There were many reasons Hill won 

The commentary by Bob Cuddy in the Jan. 8 New Times (“Jan. 1 didn’t erase 2014’s wounds in Arroyo Grande”) contains so much derp that it would take an equally long response to properly critique it. I will just speculate that he has decided to uncritically accept Tony Ferrara’s explanation of his campaign failure as “the truth” and is not open to consider other views on the subject. Jim Hill not only does not owe Mr. Cuddy any proof of character, but would probably be wasting his time trying, as Mr. Cuddy has apparently already closed his mind to the possibility that there were good reasons for people to vote for Mr. Hill and against Mr. Ferrara. (Yes, I said “reasons”—plural.)

For those not familiar with the issues, the cover-up of the probably sex scandal was merely the last straw in putting together a campaign to oust Ferrara. His leadership in allowing the South San Luis Obispo County Sanitation District to waste millions in reserves while earning fines for pollution due to poor maintenance management should have been reason enough. But sewer mismanagement is not the type of issue that grabs enough public attention to overcome the benefits of incumbency in an election. So the “sexy” issue provided the edge.

As for the rest of his spiel against CCN and Congalton, if the Fibune (for which Mr. Cuddy worked) had taken the responsibility of public watchdog seriously, the upstart journalists may well have faded into obscurity. Instead, our daily county rag has been catering to the status quo powers and rewriting press releases as news stories for so long that they seem to think that investigative journalism is an obsolete concept. CCN has its journalistic flaws (some correctly pointed out by Mr. Cuddy), but unquestioning acceptance of the words of whoever is in power is a bigger flaw.

-- Ron Holt - Arroyo Grande

-- Ron Holt - Arroyo Grande