exist, whose lands are intended only for the the urban recreational good. They need Farm Bureau support now.

Truthiness Bureau, being the keen think tank that we are, has a suggestion. What is needed in our next Santa Clara County election, is a ballot measure that requires some obligation from Silicon Valley businesses for the stress they place on local environment. It could be a fancy formula that balances respective company market cap, along with revenues and profits per each Santa Clara County employee of that company, including supplementals and contractors, etc..etc. Mr. Girard would have to sit this one out, though, because we would need a clearly defined initiative, with provisions based in law and economics (and not just feel-good sloganism and the promise of freebies at the expense of another.) The goal would be to preserve open space while also spreading financial costs to those who benefit. The urban affluent will become joint-investors in the cause.

Monies from a Measure A Beta Version 2.0 initiative would go directly into open space funding, purchasing lands outright from private property owners, or funneled into a competitive market of conservancy easements, etc. Yep... that's what we need. Then again, Measure A's power/wealth network which supported placing all burden on one minority group might not appreciate the challenge. Not only that, those Measure A supporters who have "political ambitions" might also risk political support by challenging business leaders, but hey, the environment is the critical objective here. Silicon Valley industry would soon figure out ways to redistribute this environmental obligation to both employees and customers, thus further maximizing a distribution of financial burden. Industry is extremely efficient in cost distribution. The engine of Santa Clara County population growth is high tech industry, and population, as the environmentalists have advocated, is the dynamic stressing our immediate environment. So....if environment is the true objective, an environmental "tax" on Silicon Valley business makes sense. A lot of sense. (it's ok for the Truthiness Bureau to say such things... no one here is running for office any time soon.)

OK... after Measure A Beta Version 2.0, we can then follow up with that keen suggestion of having a proposition to end all further propositions.