Front Page  »  

Kevin Rice withdraws from SLO City Council race

May 14, 2013
Kevin Rice

Kevin Rice

San Luis Obispo Council candidate Kevin Rice announced during his introduction at the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce Candidates Forum that he is stepping down from the race and endorsing Paul Brown.

Rice asked the audience to join himself and council members Dan Carpenter and Kathy Smith in voting for Brown before he left the stage and joined the audience.

Attorney John Spatafore withdrew from the race a week ago, shortly after the Tribune endorsed one of his opponents, Carlyn Christianson. Spatafore said he ended his candidacy because he believed he might splinter the vote.

With Rice and Spatafore no longer in the race to fill the seat vacated by Andrew Carter, there are three remaining candidates: Brown, Christianson and Donald Hedrick.


Loading...
Subjects:             
Related:


31 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

General point to Kevin Rice: You seem to think the folks commenting in here are not actively involed in SLO politics. You are wrong. I am very involved. I’ve been to many council meetings for the last 10 years and had direct involvement in key issues. I bet others who post here have done the same.


MY POINT: You have an arrogance in your attitudes and assumptions about many thing that makes your political aspirations very limited. Like Dan Carpenter who said “I cannot allow that” (the election of Carlyn) you think YOU should control things. That;s why Paul Brown is running as well. He wants control…the wrong reason to run for any office. And the reason why Carlyn will win easily.


0

Sorry to disagree. I indicated to one person who lives in Oceano that I don’t think they follow SLO politics. I don’t see how that indicts you. If you wish to interpret having an opinion as arrogance than that is on you. I might meet you half way on that point, in that every person (including me) can improve their communication skills. But it somewhat appears that partisanship may be influencing your willingness to cede any benefit of doubt to Paul or I. I don’t view Paul that way, and I similarly question Carlyn’s allegiances. Even the Tribune expressed this question as follows:


“Christianson has been endorsed by San Luis Obispo Mayor Jan Marx and Councilman John Ashbaugh, and we recognize that some will see that as a red flag — an indicator that the three will vote in liberal lock-step.”


Let your vote follow your heart. I am voting for Paul Brown.


0

Perhaps you forgot that you suggested to me in several replies that I should “come participate” and attend cc meetings. Not an indictment, of course, by very assumptive.


Anyway, I will vote for the person I think is best qualified to keep our highly-rated city going in the right direction…strong downtown, fiscal soundness, smart growth and quality of life the first priority.


1

That would be Carlyn.


1

It is all ideological and she was lying. Debbie Arnold’s race against Patterson was similarly pure ideology. Anybody who believes in non-partisan local politics is stupid or lying. I like the stupid people better than the liars.


0

Here is the latest theory, and Mr. Rice is welcome to tell us if whether he claims it is true or not:


Rice wants to be elected to the SLO County Board of Superviors and figured that by running for SLO City Council, if it turned out he would likely lose, he would endorse one of the most promising candidates and if that candidate won, that candidate would in turn endorse Rice for Supervisor.


Is this a credible theory? (Brown for his part, is already trying to distance himself from Rice, doing what Ed Waage should have done, and going on record to say he never asked Rice for an endorsement.


Rice is free to tell us whether he is considering running for Supervisor or not. Of course, with his credibility problem, we will have to be skeptical of anything he says. For example, he is already trying, in his weasel way, to make it seem like he didn’t have anything to do with the video circulated that attempted to humiliate a young lady accused of stealing one of his campaign signs during a previous losing political campaign.


Mr. Rice, you are endorsing Paul Brown, but it would be better for all concerned if you took a lesson from him about being straight-forward with voters about problems he’s faced and concerns of voters.


0

LOL!!!!! Gotta hand it to you for imagination, Philo! Good material, man! Please let me know which supe am I supposed to oppose so I can move to the right district.


0

A straight-forward yes or no would suffice.


You already wrote on this very forum that you were NOT “that serious” the last time you ran for City Council. It seems likely you have “run” as a way of getting free publicity and to maintain name recognition among voters and bureaucrats in order to advance other personal agendas.


