Donald E. Hedrick -- City Council Candidate -- June 18, 2013 election

By Donald E. Hedrick

It has been nine years of build up to this run for office. If

I became active in the city meetings about a decade ago when I participated in the Planning Commission Meetings concerning the first Mixed Use development to come before the Council. At the first Planning Commission Meeting concerning the development of the worst case scenario of surrounding conditions for such a project putting housing into the oldest commercial zone in the town, when I stood at the podium I was uniquely silenced by the chairman. It was published back then that citizens were given 5 minutes for input into the meeting. They knew that I was representing the commercial zone community when I was treated unequally by the chairman in that he limited my input to three minutes. That was a violation of the Brown Act in his giving me less time than the published time allotted to all others. In a protest letter to the Planning Commission I promised that if they did not stop violating my Constitutional Rights and State Meeting Laws I would run for mayor.

That first Planning Commission experience was the first of a growing list of violations of State Meeting Laws and citizen rights and Constitutional Rights that compelled me to run for Mayor as I promised that I would do. I had downloaded a thousand pages of the city's working documents from the internet and read every word over that winter and had collected twelve pages of snips that I used in making my citizen input in written form, my voice had been silenced the previous fall. That spring I had written my legal study of all the conflicts of that first mixed use project with the city's working documents and submitted 64 pages into the agenda of the next time that project surfaced a week ahead of the meeting as proscribed by State Law. My proper citizen input went unpublished and there was a secret meeting over the weekend to postpone that agenda item in violation of State meeting laws and the Brown Act. I had it written up to 112 pages for the next time that the project surfaced in the Planning Commission and also lawfully submitted my input, where once again there was a secret meeting over the weekend before the scheduled meeting and that agenda item was again postponed. If an agenda item is postponed three times in a row it would become a dead item and have to start over from scratch. Organized crime was not about to ask for their corrupting influence back and that third try at that agenda item went forward as planned but without the benefit of my citizen input which was by then up to 150 pages. There were also a lot of other violations of meeting laws such as proper postings of the property and notifications to surrounding property occupants. In spite of the improper actions of the Planning Commission, that first mixed use project was passed on to the City Council by unanimous vote except for the chairman who had been the ram rod for organized crime's project. The chairman was the only one to see and emergency copy of my legal study and it changed his mind. If State Meeting Laws had been followed that project could have perhaps been killed.

So that is what compelled me into politics and the abuse by the Planning Commission was then ratified by the City Council meeting that took up that misfit of a project that had its start in the decision making process mired up in multiple violations of Law. The Council perpetuated the crime of the Planning Commission and would not let the public see anything more that the cover sheet of my Legal Study of that projects misfit into the community. I did get two votes against the project needing three to kill the project, but it was noted that one of the Council was a long time friend who would not look me in the eye as he voted to pass the project. So that is how organized crime won the first mixed use project to come before the City Council and I had long before promised to run for mayor over the citizen abuse that I received.

The story gets worse. Two weeks after the two votes against that project I lost my storage yard and two months after I was given an eviction notice for my business. I started to move my business but I appeared to be black listed and there was no place to go. None the less I tried to put my business into storage but that was not adequately available either. The following spring people were coming up to me telling me that the talk around City Hall was of gloating and bragging of pressuring for my eviction in "RETALIATZION" for my efforts in the city meetings. So that is what started me on the campaign trail to make a change in the City Council. I have ran for Mayor three times now and each time I experienced interferences and violations of election codes with increased corruption of the process each time. Each time I ran for mayor I made a complaint to Authorities and each time my complaints went ignored. Each time I went through the election process I was left with the experience of fowl play. Our city government seems too comfortable with having organized crime sticking their hand up the puppet hole and pulling their strings to influence the decisions.

That is a part of the motivation for me to run for political office in our town. I wish to bring an honest experience to the City Council Meetings and have been active ever since and a regular participant from the citizen input side of the table for the last decade or so. I would add that I have got more time in attending and speaking at the Council Meetings that all the other candidates for the open council position combined. Prove differently if you can.

My campaigning to correct the trend of special interests groups corrupting the decision making process is well known. Big money from far away interests are stealing our town a crocodile bite at a time and putting forward their idea of an image for our town. Our town's views of our beloved surrounding hills is being lost by the stack and pack designs for changing our town for the benefit of the outside influence of organized corruption of tour town's decision making process.

I have experience in my past which make my running for public office not so unrealistic. In college I was officers in several organizations. Chairman of College Union Public Relations Committee and President of the Cal Poly Penguins M/C. After college I was a core member of our town's free university. In the mid seventies I was on Grassroots II's board of directors where I represented them on the Economic Opportunity Commission as their treasurer in 1975. I have run a small welding business in the same block for 34 years not without interference by city officials under color of authority. I have participated for the last decade in the the city decision making process and have demonstrated my love for this city which I adopted when I came here to go to college at Cal Poly University where I graduated with a BS+ in the late sixties. My business activities included making the Whale's Tale whale sculpture which became the most photographed thing in Morro Bay for the last 35 years. Just over two years ago I rescued the whale from destruction by the politics of Morro Bay.

For the last decade my experience has been building in my participation in the city's decision making process and has included three times running for Mayor as I had promised that I would do after experiencing such lawlessness in the Planning Commission and City Council meetings. My experiences since then has not shown any improvement in the city government. It is still overly obliged to do the bidding of the highest bribers in the guise of outside special interest groups that are taking over out town a crocodile bite at a time imposing their high rise ideas on our quaint mission style historic town. I am known as a people's candidate and wish to serve the town's people. I have no attachment to the special interests that are buying up our town and changing our town's image. I would like to preserve our town's historic attraction and keep it visitor friendly. We do not need our town converted to deep canyons of shadows of high buildings that blot out or view of the precious surrounding hills that make our town so special. Please consider me for your choice for City Council.

Donald E. Hedrick, Artisan welder and Community Activist, age 66