Tribune’s bias undeniable in SLO County supervisor race

October 24, 2022

By ERIK GORHAM

The Tribune’s latest editorial over the San Luis Obispo County District 2 race reads like a Bruce Gibson campaign flyer and not like an unbiased examination of the candidates. I wholly disagree with the editorial team’s conjectures.

For full disclosure, I am a member of the Bruce Jones for District 2 supervisor team and want to correct the record. When the head of the Republican Party compared Dr. Bruce Jones to Supervisor Debbie Arnold, he was referring to Dr. Jones’ integrity, intelligence, consideration for the needs of the public and congeniality.

Instead of noting what was said on a radio show, the Tribune editorial parrots Gibson’s campaign claiming that the comparison to Arnold makes Dr. Jones a Trumper and an election denier, both are untrue.

Continuing on with the inaccurate conjectures, the Tribune editorial board determined that Dr. Jones is on the wrong side of climate action because he wants to keep Diablo Canyon power plant open and has concerns with floating windmills off Morro Bay. Dr. Jones wants to keep Diablo Canyon open because it produces energy without releasing carbon.

Other than Gibson, almost every Democratic official in California supports keeping Diablo open to ensure a reliable energy source.

For more than a decade, Gibson and Hill pushed a 10-year plan to stop homelessness with a focus on case management. Gibson and Hill repeatedly voted to provide the nonprofit managing the program and the local shelter, who Hill’s girlfriend and then wife worked for, tens of millions of dollars. This was a time the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provided the county homeless services funding, was promoting a housing first program that had much greater results.

Also during this time, SLO County had the second highest number of unhoused people per population in the country, demonstrating Hill and Gibson’s program did not work. Currently, SLO County is ranked third highest for the number of unhoused people.

As part of his campaign, Gibson has bragged about his success with homelessness. Dr. Jones pointed out the failures of the 10-year-plan and the Tribune editorial board wrote that Gibson was an alternate when he signed the 10-year-plan and was not responsible for the issues, which we believe is inaccurate as Gibson promoted and voted to fund it for a decade.

The misinformation is the reason multiple Republicans refuse to interview with the Tribune, you twist everything around as is manifested in your editorial.