I Stand by My Statements: Flush the Board

Oct 27

I write to tell anyone interested that I stand by my statements in the “Flush the Board” flyer recently distributed both on this website (see Oct. 18, 2022 post) and in hard copies delivered door-to-door. (Images of the actual flyer are at the bottom of this post.)

The flyer expresses my anti-incumbent views. I do not think the incumbent Board members are bad people, and I would never attack them on a personal level. That would be childish and tacky. (I will not say that about my use of the word “flush,” which is both childish and tacky — but also funny and memorable.)

I strongly and sincerely believe, based on the record, that the current members of the Los Olivos Community Services District have been spending public money exclusively on an outdated, absurdly expensive, and growth-inducing plan for over a year now, and they have not been honest with the community about this. Although I have repeatedly explained that I would be happy to be proven wrong, I have yet to see one scrap of objective evidence that supports a different conclusion. As a result, my statements are protected speech on a topic of public concern.

Just over 50 years ago now, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in my very favorite First Amendment case ever: Cohen v. California. The opinion is important not just because it reminds us of the enduring protections enshrined in the First Amendment, but also because the writing is, in my opinion, breathtakingly beautiful. Here is my favorite passage, which seems apropos of absolutely everything at the moment:

The constitutional right of free expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as ours. It is designed and intended to remove governmental restraints from the arena of public discussion, putting the decision as to what views shall be voiced largely into the hands of each of us, in the hope that use of such freedom will ultimately produce a more capable citizenry and more perfect polity and in the belief that no other approach would comport with the premise of individual dignity and choice upon which our political system rests. See Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375—377, 47 S.Ct. 641, 648 649, 71 L.Ed. 1095 (1927) (Brandeis, J., concurring).

To many, the immediate consequence of this freedom may often appear to be only verbal tumult, discord, and even offensive utterance. These are, however, within established limits, in truth necessary side effects of the broader enduring values which the process of open debate permits us to achieve. That the air may at times seem filled with verbal cacophony is, in this sense not a sign of weakness but of strength. We cannot lose sight of the fact that, in what otherwise might seem a trifling and annoying instance of individual distasteful abuse of a privilege, these fundamental societal values are truly implicated. That is why '(w)holly neutral futilities * * * come under the protection of free speech as fully as do Keats' poems or Donne's sermons,' Winters v. New York, 333 U.S. 507, 528, 68 S.Ct. 665, 676, 92 L.Ed. 840 (1948) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting), and why 'so long as the means are peaceful, the communication need not meet standards of acceptability,' Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U.S. 415, 91 S.Ct. 1575, 29 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971).

I would like all members of this community to be well informed about the course the CSD incumbents have been charting because the four individuals elected to fill the open seats on the CSD Board will have the power to saddle this tiny community with a massive plan that it cannot afford. You are welcome to call me an “outsider” all you like, but I am the one person who has been standing here, feet firmly planted, speaking out and supporting my statements with actual evidence in the record, in an effort to protect and preserve the rural, historic character of Los Olivos and this beautiful Valley.

Kathryn Lohmeyer Rohrer