Follow the Money

Follow the money. We can all access official campaign contribution information by going online. It’s at SBCVote.com. When I did, this morning, it became clear that Joan Hartmann, our county supervisor, has received contributions from lots of average folks. Bruce Porter, however, is getting his contributions from a very small group, a handful, of wealthy donors who have been aligned with Big Oil.

What does this suggest? Joan Hartmann would continue to support the clean, renewable energy economy and jobs that we benefit from now. She’s done this for years. This is our best future and she understands it well. Further, her re-election would not affect existing employment in the oil fields.

A Porter victory, however, would result in hundreds of new and dangerous oil wells. The effect of this would be few new jobs and greater threats to the county budget as we citizens would be paying to clean up oil spills and to repave roads after tens of thousands of additional annual trips by heavy oil trucks.

We have plenty of oil already. More than enough, in fact. So much that we even export it. We don’t need more forest fires and contaminated drinking water. What we need is an advocate for the good jobs in the safe energy fields. I’m voting for Joan Hartmann and ask you to consider doing the same.