SLO County official loses Citizen of Year award over bigoted posts. His position should be next

The San Luis Obispo County planning commissioner widely condemned for posting bigoted memes on Facebook will not be honored as Nipomo’s Citizen of the Year after all.

South County Chamber of Commerce board members met Thursday to consider revoking Jim Harrison’s award, after the Nipomo Chamber’s steering committee recommended withdrawing the honor.

But at the last minute, Harrison sent a letter to the group, declining the award.

“The board unanimously voted to accept his declination. In addition, the board voted that there will be no Citizen of the Year award for Nipomo for 2019,” the Chamber said in a written statement.

While we wish the Chamber had gone ahead and revoked the honor, it’s a relief it won’t go to Harrison. It would be a stain on the entire community to recognize him as a model citizen.

Harrison thought nothing of posting ugly hate speech on social media — and likely would have continued to do so if an outraged community hadn’t spoken out.

He shared memes on Facebook that compared Democrats to Nazis — including one of Nancy Pelosi in a Nazi uniform; called for closing all mosques and banning Islam; and claimed prominent billionaire Democrat George Soros said he would “bring down the United States by funding black hate groups.”

The Chamber had already distanced itself from Harrison’s posts by issuing a statement on Monday that said it does not endorse or represent the views of member businesses or individuals. It also said the Chamber was not aware of Harrison’s views when the selection was made.

The South County organization is a regional chamber that represents several communities. Residents from the various areas nominate citizens of the year.

Harrison, a retired Santa Barbara County firefighter, met some of the criteria with his impressive record of public service and volunteerism. But he failed miserably at would should be the single most important criterion: Be a good role model.

Facebook ‘apology’

After he was called out for the hateful memes, Harrison made matters even worse by issuing a weaselly apology on Facebook that expressed absolutely no remorse, responsibility or effort to make amends.

“There was a post on my Facebook that offended some people,” he wrote. “I apologize if it was offensive to you. The post was deleted when this came to my attention.”

To be clear, this was not a single, random post. It was several memes shared over a period of time.

In at least a couple of cases, Harrison added his own remarks in the comment sections, such as this one: “I would agree (that religions have constitutional protection) if this were a religion however it (Islam) is a terrorist group that band and hide under the guise of being a religion.”

The apology only reinforces what the memes already revealed: a complete intolerance for political and religious differences and a lack of understanding of the pain that images like the Nazi swastika cause, and will continue to cause, the real victims of the Holocaust and their descendants.

Sadly, Harrison isn’t alone — he continues to draw support online and in letters to the editor.

Here’s an example: “Mr. Jim Harrison I salute you for your courage to do right for country and God.”

But the majority of responses have been highly critical. After The Tribune published an article about the Facebook posts last week, a coalition of local organizations — R.A.C.E. Matters, GALA, Diversity Coalition of SLO County, Bend the Arc, JCC Federation and People of Faith for Justice — published an open letter calling on the Chamber to rescind the award and on Supervisor Lynn Compton to remove Harrison from the county Planning Commission.

The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations also called for Harrison’s removal from the Planning Commission.

So far, we have not heard from Harrison about his future on the commission, and since issuing his apology, he has taken down his public Facebook page.

Nor has Supervisor Compton issued a statement.

Her silence speaks volumes.

As the letter from the community coalition points out, “Silence and inaction in the face of such behavior is complicity.”

We’re waiting to hear from you, Supervisor Compton.

This story was originally published January 2, 2020 at 7:25 PM.