Letter: SLV should vote local

EDITOR,
Follow the money. That is the best prescription for getting at the truth of the matter, and I am looking at the campaign spending of the candidates for 5th District Santa Cruz County supervisor.  This is turning into a race to buy the election. There is a point where the amount of spending for a local county seat becomes obscene, and we are there. In the not-so-distant past, the local election cost around $20,000. This was good for all of us.  Now, if most of the money being spent was donated from within our San Lorenzo Valley, it may seem OK for Bruce McPherson to spend upward of $200,000 to buy the election, but it’s mostly not local donations; it is money from cronies and people who live all over the state and have ties to Bruce from when he held larger state office.  Is this money for the betterment of the SLV? I think not. Is it paybacks to help a retired politician for past favors? Or will he owe people who have no ties to our home whatsoever?  It is our responsibility to say, “No, our county seat is not for sale to the highest bidder.” We as a community have a responsibility to vote local, and I mean as in the valley itself. Not Santa Cruz or Pasatiempo.  The July 1-to-Sept. 30 round of fundraising disclosure of contributions shows that of $58,247 raised by Bruce, only 6 percent, $3,650, was donated by people of SLV and 3 percent, $1,850, by Scotts Valley residents. That leaves 91 percent, $52,747, from people who don’t even live here.  We can’t afford to sell out our only representative in government to someone who owes favors to who knows whom, from who knows where. 
John Fasolas, Felton