Independent groups go negative in Santa Rosa council race

The candidates may be keeping it clean, but negative campaigning is nevertheless rearing its head once again in the race for Santa Rosa City Council as Election Day nears.

A flier attacking Tom Schwedhelm and John Sawyer as allied with Republicans hit voters’ mailboxes last week, followed this week by a robocall blasting Chris Coursey and Lee Piece as “dangerous” to public safety.

The efforts underscore how special interest groups remain willing to go beyond donating money to or endorsing their preferred candidates, but also to actively engage in negative - some would say misleading - campaign messaging.

The mailer against Schwedhelm and Sawyer was funded by Concerned Citizens for Santa Rosa, a longtime group supporting environmental, neighborhood and union causes and candidates.

The piece claims that Republicans are responsible for the “dysfunctional Congress” and asks voters “Do we want them running Santa Rosa?” It notes that Schwedhelm, the city’s recently retired police chief, has been a registered Republican since 1994. It also questions whether it is wise for voters to put a second retired police officer on the council.

Sawyer, however, is a lifelong Democrat. The flier notes he was endorsed by the Republican party of Sonoma County when he ran unsuccessfully for 1st District Supervisor in 2012. It also calls him a “failed councilman.”

The mailer was funded by several sources. The largest was $2,000 from Global Materials Recovery Services, which employs Pierce and whose owners and executives are largely bankrolling his campaign. Guy Conner, husband of the late Rep. Pat Wiggins, gave $1,500, while Rick Theis, director of environmental sustainability group The Leadership Institute for Ecology and the Economy, gave $1,001.

Other contributors included $750 from the Sonoma County Central Committee and $250 from Councilwoman Julie Combs. Coursey is also listed as having contributed $500 to the organization during the period, but the money wasn’t to fund the mailer, he said. The payment was for access to the results of a poll the organization did in August, Coursey said.

Anne Seeley, chairwoman of Concerned Citizens for Santa Rosa, confirmed Coursey’s payment had nothing to do with the mailer. She called the reporting of Coursey’s $500 along with the mailer contributions an “unfortunate juxtaposition” required by campaign finance reporting rules.

The organization produced the mailer because it felt Schwedhelm and Sawyer, largely because of their public service and name recognition, might be attractive candidates to many voters, and the group wanted to raise doubts about them, Seeley said.

“It was necessary to let the public know that there are dangers in approving these two candidates, and that they ought to look at others,” she said.

Schwedhelm has said he doesn’t feel a person’s political party should be an issue in a non partisan local race. Sawyer called the piece a “fairly weak attempt at coupling Tom and I together, for whatever reason,” and one that was unlikely to resonate with voters.

Concerned Citizens isn’t the only group going negative to score last-minute points with voters.

Santa Rosa firefighters backed a robocall over the weekend that claimed Coursey and Pierce have proposed “cutting funding for public safety.” Both candidates have advocated changes to Measure O, the 2004 sales tax that provides about $7 million per year for public fire and gang prevention.

Both candidates have proposed asking voters to revise the provision in the law that automatically adjusts the baseline funding requirements upward for inflation every year. That requirement has come under scrutiny as ensuring a greater and greater percentage of the city’s general fund will fund public safety at the expense of other city services, unless the council overrides it by a 6-1 vote..

From that, the robocall claims “Coursey and Pierce want to make Santa Rosa a more dangerous place to live.”

Tim Aboudara, president of the Santa Rosa firefighters union, said firefighters and police made a commitment to voters in 2004 about how Measure O funds would be spent. Not all those promises have been fully realized, and firefighters feel responsible for protecting the revenue needed to fulfill Measure O’s promises, he said.

Any talk about revising the measure needs to be a comprehensive, community-wide solution, not something that is “fodder for a campaign.”

“Our position that these guys have staked out a claim on Measure O that we think goes too far, and we’re going to fight back on that,” Aboudara said.

Coursey called the claim that he wants to make the city more dangerous an “outrageous lie” that is “beyond the pale” and should have no place in the campaign.

“I think it’s really unfortunate that right at the last minute in this campaign, outside groups are poisoning the process,” Coursey said.

Pierce said the notion that Measure O cannot be touched because it reflects the will of the voters of 2004 ignores the financial realities of a post-2008 recession world.

“I don’t think their position is the right position when we’re looking out for the welfare of the entire city,” Pierce said.

He also distanced himself from the Concerned Citizens’ mailer. Pierce, the government affairs manager for Materials Recovery Services, said he had no idea his boss, Curtis Michelini, had contributed to Concerned Citizens and does not condone the resulting mailer.

The election is the city’s first under a new local ordinance requiring groups funding more than 200 robocalls to report those activities to the city including a transcript of the call.

The firefighters union’s “Committee for a Safe Santa Rosa” filed forms Monday indicating that it spent $473 on 22,381 calls against Coursey and Pierce.

The transcript, however, indicates the call did not give people the opportunity to opt out of future calls, as required by the new local ordinance. Adoudara said it was an “issue with our vendor” that has since been resolved.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.