When in doubt, just let go

October 2, 2010

Photo by Dennis Eamon Young

OPINION by SUSAN MULLEN

Whether it’s your family or town, knowing your history helps you to understand where you came from, what you are made of, and how not to make the same mistakes over and over again. You make a better future when you learn from the past.

So I’d like to share a little history in hopes of doing just that. I’ve lived in Morro Bay since 1981. I got involved in politics in 1989 because of a giant shopping center proposal that was all wrong for Morro Bay. The hillside to the east of Highway 1 at the entrance to our beautiful city has always been used for cattle grazing and sold through the years from family to family while zoned agricultural. The current owners, Tri-W Inc. led by members of the Williams family, tried two times to rezone part of the 177 acres within the city for commercial and visitor serving uses through a ballot initiative in the 1980s. They won on the second try.

However, when the plans came to light to reveal a 32 acre shopping center, larger than the entire downtown of Morro Bay,that would cut a massive hole in the hillside requiring tons of earth to be removed, I got involved in city politics.

In 1990, Measure H was born to rezone that 32 acres back to 13 gross acres of commercial only use and return the balance to agricultural. Ben Luna led the fight along with a great group of volunteers. In the summer of 1990, we both ran for city council. In November we won and Measure H won. We also campaigned for Rose Marie Sheetz for Mayor and she won. We now had a three person majority to fight the shopping center.

This was my first lesson in politics – be careful whom you help because they may just use you to win and then turn their backs on you. This is exactly what Rose Marie did to Ben and me. She changed her position on the shopping center once elected and Ben and I had to fight to get measure H enacted into city law. We fought for two years through the city process, the courts, and the Coastal Commission. It was a long and hard battle and after two years we still hadn’t secured what Measure H had promised. At the same time this was going on, we were also being sued personally by the developer in what is known as a SLAPP  (Strategic Lawsuit against Political Participation) suit in federal court in Los Angeles. Our personal time and resources were being exhausted on purpose in hopes that we would give up – but we didn’t.

So in the spring of 1992, with too much on my plate to even think about running for Mayor, I met Bill Yates and suggested he run for Mayor after hearing his support for me and Ben and his liberal political beliefs. I promised to help him and I did. He was elected and the night he was sworn in, we voted to rescind all actions of the previous council and effectively killed the out-of-scale 32 acre Tri-W project. That was the beginning of a two year friendship.

With the shopping center battle over and the SLAPP suit thrown out of court, I now had time to work on more pressing city issues. I thought Bill was a good mayor and we were a good council. If you look back at that two year period between 1992 and 1994, you would see the Vision 2000 statement, a reworking of the zoning rules, low interest loans for business signage, roads being paved, high schools students having a day as the council and city staff, a water management plan, balanced city budgets and new twin bridges among the many accomplishments.

None of this was done by one person alone, but by all of us working together. One very important action was to direct staff to give us options and pros and cons – not direction so that we directed staff – they did not direct us. We increased methods of communication to the citizens – especially around the harbor plan and had many meetings discussing how to set goals and have more people in the city participate in their local government. There were a lot of 5-0 votes. On a personal level, I had many lunches with Bill and dinners and parties at his home and got to know his family too. I thought we had become good friends. I even agreed to jump parties and support him as a Republican if he ran for assembly.  That’s how much I liked him.

But history repeated itself again in 1994. I was ready to run for Mayor but knew I would not run against Bill. I don’t run against my friends. So when he came to me in early 1994 and made it very clear he would not run again no matter what, I took him on his word and started a campaign for Mayor. Bill told me he was not spending enough time with his family and the city work was just too much. He told me he would endorse me for Mayor and was happy that I was running. I believed him. My term on council ended that year so my political career would be over if I didn’t win. I was sure I would win with Bill’s support.

My campaign started early. I raised money, bought signs, printed brochures, and did all the things one does to start a campaign. I was happy and excited and looking forward to a summer of campaigning. All that changed on the last day to file for office, when Bill called to tell me he had changed his mind and was going to run again for Mayor.

I knew I couldn’t beat him and my political career was over for now. I limped through that election like a wounded soldier. I did the best I could knowing it would not be enough. What hurt the most was finding out that he set me up and had been planning to run all along. And that everything he had told me to get me to run for Mayor was a lie. He had done it on purpose.

At this point you might say that this is all about sour grapes and losing but it far from that. It’s not easy baring one’s soul to a city after all these years. It would be much easier to be quiet. But history is important and this story needs to be told. And I know Bill will respond by saying he had too many people asking him to run again but don’t be fooled. I have had too many people confirm the setup to believe anything different.

