The second campaign mailer in less than a week, distributed by
the Sacramento-based Safe and Clean Schools Coalition, continues to
criticize Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate for city council decisions
to cut police funding while building new recreation facilities in
recent years.
The second campaign mailer in less than a week, distributed by the Sacramento-based Safe and Clean Schools Coalition, continues to criticize Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate for city council decisions to cut police funding while building new recreation facilities in recent years.
As expected Tate, who is running for reelection Nov. 2, disagrees with the mailers’ claims and their implications that public safety has taken a back seat to recreation in Morgan Hill under his tenure in office.
“I think the community has overwhelmingly embraced the recreation facilities,” Tate said. Those facilities include the Centennial Recreation Center and the Aquatics Center – which together boast nearly 3,500 paying members. Tate added police cuts were necessary because of declining tax receipts.
But bigger questions have to do with whether or not the mailers are legal under state and federal election disclosure laws, and since the propaganda doesn’t even mention the upcoming the election those laws might not even apply, according to information from the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
The mailers would be considered an “independent expenditure” under disclosure laws if they “expressly (advocate) the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate,” according to FPPC spokeswoman Tara Stock.
The anti-Tate mailers sent to Morgan Hill residents do not urge voters to vote against him or for another candidate. The only action they ask recipients to take is to call the mayor and ask him to do things differently. If the mailers count as an independent expenditure – Stock was unfamiliar with this incident and declined to comment on the local mailers – then they would have had to list their biggest financial contributors and a statement that the literature is not authorized by a candidate.
“If somebody thinks there might be a violation, they could file a complaint with our enforcement division,” Stock said.
The purpose of the mailers is mainly to educate residents, and one of the Safe and Clean Schools Coalition’s goals is to promote public safety, according to coalition spokeswoman Nina Salarno. The group has distributed similar literature in at least one other city – Stockton – but is not advocating any candidates.
The group is registered as a nonprofit, and is funded by “various donors,” Salarno added. She said the first mailer in Morgan Hill likely cost “in the $10,000 to $15,000 range,” but its distribution was coordinated by a political consultant. She is confident the mailers comply with all election-related laws.
It probably doesn’t matter in terms of the election’s outcome, according to San Jose State University political science professor Terry Christensen, who added that the mailers are a sign that “big-city” campaign tactics have made their way into small-town Morgan Hill.
“I can’t say whether it’s illegal, but it’s perfectly common,” said Christensen, who had not seen the anti-Tate mailer but was familiar with similar methods used in San Jose and San Francisco in the past. “Even if it’s illegal, we’re now two weeks away from the election – nothing would be done until months after the election is over.”
Further muddying the waters of legality, and entangling the money trail, is a U.S. Supreme Court decision concluding that caps on campaign contributions are unconstitutional, Christensen said.
“There are almost no rules anymore,” he said.
As for Tate’s opponents in the Nov. 2 election – Art College and Marby Lee – they had no knowledge of who was behind the mailers or that they were coming.
College said Monday he didn’t think the first mailer, which was sent out last week, was too far out of line.
“It didn’t say recall, fire or replace (the mayor),” College said. “It just said call the mayor and tell him to do a better job.”
While Lee also did not return phone calls Thursday, she has repeated one of the mailer’s claims in recent weeks, before they hit the mail, that the council has approved more than $200,000 worth of expenses only after the money was already spent and the work already completed – a recurring practice that she has been alone in opposing on the dais, Lee said.
That claim and others in the mailers are either inaccurate or taken out of context, Tate said.
The first mailer high-balled the amount of cuts made to the police department in recent years, he said, and while both mailers criticize the mayor and city for prioritizing recreation over public safety, Tate thinks “recreation is part of public safety.”
And in response to the complaint that in some cases the city has spent money before the council’s approval, Tate added, “Whenever work was allowed to proceed prior to council approval, the firm doing the work was informed that if the council did not approve, they would not be paid. The city was never placed in any financial risk.”
And the mayor added that no one has called him to urge him to do a better job, though he has heard from a handful of residents wondering where the mailers came from.
“(The people who called) think it’s introducing a negative aspect to campaigning in Morgan Hill. They don’t think Morgan Hill is a place for negative campaigning, and I agree with them,” Tate said.
The mayor said late Thursday that he has heard more mailers from the coalition are on the way. He said he will be available 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Hot Java coffee shop, 17400 Monterey Road, to answer any questions about the mailers in person. He said voters who cannot attend can call him on his cell phone at (408) 621-7377.
