I have closely followed the events of the 3rd District supervisor race and have been very impressed with the poise of Bruce Porter. While most of the other candidates have tried to snipe at Bruce again and again, he has refused to attack them. His steadfast focus on the things he will do as supervisor is refreshing in such a negative room.
Admittedly, many of the attacks don’t make a lot of sense. For example, I found it rather confusing that one of his opponents refers to Bruce as a career politician. Bruce served our country for 25 years while with the Army Corps of Engineers, commanding up to 6,000 service men and women in order to protect both people and our Earth. He also spent a couple of years getting two master’s degrees from Stanford, in computer science and civil engineering. In fact, Bruce’s only other elected office has been a very successful eight years on the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District Board, which now graduates, as a percentage, more students than any other school in the entire county. His life, from graduation from West Point onward, has been one of service.
The other main opponent in this race, Joan Hartmann, promotes her environmental record, which is admirable. In the last few forums she seems to leave out the fact that she spent 20 years as a lawyer for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), suing those individuals and corporations who may have run afoul of those ever-changing regulations. Her solution to the loss of oil revenue supporting our schools is to sue for the lost revenue. It will likely take many years for that revenue to show up again in education coffers, and schools in the meantime, will suffer.
Bruce gets the job done, is aware and ready to act on our environmental challenges, has a proven track record of managerial success, and has the perspective to work on practical solutions.
I would much rather elect a doer, not a suer, to the county Board of Supervisors. I hope everyone reading this will join me in voting for Bruce Porter in the June 7 primary election.
This article appears in Apr 28 – May 5, 2016.
