It takes a strong person to admit a mistake.
Yeah, I know – didn’t I blog all that long ago to not vote for Terry Tornek for Mayor, and you’d be right. Except, two things happened since then. The first being that my candidate of choice back then was Dan Morgan and after the general election he came in third leaving only the top two vote getters to move to the April 21st run-off. And second of the two remaining candidates, Terry Tornek and Jacque Robinson, Tornek in my opinion is the better candidate.
During the run-off period I and several other individuals had the opportunity to met with both candidates, on different days of course. The reason for the meetings was an item of concern to us as a group, and Tornek when asked agreed immediately, emailing me by the next day with dates and times that worked for him, while Robinson appeared to take her time deciding whether or not she would grace us with her presence, but at the last moment emailed a day and time that she could meet with less than a 24-hour window in which to let everyone else know. The topic of our discussion would be the concerns of the nurses from the other side of the whether or not to form a nursing union at our local hospital, Huntington Memorial.
The CNA had played their usual dirty PR game, demonizing the hospital management, accusing the hospital of providing poor care and of course getting local elected officials, religious leaders and community members to come out to these “demonstrations” and calling for “fair elections” and “just let the nurses vote”. Of course both Robinson and Tornek came out to one or more of these demonstrations, so for the nurses coming to the meetings with Robinson and Tornek it was very significant because until that time no nurse who didn’t want a union had had the opportunity to speak to either Tornek or Robinson so they were anxious to have their voices and concerns heard.
As luck would have it we met with Robinson first, the meeting was brief and it was apparent from her body posture that the meeting was pro-forma. Robinson listened but parroted the “just let the nurses vote” line, ignoring that the vote was already tainted with all the demonstrations and that the CNA had already challenged the right of some of the nurses to vote – so much for a fair election and letting the nurses vote. In short she might have appeared to listen to our concerns but most of our group came away with the impression that her side was picked and her decision well made, and we shouldn’t burden her with new information. After one of her patented just let them vote,” I finally told her that she was being flippant. I told her that as an elected official her duty is to represent union as well as non-union constituents. So strong was this vibe that a couple folks from our group said it wasn’t even worth their time to meet with Tornek.
Our meeting with Tornek followed many days later and where Robinson seemed stiff and distant, Tornek appeared relaxed and engaged. He gave us nearly an hour of his time and seemed to be taking great interest in our concerns – this didn’t necessarily mean that he supported our point of view, but it didn’t leave us with the feeling that we were beating our heads against a brick wall.
At a recent debate Robinson kept telling the audience that she was willing to have difficult conversations, but when asked by one of the panelist how she could (and let me paraphrase) on the one hand be endorsed and supported by the police union when it had sued to block the release of the independent review of the police shooting of McDade an unarmed teenager from our community. She never did answer the panelist’s question – I guess this was one difficult discussion she wasn’t willing to have.
I like to think that I’m capable of integrating new information and adjusting my conclusions based on that information which is why tonight my daughters and I are going to complete our mail in ballots – selecting Tornek for Mayor of Pasadena. I hope that all my Pasadena friends that are registered to vote will do the same as well, because we need an individual who can and is willing to represent all Pasadena residents!