Santa Rosa City Council candidates benefit from unprecedented spending

An unprecedented amount of outside money continues to flow into the Santa Rosa City Council race, raising questions about the people behind the last-minute campaign spending spree and their motivations.

Scott Flater, son-in-law of politically active Santa Rosa developer Bill Gallaher, filed new campaign finance disclosures this week indicating that he has spent $130,375 to date to support three candidates - Ernesto Olivares, Jack Tibbetts and Don Taylor - among the field of six vying for four council seats.

When combined with?anti-rent control forces that have spent $96,000 to date in independent expenditures in support of Taylor, the amount of outside money pouring into the local City Council race appears to have smashed all previous records.

The new disclosures brought a fresh round of denunciations from candidates who argued that the unlimited spending by wealthy individuals and outside groups was having a corrosive effect on local politics.

“It’s obviously an egregious amount of money to be spent on a City Council race,” said Chris Rogers, a 29-year-old former staffer for state Sen. Mike McGuire and first-time council candidate. “This is really a circumvention of our local contribution limits.”

Flater did not a return a call for comment.

Local campaign finance rules cap individual donations directly to candidate campaigns at $500 per donor per election cycle. But there is no limit to the amount of money that individuals or organizations can spend on independent expenditures, as long as they report the spending and don’t collaborate with candidate campaigns.

That’s due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that protected independent political expenditures as free speech, Rogers said. “We’ve talked for years about the effect of Citizens United on money in politics, and I think this is really Santa Rosa’s first taste of it at the local level,” he said.

Tibbetts, a 26-year-old member of the city’s Board of Public Utilities, has been the primary beneficiary of Flater’s largess. To date Flater has reported spending $62,675 in canvassing and mailers in support of Tibbetts, executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

“Frankly, that’s a disgusting amount of money to come into a local race,” Tibbetts said.

The independent expenditures on behalf of Tibbetts, Taylor and Olivares is separate from money the candidates raise themselves.

Tibbetts’ campaign has raised $73,754 to date, far more than any of the other five candidates, according to the latest campaign filings. That compares to $38,112 for Rogers, $36,915 for incumbent Julie Combs, $30,731 for Taylor, $29,686 for Olivares, and $7,225 for Brandi Asker.

Tibbetts said he worked hard to raise money from a broad cross-section of the community over the past year. To have other candidates benefit from independent expenditures by wealthy benefactors late in the race is “frustrating” and undermines the local democratic process, Tibbetts said.

“I really want to stress that I don’t like or condone these IEs,” he said.

Bill Gallaher was one of the early donors to Tibbetts’ campaign. Tibbetts, who worked for California Clean Power in 2015, said he approached Gallaher, who was chairman of the board, for support.

Gallaher is one of the city’s most successful developers, having built hundreds of homes in Oakmont, as well as luxury senior living facilities Varenna at Fountaingrove and Fountaingrove Lodge. He also owns property in east Santa Rosa he’s been trying to develop for more than a decade and is chairman of the board of First Community Bank.

Records show that Gallaher and his wife, Cindy, both listed as owners of their development firm Oakmont Senior Living, each gave $500 checks to Tibbetts on Dec. 31, 2015.

Six months later, records show Flater, Gallaher’s son-in-law, and Molly Flater, his daughter and vice president of Oakmont Senior Living, also each also gave $500 to Tibbetts’ campaign. Scott Flater’s profession was listed as “homemaker.”

Tibbetts said he has never met Scott or Molly Flater nor spoken with them.

“I think they were part of a bundle,” Tibbetts recalled.

That, says Sonoma State University political science professor David McCuan, is a pattern Gallaher has of “sprinkling money around” to family members to maximize payments to - and potentially influence with - council candidates.

“Bill Gallaher uses his family as a shell game, and has for a long time, in order to channel support to candidates of his liking,” McCuan said. “It sounds to me what they have done is against the letter and the intent of the law.”

Gallaher could not be reached for comment. Flater does not want to speak with the media, said Rob Muelrath, the political consultant managing the independent expenditure campaign that Flater is listed as bankrolling. He described Flater as an “entrepreneur” but could not say what industry or businesses he was involved in.

“I believe that Scott Flater is acting independently with his own money in these races,” Muelrath said. “I pretty much know for sure.”

He said he believed Gallaher did not provide the money to Flater because Gallaher was found to be “clean” when he was investigated by the FPPC for allegations that he violated campaign finance rules in a previous local election.

State campaign finance laws require disclosure not only of who is funding political expenditures, but whether they are the true source of the funds, said Jay Wierenga, spokesman for the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

“The concept of who is donating to a political campaign and who is the true source of the funds, those are concepts that the public obviously voted for and support,” Wierenga said. “Those are tenets that are at the very heart of making sure elections are fair and the playing field is level.”

He said the agency has the authority to interview witnesses and review campaign and bank documents. While all of that is true, McCuan called the FPPC “toothless and feckless” and said any investigation that found fault would result in a “slap on the wrist” long after the election was over.

Asked to explain what Flater hopes to accomplish by backing the three particular candidates, Muelrath said Flater has four children and is spending the money “for the future of our children and for the future of Santa Rosa.”

As he has in previous election cycles, Muelrath said Santa Rosa’s $500 individual spending limit is the problem, as it “protects the incumbents” by making it harder for newcomers to mount effective campaigns. Incumbents, by contract, have “hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of name ID” that newcomers are challenged to match.

The field of six candidates includes two incumbents - Olivares and Combs - who are seeking to retain their seats.

McCuan agrees the $500 spending limit is ineffective because council campaigns are more professionally run and more expensive than they used to be, creating this demand for cash that special interests can fill.

But he thinks the real reason for the infusion is that the business community is worried by polling showing their candidates not performing as well as they’d hoped. This is a consequence, he said, of a paucity of compelling pro-business candidates. He noted that Tibbetts is young and has only begun to build his political and work experience in the area while Taylor, the owner of Omelette Express restaurants who has lost his previous council bids, has some ideas, like free parking downtown, that haven’t gained political support.

Taylor did not return a call for comment.

Olivares said he’d be willing to revisit the $500 spending limit, but said he wasn’t concerned about outside groups spending money to support him or others because he can’t control it.

“I have to stick to my campaign and do the best I can to get reelected,” he said.