Below is a copy of the letter I sent to the Dublin City Council on 1/7/2009 letting them know exactly what I thought of Council Member Kevin Hart’s conduct at the 12/16/2008 council meeting. I think it would be good for the council to post their apologies on Dublin Townhall, to make them as easy as possible for everyone to see.
I read a shortened version of the letter at the 1/6/2009 council meeting. The video of that reading appears at the bottom of this posting.
To read more about the city council appointment, see the New Council Member Appointed article on the Around Dublin Blog.
Dear Mayor Sbranti, Vice-Mayor Hildenbrand & Councilmember Scholz,
Before I get to the main purpose of this letter, I want to say that I attended the 12/16/08 City Council meeting and witnessed the three of you (more so Councilmember Scholz and less so Vice-Mayor Hildenbrand) conduct reasonably fair and respectful interviews of the top three candidates for the vacant council seat. Even though I personally was pulling for the appointment of John Zukoski, I want to congratulate you for selecting an excellent person to fill the seat. Don Biddle appears to be a highly qualified, hard working, experienced, well informed, well respected and well meaning applicant, and I expect that he will do a fine job on the council.
However, that’s not my main reason for writing this letter. I’ve waited three weeks since the last council meeting to make sure that my initial astonishment and anger didn’t cause me to overreact. Well, my anger has mostly subsided, but I remain thoroughly appalled at Councilmember Kevin Hart’s rude behavior at the meeting, especially after viewing it a second time online. At the start of the meeting, Mayor Sbranti reminded everyone to be respectful of others, but apparently Hart didn’t think that applied to him. He took obvious delight in publicly belittling one of the finalists. He turned what should have been a positive, uplifting interview of the top three candidates into a mean-spirited display of petty favoritism and bullying. If this had been a job interview in the private sector, Hart could be both fired and sued for violation of fair hiring practices. To quote federal employment guidelines, “It is illegal to modify hiring practices and procedures to favor a (single) particular candidate or to exclude a particular candidate.” And yet that is exactly what Hart did with his sarcastic putdowns and condescending “interrogation” of candidate John Zukoski, while clearly “building up” the other two candidates with his fawning questioning of them. Hart perverted the selection process with his undignified and thuggish display of malice and antagonism towards a highly respected and honorable Dublin citizen and community activist. He also insulted a large number of Dublin voters by scoffing at Mr. Zukoski’s almost 4000 votes in the recent election.
It was clear from the start that Hart had no intention of considering Mr. Zukoski for the position; he merely wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to publicly “sucker-punch” a former political rival. Hart’s irresponsible performance was something no mature, well-adjusted, self-respecting public official would ever engage in. It cast dishonor on the position of city councilmember. Fortunately such behavior says so much more about the character and upbringing of the bully than the person they are trying to demean. Every person I’ve spoken to who has viewed Hart’s vindictive display has agreed that it was childish, unprofessional, insulting, uncalled for and shameful. Bullying and disparaging others may be Hart’s manner in his day job and in his personal life — and I think we can all agree that it must be a very ugly thing to witness — but it is entirely inappropriate and unbecoming for an elected official, especially in a public, televised civic process.
You really have to wonder — what did John Zukoski ever do to deserve such crude disrespect, other than work tirelessly to educate and inform Dublin residents and promote the city of Dublin? Hart demonstrated his profound ignorance of online public forums by clumsily attempting to blame Mr. Zukoski for some comments that Hart doesn’t like, which were actually posted by other Dublin citizens. What an ungrateful slap in the face to someone who is working so hard to promote Dublin civic pride and involvement! John Zukoski deserves an award from the city, not a immature public lashing from someone with an irrational personal vendetta. To his huge credit, Mr. Zukoski showed remarkable dignity and grace in the face of Hart’s cowardly ambush, and I’m sure that many Dublin citizens are now convinced that they voted for the wrong person.
As a recent arrival to Dublin, I am very discouraged to see my wonderful new hometown represented in such a misguided and reprehensible fashion. Still, while I remain disgusted and disheartened by Hart’s fumbling attempt to humiliate Mr. Zukoski, I believe in giving people a second chance. Let’s see if Hart has some integrity and the capacity to understand how shameful and unethical his conduct was. For the abuse of his position in a civic process, and for letting his petty personal insecurities and biases get in the way of a fair interview process, Hart owes Mr. Zukoski and the entire city of Dublin a full and genuine public apology. Barring such apology, Hart should be publicly and formally censured by the other members of the City Council and held in general contempt by all Dublin citizens.
Additionally, the three of you owe Mr. Zukoski a public apology for letting Hart get away with his despicable behavior and not saying a thing.
I got real offended when Council member Hart was going on and on about the 4000 votes. He was clearly laughing at John inside his head that he won and John didnt. John made it clear that 4,000 residents voted for him, b/c we trusted John. What did the council do. Pick a person that trully didnt want to be on the council, otherwise they would of at least put their name on the Nov ballot!
Having been around San Francisco politics for some time, it takes a lot to get a visceral reaction from me. That said, I do want to second strong appreciation for John's hard work promoting the City of Dublin and helping inform and connect residents. Keep up the good work!
