Adona Violates Fair Political Practices Act by Failing to File Timely Reports

For the 2022 primary election and between March 9 and June 7, candidates are required to file FPPC Form 497 with the Nevada County Election when the candidate receives $1,000 or more from any one source and must do so within 24 hours of receipt. On February 27, 2022, Adona received $1,000 from Nelson Minar, a well-known local partisan woke progressive Democrat.  Adona failed to report until April 28, 2022 - two months later. Natalie Adona, who we are told has the requisite experience to administer the election office, failed to file this required form.  This failure is in addition to using Nevada County residents' taxpayer money to pay for her political advertisements in The Union.

The truth of the matter which we have demonstrated herein repeatedly is that Adona does not have the experience that she pretends too.  It is all a lie and disinformation designed to win an election.  Don't be fooled by this DC partisan insider trying to come to Nevada County and run our elections.  We don't need DC politics in Nevada County.

Nevada County Election Office Ballot Fiasco - Email to Us Any Issues with Your Ballots for Us to Investigate and Document

Another election and more random ballots flying around.  As many of you know, my mother-in-law has Alzheimer's disease and has been getting progressively worse over time.  Most of you have met her and have seen her bright, joyous smile and have experienced the often time randomness of her thoughts and her confusion related to the most mundane items.

Before she got really bad, she lived on Annex Avenue in Grass Valley but has not lived there since 2016.  From Annex Avenue, she moved to live in Penn Valley with us.  In June 2020, she moved to a facility and then came back to live with us again in December 2020.  We definitely received her ballot for the presidential primary in April 2020, and I am pretty sure that she voted.  By the time the presidential election rolled around in November of 2020, she could not use a remote for a TV and could no longer even answer the telephone, as she could not figure out which buttons to push.  Consequently, and despite receiving a ballot at our residence in Penn Valley, she did not vote in the 2020 presidential election.  During the recall in the fall of 2021, her ballot never came to our house.  Last week, my wife got a text that my mother-in-law's ballot for this cycle was in the mail.  So, we went online to find out where it was going because it never arrived last time.

According to records from the Nevada County Election Office, my mother-in-law's ballot was mailed to her old Annex address.  She has not lived there for at least five years.  After she moved from Annex, her ballots were coming to our house in Penn Valley, but now the ballots are going back to Annex.  The Nevada County Election Office states (and provided documents) that my elderly mother-in-law, who cannot use a remote control or a landline telephone, re-registered online or through the DMV on May 16, 2021.  Well, May 16, 2021, was a Sunday, and my mother-in-law had no interaction with DMV until October of 2021 when my wife took her to renew her identification.  There is absolutely no way that she could have registered online.  By May of 2021, she could not remember her middle name and was driving me crazy every time the TV would turn off, because she watched too many episodes of Law and Order SVU and could not figure out how to turn it back on.

In conclusion, the Nevada County Election Office has no idea where many of these ballots are going and who will be receiving them.  Clearly, the voter registration system is broken.  We need your help.

If you have any issues or know of any issues related to the mailing and receipt of ballots, please email me at barry@barrypruett.com, so that we can investigate in an effort to resolve these issues.  It is absolutely ridiculous that this type of incompetence is happening in our county and in our state.  We can fix these problems together, and I look forward to speaking with you.

Enforcement Policies of Nevada County Mask Mandates Need to be Clarified

Last night, we watched the Los Angeles Rams defeat the San Francisco Forty-Niners in the NFC Championship game played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.  Currently, California is under an executive order signed by Gavin Newsom requiring citizens to wear a mask in all public areas.  To the left is a maskless governor with an already ill and maskless Magic Johnson in a public place (yet again) violating his own mask order.

Twitter @MagicJohnson

At this point the mask mandates, and those who enact or support them, are just silly.  Nobody is following these ridiculous orders, not even the governor who signed the executive order.  Further, neither the state nor Nevada County has an articulated enforcement mechanism at all.  Finally, and based upon these haphazard policies, the Nevada County election office has resorted to enforcement by physical force.  In fact, when asked Gavin Newsom was asked by media about enforcement of his mandate, he responded that he had “faith” in residents to follow the dictate. The lack of enforcement policies is inexcusable and leading to little government dictators changing policy on a whim thus leading to physical harm of constituents.

