It really bugs me when media such as the Acorn state that Audra Strickland, in her bid to win a seat on the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, gained the endorsement of the Ventura County Republican Central Committee, as if it were some sort of fair competition.

What’s left out of that statement is the key fact that the membership of the board controlling the VCRCC includes Ms. Strickland, her husband, Tony, her mother-in-law and several current and former employees of the Stricklands’.

The decision of the VCRCC to support Audra Strickland in her race against Linda Parks was nothing more than an exercise in nepotism and was a ploy by the Stricklands to circumvent the campaign finance laws of Ventura County.

The good news is that insular organizations like this tend to believe their own hype and are so out of touch with reality that they produce half-baked, poorly conceived and executed campaigns, such as the one we just witnessed. What a stunning waste of money.

The next time someone seeks to take on a popular and effective public servant like Linda Parks, they better have something more substantial than a boatload of special interest cash and partisan rhetoric to offer the voters.
Steven Hively
Santa Rosa Valley