San Leandro Should Find German Sister City to Emulate

The mayor of San Leandro should make former mayor Tony Santos the Ambassador to Germany. We should hook up with a German city of comparable size and see how they do things.

I say that because Germany is the top exporter in the brave new competitive global economy along with China, yet they take the longest vacations in the industrial world, on average about 7 weeks a year. One writer Tom Gegeaghan likens it to them fighting global competition with one hand tied behind their back.

We should also study that country's system because they were able to save their industrial jewels from being transferred to Asia. Any company with over 200 workers is required to participate in Co-determination which means that half the board members in a corporation have to be workers, a system we, the U.S., set up there after World War II.

Only a fool would vote with managerial board members to outsource their own job! As blue collar as the country seems, it also boasts a huge number of museums and other art and cultural venues, world leaders in this category as well. Berlin for example has three major symphony orchestras.

Another reason to become a sister city is to study their approach in education. They put an emphasis on training and a de-emphasis on college. We graduate 27 percent of our students from college while they are at only 15 percent, almost half.

Many students are trained in rigorous vocational programs which lead to pretty much guaranteed high wage skilled jobs. They have sort of a high tech, low tech and mid tech approach toward education.

In 2008 the average American made $32 an hour including benefits, they earned on average $48 an hour.

They also have a more working class, blue collar democracy with 60 percent of the workers in unions, and that's a little down from the 90s.

They send their young off to Democracy Camps in the Alps when young workers enter the workforce. They educate them on becoming what they call “responsible citizens.” Maybe San Leandro could take care of its young by building a democracy camp in our own hills or even in a state park. We might even think about doing a county-wide project and maybe even regional democracy camps in our East Bay parks.

Germany is also a world leader in alternative energy and has much more mass transportation. They have universal health care and universal pensions, not to mention much more affordable housing.

As the top exporter in the world, Germany is very much a capitalist country. But it's a social capitalist country, where citizens and corporations are more responsible.

Santos would be the perfect person to bring us together. Having married a wonderful woman from Germany while on duty in the Air Force, he has traveled back to Germany on numerous occasions to visit relatives, and he knows the lay of the land.

With the doom about the economy and the bleak job prospects, we could learn from Germany, and maybe in our own American fashion, borrow some of their approaches. 

We often hear that California schools have gone from first to worst, Germany’s status in the world went from worst during WWII to first today.

If we can build military camps all over the world costing hundreds of billions a year to as the military says “defend democracy” maybe a democracy camp modeled after what they do in Germany in our own regional parks could be a long term goal and part of a sister city project.

Mr. Santos is the person for the job.