Ventura County Primary Election Recommendations
In an earlier post I shared my overall recommendations/endorsements for the June 7, 2022 Primary Election in California, for statewide, federal, state legislative, and local races. For many of these races I either know the candidate I recommended personally or have background information on the issues or their competitors or both. In this post I will go more in depth for the races in Ventura County.
For CA Assembly District 42 (currently held by Jacqui Irwin) I wholeheartedly endorse Lori Mills. Lori is a Realtor by trade who I met in 2019 when we were working to get a recall of Simi Valley City Councilwoman Ruth Luevanos on the ballot. Lori was active in helping with that but at that time was even more involved in getting the recall of Gavin Newsom on the ballot. Since then she has become one of the leaders of the Ventura County Republican Assembly, organized an extremely well-attended and professionally-run candidate forum featuring candidates for Sheriff and District Attorney. She has regularly spoken at School Board meetings, advocating for students who were harmed by lockdowns and mask mandates. She knows her stuff, meaning that she’s researched specific votes by Jacqui Irwin that she would vote differently on. And, she’s a fighter. In contrast, her challenger was recruited by “the establishment” and didn’t even know how that he would have to be in Sacramento the majority of the time should he win. When he realized that, he said he was dropping out — until Lori Mills filed, and then somehow he was 100 percent in. That behavior does not impress me and does not show that he’s doing it for the right reasons.
I listed both Ed Abele and Janice Parvin as my recommendations for Ventura County Board of Supervisors District 4. I plan to vote for Ed because I believe he would be a stronger and more effective fighter for us should we encounter anything like the coronavirus pandemic again, but a vote for Janice isn’t a bad one. I strongly oppose any vote for Dean Kunicki, and here’s why. Dean was our longtime VCBOE member, and in 2018 failed to file for re-election without letting anyone in the party know, so we lost the seat. In addition, at least twice he has intentionally tanked campaigns because his people couldn’t run them — those are the times I can personally vouch for because his ire was directed at me. In the latest instance, in 2019, he and his friends spread rumors about me and any financial gain I would get from the Ruth Luevanos recall to discourage them from donating. As a result, that recall never got off the ground.
Ventura County Sheriff is a nonpartisan race, and I support Jim Fryhoff. Bill Ayub has great qualifications but I have been unimpressed with his demeanor since being appointed.
