Gurnee's hypocrisy is on display 

I find San Luis Obispo mayoral candidate T. Keith Gurnee's opinions and stances on some of the issues in this race hypocritically puzzling in light of past opinion pieces he wrote for the website that calls itself CalCoastNews. As a past resident of SLO, I am concerned about his disingenuity.

Gurnee is angry that a bikeway is being built in his neighborhood and whose residents are opposed to it. But he wanted to shove through a quarry project outside of Santa Margarita despite the fact that the residents were adamantly opposed to it. He certainly wasn't sympathetic to their concerns when he accused them of nimbyism. Nimbyism, in Gurnee's opinion, is a dirty word. Except when it's his backyard being discussed. "How is it that the Golden State has become the 'nimby' state where that phenomenon has metastasized in the body politic at every level of government?" "Deny all quarries and cave into this latest example of 'nimbyism?'" Quotes from "To quarry or not to quarry" and "California: Wherefore art thou?"

He apparently does not believe in the greater good—in the form of bicycle safety and getting people out of their fossil-fuel-burning cars—any longer either. And I guess alarmist emotionalism from the neighborhood is all right in this case since it's his neighborhood. "What will the board do? Reward the alarmist emotionalism of the opponents or stick with the logic, history, and the need to serve the greater good?" Quote from "Santa Margarita quarry points and counterpoints."

Gurnee trumpets his past open space preservation throughout California, yet he attacked the city of SLO when it donated funds to the Land Conservancy to help purchase the Pismo Preserve open space. "The city recently spent $75,000 on open space preservation—not in our city, but adjacent to a city that is miles away from San Luis Obispo." Taken from "The case against Measure G." Last I checked, Johnson Ranch and Reservoir Canyon were outside of SLO city limits, also, and nobody seems bothered by the funds used to purchase them. Ironically, Pismo Preserve is only about 6 miles and a 10-minute drive from Johnson, hardly miles away.

I think it's wonderful that he pats himself on the back by vowing to stay above the fray in the mayoral race. If only he had managed to do so when he regularly and repeatedly insulted the supporters of Adam Hill, not to mention progressives in general, in many of his opinion pieces.

SLO voters may want to think long and hard about the hypocrisies of T. Keith Gurnee.

Tiffany Abeloe

Grover Beach