June, 2021

San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon made a national television appearance in which she spoke out against the gas industry for targeting her with intimidation tactics and intimidating local residents with by spreading COVID-19 at a city council meeting.

Harmon appeared on the TBS talk show and satirical news program, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. Mayor Harmon’s appearance came in a segment called, “Here’s Why Your Gas Stove Is Killing You.” The segment criticized gas stoves and promoted electric stoves as a safer and more environmentally friendly alternative.

In the segment, Mayor Harmon recounts how gas industry representatives responded last year to the San Luis Obispo City Council attempting to phase out gas appliances in buildings citywide. A union president used profanity to describe her and called for having Harmon voted off the council.

“I’m Mayor Heidi Harmon, and I was targeted by the gas industry,” said Mayor Harmon in the television segment. “The intimidation tactics were at an all-time low,” Harmon goes on to say. “They threatened to come to a council meeting during the pandemic, and so to see someone actually write in a letter that they were going to busload in people that are potentially COVID-positive to intentionally infect, and therefore potentially kill, members of our community, they stopped at nothing.”

In June 2020, the San Luis Obispo City Council adopted an energy policy requiring all-electric new buildings, an effort Harmon spearheaded. At that time, Harmon sat on the Central Coast Community Energy Board of Directors, the electric energy company she was promoting.