By Terry Scott, 2022 candidate for City Council, October 28, 2022
I saw this flyer and the first thing I thought was: here we go again. Valero and it’s PAC dumping huge amounts of money to support the same preferred candidates they effectively supported for City Council in 2018. Why would they do that? Why would they want their preferred candidates to be re-elected. Why create a misleading mailer under a new PAC NAME.
We know why.
Valero PAC has every legal right to support whomever they want with or without the candidates permission.
Is it legal, yes as noted.
Is it moral, no it’s not fair.
I had hoped Valero would have
Let Benicians elect Benicians without outside influence and money.
Late today, Benicia City Clerk Lisa Wolfe posted two more campaign finance reports previously submitted by the Valero PAC. These reports shed light on the expenditure of $37,000 seemingly missing from earlier reports.
In addition to the $8,698 spent for their misleading campaign mailers (reported here earlier today), these reports also disclose expenditures of $17,500 for each of their chosen candidates for telephone polling.
Benicia residents reported receiving unsolicited telephone polling calls near the end of August. Now we know who was paying the big bucks to find out what Benicians think, and just so to fashion their political messages in a bought election.
The two new campaign finance reports also show $2,000 paid to Trusted Messenger Marketing of Los Alamos for “Consulting.” This is the same firm the PAC paid to produce and mail their misleading mailer.
The new total of known spending by the PAC for Largaespada and Strawbridge as of today is $45,698.61.
The PAC will be soon be required to file a report disclosing both expenditures AND contributions through 10/30/22. This form will be due in the Benicia City Clerk office on 11/2/22.
It will be most interesting to get further information on Valero’s effort to buy two City Council seats again in 2022.
Note that others in Benicia are keeping an eye on Valero’s meddling in our elections – check out Benicians For Clean Elections at https://www.beniciansforcleanelections.org/
See also my page of support for candidate Kari Birdseye here on the BenIndy.
Stay tuned. I’ll let you know if/when we learn more.
We gave no permission for them to use our photos in this obvious attempt to confuse voters about whom we support.
By Benicia Mayor Steve Young, October 28, 2022
A recent glossy mailer from the Valero PAC sent in support of Christina Strawbridge and Lionel Largaespada could not be more deceptive. It implies that all the members of the Council (who are pictured in the flyer) are supportive of their re-election. The fact is that NONE of the current Council (other than themselves) are supporting them.
Vice Mayor Campbell and I are supporting and endorsing Terry Scott and Kari Birdseye for the two open Council seats, and Trevor Macenski has been neutral. We gave no permission for them to use our photos in this obvious attempt to confuse voters about whom we support.
In 2018, the Valero funded PAC successfully defeated Kari Birdseye and helped elect Largaespada and Strawbridge with a toxic negative campaign against her. In 2020, a similar negative campaign was launched against me in my race against Ms. Strawbridge, but Benicia voters saw through the negative ads and I was elected Mayor.
So far, the flyers sent by the PAC do not target a specific candidate, however they are untruthful and full of misinformation. The flyers themselves are expensive to produce and mail, and this type of spending demonstrates everything that is wrong with this type of PAC’s involvement in small-town elections: unlimited funding; no oversight of truths, exaggerations or lies; and a win-at-all costs mentality.
Terry Scott and Kari Birdseye cannot compete with the Valero PAC’s budget of more than $200.000. The only way they can fight back is through social media, volunteers walking precincts, and word of mouth. If you are supportive of Kari and Terry, please share this and related messaging with as many Benicia voters as you can.
Let’s send Valero another loud and clear message that our community rejects their effort to manipulate our election by electing Terry Scott and Kari Birdseye to the City Council. Perhaps they will finally learn, once and for all, that our City Council cannot be bought.
Enough. Let Benicia voters decide Benicia elections.
Yesterday, residents of Benicia received slick mailers that misleadingly showed images of Benicia Mayor Steve Young and Vice-Mayor Tom Campbell supporting Valero’s preferred candidates for Benicia City Council.
In fine print at bottom, the mailer discloses that it is paid for by “Progress for Benicia” a previously unknown Political Action Committee (PAC), “Supporting Christina Strawbridge and Lionel Largaespada for Benicia City Council 2022.”
More about the mailers below, but first…
The “Progress for Benicia” PAC is Valero, under a new name – here’s how we know:
Yesterday, Benicia’s City Clerk posted two new campaign finance reports submitted by the new PAC, showing Paul Adler as “Responsible Officer.” Adler is the refinery’s Director of Government Affairs & Community Relations. The new PAC’s reports appear on the City Clerk’s page along with the notation, “(Formerly named Working Families for a Strong Benicia)”.
A slick mailer, designed to fool Benicians and to protect the PAC
Here’s the mailer. Note at top left, “Re-elect Strawbridge & Largaespada” and at right, the photos of Mayor Young and Vice Mayor Campbell.
If this comes to your door and you’ve not been paying much attention, you will clearly assume the entire City Council supports these two candidates. You will spend about 30 seconds looking at the mailer and dump it.
The Valero PAC will look all innocent and point out that the front of the mailer is all about how their candidates enable the 5-member Council to cooperate to “get things done.” Yeah, sure. That’s really slick, guys. Enough, maybe for a 2023 bonus for your PR team?
Public finance records skimpy at this time…
As of now, we know very little about the Valero PAC’s new identity. What is known comes from two nearly identical reports submitted to Benicia’s City Clerk on October 27.
One report, supporting Largaespada, shows a single expenditure of $4,349.31 on October 26, for a mailer, with the notation, “Cumulative to date total $27,198.61; TRUSTED MESSENGER MARKETING, 137 MAIN STREET, LOS ALAMOS, CA
93440”.
A second report, supporting Strawbridge, shows another expenditure of $4,349.30, also with the notation, “Cumulative to date total $27,198.61; TRUSTED MESSENGER MARKETING, 137 MAIN STREET, LOS ALAMOS, CA
93440”.
IMPORTANT: Public records as of today do not give any accounting for the remaining $37,000 in the cumulative totals the PAC says it has spent. (Note this amount is a correction from my original report. Earlier, previously undisclosed PAC reports gave a fuller picture. See UPDATE: VALERO PAC SPENT $35,000 FOR PHONE POLLING, TOTAL NOW AT $46,700.)
ALSO IMPORTANT: These two campaign finance reports have no information as to where the PAC got its funds, or how much cash remains on hand. One might speculate that the Valero-backed $232,387 the PAC reported earlier this year were shifted to the new PAC.
NOTE that both mailers claim the PAC has not coordinated with either candidate’s campaign. In this way, theirs is an INDEPENDENT EXPENDITURE with explicitly and publicly disclosed support of the two candidates they want us to elect.
Stay tuned. I’ll let you know if/when we learn more.
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