I think it is a shame that radio host Dave Congalton has offered you plenty of air time as an in-studio guest on his show to promote your city council “campaign” while refusing to grant the more serious candidate Donald Hedrick the same courtesy. I wonder how Congalton now feels about the way you have used him and his show.


0

Despite your constant adversarial needling and mis-statements, I will actually enlighten you with inside knowledge.


It seems you don’t really follow SLO politics. There was no room for a “serious” candidate in November. No one was going to beat the very popular incumbents, Ashbaugh and Carpenter. Aranguena (endorsed by Ashbaugh) was run in attempt to gain Carter’s forthcoming empty seat by appointment.


If you recall, Carter was running mid-term for mayor, and would have vacated his seat (like Marx did) causing an appointment. When Marx vacated her seat, the appointment (Carpenter) was chosen because he was the only stand-out runner-up. Aranguena was looking to be the stand-out runner-up in November to gain an appointment to Carter’s vacated seat. And, in fact, that was the primary argument his supporters used when they tried to foist an unelected Aranguena onto our city council in February:


http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/appoint-jeff-aranguena?source=c.em.mt&r_by=6891237


Aranguena appeared to be a Democrat Central Committee prop. He’d never been to council meetings previously. He barely voted in elections. His personal ballot statement was not even written on his own computer. It was written on the computer of State Dem party executive board member Cory Black. (Cory: Next time erase the Microsoft Word metadata). We’ve all read about Cory Black before. He stacks the deck from the inside and bends campaign rules, even against his own Democratic party:


http://www.newtimesslo.com/news/4491/mailer-riles-dems/

http://calcoastnews.com/2012/10/grover-beach-democrats-blast-party-leader-over-flyer/

http://calcoastnews.com/2011/08/will-the-real-criminal-please-stand-up/

http://www.newtimesslo.com/news/4288/shes-baaack/

http://www.newtimesslo.com/news/2863/coincidence/


An alternative candidate was necessary so those opposed to Aranguena could essentially cast a vote against appointing him. I do wish I would have actually campaigned door to door and distributed literature (I did neither) because I could have equaled or exceeded Aranguena’s 5,775 votes (which would have blown up his supporters’ “runner-up” argument for an appointment).


My participation has helped ensure SLO voters are actually voting for a council member this time around, instead of having one appointed for them. One would think the Democratic club would favor elections, but DCC Chair Pat Harris publicly pushed for an appointment in February while I pressed for an election of the People. The Tribune agreed with me (occasionally they see things correctly), and the council called an election. Yay for us!


Dave Congalton has graciously included me in Home Town Radio because he understands the significance of debating these issues publicly. Your uninformed opinions about advancing personal agendas are simply misguided—-well, I admit my personal agenda was to have a democratic election.


Don Hedrick is a neat guy that is very serious and tries very hard. He puts himself out there in full public view (unlike yourself) and says what he believes. More people should be like Don and participate in local government. Why don’t you?


Hey, I understand this is all fundamentally about your dissension about the dunes. Again, you should come participate and show your face. Why do you choose to attack anonymously and be angry constantly? You can do better, and the rest of us can also, so add to that instead of detracting.


Best wishes.


Kevin

(805) 602-2616


0

I’m not angry. And I don’t see that any good would come from you seeing my face, having my home phone number and address, and knowing my place of employment or names of my family members. Others have allowed you that privilege with their own personal information and you took advantage of that in a most unsavory way.


I think it is a shame that Dave Congalton continually denies council candidate Don Hedrick the opportunity to be an in-studio guest, while allowing you to be a guest and “campaign” for a seat on the council you have no intention of pursuing.


0

I’m sorry, Philo, but you’re completely misguided. If you want to see unsavory, consider your pseudo-anonymous false attacks. Your information is available but I don’t operate in the dark like you are doing. I gave you a long post with lots of information despite your haranguing. If you want to avoid rational discussion you have that right, but expect to be ignored. If you wish credibility and participation, then do it the honest and upstanding way. Have a good day.


