With 55 days to go, the Richmond campaign season begins to live up to its sordid reputation.

Richmond Confidential reports that Bea Roberson embellished her endorsement list with individuals and organizations that claimed not to have endorsed her.

The Richmond Chamber of Commerce, which manages the Home Front Festival, listed among the sponsors “No on Measure N,” igniting protests from both individuals and other sponsors, including the City of Richmond and the National Park Service, both of whom threatened to withdraw their support and sponsorship if the political references were not removed. The superintendent of Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park issued a retraction and apology Friday for the mass email flier from the Chamber of Commerce linking his group with a political campaign against a local ballot measure. The Chamber of Commerce remains obsessed with supporting reactionary candidates who claim to be business friendly but actually know little about what really attracts business to Richmond.

The candidates are starting to sort themselves into groups identified by supporters and issues. Bates and Roberson have formed an alliance with Booze, Chevron, BAPAC and the Chamber of Commerce, seeking to overturn the current Council majority made up of RPA members and moderates Butt and Rogers. While not a close ally with Booze, Bates and Roberson, Bell is benefitting from support of the same business community reactionaries who support Bates and Roberson.

Following are media stories from the Contra Costa Times and Richmond Confidential.

Campaign flyer flawed

Campaign flyers for Bea Roberson were sent out to Richmond residents last week. (Photo: Tawanda Kanhema)
Tweet
By Stephen HobbsPosted September 12, 2012 12:00 pm
Seven members of the community listed in a campaign flyer for City Council candidate Bea Roberson as supporting Roberson said last week that they had not explicitly endorsed the candidate.
Roberson said she had done her best and, if the information was wrong, “It was not done with malice.”
Roberson has been a resident of Richmond since 1964, and this is the first time she has run for public office. In a previous interview with Richmond Confidential, she said she only decided to run in May.
Last week, campaign flyers for Roberson were mailed to Richmond residents. The mailings listed more than 80 elected officials, organizations and members of the community as supporting Roberson’s campaign.
Janie Holland, president of the Santa Fe Neighborhood Council, said she does not endorse candidates, while Alejandro Navarro, president of the Southwest Annex Neighborhood Council, said that he had received an invitation to attend Roberson’s official campaign event, but he did not endorse her. Both neighborhood council presidents were listed on the flyer.
Mike DeSimoni Sr., the chairman of the Channel Lumber Company, said he met with Roberson, but that he is a resident of Napa and did not endorse her.
Zee Handoush, who owns 7 Stars Holistic Health Center in Richmond said, “We’ve always been supportive of her work in the community. But in terms of endorsing her as a candidate for the Richmond City Council, I have not.”
Felix Hunziker, founder of the North & East Action Team, Stanly Anderson, president of the Marina Bay Neighborhood Council, and the Central Labor Council of Contra Costa County reaffirmed that they had endorsed Roberson.
Last week an email newsletter sent out by the Richmond Progressive Alliance said that the Richmond Police Officers Association had yet to conduct an interview with Roberson to endorse her as a candidate.
But at Roberson’s official campaign kickoff event, RPOA President Hector Esperaza was quoted saying, “She has our full support and we’re going to do everything we can to make that [her win] happen.”
Richmond Confidential reporters reached seven endorsers for council candidate Eduardo Martinez and six for Marilyn Langlois, and all of them reaffirmed their endorsements.
Roberson said she would correct the error.
“I am being honest as I can,” she said. “If someone is on there who says they didn’t endorse me, I will call each and every one of them and make sure they are not on the next one.”

National Park Service issues apology after Richmond chamber links it with anti-soda tax campaign

By Robert Rogers
Contra Costa Times
Posted:   09/14/2012 06:21:54 PM PDT
Updated:   09/14/2012 07:57:14 PM PDT

