Editor's Note: Longtime Los Gatos resident Peter Carter wrote this letter in response to critics of
Balderdash. Complete and utter balderdash.
"White racist"? Colleen Wilcox tripled the percentage of minority employees at the Santa Clara County Office of Education during her tenure - many, many hundreds.
She served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala. She speaks Spanish. In a previous life she not only voted for, but she dated Senator Eugene McCarthy at the height of his popularity with the liberal establishment.
But she doesn't take kindly to fools, which may be why a number of critics are personally offended by her. When a woman is a strong manager, she's a "terrorizer," "humiliator," "racist," "b----" ... when a man is a strong manager he's admired for the same traits.
Colleen was honored as Superintendent of the Year for the entire state of California by her peers and lasted longer in an extremely demanding job than
any previous superintendent.
The County Office of Education Board has already run through two successors ... Colleen was there for two decades with monumental achievements to her credit.
When she retired, she was honored by more than 500 community and governmental leaders, none of whom believed the one sided coverage the Mercury News had been putting out.
But what really counts is how good a job Colleen would do as a Los Gatos Town Council member. Her experience balancing budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars would be invaluable. Her leadership in bringing people together, motivating them to be the best that they can be, would be incredible.
Her commitment to our town was exemplified by her quiet and unheralded gift
of $100,000 to our new ... and that from a single woman without independent financial resources.
Last, but certainly not least, few if any of her newly minted critics have had the courage or integrity to sign their full names to their scurrilous and absurd charges. That means the commenters by the user names of "Memory" and "Steve" and the rest of the anonymous slanderers.
