You can tell the political silly season has arrived when personal attacks begin to resonate just on one side. Former American Fire Chief and top vote-getter in June Keith Caldwell became under attack for one thing that took place in his nearly two decades of exemplary service to the American Canyon Fire District. We wrote about this many months ago – the diplomas his firefighters received which were from a diploma mill.

These phony diplomas resulted in firefighters – and not Caldwell – getting raises. The issue is clear that the State law allowed such a program and the college involved was not known to be just a diploma mill. The issue of diploma and raises was an issue in the negotiations with the firefighters’ unions – not an idea created by Caldwell. It took nearly five years before the issue arose again and only just on the eve of the June Primary.

The critics are obviously fans of former Sheriff Gary Simpson who came in second in the June Primary and made the run-off with Caldwell. Simpson does not have a great history of honesty and integrity even though he served 20 years as Sheriff. We can provide a long history of misjudgments and issues that would embarrass him. That is not our point. Both men served in public office and they made mistakes. Name one individual in history – save some religious figures – that haven’t made mistakes – it is a human trait.

We would hope that the critics would realize the humanness of mistakes and pass on to the merits of each candidate. I recognize that it is important to Supervisor Bill Dodd to have Simpson and Supervisor Mark Luce elected. Without them his coalition is gone and he would be on the minority side of the Napa County Board of Supervisors. He must win both the seats for Simpson and Luce – if either one loses such things as Napa Pipe’s proposed 3200 homes would not be built. The protection for some errant vintners could also be jeopardized.

But politics are generally based on support base – developers, large wineries and elitists generally push one type of candidate while the unions, seniors, working class support another. Obviously there is a great disparage in the money contributed to the campaigns because of the different incomes of the two groups and how much lobbying might be needed once an individual is elected.

But it is time to embrace the debate of an election based on the issues and how the candidates stand. It should never be time to tear individuals apart for the purpose of attempting to gain votes. We support Keith Cardwell but it didn’t prevent us from writing the first article about the college diplomas. We would certainly hesitate to expose the closet of Gary Simpson – let both men run on the issue and let the voters focus on those issues when making a decision.