Wes Rolley keeps his eye on Morgan Hill. An artist, frequent
Morgan Hill Times columnist and speaker at City Council meetings,
encouraging common sense in art, Rolley has branched out into
politics.
Wes Rolley keeps his eye on Morgan Hill. An artist, frequent Morgan Hill Times columnist and speaker at City Council meetings, encouraging common sense in art, Rolley has branched out into politics.
Rolley’s website, http://www.refpub.com/PomboWatch/ keeps the Rolley eye on Congressman Richard Pombo, R-Stockton.
Morgan Hill – but not San Martin or Gilroy – was added to Pombo’s Central Valley 11th District during the 2000 redistricting; the congressman has represented the town since January 2003.
Jerry McNerney thinks he may benefit from Rolley’s website, too. McNerney is the Pleasanton man who qualified at the last minute as a write-in vote for Democratic candidate in the 11th District in the March 2 election. If he received at least 1,740 votes – it will be confirmed by the end of March – he will face Pombo in the Nov. 2 election, an uphill fight by all accounts.
A website, available to all, could help by clearly describing – according to Rolley – the differences between the two. The site also includes the congressman’s voting record so voters can see for themselves without any editorial comment.
Represented for years by Democrats Mike Honda and Zoe Lofgren, residents have found they don’t know much about Pombo, his positions and interests, so Rolley stepped in to bring voters up to date. And since, Pombo is frequently at odds with environmental groups, another of Rolley’s concerns, he thought it was time for some reality.
“This site was set up because I considered Richard Pombo’s anti-environment rhetoric to be an insult to my common sense,” Rolley says his home page.
“I noted Pombo was the chairman of the House Committee on Resources (water, forests, national parks) and that’s important,” Rolley said this week. “So I signed up to receive press releases from that committee.
“It hit me that somebody needed to match what they say against some aspect of what’s real.”
Much of what he has read from the committee sounds as if it was written by Republican Karl Rove or Democratic James Carville – spin doctors all, Rolley said.
But there were surprises. too.
“Some things he gets right,” Rolley said about Pombo. “He’s on the right side of the Indian Trust Fund lawsuit Cobell vs. Norton (currently up on Rolley’s website) but on most environmental things he’s on the wrong side.”
That is, of course, Rolley’s position but it is his website.
“Pombo attacks environmental groups by calling them obstructionists,” he said. “’They run to the courts to stop this and that and don’t do anything for the economy,’” Rolley paraphrases the congressman.
“I say it’s valid and not wrong to stop what they stop,” Rolley said, “but that means they only went half way.”
Referring to the Sierra Club, among others, putting a halt to snowmobilers in Yellowstone National Park, Rolley agrees with Pombo that the Club leaves local snowmobile-related businesses behind, causing motels to close and former snowmobile people to work as short-order cooks and similar jobs.
“If they are killing one part of the economy, why don’t they build up the other part,” Rolley said. “They run tours in the summer; why not in winter and help out the snowmobile people.”
“I hear rumors that Pombo is lobbying to be the next Secretary of the Interior,” Rolley said and, if this is true, he wants the public to know what they are getting into.
McNerney said, since he started so late and, so far, has little money, a campaign against the heavily funded Pombo will need to be creative. A clear display of the Pombo record could help McNerney with voters of like mind. McNerney follows a moderate course on the environment, gun control, reproductive rights and other hot button issues.
“Wes just offered to help,” McNerney said.
Neither man has met Pombo.
Rolley said he will continue to keep watch on his representative’s voting record.
“I will follow Pombo and see how this runs its course,” Rolley said.
To follow up on a recent environmental conflict over the increased thinning of forests encouraged by the Bush administration and approved by Congress, Rolley is looking for a university forestry school contact, wanting an unpoliticized view of the healthy forest issue.
“The rhetoric from both sides was so divisive that a reasonable person couldn’t make up their mind,” Rolley said. “It’s all spin.”
Pombo recently was presented the Guardian of Seniors’ Rights Award by the 60 Plus Association, a non-partisan group that relies upon support from nearly 5 million senior citizens.
Also, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recognized Pombo for his pro-business legislative agenda, and presented him with the “Spirit of Enterprise” award.
Pombo’s website is http://www.house.gov/pombo
Rolley’s Eye on Pombo: http://www.refpub.com/PomboWatch/ Representative Richard Pombo’s site: www.house.gov/pombo/ McNerney’s site: www.jerrymcnerney.org/
