What do Ding Dongs and the Revolutionary War have in common?
Arroyo Grande mayoral candidates. What? Let me explain.
I actually didn’t fully understand the Ding Dong reference from candidate and former Fort Leavenworth instructor Dale Hanson, who used it to illustrate a point he made during a recent candidate forum. The most important thing is to understand people’s needs, he told attendees.
The metaphor Hanson chose was this: After lunch break one time at the Command and General Staff College, he said, he had Ding Dongs passed out to students.
“Take out the cream filling and what do you have?” he said he asked his students.
“Oh, something other than a Ding Dong,” he said his students responded.
“That’s the point. Going into battle, you do not want to leave anything off the ingredients. You want to cover everything,” he said during the forum.
So people’s needs are like Ding Dongs filled with cream. If you remove the cream, what have you got? Something that can’t go into battle. And we definitely can’t have that.
Perhaps fellow mayoral candidate Gaea Powell needs to borrow Hanson’s Ding Dong metaphor for the revolution that she’s currently participating in. Powell said she was inspired to run for mayor, in part, by the Revolutionary War.
“The small towns and villages were instrumental in winning that war,” she said. “Obviously we’re kind of a peaceful revolution, but people definitely need to talk to each other.”
I think people from small towns and villages are definitely talking to each other—it’s just on Reddit threads and Facebook posts, where they can scream at each other in ALL CAPS and do their own “research.”
What revolution is the ding dong referring to?
“We need a Bill of Rights for parents to make sure their rights are protected when it comes to decisions about their children,” she added.
When did the city of Arroyo Grande take away parents’ rights to make decisions about their kids? Last I checked, it hadn’t. Do you think she knows she’s running for a city position, which doesn’t have any say over schools, school boards, the county, or the governor?
Is she a masktavist? An anti-vaxtavist? Well, she called SLO County Public Health Director Penny Borenstein a “dictator” for following the great Gov. Newsolini‘s lead on COVID-19 regulations, so yes to both. And she was super pissed that some elected leaders advocated for “citizens to actually take medication in order to be safe.” How dare they follow the lead of medical experts about preventing the spread of a deadly virus!
“I think that’s outrageous. It would be like Elon Musk asking me to do a presentation on SpaceX,” she said.
Now, that would be outrageous! I’m not sure he would ever ask Powell to do that unless he was hoping to influence Revolutionary War buffs in little villages everywhere. In which case, he should start a Reddit thread.
All weird inspiration aside, the two candidates challenging current Mayor Caren Ray Russom for her third term did make at least one really great point about the sitting Arroyo Grande City Council. The ethical issues it has faced in recent months are ridiculous.
So many of the sitting council members benefit financially from having vacation rentals that they had to draw straws to ensure there were enough elected officials to vote on recent changes to the city’s vacation rentals ordinance. Drawing straws was the Fair Political Practices Commission‘s solution to Arroyo Grande’s conflict-of-interest and lack-of-a-quorum woes.
That solution is sort of like a Ding Dong without the cream.
“I don’t think that the elected officials should be involved in influencing and voting on any Airbnb type resolutions,” Powell said.
And they also apparently shouldn’t be involved in voting on accessory dwelling unit regulations either. They had to draw straws for that one as well. What’s up with this council? It tells you a lot about who’s in charge in Arroyo Grande.
“Drawing straws is not a good resolution,” Powell said.
No, it’s not.
But speaking of Ding Dongs, the school board races in SLO County are full of cream this year and the candidates are ready for political battle. Nine people are running for four seats in Atascadero, the SLO County Democratic Party weighed in with endorsements of two candidates, and the incumbents are not happy about it!
“I have a concern that there are people running that want to take the school board and politicize it, that they are coming in with an agenda that is driven by national politics,” said George Shoemaker, a sitting Atascadero Unified School District board member running for reelection.
I’ve got news for him. National politics already impacts school districts. Vaxtavism, masktavism, banning books, and gender identity, anyone? Also nine people are running. Nine! Who knew school board seats were so coveted? All one has to do is look one city north (cough, cough, Paso Robles) to see the impact that national politics has on local schools. And A-town’s been quietly making decisions without the media headlines.
Maybe it’s time to shed a little light in the dark.
As SLO Democratic Party Chair Rita Casaverde puts it: Candidates parent Vy Pierce and retired teacher Tracy Ellis-Weit have respect for education, are valuable community members, and “both are sane.” Δ
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 9, 2022.
