|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The nine residents running for three City Council seats in the November election have some very different fundraising styles, as revealed in their reports of campaign contributions received by Sept. 30.
The biggest fund-raiser so far is attorney and newcomer to Mountain View politics Mercedes Salem, who raised $24,829. Sometime before June she loaned herself $8,000, bringing her total to $32,829. She told the Voice that she doesn’t plan to spend more than the city’s voluntary expenditure limit of $22,030. In keeping with Mountain View’s tradition of relatively inexpensive council campaigns, all nine candidates have agreed to the expenditure limit.
The next highest fund-raiser is Ellen Kamei, policy aide to county Supervisor Joe Simitian, who reported raising $21,288 in donations as of Sept. 30, the last day covered by the most recent campaign finance filing period.
Candidates Lisa Matichak, Pat Showalter, Margaret Capriles and Ken Rosenberg all raised between $15,000 and $17,500, while Lenny Siegel, with a large number of smaller donations, raised $8,040. Jim Neal and Greg Unangst reported that they are largely paying for their campaigns themselves, with Unangst loaning himself $21,000 and Neal loaning himself $2,809.
The bigger contributors to more than one candidate include landlords, labor groups, Democratic Activists For Women Now and PG&E. Landlords appear to be the biggest single type of donor in this year’s election, as they have been in past elections, contributing $4,250 in total. This includes the California Apartment Association (CAA)– which represents apartment owners in Mountain View, and Todd Spieker, a real estate investor who owns numerous apartment complexes in Mountain View. There’s also the Mountain View Housing Council (MVHC), a political action committee that council members say is made up mostly of apartment owners.
Margaret Capriles reported the most donations from landlord groups, a total of $1,500. Kamei took in $1,250, while Rosenberg and Showalter each received $750.
In candidate interviews with the Voice, Rosenberg and Capriles, were the most vocal opponents of bringing rent control to Mountain View, while Showalter and Kamei didn’t take a solid position. No candidates said they were in favor of seeking a rent control ordinance.
PG&E has also donated money to this year’s council candidates, giving $250 each to Pat Showalter and Ellen Kamei. Ken Rosenberg says he was nearly sent a check from PG&E, until PG&E saw on his campaign website that he supports “community choice aggregation,” a legal mechanism cities can adopt to allow residents to opt to collectively buy electricity generated from cleaner, carbon-free wind and solar energy sources — in competition with PG&E. A group of Mountain View residents are already meeting to discuss the possibility, and have set up a website: carbonfreemountainview.org
Rosenberg explained at Monday’s Old Mountain View Neighborhood Association candidate forum that PG&E called his home to say, “We’re not going to send him (Rosenberg) a check because he supports community choice aggregation.”
Besides the usual banners, lawn signs, door hangers and mailers, candidates typically spent several thousand dollars on newspaper and newsletter ads, with some buying digital ads. Neal reported paying $229 to Facebook for ads, while Unangst paid Google $228 for online ads.
Matichak and Rosenberg each spent over $300 more than the others on neighborhood association newsletter ads, each spending $921 for ads in the newsletters of the Old Mountain View Neighborhood Association, the Cuesta Park Neighborhood Association and Monta Loma Neighborhood Association. Siegel was the only one to not report any expenses for digital or print ads, and reported spending $463 on 500 brochures printed in Spanish.
Few paid political consultants. Rosenberg paid $275 to Fair Oaks-based Tab Communications and Unangst gave Chris Nicholson of Los Altos $3,000. Salem was the only candidate to expense “volunteer snacks” — worth about $125 — including coffee, ice cream and $87 in groceries. Showalter reported the priciest fund-raising event, spending $662 at the Tied House.
Lisa Matichak
Total raised: $17,207
Spent: $9,695
Notable contributions: $5,000 loan from herself; $5,000 from Cupertino resident and engineer Greg Schaffer; $500 from the California Apartment Association; $500 from Real Estate Investor Todd Spieker; $250 from the Mountain View Housing Council; $1,499 from resident Paul Edwards; $400 from the Cuesta Park Neighborhood Association; $100 to $125 each from Konrad Sosnow, Robert Cox, Bob Weaver and council member Jac Siegel and his wife Sharon.
Lenny Siegel
Total raised: $8,040
Spent: $4,776
Notable contributions: $500 from the League of Conservation Voters in Palo Alto; $100 from former council member Greg Perry; $300 each from Michael Fischetti and his wife Marilyn Winkleby; $100 from transit planner Cliff Chambers; $150 from former Mountain View School District board member Betsy Collard; $100 from Google engineer Aldona Marjorek; $100 from community organizer Sylvia Villesenor; $890 in unitemized contributions of less than $100 each.
Jim Neal
Total raised:$3,920
Spent: $3,136
Notable contributions: $534.80 in donated labor to install signs from developer Don Bahl, $99 in unitemized contributions and a $2809.03 personal loan from himself.
Ken Rosenberg
Total raised: $15,054
Spent” $8,752
Notable contributions: $2,500 loan from himself; $500 from real estate investor Todd Spieker; $250 from Mountain View Housing Council; $250 from Sports Page bar manager Thomas Graham; $100 from Google program manager Deb Henigson; $150 from former Mountain View School District board member Betsy Collard.