It is time for the Nevada County supervisors to lead on this issue.  They need to make clear what their enforcement policies.  If the supervisors value liberty, they would enforce the governor's mask mandate in the same manner which he enforces it.  We trust our fellow man to do the right thing.  I frankly rarely agree with Gavin Newsom on any topic, but in this instance, I agree with him whole-heartedly.   As Newsom has made clear, he has purposefully executed an emergency mask mandate with no enforcement mechanism and has commented to the media that we should trust our fellow man to do the right thing.  Regardless of the efficacy of masks and, for argument purposes, conceding that they are 100% effective in preventing infection, it is about a mandate which dictates to the public rather than the request which the governor has plainly made. 

At this time, the Nevada County supervisors need to lead.  Sue Hoek, as chairman of the board of supervisors, should direct staff to draft a resolution indicating that the county will follow our governor's lead and simply ask our local citizens to wear a mask in the county office.  While the supervisors may think that they work for the staff at the county, that fact of the matter is that staff works for the supervisors who work for the people.  If staff refuses to draft the resolution in the manner dictated by Sue Hoek, a template can be provided to her by a number of citizen groups who are sick of these mandates, and she can put it on the agenda.  That is her job.

As discussed in yesterday's post (and I know Sue Hoek agrees with this axiom because she is a strong, patriotic, freedom-loving woman), we are constantly on a journey from ancient authoritarianism towards true freedom and liberty.  Sometimes while on this journey, we as a society take two steps forward (the Declaration of Independence) and then take one step back (Dredd Scott).  In order for freedom and liberty to succeed, all of our collective steps must always be forward and towards freedom and liberty.  Any government mandate is a step backward towards ancient authoritarianism and away from our American way.  If we are a people that value freedom and liberty, and as Gavin Newsom said, we have to trust our fellow man to do the right thing, and the Nevada County supervisors should do the same thing and tell the county citizens that the county will not be enforcing these silly mask mandates and tell the public that they trust them to do the right thing for their neighbors.

Nevada County Elections Office Has Gone COVID Crazy

Today, The Union reported on the "altercation" at the Nevada County Elections office on January 20, 2022. To summarize the article, the proponents of a recall of our five county supervisors allegedly forced their way into the election office when confronted with the new election office mask mandate.  Below is the reaction (from January 19, 2022) of the politician who is currently running to be the head of our county election department when the recall proponents entered the election office. Her reaction is not entirely professional given the demeanor of the proponents and the fact that the sheriff's office did nothing for reasons to be discussed below.  

In a glaring omission, what the article wholly fails to mention is that the proponents want to recall the supervisors related to the county's COVID policies about which the paper has previously reported here and here.  All of these people are actually fighting about COVID mandates. Given the facts as presented to us by the CDC over the past two years, these COVID mandates are getting a little out of hand, and folks are arguably tired of COVID policies which have lost almost all support.

I spoke with a law enforcement individual today, and his response was that, clearly, the reaction by this politician was not her finest moment and that she clearly could use some additional skills in dealing with people.  I am informed that, in a private setting and if asked to leave an establishment, an individual can be cited for trespass.  This policy makes sense, as individual businesses choose whom they serve, as is their right.  On the other hand, law enforcement does not have the ability to enforce a mask mandate in a public building to which constituents have a right to enter.  This axiom is especially true for an election office which must transparently, and without bias, conduct this recall whether the government disagrees with the proponents or not.  There was also some discussion of the politicians politicizing COVID and politicizing the election office.  

It is understandable that folks are getting tired of these dictatorial mandates. First, the CDC told us not wear a mask (even an N-95), because they are not effective in preventing the spread of COVID.  Then, they told us to wear three masks.  Then Fauci told everyone that, if you are fully vaccinated, you do not need to wear a mask.  Now, we are back to mask mandates despite the vast majority of people being vaccinated or having had COVID.  Based upon these instructions and countless other misguided instructions over the past two years, we all have whiplash and, consequently, trust the government a lot less.

