By Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon

Let me start by saying that racism in any form is not acceptable and it is illegal. Racism is not made acceptable or legal by denying that racist activity is not racist activity. Racism is not made acceptable by attempting to disguise a racist organization as anything else than what it is. Racism is not a joke and it is not a dirty little secret; it is morally reprehensible and, once again, illegal.

Any governmental entity, at any level, that condones, tolerates, or actively participates in racism is engaging in morally reprehensible and, once again, illegal activity. For any governmental entity, there should not even be the hint of impropriety when it comes to racism.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was founded in 1971 as a small civil rights law firm. Over the years, it has grown into an internationally recognized organization that, in the words of the SPLC site:

".....fights all forms of discrimination and works to protect society's most vulnerable members".

One branch of the SPLC is the SPLC Intelligence Project (SPLCIP). The SPLCIP:

"monitors hate groups and tracks extremist activity throughout the U.S. It provides comprehensive updates to law enforcement, the media and the public through its quarterly magazine, Intelligence Report. Staff members regularly conduct training sessions for police, schools, and civil rights and community groups, and they often serve as experts at hearings and conferences".

The SPLCIP has identified 125 Active White Nationalist U.S. Hate Groups. 5 of these groups are located in California. One of these groups that has been identified by the SPLCIP, the European American Issues Forum, is, according to the SPLCIP web site, located in San Bruno.

Here's what the SPLC says about these groups it has identified as White Nationalist hate groups:

"White nationalist groups espouse white supremacist or white separatist ideologies, often focusing on the alleged inferiority of nonwhites. Groups listed in a variety of other categories - Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi, racist skinhead, and Christian Identity - could also be fairly described as white nationalist. The groups .... range from those that use racial slurs and issue calls for violence to others that present themselves as serious, non-violent organizations and employ the language of academia. For many years, the largest white nationalist group in America has been the Council of Conservative Citizens, a reincarnation of the old White Citizens Councils that were formed to resist desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s."

There are approximately 30,000 cities in the United States. What is it about the City of San Bruno that makes it one of the very few cities (125/30000 or .00416%) in the United States to be specifically identified, by the SPLCIP, as the home of what the SPLCIP identifies as an active white nationalist U.S. Hate Group?

Does anybody in San Bruno's City Government care about having San Bruno identified by the SPLCIP as the home of a White Nationalist hate group? Has San Bruno's City Council, City Manager or anybody in San Bruno's Police Department talked with the SPLC about this disturbing information?

If the European American Issues Forum believes that the SPLC's characterization of their organization is incorrect, they should clarify this matter with the SPLC.

The bottom line is that the SPLC has identified the City of San Bruno as the home of an organization that the SPLC has identified as a White Nationalist hate group.

San Bruno's City Government needs to start a dialogue with its residents about racism in our community. Because San Bruno has been identified by the SPLC as the home of an active White Nationalist U.S. hate group, our City Government needs to have a heightened awareness of racist activity in San Bruno and engage in proactive efforts to prevent the growth of racism in our community.

Racism, in any disguise, is something that we cannot ignore, accept, or embrace.  

By Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon

As an investor, I have to see things coming long before they happen. The equity markets are forward looking instruments and to be successful you need to act on information long before a crowd gathers around a targeted equity and destroys the potential profit in any position you may want to build. When it comes to taking advice, you learn who the winners and losers are.

That being said, I have a very high degree of confidence in the economic research team at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Simply stated, when it comes to economic matters, these are the folks you want to listen to.

In a 06/18/2008 Telegraph story, it was reported that Bob Janjuah, the chief credit strategist for the Royal Bank of Scotland warned clients that:

"A very nasty period is soon to be upon us - be prepared"

Mr. Janjuah believes that a serious crash in the global stock and credit markets is looming just over the horizon.

Mr. Janjuah went on to say,

"Cash is the key safe haven. This is about not losing your money, and not losing your job"

While I agree with Mr. Janjuah that cash is the key "safe haven" I would also point out that the anticipated volatility in credit and equity markets creates a need to hedge risk with derivatives and find other stores of value. In a word; diversify.

