Imagine being locked out of voting for a supervisor for eight years thanks to redistricting—I’m looking at you, Morro Bay and Los Osos—and when you finally get the chance to vote for a representative, your two candidates for District 2 seem to have confusing platforms.
Cayucos resident Jim Dantona is running as a Democrat but was the former president and CEO of the pro-business SLO Chamber of Commerce and took the maximum $5,900 donation from Patrick Arnold, a broker at Covelop Inc., a SLO-based developer. Kind of conservativey, right?
He also took $5,000 from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ political action committee. Union good, PAC bad. Head spinning. Oh, and Dantona’s mommy, Bonnie Galvin, gave him $5,900. Thanks, mom!
He’s also endorsed by a lot of top Dems including Congressmen Salud Carbajal and Jimmy Panetta and Assemblywoman Dawn Addis. In addition, Dantona is chief of staff for Bruce Gibson, the retiring 2nd District supe, and Dantona is Gibson’s handpicked successor. Now, he seems Democraty again. He’s also against offshore oil drilling, but for offshore wind as long as it’s in the “right places” with “safeguards.” And he’s doing a $35 “friend-raiser” on May 7, in Baywood’s Merrimaker with a taco truck.
“Join Jim DanTACO (oops, Dantona) and help turn ‘crunch time’ into ‘munch time,’” organizers quipped.
Pun-tastic. Barf. And wait! Aren’t we making fun of tRump for being a TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out)? So confusing!
Then we have Michael Erin Woody, a Morro Bay civil engineer who sits on the Salinan Tribal Council of SLO and Monterey Counties, whose campaign platform focuses on environmental issues and government transparency. Sounds very liberal, right? He’s currently running without political party affiliation.
But he ran as a Republican against Salud Carbajal in 2018, and was quoted in the Santa Barbara Independent, saying, “I consider myself the real Republican in all this” and “I don’t believe in man-made climate change.” Really? Then why not drill, baby, drill? He also pooh-poohed the idea of a “sanctuary state.” Suck it, illegals! Sounds downright Trumpian!
OK, but wait a minute. The article was eight years ago. People are allowed to change their minds, so maybe Woody has? Now the Dantona campaign is being accused of going low with its flyer titled “What are Michael Erin Woody’s real values?” It goes on to claim he “wants local law enforcement to work with ICE,” “wants to put guns in classrooms and arm teachers,” and “supports more drilling.”
None of that appears to be true of Woody’s current platform, so Dantona may be engaging in disinformation and smear tactics by cherry-picking and loosely interpreting past statements.
Unlike DanTACO, Woody doesn’t accept donations from corporations, unions, or PACs, and eschews the legal $5,900 campaign donation limit, refusing to accept more than $500 per individual, which sounds very AOC-style liberal.
Come on! What in the actual fuck? Who are you guys? What’s a party line-toer to do when the line is so squiggly? I hope between now and the election, voters will get a clearer picture of these candidates and what they believe in, because believe it or not, what the SLO County Board of Supervisors does has consequences.
Take, for instance, the residents of Nipomo’s Buena Vista Mobile Home park, whose operator, Stockton-based Buena Vista Mobile Home Park LLC, has twice tried to raise tenants’ rent. The first attempt in 2024 was denied citing Title 25, a 1984 voter-approved rent stabilization ordinance that allows park owners to increase rent by only 60 percent of CPI (consumer price index) per year.
The Buena Vista operator claimed the park was unprofitable and requested raising the rent by $99.53 per month per space—a 22.2 percent increase. However, its own financial records show a net operating income increase. Hence, the rent increase was denied, and the BOS affirmed the denial for a second time.
As Buena Vista resident Jose Vidales wrote in protest of the increase, between his shrinking income and cost of living increases tied to “recent global events,” he couldn’t absorb the rent increasing, adding, “Many of my neighbors depend on fixed income, such as retirement or disability benefits, which do not adjust in step with rising housing costs. In this context, the current rent level becomes increasingly unsustainable.”
Real decisions affecting real people. Electing a supervisor who represents Central Coast values is essential.
Another issue the BOS will deal with is the county’s public nuisance complaint filed against Thomas Brooks and his 9-acre property near Atascadero. Brooks inherited the property from his grandmother, who died in 2023, but according to neighbor complaints, the problems of excessive derelict vehicles and junk began years earlier when Brooks moved there.
Brooks was ordered to clean it up, but little has been done, and Code Enforcement Supervisor Cynthia Alm noted Brooks’ aggressive behavior during an attempted inspection and wrote that law enforcement should accompany any future inspections.
The only residence on the property burned down in March 2025, and the county condemned it, but apparently Brooks and others are still living on the property in tents and among the ruins. This is the sort of weird shit the BOS deals with—and let’s not forget about our stressed-out groundwater basins. Choose wisely. ∆
The Shredder is confused. Straighten it out at shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Best of SLO County 2026.
“apparently Brooks and others are still living on the property in tents and among the ruins. This is the sort of weird shit the BOS deals with”
As someone raised in a converted school bus on 10 acres of land in Oregon in the early 70s by my late hippy parents, I take exception to anything “weird” about not choosing to live in a toxic, stucco, tract house in suburbia. As would members of my late parent’s generation. Maybe Mr. Brooks is just getting “back to the land,” right?
Fly: I recall a lot of criticism from you directed at your parents, and Boomers generally, for your unconventional and often difficult childhood. The idealized “Leave it to Beaver” childhood in suburban tract housing was a lot easier, even though we both ended up ranting here in the New Times.