I’m not sure what’s worse: Someone railing at a local school board meeting about how school was only invented so children could learn to read the Bible or a rat pack of SLO County residents continuing to insist that some thing is wrong with elections.
“We do not have fairness and transparency in our elections,” broken-record Richard “I Am Redistricting” Patten told the SLO County Board of Supervisors on July 12. “They are clouded. They’re kept hidden.”
The very same day, Patten’s election count observing buddy Darcia Stebbens filed a ballot recount demand for primary election votes in the 4th District supervisor race “on behalf of Lynn Compton (not necessarily at the request of),” who lost to challenger Jimmy Paulding by more than 600 votes and said she totally accepts the election results. Stebbens joined Patten on the public comment mic that morning, telling the board that she will “continue to speak on election integrity.”
“We have local governance that is in question,” she said.
In question by whom? You and your buddy Patten? The person who lost the election believes the count is accurate enough to concede that she lost. And who’s paying for this recount? Because it’s not going to be cheap, and it sure sounds like Compton’s campaign chest—or whatever’s left of it—is off the table.
The crazy thing to me is that both Patten and Stebbens sat outside the county Elections Office and watched county staffers count the primary election ballots—what’s not transparent about that?
Meanwhile, the wheel of right-right-right-wing crazies keeps on squeaking during public comment at the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District‘s board meetings.
On July 12 (There’s that date again!), frequent public commenter Peter Burn waxed poetic on how diversity, equality, and inclusion is a mask for critical race theory trying to “turn our children into activists” hell-bent on achieving the “destruction of our government.” You know, because socialism!
“We should be giving our students the tools that they need to succeed, not how to be equal,” he said.
Equality, schmequality, amirite? Bootstraps are really all that students need!
The agitator who followed Burn was convinced that the board had forgotten the origins of school—Bible reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic. He had to be physically removed from board chambers after his aggressively belligerent rant, which ended with “you guys suck.”
Whew! There was a moment there where I wasn’t sure anyone was going to make it.
But the board will live to fight another culture war, with its next battle currently scheduled for Aug. 9. At that time, the district is going to discuss what board President Chris Arend calls “LGBT—I can’t get the whole sequence of letters together,” what board member Lance Gannon referred to as “LBGT,” and what new trustee Frank Triggs believes involves grooming and recruiting.
“You cannot force someone to call a he a she because they’re under the delusion that they are,” Triggs stammered, later saying that it’s a violation of a teacher’s First Amendment right.
“That’s compelled speech,” board member Dorian Baker added.
“It’s tricky,” Arend said. “I don’t think that we’re going to get to a situation where we’ll be compelling teachers to use a specific pronoun because, you know, a little child wants to be.”
“Are we at that point?” Baker asked.
Gosh. I think we’ve been telling teachers what to say and how to act for a very long time. Remember that discussion last year, when the board voted to tell teachers exactly how they could teach anything that the district might “define” as critical race theory?
You all sound like a bunch of hypocrites. And belittling students? You guys do suck.
Time to get woke. And by woke, I mean, can we get some people who aren’t old white guys to run for the Paso school board, please? We’ll take anybody at this point.
That’s at least four ignoramuses out of seven. How do you think the LGBTQ-plus policy discussion is going to go? I’ll definitely be tuning in to find out.
Meanwhile Superintendent Curt Dubost‘s mannerisms toward the board on June 28, when it discussed agendizing the discussion, were telling. And so was the fact that no one could really figure out whether the LGBTQ-plus “training” everyone was so upset about had actually happened. Turns out, there was training, but it was in compliance with state mandates. Maybe?
Dubost said he couldn’t be sure.
“We did stop when the concerns were raised,” Dubost said.
“If you had to put a stop to it, there was something ongoing,” Gannon said.
Sounds like everyone up there has a good handle on things.
Kind of like how SLO County‘s new homelessness plan is just going to eradicate the homeless crisis. In five years, the county wants to put “a big dent in the problem.” But we can’t even define the scope of the problem in 2022—the homeless Point-In-Time Count happened in February and the data is still in the “development” process.
Where’s the preliminary data? Santa Barbara County, which conducted that count at the same time, announced those numbers soon after its count took place.
Good thing SLO County’s five-year plan includes improving data collection in the first year. Maybe we’ll get the numbers for 2022 by 2023. In which case, we’ll already be a year behind in the five-year plan. Δ
The Shredder is ready for thoughts and prayers. Send them to shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jul 14-24, 2022.
Sounds like Shredder never had a biology class.
I agree Tony, we should be inspecting these kids to ensure their pronouns match their “biology”.
Good thing your strategic planners did not wait around for the 2022 Point in Time count data! The urgency and magnitude of the problem are obvious: despite big efforts that doubled sheltering capacity countywide since 2019, the number of people who can be sheltered on any given night is 20-30% of the number of people observed homeless in the 2019 point-in-time count — and that’s best case, if COVID restrictions aren’t required and everything is staffed. That’s a gap of about 1000 people. Prior efforts have amounted to fighting a house fire with a garden hose. Accordingly, the new countywide plan emphasizes rapid cycle implementation of temporary housing and shelter NOW (e.g. tiny home villages, cabin shelters and parking villages) with appropriate supports. While we are busy getting more roofs over more heads at a cost that doesn’t take $500k each, the systems experts can make sure we get better data — which I agree is sorely needed for both operational efficiency and long-term planning. — Susan Funk, Atascadero City Council; Steering Committee Chair, Countywide Strategic Plan to Address Homeless 2022-2027