However, the point of this article is not to discuss investment strategies but to heed the warning of these three paragraphs included in this Telegraph article:

"US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank both face a Hobson's choice as workers start to lose their jobs in earnest and lenders cut off credit.

The authorities cannot respond with easy money because oil and food costs continue to push headline inflation to levels that are unsettling the markets. The ugly spoiler is that we may need to see much lower global growth in order to get lower inflation.

The Fed is in panic mode. The massive credibility chasms down which the Fed and maybe even the ECB will plummet when they fail to hike rates in the face of higher inflation will combine to give us a big sell-off in risky assets."

From a local perspective, I would strongly urge both the City of San Bruno and the San Bruno Park School District to immediately put their financial houses in order, create budget surpluses, and build strong cash positions.

We may be heading into an economic depression. Pay close attention to coming economic developments as they unfold. This is not about politics, this is about survival.  

By Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon

The San Bruno Park School District (SBPSD) Board of Trustees was going to put a parcel tax measure on the November 2008 election ballot. However, knowing that they had a snowball's chance in Hell of passing a parcel tax, during a high turnout Presidential Election year, the San Bruno Park School District (SBPSD) Board of Trustees decided to fold up their tents and try their luck in a low turnout March 2009 election. This laughable move on their part shows that this Board is dysfunctional, has no credibility, and a weak almost nonexistent case for a parcel tax.

This parcel tax, that the SBPSD Board is too dysfunctional and afraid to put on the November Ballot, is nothing more than an attempt by them and their Superintendent to pay for their collective mismanagement of SBPSD funds and assets.

The SBPSD Board of Trustees is trying to sneak this ridiculous, burdensome tax past San Bruno's voters in a low turnout March election.

Instead of spending their time scheming to find new ways to bleed more money out of San Bruno's residents, the SBPSD Board of Trustees and Superintendent should be spending all of their time using the large amounts of taxpayer money, that they already have, to provide our children with a focused, quality education.

In a June 12th Daily Journal article, SBPSD Board Member Russ Hanley stated that he suggested the March tax election date, that was approved by the Board, so that the SBPSD Board could "rally" parents and SBPSD staff. In other words, the SBPSD Board plans to use SBPSD public schools as campaign central for their tax campaign.

Before Mr. Hanley and his Board colleagues start using SBPSD school property, staff, and/or taxpayer money to promote their tax campaign, I would strongly suggest that they consult with their attorney.

Undoubtedly, the campaign for this tax scheme will result in disrupting the educations of the children who attend the SBPSD as these children are dragged into the tax campaign. The children whom the SBPSD is supposed to be educating will have a harder time focusing on their school work as this tax campaign drags on consuming the time and resources of the SBPSD. To add insult to injury, the mismanagement of school funds and assets will continue even as this Board and Superintendent attempt to bleed more money out of San Bruno's residents.

Poor planning and mismanagement of SBPSD funds and assets, by the SBPSD Board of Trustees and Superintendent Hutt, have created the mountain of problems that the SBPSD is dealing with today. These people are not going to suddenly change, get smarter, or receive some divine inspiration or revelation that will make them better at their job; they are going to keep making the same mistakes over, and over, and over again. No matter how much money you give these people, things will never get better as long as they control the SBPSD.  

By Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon

Barry Marchessault, a San Bruno resident and Beacon reader, sent me a copy of a letter, addressed to him, that he received in the mail from Pastor Daniel Krajicek. Pastor Krajicek is the Pastor at the Crossroads Christian Center (an Assemblies of God Church).

According to the letter Barry received, Pastor Krajicek doesn't want the Buddhists to open a Buddhist Temple near the Crossroads Christian Center where Krajicek is the "Pastor".

In his letter, Pastor Krajicek uses the word "Regrettably" when referring to the Buddhist's plan to open their facilities to the public 24 hours per day every day for those who desire to pray, meditate, and chant. [I guess God only works the 9-5 shift and Sunday services so we can't have any 24x7 praying, meditation, or chanting]. The Pastor's letter also states that they (the Buddhists) plan to hold Temple services at the same time on Sunday mornings as his AOG Church and St. Bruno's Catholic Church and that this will cause a parking problem [I don't think Krajicek's "no parking, no Buddhists" argument will pass Constitutional muster].

