In the most recent council meeting on January 27, Councilmember Stromberg took time to summarize - in a rather negative fashion - his conversations with an unnamed "core group" whom he said espouses the belief that the town is "top heavy" and the elimination of management positions and overhead wouldn't result in any substantive reduction in the level of service or quality of life residents enjoy.
We've received inquiries about whether that core group is SMARTMoraga and if the purported statements are attributable to us. It sure sounded to us (and to plenty of others) like Councilmember Stromberg was attempting to finger SMARTMoraga as the source and attributing a rather drastic position to us in order to further the argument he was making at the time; after all, does anyone know of another governance and fiscal watchdog "group" in town?
In any event, we figured we ought to make it clear that we haven't ever made any specific statements to that effect, and endeavor to be deliberate and clear with our positions, opinions and analyses. It’s not like we’re shy about matters of fiscal responsibility or good governance.
We contacted Councilmember Stromberg to set the record straight as to what we have and have not said, though he states he was not referring to SMARTMoraga nor was his intent to imply those statements were ours, but rather were him paraphrasing a number of individual conversations with people unaffiliated with one another.