Council should apologize to HRC Council should apologize to HRC (August 26, 2005)

When Mountain View residents want to discuss state issues, like the moratorium on the death penalty, where do they go?

Apparently, some thought the Human Relations Commission was the right place, but no longer. Anyone paying attention to last week's city council meeting couldn't have missed the tongue-lashing issued by Vice Mayor Nick Galiotto to HRC members, who had asked the council to permit them to discuss the controversial issue.

The answer, coming from Galiotto, was swift and harsh: The death penalty discussion was not relevant to the local community, and not an issue the council recently asked the HRC to focus on, he said.

"This is a misuse of the resource that we are granting the commission," he said, adding that he was disappointed that the HRC would propose taking its limited resources to spend on staff time to discuss "this kind of issue."

Galiotto's response came prior to a 4-3 vote that turned down the HRC's request to talk about the moratorium. Never mind that two moratorium advocates had asked the council earlier to take up the discussion and were told by Mayor Matt Neely that they should first try the HRC. No council members objected at that time.

Certainly, the city council is not the place to debate the war in Iraq, but there is no doubt that the death penalty moratorium is one of those things that could impact a Mountain View citizen. For example, the persons recently convicted of the murder of Mountain View resident Doris Condon, as well as Seti Scanlan, a local resident who killed a bank employee in Burlingame, were all candidates for receiving the death penalty. (All three received life sentences.)

We see headlines every month or so about another death-row or life-sentence inmate who is released after DNA tests give irrefutable proof that he did not commit the crime for which he was convicted. The cases also bring to light the occasional, but incredible, malfunctions of the judicial system.

Given this backdrop, we agree with Mike Kasperzak, Laura Macias and Mayor Neely, who voted to allow the HRC to use a modest amount of staff time to discuss the moratorium on the death penalty. We would not expect the discussion to persuade state leaders to jump on the issue, but if the commission voted to back the moratorium, and if the city council did the same, Mountain View would be added to a small list of cities that spoke up, whether it had standing to do so or not.

The council's harsh rebuke of the HRC was unnecessary, even if Galiotto and his supporters, Matt Pear, Tom Means and Greg Perry, prevailed. After all, it wasn't that long ago that the council discussed the PATRIOT Act, or at least its local impact. If nothing else, the council should take up the moratorium, and perhaps invite HRC commissioners to take part in the discussion. At least that would give this important issue a local airing, rather than sweeping it under the rug.

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