Pastor Krajicek's letter also states, in part:

"...If you agree that allowing another religious institution in an already congested area is not in the best interest of our neighborhood, and don't want people freely coming and going throughout the night, you must let your concerns be heard."

In the part of his letter that appears in the previous paragraph, Pastor Krajicek is saying that his neighborhood isn't big enough for the Buddhists to share with the Catholics and Krajicek's Crossroads sect. In my opinion, Krajicek's statement is the same as posting "Buddhists not welcome signs" up and down the street where his Christian sect is located. Pastor Krajicek also states in his letter that he doesn't want "people freely coming and going [to the proposed Buddhist Temple] throughout the night". Really? And just how does Krajicek think he is going to stop people from going to their Temple throughout the night to practice their religion?

Pastor Krajicek's Assemblies of God USA (AOG) Church, a "Protestant fellowship", exists in part because it is protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution allowing the free exercise of religion. Does Krajicek not think that these same rights under the Constitution, that allow his Church to exist, apply to the Buddhists who want to open their Temple near his church?

If Pastor Krajicek doesn't think that different religions can exist in close proximity to each other, he should take a little trip to Brotherhood Way in San Francisco.

As far as other religions are concerned, the official position of Krajicek's Assemblies of God Church is that they do not accept non-Christian religions as valid means of salvation and access to God. As a matter of fact, the Assemblies of God Church has published the following statement as part of their position on religious toleration:

".............the Assemblies of God disavows universalism and the toleration of worldviews that do not require entering the kingdom of God through the narrow gate of the God-man, Jesus Christ."

So, at Assemblies of God churches, like Krajicek's Crossroads Christian Center, it appears that there is no toleration of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, etc. Oy vey

Let me conclude by saying that even if Pastor Krajicek and the Assemblies of God folks "disavow the toleration of worldviews that do not require entering the Kingdom of God through the narrow gate of the God-man, Jesus Christ"; there are other Christians, like me, who do believe in the toleration and understanding of all religions.

I hope that the AOGers will seek and find a path that will lead them to a higher level of compassion for and understanding of their fellow human beings with whom they share the world we all live in. A world in which bigotry, hate, violence, and other injustice carried out in the name of religion needs to disappear before it destroys us.  

By Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon

Money won't solve the problems infecting the San Bruno Park School District. The problem lies with the SBPSD Board of Trustees and the Superintendent they refuse to fire.

Two Members of the SBPSD Board of Trustees, Henderson and Hanley, have been taking up space on the Board and causing problems for the SBPSD for several decades. They need to go. These two people have had decades to provide solutions to the problems we have been and are now facing in the SBPSD. As evidenced by the current state of affairs in the SBPSD they have not only done nothing to solve the SBPSD's problems, but have created even more problems for the SBPSD and the students it serves. We need some creative, well educated, hard working people to occupy the SBPSD Board seats currently being occupied by these two.

During these very hard economic times, most families in San Bruno have to live on a tighter budget. To do this, families cut back on their spending and learn to live on the money they have available to them. However, the SBPSD doesn't think that the laws of economics apply to them. The SBPSD Board of Trustees and Superintendent see San Bruno's taxpayers as suckers they can fool into providing them with an endless supply of money to pay for their incompetence and waste.

As evidenced by the defeat of the ridiculous Measure F tax scheme last year, San Bruno's taxpayers want off the sucker list of never ending taxes used to pay for wasteful spending, government incompetence, fat government employee paychecks, benefits, and lifetime retirement and medical plans paid for at taxpayer expense.

To save the SBPSD from more waste and mismanagement, it is imperative that every San Bruno resident vote against the parcel tax being put on the November 2008 ballot by the SBPSD Board of Trustees. We must hold these people personally accountable for the money they are wasting on this tax measure and also consider filing a taxpayer lawsuit against the appropriate parties for, what in my opinion is, their grossly negligent mismanagement of SBPSD taxpayer money and assets; making sure that they pay for their legal defense out of their own pockets.

If the San Bruno Park School District wants to balance their budget, here's a suggestion: cut costs and stop wasting money.  

By Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon

My prayers and condolences go out to the family of Rebeca Medrano who recently lost her life after being involved in an accident in San Bruno, with a van, while riding her bicycle. By all accounts I have read, Rebeca was a wonderful young lady with a very promising future. God rest her soul.

The most horrible, unthinkable tragedy that a parent can experience is the loss of a child. For those of us who are parents, we do everything that is humanly possible to protect our children from danger. The recent tragic death of this promising young student from Parkside Intermediate School reminds all of us how precious the lives of our children are and how we must work to protect them.

According to the San Bruno Police, Rebeca Medrano was traveling east on Niles Avenue when she hit the vehicle traveling south on Oak Avenue. San Bruno Police Commander Matt Campi told San Mateo County Times reporter Neil Gonzales, "It looks to be an unfortunate accident. The driver of the van was operating the vehicle in the proper manner. She (Rebeca) started to go downhill and started accelerating. She went through an intersection and ran smack into the van." When this San Mateo County Times article was published on 05/19/2008, no charges had been filed against the driver of the van.

8 words: defective road construction / improper and-or nonexistent signage. Because the inherently dangerous Niles Ave./Oak Ave. T intersection is located 1 block away from St. Roberts Elementary School and approximately 3-4 blocks away from Parkside Intermediate School, extra signage and other precautions should have and need to be put in place by the City of San Bruno to warn and protect the large number of children who travel through this intersection.

Is it possible that the City of San Bruno may be comparatively or even strictly liable for this horrible accident because the City of San Bruno failed to properly engineer and/or maintain the streets where this accident occurred and/or put proper signage on the streets? Here are some questions that need to be answered:

1). What was the condition of the roadway at the time the accident occurred?

2). What types of traffic control signs were posted on Niles and Oak Avenues and, if signs were posted, where were these signs posted and were the right signs posted in the right places?

3). What is the accident history for these streets and the Niles/Oak intersection where the accident occurred?

4). Did the City of San Bruno provide traffic signs that would warn a young person using the street about the potential danger at this intersection?

5). Was the engineering of the intersection and the streets inherently dangerous?

These are just a few of the questions that need to be asked and answered so that tragic accidents like this one can be prevented in the future.

Another way to help prevent this type of tragedy from happening again is for SBPSD Superintendent Hutt to have pamphlets printed up that provide detailed information about bicycle and traffic safety. These pamphlets should be distributed to all students in the SBPSD. In addition, the City of San Bruno should use its "FOCUS" publication to provide San Bruno residents with information about traffic safety in San Bruno and warn San Bruno residents about which streets and intersections in San Bruno pose the greatest risk to pedestrians and bicycle riders.

The tragic accident discussed above is not the only pedestrian/bicycle fatality that has occurred in San Bruno this year. Earlier this year, a woman was killed at the intersection of San Bruno and Easton Avenue when she was struck by a car and killed. The Easton Avenue intersection, where this woman was killed, has been the scene of numerous accidents. What has been done by the City of San Bruno to make this traffic intersection safer?

We best serve the memories of the two deceased people mentioned in this article by calling upon the City of San Bruno to make our streets safer for pedestrians and bicycle riders through better engineering and public information campaigns. To do anything less would be an open invitation to future tragedies.  

By Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon

Hillary Clinton's poisonous, divisive campaign for the Democratic Presidential Nomination coupled with her recent RFK assassination comments (and the inferences that can be drawn from these comments) have secured Hillary a place in the history books as a vile Machiavellian harpy.

In my opinion, Hillary is the quintessential modern day Lady Macbeth. A scheming viper with a dark soul. In these final days of her losing campaign, is Hillary acting out the scene (Act 1, Scene 5) in Macbeth where Lady Macbeth seeks the assistance of the spirits during her campaign to kill the king (?):

"Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty!
[...]
Come to my woman's breasts
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief. Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
To cry, 'Hold, hold!' "
(Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5)

I hope and pray that nothing happens to Senator Obama in his quest for the Presidency. Barack Obama is a once in a generation leader who has the unique opportunity to unite us and bring substantive, positive change to this often ugly World we live in.

Hillary Clinton's poisonous, divisive, scheming, often misanthropic rhetoric and persona would make things in the United States even worse than they are now if she were to become the President.  

By Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon