Commentary by Samuel Strait – October 17, 2022 With a bit more than three weeks before the November 8th mid term election, candidates and various measures on the ballot are making their final pitch to the public in order to garner the necessary votes to be successful. Mailboxes stuffed with flyers, candidate forums, debates, and all the typical political fluff will be in your face for the next twenty three days and counting. Of course that has hardly become significant if by now most that intend to vote haven't already zeroed in on the candidates that seem to be able to check all their boxes and the propositions and measures which appear to satisfy even the most jaded political junky. There is; however, a tiny fraction of the electorate, who will cast a ballot that for some reason needs to be assured that their vote is the "right one". Far be it for me to delve into the minds of the hesitant, but this Country as a whole is going through some pretty rough times, divisive narratives, and dysfunction activities without end. As much as it would be interesting to sort through all the chaos, one thing that appears foremost on most thinking minds is the state of rising costs in order to live a successful life. Granted there are those that seem to be doing especially well in this scenario where inflation doesn't appear on their radar as a serious issue and save their angst for the more esoteric of issues that are hardly a blip on the radar of most Americans. Suffice it to say that I was not all that surprised when I learned that not all the prospective candidates were present at True North's candidate forum for District's Four and Five. Being a progressive organization above all others in Del Norte County, the issues that appeared before the three candidates to discuss were not all that urgent, nor likely to be compelling issues for most voters. Homelessness, the Sheriff's department (the jail in particular), and Climate Change were the topics placed before the candidates. No mention of inflation, high taxes, or the lack of a sustainable economy, which just might be upper most on most voter's minds. But hey, a growing local government will make it all better. Homelessness is a crisis in California and has been for years. The efforts in California and locally of "housing first" have been ineffective and address an almost insignificant part of that population as the problem worsens. There are so many different aspects of homelessness that a one size fits all central government will never be able to solve all of its components. To ask a candidate what are his or her intentions on addressing this particular problem for this area are so utterly useless no mater what form the response that comes from their lips is, there hasn't been a successful solution to homelessness since humans first walked the planet. This is a clear disservice to the public because there is no right answer, only "popular" ones, which give no insight as to whether or not a candidate is a suitable elected official. We merely get to hear "word salad" about how they are aware of the problem, give canned answers, and virtue signal about how they intend to "do something". No disrespect to the candidates, but this is truly a stupid topic for a forum when other issues are of far greater importance to the individual needs of the voters. The Sheriff's department was up next, and the deplorable state of the local jail. This as stated, following remarks of Mike Tompkins, another of True North's brilliant progressive minds, is an issue that most in the community, being generally not on the "wrong side of the law", have only the working relationship with the sheriff in the form of when a crime is committed against them. They generally have no knowledge of the condition of the jail as they haven't been a resident of a jail cell. Sure, we all should be supporting the sheriff, and wish for the best for his department, but again it hardly rises to the level of a day to day problem for most that live in the County. So, to use a phrase, "Where's the beef?" Never fear, True North has the penultimate issue on tap. Climate Change, really? Of all the topics discussed, this was likely the most useless for voters to gauge the worth of a particular candidate. Local supervisors can only do what they can do. Affecting the Climate in any substantive way at the local level is like tilting at proverbial windmills. Oh, I forgot, Chris Howard, Darrin Short, Blake Inscore, Brian Stone, and Wes White wish to resurrect the Tri Agency in order to bring off shore wind power to this County. Maybe there is an opportunity there. Seems the Climate Change Religion has taken a front row seat for those at least that can afford to live comfortably. All in all, the candidate forum by True North was a complete and utter waste of time. No surprise there. No issues of a substantive nature were placed before the candidates that came. Lots of word salad and virtue signaling. Only Candidate Wilson mentioned the primary issue that will be on most voter's minds, that of what is the County going to do about inflation, lowering taxes, and making Del Norte County affordable for the many that are less fortunate. Keep former Sheriff Dean Wilson in mind for those in District five. He at least understands that inflation is a problem and a government wishing to do something "real" about it wouldn't be keeping an increase of local taxes at this time. Vote YES on Measure T and U to give voters some tax relief. Vote Yes on T and U to lower taxes.