Since 3 seats were filled in 2014 (2 by landlord-supported candidates), that means 4 seats will be on the November 2016 ballot. The Assembly candidates (Inks and Kasperzak) are termed out. Landlord advocates Clark and McAllister can run again. Who else will run?

From this article:

"It became the joke of the election," Rosenberg said. "It wasn't known who was contributing to these committees until the election was over."

This is no joke. This money corrupted the election. From a Voice article 2/6/15:

"All told, the NEC spent $114,000 on mailers for the three council candidates, having received funds from other sources as well. The committee seemed designed to obfuscate where money came from and to whom it was going."

Rosenberg, I recall, received more of this landlord money than either Showalter or Kamei.

I applaud any sincere efforts by Council to clean the dirt out of our elections.

Contrary to the statement attributed to Inks, the "dark money" campaign by landlords for Rosenberg, Showalter and another candidate did NOT backfire. It helped elect two of the three who won.

Councilmember John Inks is a good guy but I don't understand what he means in stating (assuming he is correctly quoted) that the "dark money" 2014 campaign by landlords "backfired." Actually, it helped get two of its three landlord-endorsed candidates elected. We now have 6 of 7 members of the City Council who posted on their own campaign websites the endorsement of fictitiously named landlord groups "Housing Council" or Tri-County Apartment Association"). The only real advocate for renters has been Councilmember Lenny Siegal. The watered-down rent mediation ordinance (approved on "first reading" on March 15 but up for "second reading" and actual adoption on April 26) is actually a trick. It does not protect tenants from eviction by a landlord who wants to increase the rent sharply but does not want to bother with existing tenants who could then require mediation. See this week's VOICE editorial.

Inks says the dark money was a "aberration"? We'll see at the next election, won't we?

@Four seats for sale - Who will run? Good question. Whoever it is had better have deep pockets. The "voluntary spending limit" of $22,689 in the last election was just blown out of the water by the landlords' $90,000 spent on behalf of Rosenberg, Showalter, and Kamei.

But do you know what would be the best remedy for this sort of corruption? Serious, timely reporting by the Voice and Mercury. Last election the Voice got around to some reporting, but too little, too late. And they never did get around to detailing exactly who set up the shell organizations and routing of money.

As one person famously said, "What difference at this point does it make?". The "Dark Money" angle was well known before the election was over, but neither the media nor the voters seemed to be interested until after the election. I ran a completely locally financed campaign and made it clear that I would not accept any special interest funds and guess what? There wasn't any. However, that wasn't what people wanted so we need to get over it, accept it and move on... I have.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View