Campaign ‘Hit Pieces’: Negative, Divisive Instruments

As a long-serving member of the San Juan Capistrano City Council, I was dismayed by the number of “hit pieces” sent out by supporters of the various candidates. It was disappointing. All eight candidates are to be commended for putting in their time and energy, and in particular the four front-runners should be praised for their hard work and generally high level of campaigning. It is the well-meaning supporters who were in most cases acting without the knowledge of their candidates that I am addressing in this letter.

I sincerely hope that they will learn from the deplorable experience that our community just had to endure. It is unlikely that the pieces had any positive effect for the side sending them. If anything, they probably ended up tainting the person they supported. The voters are intelligent enough to see through this kind of garbage, but it just reinforces the negative image under which our political process must labor.

I implore all sides to get past the rhetoric of the battle and join forces to heal this incredible and special place we all call home!

The issue of conflict of interest was a campaign red herring which the voters obviously ignored. The practice of using the Fair Political Practices Act to beat up people with whom one disagrees is an abomination and is not the purpose for which the people of California approved it.

I have been filling out disclosure forms forever, and I can guarantee that careful though I was, there are probably errors that were made. These forms are an accounting nightmare. The joke is that they are incredibly easy to get around if you want to, so the really dishonest person can easily beat them. It is the decent, honest people who make errors only of omission that end up getting nailed. The right place to settle political differences is at the ballot box.

Whatever we might think about Rodney King personally, he said it best after the L.A. riots when he talked about the fact that we are all stuck here for a while and he asked, “Can’t we all just get along?” It is time for us to do just that in San Juan Capistrano.

KEN FRIESS

San Juan Capistrano

Ken Friess is an incumbent San Juan Capistrano city councilman who did not run for reelection.