Parra cries foul over Web attack

Heart felt message from Dean Gardner:

September 20, 2004

Dear Friends,

In my campaign for the State Assembly I have tried to focus on the issues affecting the voters and to stay above my opponent’s mud slinging. However, Nicole Parra and her crew have attacked my integrity and my honor. I cannot let that stand. She cannot win in a fair fight on the issues. She cannot defend her liberal voting record, so her only recourse is to try to destroy her opponent.

The reason more good people do not run for public office is because they don’t want to open themselves and their families up to half truths and lies by people with no honor.

I was born Merl Dean Hinegardner. Twenty-five years ago I went to court and knocked three letters off my first name and four off my last name. I am M. Dean Gardner. It is a much shorter handle. I am still the same guy I have always been. I am proud of that. Shortening my name is not a crime, Nicole. What is a crime is using my name change, 25 years ago, as a distraction to keep people from looking at your liberal voting record.

I have had a very successful career solving problems. I have purchased a large number of run down houses, fixed them up and resold them. Many of these neglected homes also had tax liens when I bought them. Those liens became my tax liens when I bought the property. When I sold the house the tax lien was paid. I paid every tax lien.

Imagine, if you will, an antelope on the plains. It is sick or injured and can’t keep up with the herd. It is being followed by a pack of jackals or hyenas that are planning on having it for dinner. Along comes a game warden and builds a fence around the weak animal. He brings food, water and medicine. He then gets inside the fence and nurses the animal back to health. When the animal is strong enough to join the herd, he takes down the fence and moves on to another problem.

I have bought a number of businesses that were in trouble. There were a couple that I could not save, but most were successful. A business that is having financial challenges needs protection until it is healthy. If a business is defending itself from lawsuits, including frivolous lawsuits, it is spending money on attorneys that it should be spending on payroll or advertising. Filing a Bankruptcy Chapter proceeding builds that fence of protection from the lawyers, which is critical to the survival and recovery of that business. When the debts are paid or refinanced and there are no more lawsuits, the Chapter proceeding is dismissed. You take down the fence. I still own one of the companies I rescued. It is my gunstock manufacturing company and it is very healthy.

Everything I do in business is legal. Because of my Federal License, I have a background check by the FBI every four years. Yes, and it keeps coming up clean every time.

Not everything I have attempted has succeeded. Most did, but a few did not. Sometimes in this game I threw the ball to the wrong person. Sometimes there was a fumble or an interception, but I did the best I could at the time. What I find offensive is the criticism I am getting now, many years after the game, by an “armchair quarterback” who has never played the game nor even been on the field.

Solving problems is in my nature and not just in business. When I discovered during my first year of teaching junior high math that 40% of my students did not read or speak English, I did not hesitate to tackle the problem. After attempting unsuccessfully to find a bilingual program to use, I wrote my own bilingual math program; one paragraph in English, then the same paragraph in Spanish. It was very successful.

While I was a teacher at Palmdale High School, I did not hesitate to jump in and rescue two students who were being attacked by a much larger mob even though that action resulted in substantial injuries to myself and ended my teaching career.

I did not hesitate a few months ago when I saw a house down the street on fire. After we were certain there was no one in the house, I grabbed a garden hose and knocked the fire down and kept it down until the fire department arrived. The house was saved with limited damage.

I do not hesitate when someone has car trouble on the street in front of my shop. I do what I can for them. I get them fuel, water, a tow or a phone.

I do not give money to people who are begging for a hand out. Instead, I offer them a job and I pay them for their efforts. I have found that people are proud to earn a day’s pay for a day’s work. I have hired about forty people like that so far. Many were homeless. Some of them responded to opportunity better than others. One man like that has been with me for five years now. He was homeless when I met him. He earned enough money in a few months that he moved back in with his family and bought Christmas presents for them for the first time in several years.

Every dog I have ever had, I rescued from the pound or bought from an abusive owner. I have also bought several horses from abusive owners. They became some of the best I ever owned. I won the Grand Nationals on one of the horses I rescued.

I see a large challenge with many of our Hispanic students. More than half are dropping out of school before they graduate. They will become a drain on the economy with no skills and limited education. I wrote a program called “Choices” which will greatly reduce that dropout rate when it is implemented. I want to get it started as soon as the election is over. That may be my biggest rescue project yet.

The politics of personal destruction is not politics. It is just destruction. It is an attempt by a nasty politician to win at any cost. It happens because that politician cannot compete in an open contest on the issues that affect the people. Instead, she must try to destroy her opponent before the voters can learn his values, his answers, his experience, or his plans for the District. The politician who uses this offensive tactic damages our very valuable, healthy, open and honest election process.

Respectfully,

M. Dean Gardner

Well on the evening of 10-19-04 I had a call from ROBERT who represents the gay community and he says they are up in arms over my website (http://www.nicoleparra.com) and those TV commercials. All of this is VERY OFFENSIVE to the gay/lesbian, etc., community. He says they are going to bombard me with angry phone calls, etc. They know where I live and they know my phone number and they are going to get all of their friends and supporters to start flooding me with what, I don't exactly know, but I am going to be sorry, so says Robert.

I told him they can't take a joke. It's a parody. Do you know what a parody is, Robert? He said he's very smart and well educated and he knows what a parody is. He says the gay community is very supportive of Nicole Parra and they don't appreciate what we're doing. He came short of calling it HATE SPEECH but he did threaten me with legal action.

I say they just can't take a joke. I said it's supposed to be funny. He said they're not laughing. I tried to be polite but if this keeps up and he follows through with his threat, I will start taping every phone caller. I will warn them first that they are being taped. They'll probably watch their p's and q's or hang up.

I will NOT tolerate harassment of me and my family. My husband is not physically able to handle anything like that but even if he weren't sick, I wouldn't tolerate it.

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