Category Archives: Valero Benicia Refinery

Benicia City Council, Christina Strawbridge, Corporate influence, Kari Birdseye, Lionel Largaespada, Local elections, Negative campaigning, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Services Inc.

City records show Valero, others have pooled $104,200 (LATER: $154,200) to oppose Kari Birdseye with negative ads & phone calls

Shocking documentation of outside money plans to influence Benicia election

By Roger Straw, October 13, 2018
[See Oct. 18 update – total now at $154,200!  – R.S.] 

Get ready!

If you think the Benicia City Council race has been nasty so far, with negative campaigning through secretive push polls and negative phone calls, just wait… Valero and others in a new Political Action Committee (PAC) have joined together to raise over $100,000 to influence our election with additional hard-hitting negative campaign tactics.  $100,000 – over 3 times the limit each individual candidate is allowed to spend on their campaign!

So… you can expect to see negative ads making outrageous claims against Kari Birdseye on TV and Facebook.  Expect nasty signs around town, more negative telephone campaign calls, glossy mailers delivered to your door, and who knows what else?  To understand the dark nature of their plans, you really do need to check out the phone script and photocopies of ads in the City reports at right. They want to buy a seat on Council.

According to official City of Benicia documents (see at right), Valero wrote a $14,200 check to help fund a Political Action Committee that goes by the nearly endless name, “Working Families for a Strong Benicia, a Coalition of Labor, Industrial Services Companies, Public Safety and Local Leaders Supporting Christina Strawbridge and Lionel Largaespada and Opposing Kari Birdseye for Benicia City Council in 2018.”

Besides Valero’s $14,200, the other interested parties are throwing in another $90,000 to fund the WFSB anti-Birdseye campaign.

My opinion?  They better hope this works. Can you imagine campaigning this viciously against someone and then losing? Not the smartest way to try and “mend fences” after a near disastrous chemical release in 2017 and a pledge to be a “good neighbor.” Is this how good neighbors act?

Links to City of Benicia documents:

We’re not all that far away from the election – you can expect the PAC to spend this huge amount in the next three weeks.  Benicia will be inundated with their anti-Kari messaging.

Remember: this tactic was tried by Big Oil previously when Chevron spent $3 million to try and buy four city council seats in Richmond in 2014. It failed spectacularly.  San Francisco State political science Professor Robert Smith wrote of the Richmond outcome, “This means that big money doesn’t always win, that ordinary people can defeat huge corporate power.”  sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Chevron-s-3-million-backfires-in-Richmond-5873779

Let’s hope that Benicia voters see past the slick mailers and negative hit pieces that will soon be flooding our mailboxes and FaceBook feeds.  Kari Birdseye for Benicia City Council!

Click here to go to Kari’s campaign website, BirdseyeForBenicia.com
Benicia City Council, Benicia Planning Commission, Christina Strawbridge, Climate Change, Crude By Rail, Kari Birdseye, Lionel Largaespada, Local elections, Valero Benicia Refinery

Our Benicia Election is a referendum on Climate Change

By Roger Straw, October 12, 2018

MY LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE – THE CLIMATE AND OUR LOCAL ELECTION

Roger Straw, Benicia

      For the first 35 years of my adult life, my priority was on peace and freedom, justice and equality under the law. That and helping folks in need.
      Sometime in 2007, a friend and colleague spoke convincingly to me about the planetary threat of climate change, global warming.  I was skeptical, but I didn’t argue with her.  I listened, and somehow, I came to understand that everything – EVERYTHING – is at stake, that creation itself is in the balance.  The science is indisputable.
      My life since then has revolved around environmental causes, and I’ve taken seriously the mantra, “Think globally, act locally.”  I’ve helped elect Benicia leaders who share my views; I’ve campaigned against bulldozing development on Seeno land; I’ve helped organize Benicians to successfully deny giant Valero’s dangerous and dirty crude by rail proposal; I’ve helped awaken Benicia to the serious need of better air monitors in and beyond the refinery.
      These concerns are front and center as I consider my vote for City Council this fall.
      One candidate spoke out repeatedly in favor of toxic and potentially explosive oil trains: Lionel Largaespada.  He’s a nice guy but he doesn’t belong in a position of power at the heart of our city.
Another candidate was a deciding vote in 2016 to stop Valero’s oil train proposal in its tracks.  Christina Strawbridge will get a lot of votes for that, and she should.  I hope Christina wins, but it’s hard to overlook many of her votes.  She frequently voted with business-friendly and environmentally insensitive colleagues.  For instance, she voted in favor of Seeno development, in favor of a nearly million-dollar give back to Valero, and in favor of a budget that discontinued employment of Benicia’s Climate Action Coordinator.
      The one candidate who stands out as a shepherd of the planet’s future is Kari Birdseye.  Thoughtfully independent and caring, she now presides collaboratively over Benicia’s Planning Commission, where she voted in 2016 to send Valero’s oil train proposal down the tubes.  Her professional work is for an award-winning environmental non-profit.  She’s also a mom, with a long history of involvement in Benicia’s schools, where she has raised funds for good causes and led everyday moms and dads to unite for constructive outcomes.  Those abilities will be needed in our future as we work together to build economic diversity and sustainability in our beautiful, family-friendly art town by the Strait.
      I have come to know Kari personally.  She’s a straight shooter, tough and yet nurturing, open to conversation and compromise, but with eyes always peeled for the good of mother earth, the air, land and water.
      Kari Birdseye is my number one priority in this election.  And I hope she will be yours as well.  Check her out, order a yard sign, volunteer and donate at BirdsyeForBenicia.com.

