SLO County Clerk Recorder error leads to Tribune correction
Supervisor Lynn Compton
By KAREN VELIE
The San Luis Obispo Tribune slammed SLO County Supervisor Lynn Compton this week in an article claiming she was illegally raising money for her campaign, before insinuating a speaker at one of her upcoming fundraising events is a climate change denier. The only issue, the slams were incorrect.
“The county’s online campaign records show Compton has not yet filed her Form 501 candidate intention statement,” according to the Tribune. “Candidates running for office are supposed to submit the Fair Political Practices Commission form prior to beginning their fundraiser efforts.”
While the Tribune was correct that SLO County Clerk Recorder staff had not posted a Form 501 for Compton on their website, which they had for her opponent Jimmy Paulding, it was just one of many errors that regularly occur in the Clerk Recorder’s Office.
Compton filed her Form 501 on June 10, which staff then stamped with former-clerk recorder Tommy Gong’s name. After Compton informed the Tribune of its error regarding her Form 501, the Tribune removed the incorrect reporting and posted a correction at the bottom of the online article.
Also in the article, the Tribune refers to Steven Hayward, who is scheduled to speak at an upcoming Compton fundraiser, as a climate change science critic. In 2007, while noting global warming was real, Hayward produced a documentary that pointed out alleged inaccuracies in Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Hayward, who describes himself as a blogger, author and occasional academic, is a professor in the political science department at the University of California Berkeley and a regular contributor to Forbes.
In a 2014 Forbes article about “careerist, self-seeking, and mindless bureaucrats,” Hayward criticized former SLO County Supervisor Adam Hill for lashing out against those who questioned his motives. This was years before the FBI announced Hill was garnering bribes for his work as a supervisor.
