Opinion Piece By Linda Sutter – November 28, 2021

Back in the days when I worked as a Correctional Officer, I can remember getting a new job that required counting the inmates throughout the night. It is a rule that inmates’ windows and cell doors be free from covering because you must be able to see a live breathing person throughout the night during counts. However, that seemed to be more difficult than one expected.

The first night on the job I submitted 128 informational chronos of non compliance. The informational chrono is sort of like a warning and the beginning of a paper trail of noncompliance. The second night on the job I submitted approximately 90 rules violations (115’s). Needless to say my boss wasn’t happy and I was told, “why do you care?” years later that statement would bite a lot of someone’s in the bottom when it took 3 days to find out there was a dead guy in one of the cells. It’s called complacency.

Which brings me to today. When I drive to town I drive past our South Beaches. When I see loads of garbage and debri, old beat up campers parked at the old BeachCombers restaurant. I Care. Now I know the Sheriff’s department is working nightly to move people along and enforce the ordinance, however, before that was done how many times did I have to get in front of our Board of Supervisors before anyone would listen and take action? Not only did I go the extra mile in getting something achieved, but my writing an article or two resulted in two women who own an RV video taping my house, wishing I was dead, exploiting my address on youtube, and getting my dog poisoned. But, I care.

We have a school district that has been out of compliance for 3 years, that attempts to make the public follow the rules and laws, but ignores the fact that they were out of compliance, and snubs their noses at the public for bringing the attention to their non compliance, and refuses to abide by California Public Request for Information Act, has paid three times for the HVAC system at DNHS, and could care less that public money was misused and mismanaged. But Who Cares? I care.

I care so much that I spend my own money to print out documents, I spend over 40 hours a week researching and writing instead of enjoying my retirement or this past Thanksgiving.

The County attempted to use $70,000 of taxpayers money to pay a debt to the United States Department of Commerce for a debt that was created by extremely poor management. But, Who Cares? I do. Again, another project that requires time, money, for research and writing. Another example of complacency.

The Harbor, at the most recent meeting that I attended, it appeared there was another financial mess to contend with. So now I requested all bank statements in the last three years, along with credit card statements to find out who did what and where money went. But who cares? I do.

Honestly, I wish I could be like the people who said, “you need to stop caring.” Some of our Supervisors don’t care, they don’t even bother reading the documents that go with the agenda items. Some of them don’t bother researching negative impacts of their decisions, or the pros and cons.

The school board definitely does not do their homework because if they did they would have caught the project they paid for three times. That alone should raise their eyebrows and request a financial crisis management assistant team to conduct an audit. But that will never happen.

The Harbor, it has finally come out that there indeed are financial issues. Now they want to blame the former secretary for their financial downfalls, but, um, after visiting the court records, I don’t think so. That is why the request. Again, complacency.

These are our elected. They won a contest on popularity and who could blow the most smoke, and not on merit. At this point I am tired. I am tired of making changes instead of my elected. I am tired of doing their work and I am tired of them not caring.

The saddest issue of all, is the fact that our town, our community demonstrates how people who are elected don’t care. They don’t care about how they spend taxpayers money. They don’t care that our beaches are destroyed and trashed. They don’t care about economic blight for the last 20 years. They don’t care that this community could be more than it is. Why don’t they care? Complacency. They got your vote, and are too prestigious to do their work.