0

The public sure has a short memory. Nobody here seems to remember why Brown dropped out of politics the first time around. Allegations of which his ex-wife never backed down from


0

Kevin…do you think Paul Brown thought for one second of resigning so you could win?


0

Galaxy…why on earth would he have thought that? He’s got tons of broad support.


0

Kevin Rice’s withdrawal from the race is the City OF SLO’s loss.


0

And who would you blame for that?


0

SLO will once again get what it deserves….Christianson. Another lackey for Hill and Gibson and a reaffirmation that the elected officials of this town can award giant salaries to whomever they want, pensions to whomever they want and continue to steal money from the poor and homeless. You get what you deserve. You have the combined intelligence of a box of rocks


0

Even a box of rocks knows that Kevin Rice was never a serious candidate. Brown just picked up about 50 votes.


0

Did you ask said rocks what their reply was by shaking your head vigorously?


0

Ask SanSImeonSam that question


0

Well, I received 4,613 votes in November, so it’s probably somewhere between 50 and 4,613. I actually wasn’t that serious in November (considering I asked for no donations and had maybe twelve signs across the entire city). However, the voters needed a second choice alternative to Ashbaugh/Aranguena and I think 4,613 votes demonstrated that was true.


This time around, Mr. Brown is receiving an enormous swath of support, and in the best interests of our city I decided to make way. I will be voting for Paul Brown.


Hope to see you at a city council meeting soon. Come participate!


0

You sure appeared serious in that video you sent to the media showing you or a representative chasing some young lady down the street, yelling at her and accusing her of stealing one of your campaign signs.


Sure, maybe she was stealing, and that’s not right, and if so, you had every right to call her on it. But, typically, you went overboard and purposely humiliated her in the mass media, without even knowing all the relevant facts. It was another display of a lack of graciousness and diplomacy, some might say meanness that didn’t seem to do anyone any good, least of all you.


And I wonder what that video did to the life of that young lady.


0

I didn’t appear in any such video, nor did any representative. And you preach about “knowing all the relevant facts”? You’re not even a SLO voter Philo, and I already withdrew.


0

Ok, so please tell us who it was who chased the girl down the street with a video camera and yelled at her in the voice-over? And who sent the video to the media? Maybe Karen Velie or Dan Blackburn can answer those questions, considering the video was posted on CalCoastNews.


Kevin, are you seriously saying that you had NOTHING to do with that video? Even though it was all about someone allegedly stealing one of your campaign signs? In any case, readers here certainly deserve some sort of explanation from someone involved in the incident.


0

The “sign stealing” video (aka “Sign Heist Steams Rice”) was very obviously filmed directly in front of your Luneta Drive residence. Are you really trying to claim that it was pure coincidence that it was filmed right in front of your house, and neither you nor anyone you know had any part in the creation of that video? Sorry, I don’t think the voters are that naive.


0

Very unfortunate, but as a SLO resident faced with Paul Brown’s 24/7 Mardi Gras no-action-no-party economic model I gotta vote for Christianson. How she is a Hill/Gibson lackey I do not get. But I do get exactly what sort of lackey Brown is.


0

A: She is Hill’s personally appointed county planning commissioner. Vote your conscience.


0

That was a very honorable thing to do Kevin. You would have gotten my vote, not because I always agree with you but because you are a reasonable person who is willing to address things directly. I have yet to see you try to squirm out of anything or use nonsense to make an argument because you have some hidden motive. But now we can be assured that Brown will win and we will not have to suffer another entrenched public “servant” who doesn’t have a clue about the real world.


0

Thanks M!


0

With Rice out of the race my vote will be cast for Brown. No way would I support the Democratic Central Committee controlled trio of Marx/Ashbaugh/Christianson. Doing so would be terribly costly as a taxpayer.


0

I agree. At the Chamber of Commerce lunch meeting on Tuesday Carlyn declared she was not motivated by ideology. I find it amazing that the Democrat Central Committee would endorse such a non-ideological candidate. Was she lying to them or to the attendees at the lunch?


0