Let's review what we have learned during and from COVID.  The COVID vaccines, which California intends to mandate all children to be vaccinated for school, do not stop the spread of COVID.  We do not need the CDC to tell anyone this simple fact, as we have eyes.  Many of our friends and neighbors, both unvaccinated and triple boosted, are coming down with COVID.  The fact of the matter is COVID is here to stay regardless of your mask mandate or your vaccine mandate.  After two years, it is high time to start living with it.

Such sentiment brings us back to the election office.  These politicians have a balancing act for sure.  They must balance their duty as public servants but also protect their potentially vulnerable staff.  I would bet my house that both politicians in our election office and most of the staff are vaccinated, so why freak out?  Politics.  One politician is running for office and the other is trying desperately to get his heir-apparent elected, so create a scene and get some free press (i.e., politicize the election office) and demonize your own constituents.  Some heavy-handed politics, for sure.  In addition, and during the middle of our local election season, the politician in the video above admits that her boss (the head of our election office) was "out of the country" on Thursday.  If these two politicians are so concerned about their staff getting COVID and so concerned about the public, I would think that they would be responsible enough to not get on an airplane and travel abroad before potentially bringing back COVID to their office and infecting the entire staff before the busiest time of their public service - the 2022 primary election.  In fact, this type of hypocrisy is what is really frosting a lot of folks and driving them to resist these hypocritical government mandates.

Here is a news flash to Nevada County...we are all going to get COVID, and the arbitrary mandates are not going to stop that commonsense realization.

These dictatorial mandates are simply getting old and tiresome, and they clearly do not work.  It is commonsense.  Simply listen to the ever-changing guidance from the CDC over the past two years.  Listen to the scientific debates going on in the real-scientific world and not what Pfizer is telling you.  We are in a new normal, so it is high time to stop the crazy and get back to living and breathing and working.  It is also time for our local election office to get back to work and stop the nonesense.

Bad Election Policy Coming from the Nevada County Election Office and Washington DC

At this moment, the US Senate is embroiled over the "Freedom to Vote Act." Democrats are even threatening the nuke the filibuster in order to entirely revamp the national and state election systems on a partisan, party-line vote. Some pretty heavy-handed politics for sure. The question becomes why. Democrats say that they need to expand voting access. One of our candidates, who recently moved to Nevada County from Washington DC and is running to head our local Nevada County election office, vehemently supports the policies as outlined in the "Freedom to Vote Act." I believe that any rational American agrees with expanding voting access and making it easy for legally registered voters to vote. That said, and in expanding voting access as outlined in the "Freedom to Vote Act," partisan politicians, including our local candidate, support election policy which sacrifices election security for easy voting and is ultimately very dangerous to our democracy. Allow me to explain is more detail.

We are a republic and elect leaders who we think will implement good policy which creates a healthy democracy. While experience in running elections is desirable, electing an election official who supports good and sound election policy is paramount. It is paramount, because the health and vibrance of our democracy foundationally depends upon the legitimacy of our elections. There can never be a shred of doubt as to who won an election. If there is any doubt in the legitimacy of an elected official, the very foundation of our democracy is seriously damaged.

Look no further to the actions of certain presidential candidates who point to their opponents' illegitimacy. The Washington Post wrote, "Al Gore conceded after the Supreme Court curtailed his legal efforts to count more ballots in Florida, but many Democrats continued to view Bush as an accidental, if not illegitimate, president." Hillary Clinton, who handily lost the 2016 presidential election, called the winner, Donald J. Trump, an "illegitimate president." In lieu of posting a link to the millions of times which Trump has opined on the 2020 election, there is no doubt that Trump and over a third of Americans, question the legitimacy of Joe Biden. And presently, Joe Biden is calling into question the 2022 elections which has not even happened yet. As a side note, the legacy media seem to believe that somehow Gore's, Clinton's, and Biden's questioning the legitimacy of elections is okay, but when Trump questions the legitimacy of elections, then (and only then) our democracy is imperiled, and the world is about to end, but I digress.