I graduated from San Jose State University and went directly into the mortgage banking business. I was fairly successful and was asked by Dr. Gail Fullerton, PhD to sit on the President’s Council of my Alma Mater. I was honored.

I was becoming a community volunteer and was asked to serve on the City of San Jose’s Housing Task force which had thirteen members and only five were from San Jose. I started to see the influence of the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and now see the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) ruling 29 cities and counties in this region. It’s called regional government and gets its orders from the state.

I also served on the City of San Jose Water Task Force which was tasked with finding the solution to excess reclaimed water being pumped out into the bay causing the salt water to recede and flora and fauna were being impacted. We came up with the solution to pump the reclaimed water up to container/tanks on the hills and then drain the water down to water the school and corporate campus’s in Silicon Valley. We even came up with the purple pipe designation.

Beth and I then moved to El Dorado Hills but it wasn’t long, 2003, before a friend asked me to serve on the new EDC Housing Task Force and we were back at it again. We created the Housing Element for the EDC General Plan, and then the Land Use Element. We wrote the Oak Tree Management Plan, and the Integrated Biological Corridors plan. We finished that but we created a new committee that wrote the Targeted General Plan Amendment and Zoning Ordinance Update presented to the Board of Supervisors in 2012. During this same time 2009 I introduced the Board of Supervisors to Proposition 90 and was supported by a wonderful team that showed up at every presentation. My job was to write and present all the “White Papers”. We prevailed and the county was able to maintain its budget.

During that early time in EDC a group of folks made an effort to make EDH a city. They asked to speak with my son Mark who was the president of his Rolling Hills Estates HOA. Mark asked me to join in on that conversation. Remember that I am a mortgage/housing guy and I asked that group what were the going to do with their Low Income Housing Requirements? They said they didn’t know and maintained that position through further conversations. I was stunned by that. They lost the election.

Now we are working on cityhood again. There is no question that you ask that won’t get a real answer so I ask the community to please ask. Ask on our web site, ask on Nextdoor, or ask on Facebook. You will get a straight answer.