BrianM
I applaud you Tim for writing in words what many people thought after seeing the video of the city council meeting. The actions of Mr. Hart in it were shameful and unprofessional. This is not the kind of person I would want representing my interests here in Dublin.
Brian
I applaud you Tim for writing in words what many people thought after seeing the video of the city council meeting. The actions of Mr. Hart in it were shameful and unprofessional. This is not the kind of person I would want representing my interests here in Dublin.
Kevin Hart's Shameful Public Belittling
Tim Hall
I read a shortened version of the letter at the 1/6/2009 council meeting. The video of that reading appears at the bottom of this posting.
To read more about the city council appointment, see the New Council Member Appointed article on the Around Dublin Blog.
Dear Mayor Sbranti, Vice-Mayor Hildenbrand & Councilmember Scholz,
Before I get to the main purpose of this letter, I want to say that I attended the 12/16/08 City Council meeting and witnessed the three of you (more so Councilmember Scholz and less so Vice-Mayor Hildenbrand) conduct reasonably fair and respectful interviews of the top three candidates for the vacant council seat. Even though I personally was pulling for the appointment of John Zukoski, I want to congratulate you for selecting an excellent person to fill the seat. Don Biddle appears to be a highly qualified, hard working, experienced, well informed, well respected and well meaning applicant, and I expect that he will do a fine job on the council.
However, that’s not my main reason for writing this letter. I’ve waited three weeks since the last council meeting to make sure that my initial astonishment and anger didn’t cause me to overreact. Well, my anger has mostly subsided, but I remain thoroughly appalled at Councilmember Kevin Hart’s rude behavior at the meeting, especially after viewing it a second time online. At the start of the meeting, Mayor Sbranti reminded everyone to be respectful of others, but apparently Hart didn’t think that applied to him. He took obvious delight in publicly belittling one of the finalists. He turned what should have been a positive, uplifting interview of the top three candidates into a mean-spirited display of petty favoritism and bullying. If this had been a job interview in the private sector, Hart could be both fired and sued for violation of fair hiring practices. To quote federal employment guidelines, “It is illegal to modify hiring practices and procedures to favor a (single) particular candidate or to exclude a particular candidate.” And yet that is exactly what Hart did with his sarcastic putdowns and condescending “interrogation” of candidate John Zukoski, while clearly “building up” the other two candidates with his fawning questioning of them. Hart perverted the selection process with his undignified and thuggish display of malice and antagonism towards a highly respected and honorable Dublin citizen and community activist. He also insulted a large number of Dublin voters by scoffing at Mr. Zukoski’s almost 4000 votes in the recent election.
It was clear from the start that Hart had no intention of considering Mr. Zukoski for the position; he merely wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to publicly “sucker-punch” a former political rival. Hart’s irresponsible performance was something no mature, well-adjusted, self-respecting public official would ever engage in. It cast dishonor on the position of city councilmember. Fortunately such behavior says so much more about the character and upbringing of the bully than the person they are trying to demean. Every person I’ve spoken to who has viewed Hart’s vindictive display has agreed that it was childish, unprofessional, insulting, uncalled for and shameful. Bullying and disparaging others may be Hart’s manner in his day job and in his personal life — and I think we can all agree that it must be a very ugly thing to witness — but it is entirely inappropriate and unbecoming for an elected official, especially in a public, televised civic process.
You really have to wonder — what did John Zukoski ever do to deserve such crude disrespect, other than work tirelessly to educate and inform Dublin residents and promote the city of Dublin? Hart demonstrated his profound ignorance of online public forums by clumsily attempting to blame Mr. Zukoski for some comments that Hart doesn’t like, which were actually posted by other Dublin citizens. What an ungrateful slap in the face to someone who is working so hard to promote Dublin civic pride and involvement! John Zukoski deserves an award from the city, not a immature public lashing from someone with an irrational personal vendetta. To his huge credit, Mr. Zukoski showed remarkable dignity and grace in the face of Hart’s cowardly ambush, and I’m sure that many Dublin citizens are now convinced that they voted for the wrong person.
As a recent arrival to Dublin, I am very discouraged to see my wonderful new hometown represented in such a misguided and reprehensible fashion. Still, while I remain disgusted and disheartened by Hart’s fumbling attempt to humiliate Mr. Zukoski, I believe in giving people a second chance. Let’s see if Hart has some integrity and the capacity to understand how shameful and unethical his conduct was. For the abuse of his position in a civic process, and for letting his petty personal insecurities and biases get in the way of a fair interview process, Hart owes Mr. Zukoski and the entire city of Dublin a full and genuine public apology. Barring such apology, Hart should be publicly and formally censured by the other members of the City Council and held in general contempt by all Dublin citizens.
Additionally, the three of you owe Mr. Zukoski a public apology for letting Hart get away with his despicable behavior and not saying a thing.
One last thing — at last night’s meeting, Hart asked to take his mandatory ethics training online rather than attend the class like everyone else. It would be a big mistake to allow that. Nobody needs a full dose of live ethics training more than Kevin Hart.
Sincerely,
Tim Hall
Dublin, CA
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Published on Friday, January 9th, 2009
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