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AWOL Hill meets with Ray

July 24, 2013

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By JOSH FRIEDMAN

San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Adam Hill, who caused the cancellation of an Air Pollution Control District board meeting Wednesday by saying he could not attend, was spotted appearing incognito at a San Luis Obispo coffee shop with a political friend while the meeting would have been occurring.

Around 11 a.m. Wednesday, Hill was spotted at Blackhorse coffee shop on South Broad Street with Caren Ray, an Arroyo Grande councilwoman and candidate to replace Teixeira on both the Board of Supervisors and APCD board. Hill was wearing a black t-shirt, black pants and a black cap that said “Hill” on the back.

Hill and Gibson are currently trying to regain the majority on the Board of Supervisors and the APCD board. If Governor Jerry Brown appoints Ray to replace Teixeira, she would most likely join Hill and Gibson to form a majority voting block on the Board of Supervisors.

Likewise, if Ray receives the appointment and the Grover Beach City Council votes to remove Mayor Debbie Peterson from the APCD board, Hill and Gibson will have reclaimed the APCD board majority.

 

Adam Hill meeting with Caren Ray while APCD meeting would have occurred

Adam Hill meeting with Caren Ray while APCD meeting would have occurred

Hill chastised Peterson at the last APCD meeting for asking questions of air district staff and said at a Grover Beach council meeting earlier this month that Peterson created a huge distraction by asking her fellow council members to reevaluate the controversial APCD dust rule.

Hill and Supervisor Bruce Gibson both chose earlier in the week not to attend the APCD meeting Wednesday, causing the 12-member board to lose its seven-person quorum needed to hold a meeting. Hill and Gibson likely would have fallen in the minority on key votes if they attended Wednesday because the majority of the board members planning to attend opposed the two supervisors on major regulatory issues.

Prior to this week, three APCD board members, who usually vote with Hill and Gibson, announced that they would miss the meeting. Supervisor Paul Teixeira, another member of the board, died last month, leaving the expected total of board members at Wednesday’s meeting at eight.

If either Gibson or Hill chose to attend, the meeting would have occurred. However, they both skipped, leaving only six members planning to attend the meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday.

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Look how many people are willing to explain this away…these kinds of high school student board tactics are wrong. I guess we are so greased up by crooked national politicians that many of us seem to think this is ok. Well it’s not. If there is a vote scheduled it should be taken. Just because you think you will lose the vote does not mean you can skip the vote and go have coffee. Hill and Gibson’s political tactics mirror the tactics of Pelosi and Reid. Fish rots from the head. I guess this is what I expected from these two anyway. Not surprised. If you will cheat on something as important as your marriage vows I guess it’s par for the course that you will cheat on other things.


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You are way off base. What would have been wrong is to allow a vote to be ramrodded through the board when key people on the board were on vacation and could not participate. Kevin Rice was hoping to make that dirty deed happen but didn’t count on Hill sitting out in order to scuttle the voting. What was wrong was not canceling the meeting when it was known long beforehand that Smukler, and Marx couldn’t make the meeting.


All this was was typical political gamesmanship and in this case Rice was outmaneuvered and is trying his best, with the help of his mindless pawns and tools, to turn this into a sheeeit storm and leverage it for his own selfish purposes.


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A little perspective and accuracy in reporting is in order.


The photo was sometime after 11. The APCD meeting, had it occurred, is scheduled for 9:00.


The APCD was able to cancel the meeting a day in advance, not last minute.


The reasons for the two supervisors missing is unknown. Political, possibly, unanticipated emergency, maybe, family issue, maybe.


The people discussed as the “minority” are being played as the villain because it is true, they would have been the minority with the other known available members. That did not make them the minority on the board of in the opinion of the people served. Every one of the non attending members would have most likely voted on the same side. This includes Paul, who you all forget had previously voted in favor or the regulation.

So, hoping to take advantage of of the death of one man and the summer schedules of others in an attempt to change the course of things without a full board is a questionable tactic at best. A tactic that certainly does not give on the ethical high ground in this discussion.


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Thank you! Absolutely! All readers “on the fence” about this issue should read your comment and realize how Kevin Rice and a few others so unfairly try to mislead people on issues like this, continually trying to make mountains of controversy and ill-will out of molehills of procedure and political strategy.


Canceling that meeting was the smart an fair thing to do. Rice is upset an raising heck because it foiled his scheme to railroad through a vote he hope to bend to the benefit of his own selfish interests, regardless of its fairness.


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