Close to Home: Let’s get real about the 5th District campaigning

As a young Latina leader from Roseland and a young environmental leader from west county, we’ve been working for Noreen Evans’ campaign for the past year. We’ve knocked on hundreds of doors and talked to thousands of voters. It’s obvious that many people in Sonoma County are hurting and need help.

This week, the opinion page of this newspaper and Evans’ opponent in the 5th District supervisorial race called for an end to long-standing divisions in our community and for a more “civil” community discourse (“Seeking a more civil public discourse,” Close to Home, Wednesday).

While this sounds like a noble goal, it is not reflective of reality. The call for “civility” is too often used to shut out the voices of the powerless. An open, honest discussion of our community’s challenges can be uncomfortable, especially for those with a vested interest in the status quo. We have a responsibility to speak up and share what’s really happening in our community.

Today we are seeing powerful outside interests, such as the California Apartment Association and New York billionaire John Dyson, pouring vast amounts of money into our local campaigns for and against their favored candidates. They are funding a ruthless barrage of attack ads against Evans, including costly full-page ads in this paper, smearing decades of public service to advance their own agendas.

The man designing the attack ads against Evans is a consultant for some of the wealthiest corporate interests in our community, and he has solicited two donors who have provided more than $70,000 to his campaign.

The California Apartment Association recently funded a campaign to gather signatures to overturn Santa Rosa’s new rent stabilization ordinance that was so deceptive that more than 150 Santa Rosans filed paperwork to remove their signatures. Voters need to know about these interests attempting to buy influence.

Money speaks loudly in politics. Special interest spending in local campaigns is always an issue for voters. The Political Reform Act creates a public disclosure pathway before the election takes place, and voters deserve access and attention to this financing. Access to financial support information of a candidate is critical to having a “civil” discourse. Without public discussion, voters are left to wade through fake charges instead of real records.

The reality is most of the economic gains in Sonoma County have gone to the 1 percent wealthiest for the past 20 years. Sonoma County’s rivers, hillsides and forests are vulnerable to exploitation to extract immense profit. Many people have lost their homes and live along creeks and rivers or under overpasses. Others face eviction because they cannot afford ever-rising rents. Still others are forced to leave the area to buy a home. These challenges threaten to destabilize our communities.

Reality is not a personal attack. We cannot solve our problems by blithely declaring an end to divisions or by avoiding debate because it reveals divisions in our community. The challenge we have is to work through those debates and forge a pathway forward, one that makes the most sense for the most people using values, experience, economics and public sentiment as our guide.

We want representatives who stand up for ordinary people. Our community hungers for an honest discussion of the challenges we face, including the wealthy and powerful interests trying to buy control of our local government. We cannot sweep them under the rug by pretending they don’t exist. It’s time to get real.

Jazmin Gudino, a Roseland resident, is a Spanish-language interpreter. Dennis Rosatti, a resident of Sebastopol, is a former executive director of Sonoma County Conservation Action. Both work for the Noreen Evans campaign.