How will the right answer fit in terms of support and conclusion?

Only the right answer will accurately describe the support and/or conclusion, which also means it will be the only one to call out why this support doesn’t establish this conclusion.

Highlight the main conclusion in the passage, if there is one:

this worry can be dismissed.

Mayor: [BACKGROUND]. [BACKGROUND]. But [CONCLUSION]. [SUPPORT].

Map the wording of the answers to the wording of the passage:

(A) …mischaracterizes an opposing view…

That would mean the Mayor gets their view wrong. But there’s only one mention of their view, “that the factory could cause health problems”. That could be spot on for all we know. We have no support for saying that “mischaracterizes” their view.

(B) …attempts to persuade by inducing fear of the consequences…

The passage doesn’t mention any “consequences”.

(C) …because of the motivation that some people have for making it.

That maps really nicely to the support that says “they were paid to show up”.

(D) …generalizes on the basis of a few unrepresentative cases.

The whole passage is only about one case, so “generalizes” and “unrepresentative” are both way off.

(E) …a claim that the result is inevitable.

The first part is okay, since “a claim that a result is possible” maps to “the factory could cause health problems”. But no one ever said or implied that anything is “inevitable”.

(C) is the correct answer.