County Supervisor Adam Hill is dead at 54. That leaves Bruce Gibson outnumbered as he tries to fight the good fight. This is by a great local writer, Tom Fulks

 

Tom Fulks

IN ANGRY MEMORIAM

My good friend Adam Hill, county supervisor for District 3 in SLO County, died today after a lifelong battle with depression.

May God have mercy on his tormented mind and bring grace and everlasting peace to his gentle soul.

Let it be known here and now that we have lost a good man – a dear, kind, literate, funny, generous man – at the tender age of 54.

I am so very sorry to learn of this. There will be a lot to say about this in the coming days by a lot of people.

We can be sure the braying of the jackals and cawing of the vultures who are Adam’s political opponents no doubt already has begun as they dance on his grave.

In fact, they didn’t even wait for Adam to return from trying to mend his mind on sabbatical before heartlessly, venally demanding he be replaced by a “temporary” stand-in to represent San Luis Obispo County’s Third Supervisorial District.

And, of course, they wanted his replacement to be the mud-slinging Republican lie-peddler whom Adam handily defeated last March.

The fetid carp of a spokesperson for the uber-right COLAB recently floated this mendacious idea to a more-than-willing chair of the Board of Supervisors, MAGAite Lynn Compton, who, incredibly, decided to entertain a conversation about it during a board meeting.

Compton, COLAB and all the other political scavengers of SLO County were summarily slapped down by the county counsel, citing California law, which says an elected supervisor remains just that until resignation, incapacitation or death.

Now it’s up to the governor to appoint a successor, no matter how much the COVID-denying, racism-refuting, white-nationalist-embracing SLO County Republicans and other MAGA cretins complain.

The duly established, legal process of replacing Adam on the board will have to run its course, as it did in 2013 when 4th District Supervisor Paul Teixeira died in office.

In the meantime, SLO County is owed a clear and honest explanation from District Attorney Dan Dow about every detail of the FBI investigation he triggered in May into as-yet-to-be-disclosed allegations into Adam.

Dow opportunely turned over whatever is was he’d accused Adam of doing to the feds, then let the headlines fester in the ether to do the rest of the work in tarnishing Adam’s personal and professional reputation.

Adam is gone now, perhaps facilitated in large measure by this actual political/legal witch hunt combined with a decade-long vendetta against him by a group of haters including the wretched, jury-convicted libeler CalCoastNews and its local radio host abettors.

I’m so very sad, but even more angry. And I want answers. We as a community deserve a full accounting of Adam’s last months on this earth.

There’s no longer any excuse for Dow to hide behind the convenient legalism that he can’t discuss the matter of Adam Hill because it’s “under investigation.”

The investigation is closed because the subject of it is no longer alive.

If Adam has done something wrong, let’s have it out in the open. Let’s all see for ourselves if Adam was a lawbreaker. I doubt it, because he was too smart for that, but I’m willing to see the facts.

So bring it, Dow.

If it turns out Dow and the FBI have a fistful of hearsay, rumors and innuendo but no criminal charges, then they owe it to Adam, his family, friends and supporters to come clean. Now.

Goodbye, good friend. We will not let you down, nor your memory.