So this story is about a friend betraying your trust. It’s about how politics has become a bait and switch game where someone will tell you they will do something only to make a complete change once elected. It’s about the loss of a friendship that can never be healed. It is also a warning to watch out for Bill because he apparently does not have a core that guides him, only an overwhelming desire to win at all costs.

I write this because I believe this goes right to his character. How can anyone trust Bill,if he can so easily betray a friend? Who will he betray next?  I believe it will be you, the voters. Will he do what he says he will do? What agenda does he really have and what plans does he really have in mind if elected.

Obviously, I’m not going to vote for Bill Yates for mayor and if you are thinking about voting for Bill, I say you should have second thoughts about this decision. I don’t trust what he says and neither should you. The city is in too bad a financial condition to have someone at the helm that you just can’t trust.

Susan Mullen is a Morro Bay resident and a former Morro Bay city councilwoman.


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Bravo, Sue Mullen!


You and Ben Luna were GREAT on the MB City Council.


I worked with Ben at the CCC, where he was a favorite crew supervisor with boundless energy and stamina. I have never forgotten what you and Ben went through with the SLAPP suit, with hundreds of requests for documents and everything else you had to endure at the hands of the Williams’ lawyers as they invaded your personal lives and tried to wear you down. Ben told me they offered to buy him a house if he would turn. He didn’t, but apparently Bill Yates was turned, somehow.


Politics does not have to be dirty. Jan Marx is running a clean campaign, not making any issue of the police problems Paul Brown caused over the years with his bar or the restraining order his wife filed for abuse, though she was one of the founders of the Women’s Shelter. It’s one of the many reasons I’m voting for Jan.


People who think it’s OK that politicians like Bill Yates are corrupt are the reason these corrupt politicians keep winning.


Scumbag….

Scoundrel !!!


Betty Winholtz: “I don’t have a clue.”


Spoken at Tuesday’s candidate forum when asked about her most significant accomplishment after eight years on the city council.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvGnh1OzofY


You don’t have a clue and we know your MO, and all your assumed names.


What Susan says here is true. Yates snookered her into a head-to-head race and she got booted out. But it wasn’t just Yates, the overwhelming majority of the business people in MB wanted her and Luna and the whole Advocates for a Better Community (ABC) out of power.

Many business people thought the laws they were passing and pushing were too restrictive and harmed people’s ability to do business (ex. the parking in-lieu fee ordinance).

Yates’ back-stab of Mullen set up a new majority that was more pro business and led to the eventual overturn of most of what Luna and Mullen did, but it took several years. That same pro-business majority has been in power (though with different faces) ever since.

I do credit those two with giving the citizens a conscience and a better appreciation of the natural world around them. They played a large role in making everyone more eco-conscious and eco-friendly.

They also pushed through the Albertson’s shopping center, which I have to say is in a much more appropriate location than across the highway on the Tri-W lands would have been.

However, Susan and the ABC’ers were also responsible for killing the Williams Family’s plans to develop a resort on the Tri-W property, that would have included a 27-hole championship golf course, 200-room motel, 600-seat conference center and an outdoor amphitheater for big time concerts and shows. Had they been allowed to move forward with that plan, Morro Bay might not have so big of a controversy now with a proposed conference center sandwiched in on the Embarcadero.

That same group of folks, calling themselves Coastal Alliance on Plant Expansion (CAPE), fought and eventually killed Duke Energy’s plans to replace the Morro Bay Power Plant.

That little battle cost this city $2 million a year guaranteed in lease payments from Duke, but such is life.


I believe saying Susan Mullen gave the citizens a conscience might say more about yourself than the citizens.


Paperboy, You make it sound like the people didn’t want Mullen but if that is true then they could have voted her out of her council seat. Obviously this was a set up by a small group of developers that didn’t want to take a chance of seeing her re-elected and they obviously believed that she would have been unless they could cause her to run up against a wall . What Bill Yates did was dirty. I would never vote for him knowing that he is such a manipulator.


YATES, YOU’RE A DIRTY DOG. All the woman should stick together and vote him out.


AGREE !!!


Where’s the liberal tolerance in this article? Liberals like to talk about tolerance, but it must be for other people only. Golly, another bitter progressive, how unusual.


Sounds like someone needs to build a bridge – and get over it. The picture looks like The Joker with bedhead.