"Push poll", Benicia City Attorney Heather McLaughlin, Benicia City Council, EMC Research, Kari Birdseye, Lionel Largaespada, Napa-Solano Central Labor Council, Research America, Valero Benicia Refinery

Polling companies decline to provide Benicia with survey questions

Repost from the Vallejo Times-Herald
[Editor – Thanks to Times-Herald reporter John Glidden for requesting poll questions and call data from Valero. The polling companies refuse to comply with City Attorney McLaughlin’s request, but Valero paid for the poll and thus owns the poll information. So far, not a word from Valero. BUT… guess what. There’s a NEW campaign phone poll going around, openly promoting 2 of Kari Birdseye’s opponents and smearing her.  My guess is that the wording for this new poll is based squarely on the results of Valero’s incendiary push poll.  Sponsors of the new poll and the candidates they endorse are benefiting from Valero’s shady research.  – R.S.]

Polling companies decline to provide survey questions

By JOHN GLIDDEN , October 11, 2018 at 4:17 pm

BENICIA — The City Council will strategize in closed session once again about an alleged “push poll” incident after two polling firms have refused to provide a copy of the survey questions that were asked to residents in September.

Gary Winuk, with the Los Angles-based Kaufman Legal Group, which represents Research America and EMC Research, sent a three-page letter to City Attorney Heather Mc Laughlin on Wednesday arguing that the council’s request for the questions was improper.

“This requested disclosure of information is particularly inappropriate where the city is making the request and the poll explored subject responses to statements regarding City Council candidates whose campaigns are being personally supported by current members of the council,” Winuk wrote. “The city should not place itself in the position of immersing itself in the back and forth of electoral politics by attempting to force the public disclosure of confidential poll information.”

Vice Mayor Steve Young reported in a Sept. 20 letter first published by the Benicia Independent that he received such a survey call, with the questions allegedly smearing Benicia council candidate Kari Birdseye while championing fellow council candidate Lionel Largaespada.

Asked for comment about Wednesday’s letter and Winuk’s assertion of impropriety by the council, Young said all the councilors have endorsed candidates in the council race.

“However,  I imagine they may be targeting me since I was one of the Benicia voters who actually received and took the poll, and then reported on the nature of the questions. Fortunately, there are many more people who reported not only receiving the poll, but also confirming the biased nature of the questions,” Young wrote in an email to the Times-Herald. “The attorneys claim it is not a push poll, but by simply complying with the City’s request to provide a complete list of the questions, that question could be put to rest. Now, all we have is their word.”

Young has called the survey a “push poll,” which is a type of survey meant to influence voters instead of gathering objective survey information from those called.

Representatives from the Valero Benicia Refinery have already admitted to Benicia City Attorney Heather Mc Laughlin that the refinery paid for the polling that was carried out by the polling firms Research America, and EMC Research.

Young said he doesn’t know if Winuk represents Valero as well.

“We have not heard anything directly from Valero; only a conversation between the City Attorney and Valero General Manager Don Wilson in which Wilson admitted Valero paid for the poll,” Young added. “And since they did pay for the poll, the requested information should be their property, and be made available to the city.”

Wilson has not returned requests by this newspaper for comment on the poll and a copy of the survey questions.

Winuk further reiterated in his Wednesday letter that the poll was done to gather feedback from Benicia voters “on issues relevant to the upcoming election.”

The Benicia City Council met in closed session on Oct. 2 to talk about the survey and whether it may have violated the city’s municipal code when the pollsters failed to state who paid for the polling. Winuk has maintained that the poll was not a campaign communication and thus didn’t need a “paid-for” disclaimer.

Councilors at that time directed Mc Laughlin to investigate and find out who paid for the polling and receive a copy of the questions asked.

The Council is scheduled to meet in closed session on Tuesday.

"Push poll", Benicia City Attorney Heather McLaughlin, Benicia City Council, EMC Research, Kari Birdseye, Legal action, Local elections, Research America, Valero Benicia Refinery

Push poll attorney’s preparatory posturing

[Editor – as expected and predicted, the push poll survey companies’ attorney claims it wasn’t a push poll, violated no laws, is protected by the US Constitution, and would cost Benicia a fortune to contest it in court.  Stay tuned, and continue to raise alarms about Valero’s secret dirty meddling in our election.  Content of the attorney’s letter is reproduced below, and downloadable as a PDF copy.  – R.S.]

