Letter: County planning commissioner should be removed 

To the editor,

–At a Sept. 22 public hearing, Debbie Arnold’s appointee to, and chairman of, the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission attacked American citizens exercising their first amendment rights to speech, assembly and seeking redress of grievances. Upon assuming office, Campbell swore an oath to uphold the U.S. and California constitutions, an oath he has clearly and egregiously violated.

When another commissioner asked the planning director if someone applying for a garage conversion failed to pay the required processing fees, as Phillips 66 has for its Nipomo rail-spur proposal, would be allowed to proceed, as has Phillips 66, Campbell interrupted with what he called a “rebuttal.” He said that an unidentified man in the oil industry told him that five unidentified people speaking at a prior San Luis Obispo County hearing had said the same things in another jurisdiction.

That was no rebuttal. It was a despicable theft of the microphone to divert attention from a question of equal enforcement of the law, and use his power to demean and delegitimize critics of a multi-national corporation’s plan in our county.

Campbell has demonstrated unacceptable disregard for his oath of office and the citizenry Supervisor Arnold purports to serve. His immediate removal is required.

David Broadwater
Atascadero