On his way out the door to yet another government job in Sacramento, 4th District County Supervisor Chris Norby paused just long enough to cast a vote at yesterday’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting to support the asinine expenditure of $350,000 on some sort of Viet Nam memorial in a little-known Midway City park.
Forget the fact that there are already two memorials to the war and to the subsequent diaspora in the vicinity; and forget the fact that times are tough and the County is in severe budget cutting mode; but ask: why on the Green Planet Earth should the taxpayers hand over a third of a million bucks to some kind of private “community culture and performing arts society” to design and build what is described as an interactive wall/memorial of some sort. This is the sort of thing that is routinely developed and built with private fund raising.
The whole concoction was the brain-child of Supervisor Janet Nguyen, obviously for political capital. The County Parks Director, some guy named Mark Denny, seems to have gone along without a whimper. We found out that he’s a former staffer to one of the other zeroes that voted for this – Bill Campbell – so no surprise there. The other aye vote on the Board was the clueless septuagenarian Pat Bates who, like Campbell, is not known for adherence to any conservative principles. To his credit, Supervisor John Moorlach voted no.
Which brings us back to Norby, who, at his last Board meeting, could have reminded people what he has always claimed to stand for – and often has. But he didn’t.
Good bye and good….well, you know.
