Short answer: Yes.
In Mendocino County, we’ve come to expect empty rhetoric from political candidates, from school boards to Congress. The would-be leadership talks about goals and visions and we-shoulds and we-musts and we-need-tos — totally on rhetorical auto-pilot, and always going way out of their way not to offend anybody or provide specifics.
For example, when Fort Bragg planner/dispensary owner Paula Dieter ran against incumbent Kendall Smith for Fourth District Supervisor in 2008, Ms. Dieter refused to bring up Smith's travel chiseling, even though by then Smith's thefts had been well-documented by several Grand Juries and her transparently false excuses thoroughly debunked.
We suggested to Ms. Dieter — who would have made a fine Supervisor; we’d seen her excellent work as a coast planner — that she had nothing to lose by bringing it up because she was behind in the unofficial polls. (Natch, the local Democratic Party apparatus supported Smith.) Dieter agreed sort of, but thought that bringing up Smith’s bogus travel claims might offend more voters than it would attract. It was certainly easy to imagine Smith's supporters whining about Dieter being “negative” and “divisive,” the inevitable, catch-all pejoratives Mendo Feeb applies to any opinion they don't approve of.
Another Example: When (now judge) Keith Faulder was running against the seriously underqualified Meredith Lintott for DA back in 2007, Faulder circulated a chart comparing his substantial experience to Lintott’s lack of it in almost every category. (The main one being Lintott’s lack of criminal law experience.) Lintott immediately accused Faulder of being a borderline anti-woman misogynist, saying, ridiculously, that Faulder wouldn’t have put out such a comparison chart if Lintott were a man. (Of course Faulder would have.) It worked, the local women’s bloc (including a large contingent of fellow-travelers) voted against Faulder and Lintott won, presaging an four years of incompetence at the top of the DA’s office until David Eyster ousted Lintott in 2010. By then Lintott’s inexperience and incompetence was so obvious that Eyster didn’t need a comparison chart.
So, Mendo elections generally occur on about the same intellectual level as those you remember from 6th grade, or maybe lower (with the noteworthy exception, of course, of the late John Pinches). You’ll never hear a Supervisor candidate these days discuss actual government operations or management, budget priorities, visits to department worksites, Brown Act non-compliance, etc., much less lists of actual documented blunders by the Board or the incumbent (if the candidate is not the incumbent).
The standard highly orchestrated, anodyne Q&A sessions and candidate forums always avoid specific or uncomfortable questions or specific answers. Questions are usually open-ended or generic sure to produce the comforting vacuities everyone involved expects with follow-up or back&forth prohibited.
Back in 2023 even well-informed candidates like Adam Gaska and the outspoken Carrie Shattuck hesitated to complain about Glenn McGourty’s poor record or Madeline Cline’s wine-industry campaign funding and sponsorship. Cline kept her opinions mostly to herself and outspent and out-advertised her opponents and won easily.
You’ll never hear questions like, “How many planning commission meetings have you attended and which decisions did you disagree with?” or, “Have you reviewed the County’s management reporting or lack thereof and, if so, how would you improve it?” or, “Have you read the budget book? What do you think of it?” or “Which recent decisions by the Board did you disagree with and why?”, or, most important, “What specifically do you want to accomplish if you are elected?”
Incumbents have an inherent advantage in these kinds of rhetorical settings because they’ve attended more Board and committee meetings than their opponent (often local candidates pop up having never attended a Board meeting or commented on a local issue), so the incumbent can filibuster with generic bureaucratese and sound like they’re in the know. The political bar is pretty low for Mendo candidates.
Most Supes candidates say nothing to distinguish them from their opponents. I'd contribute to and campaign for anyone who said, “Nobody knows what the hell to do. There's a hole in America's soul that causes millions of US to zone ourselves out…” Etc.
Which brings us to the usual empty rhetoric of recent Fifth District Supervisor candidate, Kevin Evans of Gualala, chair of the GMAC, the Gualala Municipal Advisory Committee. Evans is using the same kind of inoffensive, bland rhetoric as Buffy Bourassa, candidate for Third District Supervisor which we complained about a couple of weeks ago: https://theava.com/archives/280026
The difference is that Bourassa is running for the empty seat being vacated by lame duck Supervisor John Haschak. So it looks like she’ll probably skate into the position without needing to say anything substantive, But Evans is running against glib incumbent Ted Williams who gets a pass from his ill-informed Coast constituents who care mostly about the ocean and their tourism revenue and seldom express interest in county affairs or discontent with his poor performance.
The Anchor Bay candidate moved to the South Coast in 2016 after a career in various Parks and Recreation jobs in Southern California. He says he’s “running to be a steady, reliable voice for the 5th District. Protecting the environment, keeping our roads safe, supporting affordable housing, and making sure local voices are heard should always come first.” … “My slogan is Voice for the People, Vision for the Future.” … “There are many other issues that need to be addressed on the South Coast. I would be honored to be your voice on the Board of Supervisors.”
Mr. Evans doesn’t offer much in the way of the “other issues” he’s talking about “on the south coast” and doesn’t mention the County at all.
According to his candidate website (www.vote4evans.org) Mr. Evans has a “Track Record Of Success: Effective Governance, Professionally & Locally:
- Helped Restore Bower Park [The County did the restoration, not Mr. Evans. His “help” was limited to cheerleading while on the Gualala Municipal Advisory Board.]
- Secured Federal Grant to Rebuild Gualala’s Community Center. [Others were involved; this was not a one-person project.]
- Moved Gualala Streetscape Project Forward. [The Gualala Streetscape Project has been “moving forward” for decades now.]
- Brought Resident Deputy to South Coast. [Sheriff Kendall brought the deputy to the South Coast; Mr. Evans probably was one of many South Coast people who urged and supported the move. Claiming to have done it by himself without even mentioning the Sheriff is a bad sign.]
- Helped Achieve Recognition of Gualala as Census-Designated Place. [“Helped” is a nebulous claim. And achieving “Census-Designated Place” status is not much to crow about.]
Obviously, none of this qualifies as “governance” by any stretch of the imagination. None of it has anything to do with Mendocino County. And it provides nothing as Supervisorial candidate material goes. In other words, Mr. Evans has written his own Whereases in advance, before he’s even been on the ballot — a perfect Mendo candidate.
Mr. Evans seems stuck to his position-free campaign and, based on his lack of name recognition, lack of county experience, laid-back nice-guy style, and general non-incumbency, his vanity candidacy has no perceptible chance of beating incumbent Ted Williams since most of Williams Fifth District constituents are blithely unaware of Williams’ many failings as a Supervisor.
We have covered plenty of Supervisor Williams’ blunders, failures and missteps over his two terms, all of them well-documented and based on the public record, all of which would make good campaign fodder if Evans was a serious candidate, or even if he wanted to make a run to highlight some issues important to him. But so far he’s said very little. When he appeared at the Anderson Valley Community Services Board meeting last month and was asked if he wanted to address the Board, he just whispered, “I’m here to listen.”
And so, year after year, election after election, Mendo attracts inexperienced candidates without the spine to criticize their opponents or their opponent’s record, and the Good Ship Mendo sails obliviously on, aimless, rudderless, captainless, clueless — into the storm.
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