THUMBS UP: For ex-councilmembers Tony Bruscia, Tony LoBue and Brian Conroy who attended their final council meeting earlier this week. Being a council member is a time consuming and difficult task, but it doesn’t have to be a thankless one. Thank you for your service to the community, gentlemen. It’s been an interesting and challenging four years with sewer problems and shrinking budgets, but the city seems to be turning the corner in no small part because of the work you have done. And whatever the city’s flaws, they pale in comparison to the chaos that is going on at the county level.
THUMBS DOWN: For everyone who is “going nuclear” in county government over the District 5 election race on the eve of a new Board of Supervisors being sworn in. What started out as a dispute over improperly returned absentee ballots now is a brawl involving felony charges and a multi-million dollar lawsuit alleging civil rights abuses. A fight for a seat on the Board of Supervisors in this small, rural county could end with Supervisor-elect Jaime De La Cruz in jail for more than four years or it could cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. And there is no reason to think it won’t get nastier when the gloves really come off in the courts. This is politics at its ugliest.
THUMBS UP: For Rachel Ponce, who tied her opponent Sylvia Rios Metcalf in the November race for a seat on the Aromas-San Juan School Board. The tie was broken by drawing Metcalf’s name out of a basket. Ponce asked for a hand recount, but when it showed no change this week, she accepted the results with good grace and supported her opponent. It’s a nice reminder that people in politics can be civil.
THUMBS DOWN: For the District Attorney who leveled a felony charge of voting twice at Maria Guadalupe Araujo. The 37-year-old mother of two could face three years in jail for voting twice in the March election. She admits she voted for Supervisor-elect Jaime De La Cruz, but insists it was a mistake. She says she thought she lost her absentee ballot when in fact it had already been mailed. Wanting her vote to count, she went to the Elections office, explained the situation and cast another ballot. She should have been given a provisional ballot which would have been tossed out when election workers found it was a duplicate. But she got, and cast, a regular ballot instead, according to elections officials. It’s hard to believe this was a deliberate attempt to get De La Cruz into office through skullduggery. How about proving there was a pattern to get people to vote twice then go after the perpetrators?
THUMBS UP: For Tom Breen, the new president of the Gavilan College Board of Trustees. Breen, a retired Superior Court judge, was selected to be the president by fellow board members on Tuesday. He wants to expand Gavilan’s presence in San Benito County, and now Breen is in the perfect position to do so.
