Candace Andersen

Contra Costa Public Employees Union Local One may have endorsed her opponent but now that Danville Mayor Candace Andersen has won the District 2 supervisor seat in a landslide, the labor group is graciously asking Gov. Jerry Brown to appoint the victor.

“Ms. Andersen was decisively elected to the District 2 seat,” wrote Local One General Manager Larry Edginton in a letter to the governor’s office. “The voters of that district have spoken. They have elected Mayor Andersen to represent them on the Board of Supervisors. There is no reason not to fill it or appoint someone else.”

The Contra Costa Building Trades and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo — both endorsed Contra Costa Community College District board President Tomi Van de Brooke — have also sent letters recommending the appointment.

Local One, which represents 2,000 Contra Costa County employees, rightly argues that District 2 residents deserve a representative as soon as possible and the restoration of a fifth supervisor will avert any potential tie votes that might create governance programs.

Andersen beat Van de Brooke on June 5 by 31 percentage points. She will take the office held by the late Gayle Uilkema, who intended to retire at the end of the year but died in May from ovarian cancer.

The district office has been without a full-time supervisor since last winter, however. Uilkema had been unable to work for much of the year although she tried to keep up from home until very close to her death.

Andersen’s term doesn’t  officially start until Jan. 1, 2013, but the governor could appoint her to the post early. As a general law county, only the governor may fill vacant supervisor positions.

The Contra Costa Board of Supervisors is expected to approve a similar request of the governor at its June 26 meeting.

There’s no official word out of the governor’s office yet although nothing is likely to happen until after the election results have been certified.

But there is no obvious barrier to the appointment. Partisanship is unlikely to disqualify the Republican mayor because she won by such a vast margin. She also generally opposes new taxes but says she hasn’t taken a position on the governor’s tax initiative, hasn’t signed a “no new taxes pledge” and says she won’t, and has supported all the school bonds and tax measures in the San Ramon Valley.

“I’ve been in contact with the governor’s appointment in office to find out what they need from me,” Andersen said. “I’m hopeful it will happen in July but it is in the governor’s hands.”

Joe Eddy McDonald, the lively former Hercules mayor who leveraged a personal tragedy to make Highway 4 in West Contra Costa County safer for all drivers, has died.

Read my colleague Tom Lochner’s story here. http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_20832382/former-hercules-mayor-joe-eddy-mcdonald-dies?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com

Er, it helps to run unopposed.

Contra Costa County Supervisor Federal Glover just put out a press release thanking voters for re-electing him to a fifth term.

“All the work positioning myself in regional policy-making bodies and building relationships are paying paying off,” he said in the statement. “The people see the results of that work.”

All that may well be true.

But his supporters also warned off all potential challengers including Martinez Councilman Mike Menesini, who backed out on the last day to file.

Supervisor Mary Nejedly Piepho, of Discovery Bay, also ran unopposed. She was re-elected to a third term.

Read on for Glover’s full press release.

Read the rest of this entry »

Voters have plenty of campaign mailers to peruse this election, especially in the highly competitive District 2 Contra Costa supervisor fight between Danville Mayor Candace Andersen and Contra Costa Community College board President Tomi Van de Brooke.

Yesterday, I posted mailers put out by independent expenditure committees who support Van de Brooke. Below, you’ll see a pro-Andersen mailer paid for by the Deputy Sheriffs Association PAC and one from her campaign.

Solar energy professor Sean White of Lafayette is also running, but he has no mailers. It takes money to send out mail and White has refused to take campaign contributions on the grounds that the process corrupts politicians.

Labor and abortion rights activists have poured nearly $50,000 into the intense county supervisor race between Contra Costa Community College Board President Tomi Van de Brooke and Danville Mayor Candace Andersen.

Funded by two independent expenditure committees, robocalls and mailers remind voters leading up to Tuesday’s election that Van de Brooke is the abortion-rights option while Andersen, a conservative Mormon, calls abortion a social issue irrelevant to the job of a county supervisor.

Whether or not a candidate’s positions on social issues do, or should, matter in a local nonpartisan race has been a combustible thread throughout the campaign.

Read full story here.   See mailers below.

Former Contra Costa sex crimes prosecutor Michael Gressett filed a sweeping lawsuit in Superior Court in Martinez today alleging that nearly every agency and person involved in his 2008 aborted rape case engaged in defamation and politically motivated malicious prosecution. Read full story here.

The defendant list includes Contra Costa County and its district attorney’s office along with a handful of its current and former deputy district attorneys and investigators. He also named the state and several deputy attorney generals; Martinez and several officers; retired District Attorney Bob Kochly; and unsuccessful 2010 district attorney candidate Dan O’Malley, and O’Malley’s former law partner, Tom McKenna.

Gressett, who learned in February that the state would not refile rape charges after a judge threw the case out on procedural grounds, seeks unspecified awards for lost wages and benefits, emotional distress, punitive damages and attorneys’ fees.

A contract deputy district attorney accused Gressett of raping her in May 2008 at his Martinez apartment. She said he used ice cubes, an ice pick and a gun.

Gressett said the sex was rough but consensual.

An independent arbitrator later ruled the allegations unsubstantiated and a Superior Court judge threw the case out after state prosecutors failed to disclose a $450,000 settlement to the alleged victim, among other procedural problems.

