EDITOR,
The election for three seats on the Board of Directors of the Lompico Country Water District has become a contentious race. The three incumbents running for re-election, Bill Smallman, Rick Harrington and Lois Henry all support Lompico Water merging with San Lorenzo Valley Water District. They have adopted the phrase “stay the course” as their campaign slogan, promising to bring the decision to the community by means of a vote. The board cannot decide to merge with SLV Water District, although it can decide whether to proceed or not to bring it to a vote of the community. The candidates challenging the incumbents have all stated that they are against a merger, advocating that we should “keep local control.” Fact is, SLV Water District is local. We live in San Lorenzo Valley. What has prompted me to write this letter is continuous destruction of campaign signs. Several have been removed or destroyed since they started going up. I personally witnessed someone associated with the challengers forcibly removing a “stay the course” sign from the “Welcome to Lompico” community board and destroying part of that community’s sign in the process. I can understand and accept that not everyone agrees with the incumbents’ platform; however, destruction of an opponent’s campaign sign is not only illegal, it’s poor sportsmanship. It appears to me that they cannot win a fair fight, so they must resort to sabotaging their opponents’ campaign. I think it’s rather childish and indicates a lack not only of character, but of integrity. Not someone I want controlling our water’s future. I say, let the facts speak for themselves, and the voters will decide whom they want to elect to the board.
Chris Frank, Lompico
"On September 16, our website sign was added to Bill Smallman's Welcome to Lompico sign"
And your handlers keep talk about people that can't vote in the election as if they are non-enitities in the race, yet you have a "Supports The Merge" sign with endorsements from people who can't vote and several on your website that don't vote in Lompico.
So, that's ok because they support the merge right. But it's not ok for the SLVWD customer at the end of Lompico/Zayante to express his opinion.
Sounds a little tyrannical to me. or Stalinist (agree or else)or any other label you want to put on it.
Bill, who are people supposed to call? I don't see any name or phone number posted on the sign to indicate who is responsible for it. Are you saying that you are accepting responsibility and liability for it?
If, as you say, the sign belongs to the community what gives YOU the right to screw a political campaign sign to the top of the community's sign?
I can take the "welovelompico" sign off today. I was going to work on the sign today anyway.
http://lbra.kezeor.com/
thanks for the info but it doesn't answer my question on what have they done for the COMMUNITY other than having their road fixed. Since I could not find anything on their website giving me this information maybe you can tell me. Their website shows the last meeting minutes are back in 2005 and their financial statements are from 2004 and 2006. If they are in fact an association I would think they would keep better records than this. The way it looks to me is that they made up the title just to get donations to get their road fixed.
But since it has cropped up again, I'm glad to field the question.
Thanks for the tip about old stuff on the webwsite, we do need to weed it out. No big news updates, but LBRA is thriving.
LBRA is a collective of very nice and down-to-earth people in the south end of the canyon, a great neighborhood in which I'm privileged to live. LBRA neighbors have common ground in understanding the importance of maintaining Lompico Canyon's second access; primarily to get first responders and fire engines into the Canyon in an emergency, as happens when Lompico Road is compromised. LBRA has a vibe that I believe represents the positive Spirit of Lompico that I think all canyon residents wish to cultivate, in all our neighborhoods.
Bill Smallman's hand-carved sign is BEAUTIFUL. It is an honor for LBRA to be included. Bill has set the bar high for all of us to work together as a community. I dig that.
I've lost many signs myself. Just this evening I noticed my two signs at the corner of Zayante were gone and I had to replace them.
My wife personally saw Bill Smallman messing with one of Gail Jones's signs.
So don't make like the incumbents or their supporters are angels. They aren't.
The sign that was on the Welcome sign's bulletin board was ripped off with a crow bar by one of your direct supporters who was not only eye witnessed, but he admitted to the act. I guess it was a little too much trouble to either unscrew the sign, or call to object to it. There are no direct supporters of our campaign that are engaging in this activity.
I found Gail's sign on a nearby hillside and placed it at the location precisely where Bill indicates, notifying Gail of it's recovery.
It isn't nice to say that about the incumbents and their supporters; there are many good people in Lompico who do not care for this.
The pro-merger people, on the other hand had no right, and were breaking the law, when they went onto his property and destroyed/defaced his signs. This happened many times and it took him putting up a camera to put a stop to the destruction.
Bill Smallman attaching his campaign sign to the Welcome to Lompico sign, which also has the names of several non-profits on it, implies support by those organizations and is misleading and deceptive.
Bill Smallman making a sign for the community but then claiming the sign is still his and he has the right to do with it what he wants and put whatever he wants on it shows just what kind of person he is.
Over the years I have spent THOUSANDS of dollars of my own money on signs and materials for the park. This is money I DONATED to the community. I would never even think about trying to reclaim these donated items. I'm not that kind of person.
The person that was trying to take the sign down was under the impression that the Welcome to Lompico sign belonged to the community and felt that it wasn't appropriate to have campaign signs attached to it. He may not have approached the issue in the best way but I am in agreement with his reasoning. Had Gail or Cheryl attached their signs to the Lompico sign I would have asked them to take them down and I have not attached any of my signs to it for the same reasons.
I have made it my policy not to touch signs belonging to any other candidate without that candidates express permission and, with the exception of this one case, have no knowledge as to who is tampering with the signs.
However, the point I was originally trying to make is that blaming all the tampering on the challengers is disingenuous and does not at all reflect reality. Tampering has been done by supporters of both sides.