‘IF YOU WANT TO TUSSLE, LET’S BRING IT ON,’ SAYS MILEY TO APPARENTLY NOBODY IN PARTICULAR
By Steven Tavares
steven.tavares@eastbaycitizen.com
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One of the very first articles in the East Bay Citizen featured Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley going off on a huffy rant. During that May 2009 day Miley told onlookers who didn’t like him to vote him out of office. “I’m 58-year-old man who isn’t intimidated by anyone,” he said two years ago.


Alameda County Supervisor
Nate Miley: tough guy

The bloviating Miley came up with a similarly bizarre barrage of taunts and curious non-sequiturs Wednesday. The only difference is it wasn’t quite clear what or whom set him off. During a Board of Supervisors special budget meeting covering a short list of addendums to the soon-to-be approved budget, Miley suddenly turned gruff over a seemingly unprovoked discussion over in-home care service, in part, mentioning Alameda County’s unincorporated areas.

“I’m no shrinking violet,” said Miley. “If you want to tussle, let’s bring it on.” The other supervisors looked somewhat puzzled at the tone of Miley’s voice as he continued. “Anything that affects the unincorporated areas affects Nate Miley,” he righteously intoned.

After Supervisor Nadia Lockyer made brief remarks, Miley then admonished his colleague by telling her not to “diminish” his roughly 100,000 resident-strong unincorporated areas. Both Supervisor Wilma Chan and Lockyer noted they too had a percentage of the unincorporated regions in their districts.

Earlier in the roughly hour-long meeting, Miley made a peculiar analogy to the unknowns of the county’s future budget situations and the use of reserves to the the barrage of natural and man-made disasters resulting from the Japan earthquake earlier this year. That true disaster was followed by a tsunami and subsequent meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. “The worst still could be coming,” Miley said of the future budget cuts.

Miley also became agitated two weeks ago when making public comments regarding the county’s resolution calling for a federal apology to slavery along with reparations to African-Americans.

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