Joanne Ward has no good answers for the issues surrounding her history on the council.

Councilwoman Joanne Ward is certainly doing everything she can to avoid recall. In fact, that is what has set her apart from Councilman Don Kuehne in recent months. Kuehne seems to be doing the opposite as he inexplicably continues to infuriate residents seeking reform.

He recently stated that the city’s efforts to annex land “might work” if it became before the council and intimated that the only difficult entity in making the deal happen was ConocoPhillips, a principal landowner of the sought-after properties. Kuehne must have forgotten about the Hercules taxpayers, which is convenient considering the city’s annexation efforts are misguided at best and should be shelved indefinitely.

On Tuesday evening, Kuehne even defended the council’s practice of receiving the agenda and staff reports only four days before council meetings, and suggested that it continue. The short lead time, of course, has led to such debilitating decisions as Sycamore North, Red Barn, HMU, among many others, during the tenure of former City Manager Nelson Oliva.

Kuehne refuses to accept responsibility for the council’s obvious past actions or accept justifiable reform measures to ensure better governance in the future. His fate in the recall–one would think–is secure.

Compare that to Ward’s actions since recall efforts began: Unlike Kuehne, Ward has remained very quiet and has resisted the urge to attack the community. Instead, Ward has acknowledged her role in past mistakes and has supported reform measures, voting with newcomers Myrna de Vera and John Delgado while Kuehne stubbornly voted the other way (or abstained).

Ward is hoping residents forget the past–Oliva and the controversial Mayor Ed Balico are indeed gone, and the city is not only acting but is much more transparent in recent weeks. There is a lot more to accomplish, but it is a start.

While Kuehne relentlessly defends his indefensible record, Ward is distancing herself from hers with the excuse of ignorance, and she is relying on residents reaching the auspicious conclusion that ignorance is not an impeachable offense.

“We didn’t ask the right questions,” Ward said recently regarding the city’s failed plan to annex 500 acres and construct a sports park facility, although the statement could easily apply to dozens if not hundreds of issues that came before Ward as a councilmember. Ward added: “We didn’t know the right questions to ask.” That is a rather difficult pill to swallow since, in fact, residents were asking pertinent questions and the council refused to have them answered, as if they didn’t want to know.

Ward was first elected to the council in 2000, along with former mayors Ed Balico and Kris Valstad, in what was considered a change election in the city. In the years preceding, the council was reported to be a cantankerous body, meetings routinely peppered with vitriolic arguments echoing in the chambers. The three new councilmembers set out to change the tone of politics in the city. They did this by making a handshake agreement not to disagree in public. It was the start of the end of effective representative democracy in Hercules, although it would take years to reveal itself.

New councilmembers came and went: Frank Batara served from 2001 to 2006; the late Trevor Evans-Young from 2002 to 2006; Charleen Raines from 2004 to 2008; Joe Eddy McDonald from 2006 to 2010. Kuehne joined the council in 2008. All of them agreed to the unspoken rule–no dissent on the council and ask few questions. You would be hard-pressed to find an item not approved unanimously in all those years of meetings–the very items that have evolved to become the critical issues the city now faces.

It may have been the culture of the council, but Ward followed along without protest for more than a decade. Ward now looks to whitewash that history with a few conciliatory statements and a toe-the-line reform voting record of late. It helps, but it is not a cure. Recall may not be either, but it is a much-needed aspirin.

The councilman looks to save his job.

It may be too little, too late—or, to be quite honest, way too little and definitely way too late—but Councilman Don Kuehne has certainly drawn a line in the sand. He is angry with the recall effort and he is willing to fight it, fists flying.

Kuehne isn’t, however, really fighting the good fight.

Kuehne has come to epitomize a council that ran the city into the ground. The council’s actions this past December and January were inexcusable and profoundly detrimental to the city. The case for recall centers around it, and it is arguably a very easy case to make—and win. Moreover, it proved to residents that Kuehne was not going to be part of a reform caucus moving forward.

Kuehne is largely defiant and unwilling to accept his role in the horrendous condition the city finds itself in. Kuehne has suggested that he was battling the corruption behind closed doors but voted with the majority because it was good for the city. That premise is false—and has proven to clearly be so—and it reveals the greatest fallacy in Kuehne’s defense.

Kuehne implores that he was the “lone voice” and likened his role on the council to a member on a corporate board of directors. The perspective explains a lot. It is a distorted view of public service, but it wouldn’t be so alarming if it weren’t so apparent that Kuehne truly believes it. Such strong conviction is more aligned with delusion than confusion, and you cannot educate away delusion.

Kuehne, of course, would not have been a lone voice. Numerous residents, a respected editorial board and a county grand jury all repeatedly presented concerns of what was, at the very least, an unacceptable appearance of conflicts of interest. Kuehne’s failure to speak out, vote no or make any effort to stem the tide of wrongdoing—in other words, to fulfill his duty as representative of the people—is evidence enough to support his recall from office.

Kuehne is defending a record of gross negligence, lax oversight and a complete unwillingness to listen to his constituents. It is a difficult record to summon support for a rebellion, to be sure.

