If Eric Hart Wins

By John Sakowicz

If Eric Hart wins, it will be a major upset here in Mendocino County. It will be an upset of an insider by an outsider. An outsider who is new to politics. 

Eric Hart will have defeated an insider who is a long-term county employee (multiple Mendocino County departments — including Public Health, Behavioral Health, Human Resources, and most recently, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office). Mr. Hart will have defeated an insider with lots (too many) friends in county government. She owes too much to too many people. 

Eric Hart will have defeated an insider who was endorsed by the usual county hacks from the county’s deeply entrenched, highly dysfunctional political machine (including SEIU Local 1021, SEIU Local 2015, the North Bay Labor Council AFL-CIO, the Planned Parenthood Northern California Action Fund, and the North Bay Association of Realtors). 

Electing Eric Hart is a defeat of the cronyism and nepotism that characterizes governance here in Mendocino County— a government of little accountability and transparency, a government that tried to fire its auditor, a county that pays its chief executive almost as much as the state’s governor while, at the same time, having no new economic development and shocking poverty statistics, and also while the county teeters on bankruptcy and plays accounting tricks, like defunding roads, to balance its budget. 

It is a defeat for the local bubbas and rednecks. It is a defeat for the people who only vote for the candidates they went to high school with, and who they play softball with, and who they play slots with at the local casino. 

Eric Hart is a victory for candidates with no political baggage. It is a victory for independents and freethinkers and reformers. It is a victory for truly competent candidates with real credentials and real intelligence. (This is to say nothing about Mr. Hart’s wife who is the best damn hospitalist doctor I have ever met. Smart people are generally married to other smart people.) 

Congratulations to Eric Hart and to District 3 that elected him. Maybe there is hope for Mendocino County!