5-4 mayors’ vote removes Hughson’s Beekman from LAFCO

A bare majority of the mayors in Stanislaus County punished Hughson Mayor Matt Beekman on Wednesday by removing him as the cities’ representative on a regional growth-guiding panel despite ardent support from most people in the audience.

Beekman maintained that his March vote favoring a farmland preservation policy amendment was the right move. Getting kicked off the Stanislaus Local Agency Formation Commission reflects deep dysfunction in the mayors’ group, Beekman said, charging the majority with failing to do their homework.

Mayors Garrad Marsh of Modesto, Gary Soiseth of Turlock and Chris Vierra of Ceres joined with Beekman in his support, but were outvoted by Mayors Ed Katen of Newman, Pat Paul of Oakdale, Richard O’Brien of Riverbank, Luis Molina of Patterson and Mike Van Winkle of Waterford.

The majority said Beekman pushed forward with the farmland preservation policy change despite their requests for a delay in hopes of building compromise. “We were not given that courtesy,” Paul said.

“When we did select Matt (for LAFCO), each of us talked to him and he said he would try to support cities and help cities,” O’Brien said.

Beekman noted that the mayors convened two months ago with the idea of removing him and put off deciding to allow time for mending fences. The next day, Beekman reached out to all with offers to discuss the matter, and none, he said, engaged in serious discussion.

At the heart of the controversy was LAFCO’s approval in March of a formula for calculating how much money developers should pay cities when replacing farmland with homes or other buildings.

All audience members approaching the speaker’s rostrum defended Beekman.

“He made a principled vote to preserve ag land, and he deserves your vote,” said David Tucker of Modesto.

“You may not like what he did, but he did his duty and he did it with honor,” said Annette Smith, a former Patterson councilwoman.

Jake Wenger, a Modesto Irrigation District board member, said it’s “scary” to imagine being kicked off that panel because colleagues disagreed with one of his votes.

“If you can only agree with the majority, those tend to be societies we don’t want to model,” Wenger said. “We’re not looking at a situation where someone is not fit for duty, acted as an embarrassment or has a history of acting erratically.”

Katen noted that Jim DeMartini, when he became chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, removed another supervisor from LAFCO and appointed himself.

“I didn’t hear anybody sniveling and crying,” Katen said. “We as mayors also have the right to choose who is going to lead us on the LAFCO board.”

When it came time to choose Beekman’s replacement, Molina suggested appointing Oakdale Councilman Tom Dunlop rather than another mayor. Vierra and Marsh said they don’t know Dunlop and asked to interview him, as had been done with Beekman, and the others agreed to postpone action.

This story was originally published July 8, 2015 at 9:37 PM with the headline "5-4 mayors’ vote removes Hughson’s Beekman from LAFCO."