San Luis Obispo mayoral candidate Cherisse Sweeney rejected rumors that she doesn’t reside in city limits, telling New Times that her family rents a home in the city and recently moved there from “less than a mile” outside of SLO to enable her run for office.
Sweeney, who owns Basalt Interiors downtown, is facing scrutiny over her residential history, with some questioning whether the first-time candidate is a bonafide SLO resident.
City election law requires candidates to be residents of SLO for at least 30 days prior to an election date and also to be registered voters in the city.
Campaign filings with the city clerk list Sweeney’s residence as an apartment in SLO, which is also her voter registration address. But locals have probed whether that address really matches her residence, given the timing of her move at the start of her candidacy and that her husband’s voter registration is still listed as their prior address outside city limits.
“What is Sweeney hiding? Does she even live in the city of San Luis Obispo?” the SLO County Democratic Party wrote in a recent blog post titled, “Hiding Behind Non-Partisanship: Radical Republicans are attempting a stealth takeover of SLO.”
According to the candidate, the truth is more complicated and “not really anyone’s business.” Sweeney said her family sold a house three years ago and has moved around a few times since (she didn’t elaborate, and New Times didn’t ask). They recently decided to relocate into city limits, leaving a rental off See Canyon Road.
“When we knew we needed to find a final place to plant ourselves for a little bit and I committed to run [for mayor] for our community, I committed to make sure we found a place to buy within city limits,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney said she purchased the apartment that’s listed in her candidate papers—which are date-stamped July 27—but noted that today it is rented to tenants, and their family now rents a house of their own.
“We found a house that was perfect,” she said.
As some SLOlocals question Sweeney’s roots in the city, the interior designer rejected those characterizations.
“I’ve been a business owner here for 18 years now, a retailer here for eight years,” she said. “My kids go to school in SLO. We are absolutely a part of this community.” Δ
This article appears in The Awareness Issue.
Rumor and innuendo will suffice whenever evidence does not support the “evil conservative” narrative. Johnson attempts to plant seeds of doubt about Sweeney’s residence. The problem is, that’s all the fear SLO NEW TIMES can muster without actual evidence. New Times steampunk-rolling is bent on frightening undecided left-leaning voters with frivolous whisper campaigns.
I sent this to NewTimes. Hope it gets published
I support Sweeney for Mayor because I am a proud Salvadorean immigrant, I am a descendant of the Pipil Indigena Tribe, and I am also a nurse. As an immigrant, I value the freedoms this country offers us, so freedom of expression is extremely important to me. However, with those rights come responsibilities. We have an obligation to protest our grievances in a respectful manner, but more importantly, we must exercise our freedoms in a way that is safe for everyone involved. When those basic principles are violated, it is an abuse and disrespect for our rights. On the day that Miss Tianna Arata and comrades decided to block the freeway and put everyone in danger including themselves, I was on my way to work as a nurse caring for Covid patients. Caring for Covid patients is extremely exhausting physically and emotionally and at the end of a 12 hour shift, one can’t hardly wait to be relieved by the next nurse. On this particular day, Tianna and company forced the nurse that I was supposed to relieve to work overtime and therefore placing the lives of our patients at risk. They also held people hostage, questioned if a woman was or not in labor, destroyed private property, hurt a four year old child, yelled obscenities through town, abused patrons at a local restaurant and the list goes on. Tianna ended up being arrested after all the destruction and Mayor Heidi Harmon went in to advocate for her release. It is obvious that the current Mayor and leadership do NOT have the best interest of the citizens of San Luis Obispo. I urge you to vote for new leadership and vote for Sweeney and Torres
The local Democrat Party is spreading outright lies about two well-qualified nonpartisan female candidates because their views for running our city are different from theirs. The Democrats constantly complain about Trump being a liar. I never thought the local Democrats would emulate a man they hate so much.
It’s pretty hypocritical that the SLO CDP is accusing Sweeney of moving to SLO to run for office. Their endorsed SLO Council candidate Kelly Evans also very recently moved to SLO to be able to run for office. Interestingly, Evans appeared as a public speaker 35 minutes into the March 17, 2020 SLO city council meeting under the name (pseudonym?) “Kelly Green”. Why she spoke under a fake name is anyone’s guess but sometime afterwards she cut her hair short, dyed it blonde and in a bold move of self-serving cultural appropriation anointed herself the first (heterosexual) “Queer candidate” for city council. I really wish we could have candidates that have actually lived in the county for more than a few years and aren’t pretending to be something they are not to get votes.