Even the politicians are expensive to buy in Mountain View!

Fascinating to see the Mountain View voice do a story about bribery without calling it that.

Until people will accept publicly funded elections, fund raising is a fact of life. If more individuals made donations in local races, big donations wouldn't be needed. Still, running for election is expensive. A mailing costs about $1 per piece which at 30,000 voters would be a $30,000 hit. And then there is advertising, door hangers, and the list goes on.

At least it isn't as bad in Mountain View as it is in Palo Alto and Sunnyvale where candidates spend as much as $100,000 each. We at least have a voluntary spending cap which almost everyone abides by.

I'm sorry, former Councilmember, but you don't find that there's at least the appearance of impropriety when Councilmembers are raising large sums of money from organizations doing business with the city, after the election has completed?

This isn't normal campaign fundraising, this was proactively requesting money from organizations with business in front of the city, as Councilmember McAlister stated.

Developers funding political campaigns sounds like business as usual in Mountain View.

What's novel though is to see candidates lend themselves money....only to be repaid by special interests .....after the election. In effect it removes any transparency in campaign financing, as voters had no way to know who was ultimately paying for ads, flyers, robot-calls.....

I wish the City would move to publicly funded elections to stop these shenanigans.

I didn't vote for Mr. Kasperzak, but he is right. The fact that our City Council members must do fundraising for the privilege of serving our City is a sad fact of life, and we should not assume they are beholden to the CAA or any of their other donors because they accepted campaign contributions.

My impression of current Council is that most of them donated or loaned money to their own campaigns in spite of our unfair campaign finance system, not for personal gain. Of course they have their own agendas, but unlike on the national stage, I see consensus-building in our City Council meetings, and an absence of the kind of political gridlock we see in DC.

I think we're lucky that our local politicians really do care about weighing all of the alternatives and doing the right thing for the City as a whole. In past years they have disappointed me in voting against things I considered important, but those are the breaks in a democracy. We're fortunate to still have one in California.

I donated small amounts, but expected nothing in return. I also donated much larger amounts to Bernie Sanders because I feel so strongly about Citizens United, the Koch brothers, gerrymandering, and all of the dirty tricks that are played by the most unprincipled players of national politics. I can't do much, but I can recognize good public service when I see it. And I do see still see it in Mountain View.

Thank you, Voice, for giving us solid, reliable information that isn't provided just to rile folks up, but to help us to understand the reality of political life in Mountain View. Money talks, but it doesn't prevent many of our local politicians from voting their consciences and not their pocketbooks.

Beelia, I understand fundraising for campaigns is part of the rules of the game.

Isn't there, on the other hand, something far more unseemly about courting donors after the election has been completed? Donors with business in front of the city providing large sums of money directly to candidates after they've been elected?

@beelia I wonder; do you feel the same about Soros, unions and the liberal super PACs?

It is interesting and relevant that there were few post-election donations to LOSING City Council candidates. Eventual winners and eventual losers both raise money from others and lend their own funds to their campaigns. They both know that contributions that come in more than 3 weeks before the election are more useful in winning office than later contributions, because so many voters vote early via vote-by-mail ballots and because it's hard to plan to spend money that you can't count on receiving in time to make use of it.

I was a losing Council candidate in 2002, and I went back tonight to check my records to see if anyone donated to me after the election. I did find a $50 contribution that arrived the day after the election by mail, so it would have to have been sent before the results were known. I cashed the check.

I think that it's acceptable for winning candidates to keep contributions sent after the election from individuals who have no business before the Council (like one's family or oldest friends) but not from anyone else.

I don't think it's acceptable to keep post-election donations from any person, company or group that has business, or is LIKELY to have business, before the Council. Those donations should have been returned immediately. Now that the issue has been raised publicly, I think they should be returned pronto.

I'm proud that I ran with volunteers and small donations averaging $27! The problem is that our government is sponsored by special interest groups in Mountain View, California, and Washington DC.

I was proud to compete again 7 incumbents including 3 former mayors, special interest groups that sponsored TV ads targeting the renters in Mountain View, and candidates who violated the City of Mountain campaign finance rules and agreement collecting up to $50K!

yes, this really did happen!