RICHMOND -- The superintendent of Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park issued a retraction and apology Friday for a mass email flier linking his group with a political campaign against a local ballot measure.
"The flier listed 'No on N' as an official sponsor of the 2012 Home Front Festival, along with the National Park Service and other entities," park Superintendent Tom Leatherman said in a news release. "The National Park Service, as a federal agency, cannot and will not endorse any political campaigns and does not take sides on ballot measures."
The release further stated, "The appearance of the National Park Service 'Arrowhead' logo on the flier should in no way associate our agency with the 'No on N' campaign."
The campaign is in opposition to a ballot measure that could levy a penny-per-ounce tax on merchants who sell sugar-sweetened beverages. The Richmond Chamber of Commerce staff was responsible for the flier, Leatherman said, and under tight deadlines, his own staff failed to screen the content before it was sent out. The flier advertised the 2012 Home Front Festival, an annual celebration of the city's World War II history.
Calls to the Chamber of Commerce late Friday went unanswered. The chamber opposes the tax, calling it bad for local businesses.
In an interview late Friday, Leatherman said the e-flier was blasted out, probably to thousands, by the chamber on Thursday.
Leatherman said the chamber has funding from the Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes, which is backed by the Washington D.C.-based American Beverage Association.
"The chamber has some responsibility to know about working with the city and the NPS," Leatherman said. "They should be knowledgeable to our policy."
Leatherman said he didn't think flouting the policy was intentional but more a "failure for proper review."
Chamber President and CEO Judy Morgan could not be reached Friday, but Leatherman said she apologized to him when he brought the problem to her attention.
"As far as I am concerned, it was a mistake and it's over," Leatherman said. "We'll send out a new flier in a couple of days."
Contact writer Robert Rogers at 510-262-2726 or rrogers@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/roberthrogers

City Council swings into election season

Tuesday night’s hotly anticipated City Council meeting painted for the Richmond community a clear portrait of its pending election season. (Photo by: Tawanda Kanhema)
Tweet
By Rachel WittePosted September 12, 2012 2:04 pm
At its first public meeting since the Aug. 6 Chevron refinery fire and a Measure N—referred to as the “soda tax”—lawsuit filed against the city, Tuesday night’s hotly anticipated City Council meeting painted for the Richmond community a clear portrait of its pending election season.
“Trends are already beginning to form,” said Councilmember Tom Butt after the meeting about the strong positions taken by many of the candidates. Butt was ready to define his own reelection campaign as the middle ground in a divided city.
“On one side you have the pro-Chevron establishment candidates like Bell, Bates, Boozé and Roberson and then on the other side you have the two RPA candidates,” he said. “I’m the sweet spot.”
Nine of the 11 council candidates attended Tuesday’s meeting. Marilyn Langlois, Gary Bell, Bea Roberson, Mark Wassberg, Eleanor Thompson and Mike Ali-Kinney all took the opportunity to speak during public forum, while current Councilmembers Butt and Nat Bates spoke from the council dais.
As the council considered amending the city’s industrial safety ordinance following the Chevron fire, Councilmembers and candidates were clearly divided between acting now and waiting until the investigation into the Chevron incident by the Chemical Safety Board was complete.
Councilmember Corky Boozé argued against the amendment, and was joined by Councilmember Nat Bates.
The CSB “came in from Washington,” Bates said. “Why are we going to jump ahead of the experts?”
Boozé and Bates were vocal from the outset, and tried to draw sharp contrasts between themselves and other councilmembers.
“They don’t care about poor people,” Boozé said from the dais and gestured to his RPA opponents.
Councilmember Jeff Ritterman, an RPA member who has repeatedly clashed with Boozé in the past, is not running for re-election and said the Bates and Boozé alliance was all part of the game.
“You’ll see that Bates and Boozé are attacking Butt, saying he’s getting special privileges,” Ritterman said. “It’s all part of the politics.”
Measure N, as it has all year, continued to play another part in the politicking. In a closed-door executive session before the meeting, the council discussed the city’s defense against a campaign disclosure lawsuit filed by the Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes.
Mayor Gayle McLaughlin had removed the discussion from the public agenda at the start of the meeting and directed staff not to talk about the closed session. Boozé and Bates objected, saying it was the city’s duty to the citizens of Richmond to remain transparent on the issue, but City Attorney Bruce Goodmiller said that Councilmembers could not talk about the issue due to attorney-client privilege.
Having clearly separated themselves from the progressive alliance that now controls the council, Boozé and Bates hope to capitalize on the election not just to keep Bates in his seat but to add to their ranks by electing Bea Roberson, who aligns with Bates and Boozé on several issues.
“My goal is getting my team together and up there on the Council,” Boozé said.
But candidate Marilyn Langlois, one of two RPA candidates whose election might help the progressives achieve a four-seat council majority, said she was skeptical about speakers’ intentions at the meeting.
“There’s always the difficulty of seeing if people are speaking because they’re really looking out for the best interests of all of the Richmond residents,” she said. “Or are they just trying to carry votes with one constituency or another?”
And though they’re on opposite sides of the Richmond political spectrum for now, Nat Bates said he agreed.
“You’re going to find a lot of politicking between now and the election, people using anything and everything to try and get an advantage,” he said. “It will probably even get nasty, but that’s the nature of politics.”