A scandal has been exposed: County Supervisor Joni Gray’s involvement in the failure of a “non-profit” development agency, Lompoc Housing and Community Development Corporation, that has cost us all dearly, possibly, according to an article in the Santa Barbara Independent, [“in the very worst-case scenario”] “6 million in taxpayer money…255 units of affordable housing…1.4 million owed to the federal government” when we already have a county “deficit of 17 million.”

This means the county will be looking to get money out of you however it can – fewer firefighters, less healthcare and mental health services, higher fees everywhere. Why? Because of Joni Gray’s corrupt and/or inept actions. Would you call voting to give large sums of money to a corporation your law firm represents and you make money from a conflict of interest, and corruption? Yes, I would.

Would you call Joni’s claims of not knowing what was going on with all that money that is now missing, when both she and her husband’s law firm represented that corporation, and when her executive assistant, Susan Warnstrom, was also the president of its board of directors, dishonesty? You know Joni is tight with Lompoc Housing when its director, Sue Ehrlich, uses Joni’s fax machine to try and get Liann Noble, a county employee investigating Lompoc Housing, fired.

Gray has reduced our quality of life by playing the slick lawyer/politician looking out for the few. It’s time to show we care by voting Gray out. We are lucky to have an extremely competent candidate like Joyce Howerton, who has been working for the community for years without a profit motive.

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