We need the city council to pass a resolution to move to public financed campaigns. My proposal is that each candidate would receive a city of Mountain View election program (debates and community forums, mailers, and other baseline election communications) to level the playing field. Let's assume that the $2000 that I raised would be the baseline provided to each candidate managed by the city of Mountain View that would provide for signs, mailers, and other get out the vote tactics. The city already sends out a magazine to all residents why not use this direct mailing approach for the election? We already have the online forums? We already have the debates. Then let the candidates compete on the issues, volunteers, and door knocking rather than funds that pay off the endorsements by the special interest groups?

Farfetched... not really is you want democracy in our community and country.

The alternate is that the next race will cover millions to elect a city council in Mountain View.

Would it not be better for the sponsors to fund programs instead in our communities such as affordable housing for teachers and nurses, public transportation end to end, safe routes to schools, and the issues that are debated and discussed during the election.

If the special interest groups would not to sponsor the city of mountain view elections, setup a program that is democratic, fair, and achieves the outcomes of the residents and constituents who live here and pay taxes rather than the special interest groups that invest her and generate profits.

http://www.carpenter4mountainview.com

Worth also noting that most of the late contributions are not from Mountain View.

A sitting council member asking for money from the same people that are in front of the City Council for permits and projects is unethical. If McAlister did not raise enough to make up for his expenses he should have not spent the money. Yes, former council member Kasperzak, it is expensive to run for office, but McAlister ran for the second time, he should have known. So how are his decisions in business dealings/permits with these donors going to be? You bet, they get what they want.
This is Washington on a small scale, shameful.

Worth also noting that some of these late December donors had gatekeeper projects in front of the City Council on December 6th...

Mike Kasperzak,

What you failed to discuss is that any attempt to publically fund elections will be overturned by the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 US 1 (1976) is a US constitutional law Supreme Court case on campaign finance. A majority of judges held that limits on election spending in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 §608 are unconstitutional. The majority, in a per curiam opinion, contended that expenditure limits contravene the First Amendment provision on freedom of speech because spending money, in the Court's view, is the same as written or verbal expression.

And in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 558 U.S. 310 (2010) is a U.S. constitutional law and corporate law case dealing with the regulation of campaign spending by organizations. The United States Supreme Court held (5–4) on 21 January 2010 that freedom of speech prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation. The principles articulated by the Supreme Court in the case have also been extended to for-profit corporations, labor unions and other associations.[2][3]

Public funding will not solve the problem with politicians selling their services for the bidding of private interests. I have no argument regarding fund raising for politicians, but when said politician takes actions for the benefit of a donor, that is where the law can legally penalize such action. That is because satisfies the appearance of prid quo pro, ("something for something" or "this for that" in Latin) means an exchange of goods or services, where one transfer is contingent upon the other.

You are one to talk, you took actions to operate as an agent of the CAA, in private to benefit the CAA while sitting in the Mountain View City Council. The evidence was discovered recently. This action in fact calls for all City Council resolutions or ordinances you voted on involving any financial benefit to either the CAA or its members to be void.

I currently have a claim filed against you and the rest of the previous city council and city attorney because of this action. And I strongly support all tenants not being provided the rent roll back under Measure V to file a claim against Mike and the previous city council before the new term, and make sure you document the financial loss, the city attorney wanted to claim my complaint was insufficient, but I provided cancelled checks for my rent before and after the landlord raised it after October 2015.

Funny. A loan advertisement. The game is to advance money to the campaign before the election and take the contributions or bribes after the election. Voters should elect only candidates with no reported loans to their campaigns. Of course then the crooked politicians will just stop reporting income or let "independent" fly-by-night organizations promote their candidacies.

@Stan - That is exactly what I tried to do during my campaigns. I accepted only funds from Mountain View residents and none from special interests, but I found that it was nearly impossible to get my message out with residents being swamped with literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising from hidden 3rd parties.

Mountain View is now officially no longer a small town and in my opinion we will see only big money, big business, and big union backed candidates in the future; and every blue moon we may get a candidate that truly represents the people and not special interests.

I was glad to see that Lisa Matichak won and that gives me hope that we COULD see more candidates like her, but it I think it very unlikely.



Jim Neal
Old Mountain View