Dempsey: Midpen board votes to free directors from being required to respect the public

The democratic process starts with respecting the public. The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District board just voted to remove that as a requirement for its elected officials.

Think about the last time you spoke up about something you wanted elected officials to address. Maybe you never have. Most people don’t, because it can be nerve-wracking to approach elected officials and tell them they got something wrong.

Democracy only works if people do it anyway. Every bad contract caught, every unsafe building flagged, every misspent dollar discovered started with someone deciding the risk of speaking up was worth it.

When elected officials answer those concerns with bullying or retaliation instead of taking them seriously, the damage goes far beyond one person. Every member of the public watching learns what speaking up gets you, and the next person stays silent out of fear they will be the next target.

I know, because it happened to me.

For two years I had been trying to get Midpen’s board to address serious issues at Bear Creek Stables, a property it owns: horses being mistreated, a stable operator without adequate insurance, a teenager living in a dangerous unpermitted trailer. Then I wrote the board about public money being wasted and about volunteers being brushed aside. Two days later, Director Margaret MacNiven griped from the dais about “pugnacious people,” turned toward the assistant general manager, and asked whether staff could “get rid of her.”

I filed a complaint. Seven weeks later, at the very end of a meeting no member of the public was attending, four directors read statements off a script. MacNiven promised she would “humbly learn from this and do better.” The board president promised a refresher on the code of conduct.

Here is what those promises resulted in.

Midpen’s next board president, Zoe Kersteen-Tucker, put MacNiven on a three-person committee to rewrite the public agency’s director code of conduct. That committee then met behind closed doors for six months. On Oct. 14, the Midpen board of directors voted unanimously, 6-0, to adopt the new code of conduct revisions.

Directors are no longer required to treat you with respect. If a director insults you, or asks staff to get rid of you, the code of conduct has no process for you to file a complaint over the retaliation. The directors also deleted the previous code’s explicit provision for outside accountability: referral of violations to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office or Civil Grand Jury.

That’s a governing board removing its obligation to be accountable to the public it serves.

Directors are still required to respect each other. That rule kept its teeth.

Midpen is a public agency that is responsible for 77,000 acres of your land and spends more than $100 million a year. It needs you to keep reelecting its board. It just told you to sit down.

Craig Gleason of Ward 1 voted yes. He’s on your ballot Nov. 3. He wants your vote. He and the other Midpen directors just don’t want to answer to you.

Caitlin Dempsey is a local government consultant and Santa Clara resident.