Email from Benicia City Attorney Heather McLaughlin

Hi all!

Attached is the letter declining to provide the City with the requested information.  We have this items scheduled for Closed Session on Tuesday.

The letter is public information.

Thanks, Heather

KAUFMAN LEGAL GROUP
A PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION
777 S. Figueroa Street, Suite 4050 Los Angeles, CA 90017
main 213.452.6565   fax 213.452.6575   www.kaufmanlegalgroup.com

October 9,2018

Direct: (916) 498-7715

VIA U.S. MAIL & E-MAIL

Heather McLaughlin, City Attorney
City of Benicia
City Hall
250 East L. Street
Benicia, CA 94510

Re: Poll Conducted by EMC Research and Research America

Dear Ms. McLaughlin:

This letter is in response to your letter to Research America and EMC Research dated October 5, 2018. In that letter, you requested two items of information. First is a list of the polling questions used by the professional polling firms for the poll in question. Second is an “itemized invoice showing the dates, times and number of calls made.” You also requested that any future “push” polls that meet the definition of independent expenditure comply with Benicia City Chapters 1.32, 1.40 and 1.42.

As I mentioned in my October 1, 2018 letter to you, the public opinion research poll referenced in your e-mail was conducted by Research America and EMC in full compliance with applicable federal, state and local laws, which do not require campaign advertisement disclaimers on telephone polls. EMC Research and Research America are professional polling companies that conduct surveys based on scientific data and modeling to provide information to campaigns about voter preferences and attitudes. They do not engage in campaign advertising communication-which is exactly what so-called “push” polls are. Contrary to local press reports, the poll at issue was not a “push” poll.

Valero, although under no legal obligation to do so, has identified itself as the entity that commissioned the poll. The purpose of the poll was to gather feedback from local voters on issues relevant to the upcoming election. It involved a robust sample methodology, designed to achieve a random sampling of likely voters from within the City of Benicia. The survey was conducted September 6 through September 20, among a random selection of256 likely voters from within the City of Benicia. This period lies outside the 45-day period referenced in Benicia Municipal Code Chapter 1.40.041.

There are no federal, State or local laws that require disclaimers on polls, whether conducted telephonically or by electronic mail. As previously noted, a recent opinion issued by the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) at their September 2018 hearing confirmed this. I Polls are not considered campaign communications or “mass mailings” and, thus, do not require campaign advertising disclosures. The Benicia Municipal Code provisions referenced in your letter do not apply to polls. Those provisions, Chapters 1.36, 1.40 and 1.42, only apply to campaign communications. As the FPPC has opined, a poll is not a campaign communication.

Because the poll in question here was not a campaign communication, the professional polling companies are under no obligation to provide you with the information you requested. Polling questions and invoices for polls that show the date, time and number of calls made are confidential, and not subject to compelled governmental disclosure. While the City ordinance may regulate disclosures for campaign communications, they do not regulate polls. Nor should they as a matter of public policy. Polls are not conducted to influence voters; rather, they are targeted to a limited cross-section of voters to form as accurate a representation of the electorate as possible.

Further, the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right of those who paid for the poll to engage in political discourse. Any restrictions on this right by government are examined under an exacting legal standard that prohibits government from passing laws that impermissibly restrict political speech without a showing of a compelling interest.2 Polls are an important part of the process of determining whether and how to potentially engage in political speech. Requiring public disclosure of poll funders, questions and other details impermissibly restricts the ability of individuals to engage in political speech and association. See, e.g., Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 591 F.3d 1147 (9th Cir. 2010) (on petition for mandamus, blocking discovery order seeking to compel disclosure of internal campaign materials); In re Motor Fuel Temperature Sales Practices Litig., 258 F.R.D. 407, 418 (D. Kans. 2009) (finding privilege against disclosure of internal communications regarding political activities).

This requested disclosure of information is particularly inappropriate where the City is making the request and the poll explored subject responses to statements regarding City Council candidates whose campaigns are being personally supported by current members of the Council. The City should not place itself in the position of immersing itself in the back and forth of electoral politics by attempting to force the public disclosure of confidential poll information. Nor should City resources be used to engage in these activities. These actions serve as a chill on free speech and association rights set forth in the Constitution.

For the above-listed reasons, Research America and EMC Research respectfully decline your request for further information regarding the poll. If the City chooses to issue a subpoena or take other legal action, the companies stand ready to vigorously defend their rights. Finally, since the two polling firms do not engage in campaign communications, we do not expect that any future polls will implicate the disclosure and disclaimer requirements of the Benicia Municipal Code. Please contact me immediately should you have any further questions.

Sincerely,

Gary S. Winuk

GSW:VCC