Margaret Capriles
Total raised: $16,952
Spent: $10,614
Notable contributions: $2,000 from the Mountain View Firefighters Association; $500 from real estate investor Todd Spieker; $500 from the California Apartment Association; $500 from the Mountain View Housing Council; $100 from Rich Gordon for state Assembly; $125 from City Council member Margaret Abe-Koga; $200 from former mayor Art Takahara; $2,000 worth of food from Larry Chu, owner of Chef Chu’s restaurant in Los Altos.
Ellen Kamei
Total raised: $21,288
Spent: $3,895
Notable contributions: $1,000 from Democratic Activists for Women Now (DAWN); $200 from San Jose City Council member Ash Kalra, $250 from Santa Clara and San Benito Counties Building and Construction Trades Council PAC; $250 from Campbell City Council member Evan Low; $500 from the California Apartment Association; $500 from real estate investor Todd Spieker; $250 from Mountain View Housing Council PAC; $150 from Khahn Russo, Cisco systems; $200 from PG&E.
Pat Showalter
Total raised: $15,620
Spent: $15,583
Notable contributions: $4,000 loan from herself; $500 from Democratic Activists for Women Now (DAWN); $500 from the California Apartment Association; $500 from Santa Clara Valley Water District COO Norma Camacho; $250 from Sports Page bar manager Thomas Graham; $250 from International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21; $200 from Rod Diridon Sr.; $250 from the Mountain View Housing Council; $200 from PG&E; $200 from the CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group Carl Guardino.
Greg Unangst
Total raised: $21,000
Spent: $14,074
Notable contributions: $21,000 loan from himself.
Mercedes Salem
Total raised: $32,829
Spent: $8,351
Notable contributions: $8,000 loan from herself; $1,500 from Jamshid Salem; $1,200 Thomas and Theodore Biagini of Biagini properties; $1,200 from Azadeh Hariri of A&F properties; $1,200 from founder of Pars Equality Center Bita Daryabari; $1,200 from founder of Columbus Nova Technology Partners Mohsen Moazami; $600 from Michelina Gauthier, Discovery Channel senior vice president; $1,500 from Ciema Salem, senior counsel at Mattel, Inc.
This article is incorrect. Lisa Matichak says:
Hello members of the Cuesta Park Neighborhood Association,
I want to apologize for an error in the Mountain View Voice regarding City Council candidates’ campaign finances. The Voice reported that I received a $400 donation from CPNA. That is not the case. I had an expense of $400 for an ad in the CPNA newsletter. My form 460 filing clearly shows this as an expense and not a donation. I sincerely apologize for the Voice’s error.
Lisa Matichak
I received an ‘independent’ mailer for Ken Rosenberg, paid for by the Neighborhood Empowerment Coalition, based in Long Beach. Part of the funding is from PG&E while most are from California tribes that I imply as Casino money
http://www.thedailyfetch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/NeighborhoodEmpowermentCo460.pdf
Business as usual. Plausible deniability.
* Please remove any HTML coding from your post – Do I need special permission?
Thank you “Cuesta Park Neighbor” for your post. I posted a comment here over the weekend but it seems to have disappeared.
So Ellen raised $21,288, the Voice only mentions about $ 3300 in donations, where is the rest? But for other candidates you mention expenses for Ice Cream????? Is this really the complete list, the same date for all candidates reporting? Or did the Voice pick and choose with their endorsements in mind???
Thank you Neighbor for posting the link to the campaign finance public filing of the Neighborhood Empowerment Coalition, based in Long Beach. You are correct that the Indian Tribes that gave the bulk of the money NEC raised in the first six months of this year own casinos (all in So Cal Eastern San Diego area it looks like). It would be great if the Voice could dig a little deeper into what the NEC group actually advocates for. Their website talks in nice-sounding generalities about taking political power out of Sacramento and putting it in local areas, but I think that is also code to use the often-ignored local political process to put through some policy or development proposal that would otherwise see political opposition in more experienced political quarters. The contributors are mostly San Diego County casinos, PG&E and an apartment owners’ political PAC. What do they all have in common and what is their interest in Silicon Valley? Would be interesting to know!
Once again – Debolt can’t be trusted to get even the simplest of facts correct. In the article he wrote that the city’s voluntary expenditure limit is $22,030. And of course he was WRONG. The city’s voluntary expenditure limit of $22,689. Now that may not seem like a big difference but it just shows that this guy DOES NOT PAY ATTENTION to facts that are right in front of his face and HE GETS IT WRONG A LOT!
What I know for sure is that I raised three checks for Mercedes Salem’s campaign because she is honest, hardworking, and will be great for our city council, and she refunded all three to me to give back to the writers of the checks. Her explanation was that she had already hit her goal of funding for her campaign. As each check was just under the $100 mark that requires reporting (so legally she could have taken the money and not had to report it) she still did not take any of them. How honest is that!
Wouldn’t such an honest person be wonderful in our city government, serving on our city council?
Vote for Mercedes! And the other honest ones that are well known for extreme honesty: Lisa Matichak and Jim Neal!