First salvo fired by outside groups in race for Sonoma County supervisor
The race for Sonoma County 4th District supervisor intensified this week as candidate James Gore came under attack for his alleged prior work as a lobbyist representing chemical companies and debt collectors, and questions about his oversight of a federal agency that mishandled millions of dollars.
Gore said his opponents are wrong, however - that he was mistakenly registered as a lobbyist by the Washington, D.C., management consulting firm where he worked. Nor, he says, did he oversee budget matters at the Department of Agriculture’s National Resources Conservation Service, which came under fire for making an estimated $10.6 million in payments to “dead farmers,” more than 1,000 individuals who had been deceased a year or more.
The hard-hitting attacks were made on a website set up by an independent expenditure committee tied to labor and environmental groups that are supporting longtime Windsor Town Councilwoman Deb Fudge in the 4th District race. The groups followed up with a similar mailer to voters this week questioning Gore’s past and his suitability to hold public office. Gore’s major backing comes from farm and business organizations, who often square off with some labor and environmental groups in county campaigns.
The moves mark an escalation in the race to replace Supervisor Mike McGuire, with a little more than three weeks left until mail-in ballots go out in the Nov. 4 election.
With few other compelling races on the countywide ballot, the contest between Gore and Fudge is seen as the marquee runoff for local political office - the prize a seat representing the north county and a likely role as a swing vote on key issues that come before the Board of Supervisors.
As such, “the race becomes a magnet for negative campaigning,” said David McCuan, a Sonoma State University political science professor.
“The stakes are high beyond the district. When you look at any issue before the board moving forward, whether water, pensions, roads or corrections - whatever is going to happen before the board - the winner of this seat will be the key that determines the direction the board goes,” he said.
The independent committee behind the first outside salvo in the contest is calling itself Working Families and Environmentalists for a Better Sonoma County. It is funded by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 551, Service Employees International Union Local 1021 - the largest union of county workers - and a limited corporation headed by Southern California developer Bob Bisno, who has applications for two large housing projects in Windsor - Bell Village and Windsor Mill.
Two other independent expenditure groups with the same treasurer - one opposing Fudge and the other supporting Gore - also were registered over the past two weeks. The latest campaign finance reports show no contributions, though one committee appears to be funded by real estate interests.
McCuan said the independent expenditure groups, which are not allowed to coordinate with the candidates, “become essentially the heavyweight boxers that go negative against the candidates.”
They “will attack each one for not being what they appear to be,” he said.
The questions being raised about Gore’s background are some of the same he himself is trying to address, filling in a record and a past that at least until now has been largely unknown to Sonoma County voters.
Although he was born and raised in Sonoma County, Gore, 36, was gone for more than a decade and seemingly came out of nowhere last year to run the first time for elected office when McGuire decided to seek a state Senate seat being vacated by Noreen Evans.
Gore’s newest mailer to voters seeks to fill in details about his biography, with vintage family photos and a timeline starting with his birth in Healdsburg and moving to his service in the Peace Corps and job in Washington, D.C. - a “White House appointment to provide a strong voice for California on agriculture and natural resource issues.”
Headlined “The life and story of a Sonoma County native,” it goes on to state he “proudly served” as assistant chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service before he, his wife and young daughter moved back to Sonoma County last year.
But Gore’s opponents portray him as a carpetbagger with a padded resume and a lot of “hidden stuff.”
“I feel there’s a kind of facade. Voters have a right to know who the real James Gore is,” said Lisa Maldonado, the executive director of the North Bay Labor Council, which represents 30,000 members of 71 unions.
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