Why I support Roy Nakadegawa

Before I voted for Roy Nakadegawa via absentee ballot today, one of the most important things I did, as any voter should, is to compare him to his challengers.

Bob Franklin presents himself as the fresh-blood liberal candidate for the BART District 3 seat. Indeed, the Alameda County Green County's dually-endorsed both Franklin and incumbent Roy Nakadegawa. Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates endorsed Franklin. Franklin also touts his membership in the Transportation and Land Use Coalition, and the Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley Coalition (neither of which endorses candidates).

But as I discovered last week, Franklin's money comes from the very organized labor that's been a major thorn in BART's side, by grabbing too much of a shrinking pie at a time when all who ride and support BART have been asked to sacrifice.

But my dissatisfaction with Franklin's campaign goes deeper. Franklin's been a part of a number of direct mailings originating from southern California. "Early Voter Guide" and "Parents Ballot Guide" are some typical names for these direct mail pieces. Read the fine print and you discover that each candidate listed has paid for the opportunity to be listed in these guides.

But then there's the case of the COPS Voter Guide. COPS, short for the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs, is a 28-year-old advocacy organization with a 909 area code, which places it in southern California. The fine print on the COPS Voter Guide reveals that candidates pay for their placement in the guide. So what does it mean, then, that the listings are presented as "OFFICIAL ENDORSEMENTS"? Are the COPS for sale? I don't trust a candidate who participates in such a deceptive political campaign. (It's also interesting, and a little curious, that the COPS Web site and the COPS Voter Guide do not provide Web links to each other.)

Even if all those hijinks were necessary to get a good candidate elected, Franklin is not that candidate. I had an exchange with Franklin over on the Berkeley BEST mailing list last week about about BART parking charges. Franklin said: "BART has been unable to charge for parking, except for reserve parking and 25 cents at the Lake Merritt station, for 32 years." By stating this, Franklin shows his ignorance, willful or not, of the successful daily BART parking charges at Colma and Daly City, now in place for more than a year, and yet parking lots there continue to fill up.

Franklin's command of the facts is as inadequate as is his willingness to carry out the wishes of the Berkeley City Council, which made it clear in June that it wanted parking charges for all spaces at the BART Ashby and North Berkeley stations.

The other candidate for this seat, Kathy Neal, sullied her reputation by making false accusations against Nakadegawa in her campaign literature. Her alignment with lots of developer dollars doesn't help either, and the only money she received from Berkeley was from her ex-husband and Oakland politico Elihu Harris.

Nakadegawa hasn't run a perfect campaign. He received the Sierra Club's endorsement, but this didn't make it into all his campaign statements. But his expertise and sterling reputation are such that the Oakland Tribune endorsed him this morning. His low-cost campaign also put him beyond the taint of money from developers and unions alike. Couple all that with his support of paid daily parking charges at BART, and he's still what Berkeley needs in a BART District 3 director.

Let's hope the blizzard of Franklin/Neal endorsements from outside of Berkeley, and the avalanche of direct mail pieces and signs from Franklin, and to some extent Neal, don't turn a good man out of office.