At Tuesday’s city council meeting, Kuehne voted against a special election to fill the vacancy resulting from former mayor Ed Balico’s abrupt resignation last month. Kuehne argued that the council had lost 22 years of local government experience in the past few months and that that valuable experience needed to be replaced. (Balico served 10 years and former councilmembers Kris Valstad and Joe Eddy McDonald, who both lost by wide margins in the November election, served eight and four years, respectively.)

If Kuehne is suggesting that it is in the city’s best interest to appoint experienced politicians—such as Balico, Valstad and McDonald—who collectively brought this city to the brink of a financial disaster, his divorce from reality is too great to rescue.

Interim City Manager Fred Deltorchio received a hearty applause following his report to the council on Tuesday evening. People weren’t applauding the bad news—costly dead-end contracts approved only recently, a list of vacant homes the city mindlessly purchased, an overworked staff threatened by layoffs—but the honesty, transparency and respect Deltorchio offered the community with his frank assessment.

Councilman John Delgado listened to Deltorchio’s report with the earnestness of a college intern. Mayor Joanne Ward subtly nodded, recognizing the wrongs in retrospect, and biting her lip as audience members groaned as the bad news piled up.

But Kuehne looked away. He stared at the wall in the back of the chambers. He didn’t muster any signs of remorse, or even relief that critical issues have at least been discovered and were being remedied, as Deltorchio reiterated that staff was prepared to deal with the worst. Kuehne’s mind is on the battlefield.

The former city manager is being paid a quarter-million dollars to stay at home this year, the result of another perverse decision by Kuehne and Ward, and which may prove to be the nail in their political coffins. Meanwhile, there will likely be layoffs at city hall, the human element of what was an avoidable tragedy. Kuehne’s rebel call will fall on deaf ears.

Councilmembers Don Kuehne and Joanne Ward lack a vision for the city.

Imagine our fair city seven months in the future. It is a Tuesday morning in September. A heat wave has encompassed the Bay Area. Grasses are burnt brown. Leaves are green. The community swimming pool is empty. An exhausted staff occupies city hall preparing for another epic city council meeting scheduled for the evening. It is just another quiet sunny summer day in Hercules.

Sycamore North had been sold a few months earlier for a $25 million loss. It was the best result the city could have hoped for. The sale prevented further losses–stopped the bleeding, so to speak–and helped save the Intermodal Transit Center project, which has been put off for another year as the city searches high and low for additional funding.

The Cultural Festival and 4th of July celebration were cancelled earlier in the year in a last-ditch effort to trim the budget. There are now only two patrol units on the midnight shift.

The city moved forward with plans for an urban Safeway at Sycamore Crossing, effectively killing three birds with one stone–the need for an updated grocery store, the sale of city-owned property (which had grown to a portfolio of more than $50 million), and the conversion of vacant land into tax revenue and tax increment. Safeway is already on schedule for a planning commission review in November.

Parcel C, better known as the former Walmart property, was rezoned and sold to a developer interested in expanding the North Shore business park, recouping redevelopment agency losses and expanding job opportunities in the city. Planning review is months off, but the mountain of soil that had occupied the site has been sold and hauled off.

A developer agreement was finalized with AndersonPacific for the waterfront project, Hercules Bayfront, in June. The agreement included the transfer of property necessary for the Intermodal Transit Center. The timing couldn’t have been more nerve-wracking; the governor’s plan to eliminate redevelopment agencies was approved. Construction of retail buildings along Bayfront Avenue is scheduled to begin the following spring.

The New Town Center project has been put on hold indefinitely, following staff’s recommendation that the current plan is an impossibility in the market. The city is mired in a lawsuit with the previous developer, Red Barn, who had re-branded themselves Yellow Shack to avoid the feeding frenzy of negative press.

The City of Hercules had decided to recommit with the City of Pinole for an upgraded joint wastewater treatment facility. A sale of Hercules Municipal Utility to PG&E is underway. The plan to annex 77 acres is abandoned.

Although this alternate reality is entirely fictional–and imperfect–it can be accomplished, or something resembling it. And considering the hard work and difficult decisions required, the people that come to my mind that are capable of making it possible are the likes of Charlie Long, John Delgado and Myrna de Vera–and, of course, unnamed dutiful staff.

I do not think of Don Kuehne and Joanne Ward, the councilmembers that face recall due to indefensible records that led to nepotism and corruption at city hall, and a nearly incomprehensible pending financial disaster that may reverberate for years.

Residents will ask themselves if the city will be better off in two years with or without Kuehne and Ward on the city council as they ponder recall, and whether or not residents can afford to take that risk.

Kuehne and Ward have not offered their vision–not how to survive the recall effort, but their vision for the city and the residents they were elected to represent.

Vision drives emotion and progress, a hope for a better future no matter how good things may seem at present. The vision for Hercules is grand. It is a vision I remain proud of and a vision I hope is realized. It is a vision that requires strong leadership, and that, for me, is the heart of the recall.