Every election season voters are subjected to a lot of spin, truth-stretching and at times outright deception, but rarely do they see such tactics so consistently employed as they do with Jim Comstock's run for the District 1 supervisor's seat.

The biggest departure from reality in Comstock's campaign has to do with development, which raises many questions about Jim's ethics and his commitment to protecting ag land our environment.

Comstock's campaign is being funded mainly by wealthy landowners, many of whom have development plans in the works, and some have parcels of ag land with prime class 1 and 2 soils that Jim has been trying desperately to get included into the new growth boundaries for Middletown as the first step in getting them rezoned into residential or commercial properties.

In stark contrast, Comstock's opponent has taken ZERO dollars from developers and has turned down money from the same people who Jim has taken large sums of cash from. Who is protecting ag land and our environment?

Comstock's opponent Susanne La Faver, who is against ANY ag rezoning and who is supported by EVERY environmental group and EVERY active environmentalist in Lake County.

In addition to permanently destroying prime ag land, Comstock is promising to kill the county's new ag marketing plan, which may be the county's only hope for the long-term survival of local agriculture. Comstock has promised to overturn the ban on GMOs that is a cornerstone of the marketing plan, without it the effort will be scuttled and local growers will be the big losers. No candidate in local politics has promised to harm local ag the way Comstock has – ever!

So how did Comstock get the Farm Bureau endorsement? The truth is he didn't – at least on the first vote, because too many of the directors of the Farm Bureau had deep doubts about Comstock's development schemes that would negatively affect ag in the South county.

So what the leaders of the Farm Bureau did was to vote a second time when key members were certain to be unable to attend, and Jim got his endorsement in yet another lapse of ethics, honesty and fair play.

Comstock likes to claim he's a cattle rancher, but his actual involvement in that field is highly questionable given the remarks he has made on the GMO alfalfa issue, where he claimed it could be brought into the county even if it were banned here. Anyone truly involved in the cattle business would have seen the many reports in the Farm Bureau papers or cattle and feed producers trade papers/news media that have made it clear that it's ILLEGAL to plant GMO alfalfa ANYWHERE in the United States; this is VERY important news to cattlemen (cattle are by far the largest consumers of alfalfa) and Jim's ignorance on the subject makes for another area where Jim's claims and the facts don't match.

On another subject of altered reality we have the issue of recent District 1 history, where Comstock says the south county isn't getting it's fair share of just about everything. Maybe Jim is suffering from amnesia, because the rest of us see millions of dollars flowing into the district in the form of a brand-new library (the first in many decades in the unincorporated area of the county) and new bridges.

Comstock's complaints about not getting redevelopment dollars shows he (again) doesn't understand how county redevelopment agencies work, and the same thing goes for road repairs, which have taken place mainly in District 5 recently because they were most in need – it's called "prioritization" and Jim would have a handle on that if he REALLY felt he was working for ALL 66,000 Lake County residents as he claims he will if elected.

On the other hand we have La Faver, who has not only been endorsed by two sitting members of our Board of Supervisors, but who has also been endorsed by all our reps in both Sacramento and Washington, DC, meaning when District 1 needs money for infrastructure projects Susanne will be more likely to get that money than Comstock, who isn't supported by ANY local or regional politicians.

Then we have the subject of ethics, where the distinction between candidates couldn't be clearer.

Comstock has been very evasive about answering questions regarding his political party affiliation, until it came out that he had accepted almost $2,000 from the local Republican party, by far the largest contribution to a candidate for local office EVER made by a political party. The irony here is that Comstock took some of that money to get his name/face on a flier that promoted nothing but Democratic positions on the ballot measures and Democratic candidates – some of whom had endorsed La Faver!

Using your donor's cash to promote candidates and propositions that you and your supporters are dead-set against is a betrayal and ANOTHER example of Comstock's dismal judgement/ethics, La Faver has ALWAYS been truthful and up-front about her party affiliation has NEVER tried to pretend she belonged to another political party in an effort to fool the public in order to get a few more votes.

Lies about protecting ag land and the environment, chicanery getting the Farm Bureau endorsement and the sleazy flier add up to strikes one, two and three for Jim Comstock's trustworthiness, which is now practically non-existent. La Faver's campaign has been the exact opposite, upfront and honest with NO hidden agendas or sleazy tactics.

Lastly we have the issue of experience, which Comstock claims to have due to his long stint on the Middletown Unified School Board. The problem here is twofold. First, his list of accomplishments as a board member is extremely thin given the length of time he's had in office, and second, his involvement in countywide issues is practically non-existent. La Faver has a long list of accomplishments as a college professor and as a business women in the field of marketing, plus she has taken the lead in local law enforcement and elder care programs, among others.

The choice here is quite simple, La Faver has PROVEN positive real-world business experience, overwhelming support from her peers in the political realm, a GENUINE commitment to protecting ag land and our environment, direct involvement in a broad range of local issues, plus she's highly intelligent, honest and open-minded, District 1 voters could hardly ask for a better choice to represent them at the board of supervisors-vote for Susanne La Faver on Nov. 4!

Philip Murphy lives in Finley.

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