Read the full complaint here: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/121728287/Michael-Gressett-lawsuit

Assembly District 11 Democratic candidate and Oakley Councilman Jim Frazier has outraised and outspent his five opponents by a large margin.

In the latest campaign finance report, Frazier reported contributions of $160,429 since January and expenses of $296,383.

Republican and Suisun City Councilman Mike Hudson is in a distant second. He received $64,177 and spent $62,226.

Arguably, Frazier needed to raise and spend the most money. He is the only Contra Costa candidate running against five Solano County opponents in new district dominated by Solano County. It’s a large field and only the top two finishers will advance to the general election,

The numbers for the other candidates are: Democratic labor negotiator Patricia Hernandez of Rio Vista received $34,894 and spent $64,807; independent and ex-Vacaville councilman Len Augustine received $31,759 and spent $26,473; Democratic retired Benicia fire chief Gene Gantt received $22,364 and spent $49,930.

Democratic programmer and artist Charles Kingeter of Suisun City did not file a report, which presumably means he didn’t raise enough money to trigger the filing requirement.

Assembly District 11 is a newly drawn district that includes Antioch, Oakley, Brentwood, Knightsen, Byon, Discovery Bay and Bethel Island plus the bulk of Solano County.

Assembly District 11, map by Redistricting Partners

The failed Contra Costa clean water fee sank in every city in the county except El Cerrito, according to a vote breakdown.

As you may recall, the county and its 19 cities attempted earlier this year to persuade property owners to pass an annual fee to pay for programs associated with tightening state and federal anti-pollution regulations on stormwater runoff.

The unusual property-owner election coupled with the bad economy and campaign missteps doomed the effort, which went down 59.4 percent to 40.6 percent.

Here are the final numbers ranked by the percentage of support, as provided by the Contra Costa Clean Water Program:

Contra Costa Supervisor Gayle Uilkema on March 13, 2012.

Contra Costa County Supervisor Gayle Uilkema died early this morning with her family by her side.  She had been battling ovarian cancer since mid-2010.

In her fourth term, the 73-year-old former Lafayette mayor has been absent from her seat behind the board dais in Martinez since December, when she suffered a bout of pneumonia she described as a complication of chemotherapy.

She had hoped to return to her customary full-time schedule this spring although she was planning to retire at the end of the year after serving 16 years.

What I will remember most about Gayle is how much she deep-down loved her job as a county supervisor. She will be missed.

A rosary will be held 7 p.m. Wednesday St. Perpetua Church at 3454 Hamlin Road in Lafayette. The funeral mass will be held at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, also at St. Perpetua.

Flowers should be sent to Hull’s, 1139 Saranap Ave., Walnut Creek, CA 94595.

Memorial donations may to sent to the American Cancer Society, 101 Ygnacio Valley Rd., Walnut Creek, CA 94596

State Controller John Chiang today called Hercules’ books the “worst set of accounting records” he has ever seen, and blasted the city on numerous fronts in its audits of the city’s use of federal and state grants and transportation money.

Read my colleague Tom Lochner’s story here.

Here’s what Chiang had to say a few minutes ago:

SACRAMENTO – State Controller John Chiang today released findings from his first two audits of the City of Hercules, one focusing on its use of state and federal grants , the other on the City’s use of transportation funds . The audits found glaring holes in the City’s accounting and management of state and federal grant funds, as well as inappropriate charges against street repair funds.

“During my time in office, this could be the worst set of city accounting records I have seen,” said Controller Chiang. “The City’s books were so poorly managed, that I must question their use of every single federal and state dollar granted to the City.”

Auditors made 32 requests for 107 documents from the City, many of them basic ledger statements that are fundamental to any accounting system, but the City only could provide 15 documents. Requests for meetings with City staff often were ignored or cancelled, and by the end of the review, the City no longer employed a senior accountant.

The City could provide almost no records showing how it spent more than $2 million in state and federal grants, leading auditors to question the use of all grant dollars in 2009-10. Some of the grants included:

• State Citizens Office of Public Safety: $100,000
• State Housing and Community Development: $720,000
• Federal EPA Watershed – West Coast Estuary Initiative: $146,025
• Homeland Security Grant Program: $4,824

The City’s reporting was so poor that it even failed to list four additional federal grants, which together totaled $159,984.

Auditors also found the City was commingling gas tax receipts – which are solely restricted to fund street improvement projects – in an investment pool with other city funds. Given the City’s questionable fiscal management practices, there is concern that gas tax dollars may have been diverted to fund activities unrelated to public streets and roads, and the Controller has ordered the City of Hercules to remove those dollars and place them in a separate bank account. The City also incorrectly charged more than $39,000 in interest against the gas tax funds, which must be replaced.

“The manner in which city officials approached their fiduciary responsibilities falls below every reasonable standard of care and begins to explain why Hercules is under water,” said Chiang. “The longer the City goes without accounting for its taxpayer dollars, the greater the risk that federal and state authorities will withhold money from the City, further increasing Hercules’ difficulties.”

The audits released today by the Controller will be followed by two separate reviews focusing on the City’s financial internal controls, as well as its redevelopment agency.