Letter: San Miguel CSD Director Ashley Sangster out of touch
To the editor,
Our opponent Ashley Sangster seems to be detached from reality. Decisions don’t happen in a vacuum and some of those decisions have truly left deep divisions on our community.
Myself and Mr. Palafox have both been targets by supporters of Mr. Sangster over our careers, our status in life, and had our personal information released without our permission.
The reality is my family came from Mexico and moved into a small house in San Miguel. My parents would have acquired a substantial debt in sending both my brother and I to college. So I decided to join the Navy, and served my country proudly for 5 years and one deployment. Now I’m studying to become a computer engineer, while attending Cuesta College with my military benefits. I personally choose to not talk about myself and focus on the issues that I have faced and lived through for the many years.
The reality is that one in four San Miguelians live at or below the poverty line. Our community has the highest poverty rate in the county. We also have the highest utility rates in the county. The only communities that pay more have desalination plants, and one of them treats sewage into drinking water, we use traditional groundwater. There is no way to spin it. When I chose to run, I think about my family and what they went through to get to where they are today, and as my campaign continues I realize that many other people in the community had their lives upended by the rate increase.
Mr. Sangster doesn’t even seem to know that we are a CSD not a City Council, as proof on his latest opinion article. A CSD is organized under government code 61000 a city council is organized under government code 34000. There are major legal differences and they are not interchangeable.
Not only does Mr. Sangster not know the law, he does not know the challenges people like my family have had to overcome. If Mr. Sangster did, maybe he would have been more open to a more gradual rate increase, maybe he would have listened to his colleagues that pleaded to start the increase after the summer months, maybe he wouldn’t have voted to cut the public off from speaking before voting to jam through the increase. It doesn’t matter that he redid the vote.
Mr. Sangster, your actions took away the voice of everyone in the room that night. The right for the public to speak is not a formality, it’s a part of what makes our country great. It is why I have personally decided I will not attend the next CSD meeting, nor will I debate Mr. Sangster. I did attend the May protest meeting, I remember my wife turning in a protest letter, and I personally choose to not debate someone who would vote in a heartbeat to take the voices away from people he was appointed to represent. I will instead continue to speak with people in the community directly. I will not forget my roots and I will always stand for the community I love so much.
Cesar Hernandez
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