Should our reason to vote for a candidate be based on manufactured fears of what someone thinks a candidate "might" do when in office? Or should it be based on reality in terms of what someone has done so far and is real?
I say reality trumps manufactured fears.
Clif has cast votes that have hurt us and he has not been representing the best interests of our 2nd district and community.
He claims to be for "inclusive" government, but then casts a vote to abolish section 1500 of the General Plan that calls for public participation and community advisory groups.
He was the swing vote to give away 16 million dollars of our county road money to the Caltrans 101 project in Arcata/Eureka.
All of our major groups, individuals and government bodies of our district requested that he not cast these votes, but he did any way.
Estelle Fennell worked hard to get section 1500 back into the GPU and also spoke out against voting to give our county road funds to that Caltrans project.
Clif voted to put firearms on code enforcement officers, now he and his supporters are trying to minimize that action. Estelle spoke out against arming the code enforcement.
Estelle’s work with Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights has been essential for local landowners, who feel that they have earned and deserve the right to have their voices and input included in any county government process, such as the General Plan Update, which will enact regulations that will affect them and their families ability to live on their land.
Clif wants to throw these local landowners under the bus, calling them a “special interest group.”
And Clif’s campaign must be getting really desperate, as witnessed by their continued attempts to somehow prove that because Schmidbauer Lumber or Leon’s Muffler or other longtime HC local businesses contributed to Estelle’s campaign, that that’s somehow a bad thing because they also contributed to other candidates that Clif’s people don’t like. That’s pretty hypocritical, given that these same voices were silent when their supervisorial candidate of choice, Bonnie Neely, received $10,000 from an actual “real life” developer from Southern California, $30,000 from a casino, and $13,000 from Sedgfield Properties. And the hypocrisy also includes the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee because they knew where Bonnie got her money from but they endorsed her anyway and gave her $5,000 (which pretty much bankrupted the committee to this day and they are barely getting by financially.)
Clif claims to be “fiscally responsible” but supports spending millions of our tax dollars on expensive and ridiculous lawsuits.
Clif has shown poor leadership regarding the McKee/Tooby lawsuit. Listening to the debate, it was shocking to hear Clif defending the county’s lawsuit against Bob McKee. He even minimized it’s impact and cost to all the families and taxpayers, claiming that the county "only" spent over a million dollars, when it’s pretty common knowledge that it is more like 10 million. Just think of all the productive things that 10 million dollars could have been spent on.
Estelle has advocated for years for the county to drop this lawsuit and work together to find resolution.
And where was Clif during our school bus funding crisis? Estelle went to Sacramento with everybody; where was Clif? Nowhere in sight.
When asked at the debate the other night, "What does it mean when a supervisor does not return phone calls?” Clif apologized profusely for not returning people’s calls and made excuses saying, "Well, I’m still learning.” After four years, a supervisor does not deserve to be reelected if he can’t return a simple phone call.
Estelle’s answer:
Every time a supervisor does not return a phone call, is another example of government not working for the people, and she pledged to promptly return calls and follow through.
We can’t take four more years of unreturned phone calls and lack of leadership.
We need to elect a strong leader who will stand up for us, return our phone calls and make county government work better for us all. That’s Estelle Fennell.
David Hawkins
Garberville
Font Resize
