Graton Rancheria pledges $1 million for campaign in support of SMART tax extension

The tribe that owns the Graton Resort & Casino is donating $1 million to propel the campaign in favor of SMART’s sales tax renewal, a thunderous political response to the opposition effort bankrolled several weeks ago by the daughter of prominent Sonoma County developer Bill Gallaher.

Greg Sarris, chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, announced the pledge to support Measure I in an interview Monday, about a week before mail-in ballots go out to most voters in the March election. It represents what would be the tribe’s single-largest political expenditure since opening the casino outside of Rohnert Park in late 2013.

“If somebody wants to fight us, tell them to take their best shot,” Sarris said. “We want the SMART train folks to have the opportunity to correct the misinformation that is going around and being put out by the naysayers’ campaign. Their folks have thrown in $500,000 or whatever it is, so we wanted not just to counter it, but we’ll double. We can do it and we will do it.”

Molly Gallaher Flater, 35, chief operating officer for Gallaher Homes, her father’s Windsor-based homebuilding company, earlier this month contributed about $560,000 to the opposition campaign, which goes by the name NotSoSmart.org.

She suggested she would be willing to contribute $1 million to kill the quarter-cent sales tax extension sought by the rail agency to support operations and expansion into 2059. Advertisements paid for by Flater have run on television and radio spots across Sonoma and Marin counties.

SMART supporters, meanwhile, had just begun to trigger campaign mailers and digital ads, with campaign officials saying they had not planned on broadcast spots before Flater announced her opposition.

The sudden windfall for the Yes on Measure I campaign makes a rival advertising effort possible, but campaign officials declined to detail Monday how they plan to spend the money.

“The playing field has been leveled,” said Eric Lucan, the Novato councilman who is co-chairman of the “Stay Green, Keep SMART” campaign. “Funding allows us to get the message out, but we still need to mobilize to make this a successful campaign. We’re not giving away the strategy.”

Sarris, a professor at Sonoma State University and author, said he does not know Flater or her father, the founder of Oakmont Senior Living, a chain of luxury senior living facilities across California and Nevada.

Flater’s family has used their wealth to influence politics in other local elections, including a record $202,574 spent in 2016 by her husband, homemaker Scott Flater, on independent campaigns supporting three candidates for Santa Rosa City Council.

The new political duel could result in one of the most expensive ballot measure campaigns ever in the North Bay. It’s already surpassed the all-time high for a tax renewal, said Brian Sobel, a political analyst and former Petaluma councilman.

“I don’t remember anything that rivals it,” he said. “It looks like it could be a face-off of titans. They both have whatever amount of money they want to put in the race. Probably the thing that would contain that is there just isn’t a lot of time left.”

In addition to the Graton tribe’s pledged donation, supporters of Measure I have raised an estimated $125,000 in campaign funding, according to Lucan, who also serves as SMART’s board chairman.

The campaign finance records for the opposition show nearly $564,000 in contributions through early last week.

Flater did not return multiple messages for an interview Monday and has yet to directly answer questions about her motives. A Sacramento-based political consultant who has helped coordinate the opposition campaign also did not respond. Flater, in a written statement released earlier this month, called SMART a “financial disaster” that has failed to meet some of its main goals - reducing traffic on Highway 101 and curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Of late, however, SMART has claimed progress on both fronts, disclosing for the first time earlier this month an illustrated fact sheet that touted greenhouse gas savings and headway on relieving highway congestion. An average SMART rider emits a third less carbon dioxide per mile than if they drive, the agency found.

The escalating battle comes with mail-in ballots set to go out to most voters early next week. SMART supporters said the tribe’s backing ensures that voters will see and hear more from the campaign extolling the merits of the 29-month-old commuter train.

“I’m just really glad that we could get this before the tribe and that they agree that it’s a great cause and championing the train is a great thing to do,” said Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane, who is a 10-year member of the SMART board. “We absolutely need to get the message out that this is a train that is transporting people, that is fueling our businesses, our quality of life, and our tourism all at the same time.”

Measure I requires a two-thirds majority to pass. Agency officials say they need the 30-year extension almost a decade early to refinance rising debt costs, freeing up more than $12 million in annual savings. The renewal would avoid spending down reserves, now at $17 million, and avert dramatic cuts in service and SMART’s workforce that officials say could come within the next few years without the extension.

The tribe supported SMART at the ballot box in 2008, when voters passed its current quarter-cent sales tax, which sunsets in 2029. It donated $50,000 to the campaign for Measure Q.

Since its $825 million casino opened in 2013, however, the tribe has asserted a more muscular political presence. It has been a champion for public open space, bankrolling in 2018 the successful campaign in favor of an eighth-cent sales tax to fund parks in Sonoma County.

The same year, it also joined with union groups to sink a $124 million housing bond in Santa Rosa that organized labor opposed.

Sarris called the tribe’s growing involvement in local politics a “monumental shift.”

“We wanted to have a business that would benefit Indian and non-Indian alike, so that we could be empowered and engaged citizens with the larger community to push forward our agenda of environmental stewardship and social justice, and increasingly we have the means,” he said.

He said the tribal council was unanimous Friday in its vote to back SMART at the ballot box, describing the support as an outgrowth of the rancheria’s socially progressive vision.

“I don’t want war,” Sarris said. “It’s not that money talks. It’s that money makes people talk to one another. That’s where we are. I’m going to use whatever power and influence this tribe has ... to facilitate people coming together. If you want our money, you’ve got to come together.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin Fixler at 707-521-5336 or kevin.fixler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @kfixler.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct the amount of the Graton tribe’s total contribution to SMART’s Measure Q sales tax campaign in 2008.