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Stop SLO County supervisor’s bullying, Me Too SLO

March 3, 2020

OPINION by KEVIN RICE

Isn’t it time the attacks on women, gays, and others, coming from an elected official, ends? It is a sad day when Progressives who purport to stand with women and the LGBTQ community support a bigoted, homophobic bully.

It’s time you speak up. Everyone. If you have been bullied, intimidated, or threatened, you have a duty to your community to speak out. Did you receive an email or Facebook post or text or personal confrontation? It needs to be mentioned. Even if it’s a one sentence letter to the editor. If not publicly, to District Attorney Dan Dow at ddow@co.slo.ca.us. Do it now. Stand up. #MeTooSLO.

I sit in awe, looking at the campaign mailer sent by the challenger. She looks to me like a strong, accomplished woman. She is saying the exact same things I attempted to bring to voters’ attention. I look at the photograph of her with her partner and read the mailer and think, “This is someone I wish I could vote for.”

Moreover, I think, this is a woman with courage to put herself out there personally that Progressives should support. Instead, Progressives support ridiculing and deriding her as a liar. Hasn’t the #MeToo movement meant anything?

So many women and men have been labeled as liars, sexually derided in the most perverse and vile terms on the basis of sexual orientation, had businesses threatened, and had their deceased friends and children used in horrific depictions. All to terrorize and silence political opposition.

It’s an open secret that has been publicly exposed so many times. Each time, discarded, while labeling women and victims as liars. When confronted by politicians, they are labeled deceitful partisans. I attempted to shine a light with a $95 voice in a $322,000 race.

I apologize to anyone who misunderstood my message or took offense. Most people understood it, while some twisted it for political ends.

Shame on the local mayors, council members, and Progressive leaders who have abandoned their Bernie Sanders “stand for the people” values in exchange for money, power, forcing board votes, and controlling public comment. They now endorse bigotry, and homophobia. Or, is it possible they have been bullied as well?

Shame on the supervisors if they permit this to continue.

Here’s a partial list of those you continue to victimize by staying silent:

A citizen who was sexually shamed on the basis of sexual orientation and told “he enjoys killing puppies after sex.” He moved out of the county, in large part, due to fear.

A news reporter who has been sexually and mentally degraded in numerous awful communiques, whose deceased daughter was labeled “Rosemary’s baby.”

A businesswoman who lost contracts, blackballed for supporting an election candidate.

A former mayor who received homosexual taunts about his sexual orientation.

A mayor who was impersonated in a fear-inducing telephone message left for a constituent.

A news reporter who received homophobic and hateful derisions and insults.

A local celebrity personality taunted over his divorce, maligned with perverse homophobic sexual accusations, and jeered over a deceased friend.

A city patriarch threatened with physical assault, and whose child was publicly derided.

A mayor whose children were threatened, dissuading her from running for office.

A popular mayor who was threatened with a gun, received a threat comparing her political participation to the KKK and told she was being watched. She was later injured in a car accident just as she was challenging criminal corruption, then told it wasn’t an accident.

A wheelchair-bound disabled woman whose microphone was cut off and was escorted by the sheriff out of a public meeting.

A scientist who lost his job after delivering his scientific opinion at a public meeting, spurring a county supervisor to complain to his boss.

A real estate broker, insidiously shamed over his appearance in a public letter to the editor calling him a “bumpkin with bad breath and worse teeth.”

Another woman shamed over her weight in the same public letter.

A homeless non-profit leader threatened with loss of funding after donating to an opponent.

A state senator who was called racist for attending a political event.

A businessman derided as “fear-mongering” when he inserted his voice into a homeless project.

A citizen with a service dog who was told “we (the Board of Supervisors) should sell your dog.”

There are dozens more. Who’s next? Please don’t stay silent. #MeTooSLO


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Rice has not been charged with any crime and is not aware of having committed any crime, nor did he intend to do so. The only charges made are from overzealous candidates or their committees who clearly understood his message – it echoed Stacy’s many messages – and the Shredder’s, except that it was presented verbally. It was misconstrued for their own political advantage.


To those of you scapegoaters casting stones, what have YOU done to protect SLO County from Hill?


3

Kevin… Idk what to think about this, aside from Hill is aweful, and are you really a victim of your own criminal actions as some “robin hood”? If so, there are different ways to approach things without breaking laws to quickly advance an agenda, nothing civil was formed that way.


11

Absolutely correct Oldtimer. Adam Hill is unfortunately a malicious, dysthymic person with an obvious underlying Axis 2 disorder, however, this is a constant. We all know this about him.


An equal problem, or perhaps even bigger, is the unfortunate response and actions from people like Kevin Rice. You lose ALL credibility when your method of trying to deal with difficult problems is extremely poorly chosen and only serves to reveal your own underlying negative personality traits/issues. This dynamic of bad action followed by equally bad reaction from the other side is exactly why the political system in this country has devolved and is basically rotten at this point.


The citizens of SLO county deserve far, far better from BOTH sides.


12

All the negative, disgusting characterizations of Adam Hill are accurate. Unfortunately Kevin, this does NOT absolve you from your negative traits. You are a huge part of the problem. Your recent ill-advised stunt reflects this. You should go away. Someone far more rationale, and certainly more intelligent and stable than you needs to deliver the message.


25

I tend to disagree with that assessment. Mr Rice brought attention to Mr Hill’s awful behavior in a provocative way. More provocative than you or I would have done? Yes probably. But don’t go down the road that he is part of the problem in reacting to this awful behavior. He’s doing a service, drawing attention to the awful behavior in a way that is clearly more effective than past attempts. After all, it looks as though Mr Hill is going to go down to defeat. I can’t help but think not a few voters were swayed from Mr Rice’s activities.


0

TKG was one of Hill’s victims according to this New Times article: http://bit.ly/2TkoWoH


“Hill responded to the article in a Facebook comment, characterizing the multiple opinion articles Gurnee had written over the years as “Valentines” and “dozens of obsessive ‘I want you’s.'”


“[Gurnee] has a bad crush on me and no matter how many times I tell him he’s not my type and that he should maybe try Grindr,” Hill wrote, referencing a popular gay dating app.


After reading the comment, Gurnee, who is heterosexual and married, fired back at Hill via email Nov. 9, calling Hill’s language “disgusting” and “delusional.”


“I do not take your comments as bashing me, they’re bashing gays and that’s a shame,” wrote Gurnee, who does not live in Hill’s district. “How can you stoop so low as an elected public official to throw such offal?”


In his response, which was sent from his SLO County email address, Hill referred to Gurnee as a “little minx” and suggested Gurnee “look for love in the right places.”


“I tried to let you down easy but you crave something that I won’t and can’t give you,” Hill wrote.”


ADAM HILL IS GROSS.


34

Sorry Mr. Rice—your plea is too little too late. My guess is Hill wins by at least 10 points. I mean, Bernie Sanders will carry the state. What did you expect? Beloved Cali has become a left-wing bastion. You might like it better in Mississippi or Alabama (they both have beaches), but even those states are morphing as more of those hated immigrants move in. Face it Kevin, pasty white guys like you and me are on the decline when it comes to political power.


-17

Those who have been bullied should post their stories here.


I don’t even know Adam Hill but he sent me messages through Facebook messenger in an attempt to intimidate and bully me when he thought I was friends with one of his “enemies”. He said terrible, disparaging things about the person.


Adam Hill is scary.


42