Last-minute mailers in Santa Rosa council races raise accountability questions

Last-minute batches of political advertisements sent to Santa Rosa voters in two City Council races shortly before Election Day have raised questions about who was behind the spending and how it sought to sway voters.

One mailer bankrolled by the Teamsters Local 665 touted more than two dozen endorsements secured by Victoria Fleming, a political newcomer who holds a narrow 169-vote advantage over District 4 rival Dorothy Beattie in preliminary results.

The Teamsters union endorsed Fleming, but its independent spending in her favor has yet to be reported in campaign finance records filed with the city. Santa Rosa requires independent expenditures of more than $100 between Oct. 21 and Election Day to be reported to the city clerk’s office within 24 hours.

A Bay Area Teamsters representative acknowledged that the union local paid for the pro-?Fleming mailer but could not say how much it cost or why the spending had not been reported. He did not respond to subsequent requests for comment.

Fleming, a clinical social worker, said she became aware of the Teamsters mailer from people who had received it but hadn’t seen it herself.

“What other committees do, I can’t really speak to it,” she said, declining to discuss the matter further.

Beattie, who works as a mortgage consultant, noted that independent expenditure campaigns are legal and said outside advocacy “shouldn’t color the candidate.” Her own campaign was favored by independent spending from the national parent group of the North Bay Association of Realtors, of which Beattie is a member. The National Association of Realtors spent about $13,100 on advertising supporting Beattie, city records showed.

“In both cases, it wasn’t a significant amount of money at all. It’s just the way that people respond to it as if it’s evil,” Beattie said, noting that the North Bay Association of Realtors directed the spending from the national group. She was referring to Councilwoman Julie Combs’ pre-election comments on Facebook that were critical of Beattie and the Realtors’ money.

“Unfortunately, I think a lot of people think that way,” Beattie said.

At least 71,000 mail ballots remained untallied in Sonoma County as of Thursday, including 3,933 ballots linked to Santa Rosa precincts in District 4, according to a Press Democrat analysis. Fleming and Beattie were the top vote-getters in a District 4 race that also included candidate Mary Watts.

A second last-minute mailer that has drawn criticism was paid for by the re-election campaign of Councilman John Sawyer, who prevailed with 59 percent of the vote last week in his District 2 race against former councilman Lee Pierce.

The postcard-sized mailer touted itself as a “Democratic Voter Guide.” It carried Sawyer’s name along with about a dozen others running for local, state and national offices, including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, and also urged voters to support Santa Rosa’s Measure N, a $124 million affordable housing bond that was defeated.

Pierce, in a pre-election post on his campaign’s Facebook page, called the mailer “bogus.”

He noted, correctly, that he was the lone candidate in the District 2 race to be endorsed by the Sonoma County Democratic Party. He urged his supporters not to “be fooled” by the advertisement.

Sawyer, a three-term councilman and former mayor, paid $888 on Oct. 5 to a Long Beach company called Voter Guide Slate Cards for the advertisement, according to campaign records. It was unclear how many of the mailers were sent to voters or when they first arrived.

In 2014, the company and its founder, Jerry Seedborg, were investigated by the California Fair Political Practices Commission for its political ads. The company received a warning letter for using the wrong type of fine print to tell readers who was funding the ads. The letter noted future election law violations could result in penalties of $5,000.

Proper disclosure of funding sources is important so voters can easily understand who paid for political advertising, said Jay Wierenga, a spokesman for the FPPC.

Previously, in November 2012, the Federal Election Commission split 3-3 on whether to sanction Seedborg for alleged illegal coordination with then-Rep. Howard Berman’s unsuccessful 2012 re-election bid in Southern California.

Seedborg, reached last week by email, defended the mailer sent to District 2 voters in Santa Rosa.

“Our mailer only simply implies we endorse John Sawyer and says he’s a lifelong Democrat,” Seedborg wrote, without elaborating on who handled the company’s process or how it works. “Lee Pierce was asked to participate on our mailer, but declined.”

Sawyer, whose campaign reported spending over $20,000 on campaign literature and advertisements, noted that the slate mailers are a tool long used by candidates. He said he didn’t think the mailer that carried his name misled voters.

“I have faith in their intelligence,” Sawyer said. “Like any political endeavor, the voting public needs to look for the truth, and if they read the slate card, it’s really, really clear that (candidates and ballot measure advocates) all paid to be on that slate card.”

Pierce declined to comment last week. The “election is over,” he wrote in an email.

Laurie Gallian, chairwoman of the Sonoma County Democratic Party, did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the last-minute mailers in the two Santa Rosa races.

You can reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt at ?707-521-5207.