Friends of Coyote Hills endorses McDonald and Bacon

September 23, 2010

Friends of Coyote Hills Endorses Bacon and McDonald for Fremont City Council 2010

Fremont, CA, September 23, 2010 - Friends of Coyote Hills, a group of concerned citizens working since 2001 to protect open space around Coyote Hills Regional Park, has voted to endorse Kathy McDonald and Vinnie Bacon for Fremont City Council in 2010.

Vinnie Bacon and Kathy McDonald have the intelligence, background, and courage to stand up to the special interests that so often drive decisions in Fremont. Vinnie has been a leader in the fight to stop the massive development at Patterson Ranch next to Coyote Hills, and Kathy was a key player in the successful effort to stop the financially unsound stadium project.

The City Council is still discussing a change to the Fremont General Plan that would allow up to 520 houses to be built near the ecologically fragile areas of Coyote Hills, at the edge of the city, adding 1.8 million car trips per year to Fremont's city streets and contributing close to 10,000 tons of CO2 per year to the problem of global warming.

There is no additional capacity at the already overcrowded Ardenwood schools for the children that would be added by this development, and the only concession the landowners have made is to propose donating land in a dangerous earthquake zone to a school system that has no funds for building new classrooms. Why would Fremont City Council members approve a project that would hurt our environment and our schools? Perhaps because the City's own campaign funding reports show that four members of the current city council (including the mayor) have received generous campaign contributions from the Patterson family, the landowners seeking permission to build this massive development. If elected, Vinnie Bacon and Kathy McDonald would vote to oppose the current Patterson development plan.

Vinnie Bacon and Kathy McDonald have pledged to run clean money campaigns by not taking contributions from big developers or their agents. They represent a future for Fremont that is honest, fair, and dedicated to making decisions based on the best interests of all the people of Fremont.