02 Oct Endorsements 101, Special Interests, current, and past elected officials and their toxicity level.
First I would like to welcome all those new to Vallejo, especially those new to Vallejo Politics. I have met some wonderful people at Farmers market, and the number one question I get from people new to Vallejo Politics is “how did it get so bad here and why can’t we seem to elect candidates that will actually change Vallejo?” It’s a fair question with actually a simple answer.
There are certain special interests that like things the way they are as although things are deplorable for the average Vallejoan, special interests are reaping benefits from your tax money, political favors around special zoning, land sales, land giveaways, and selective code enforcement. This has been documented on this site, around the North Mare Island land giveaway to the Mare Island Company, ignoring zoning rules and letting V-Towne Farms open a business in a location not properly zoned, the relaxing of development milestones for the Nimitz group so that there is no accountability for development on Mare Island, relaxing Police checks and balances in their union agreements to check for alcohol or drug involvement in Officer involved shootings, along with extremely generous raises, and spending $15 million on a waterfront building not suitable for use as a Police Station.
Well the party has ended, and the Mayor and Council are out of money, so they are coming back to the taxpayers and asking us to pay a regressive tax to fund road repairs, programs for seniors, and unhoused, most of which was also promised by a sales tax passed that we have been paying for ten years. Yet we are back to the question as to why has nothing changed?
It has not changed because wealthy PACs like the Chamber of Commerce VALPAC, Jumpstart, Napa Solano Labor Council, and Public Safety Unions contribute large amounts of money to fund campaigns of candidates to win elections. Those candidates are elected and voters have not been informed in their track records to help hold them accountable for their actions. I will be including some links to tools that will help voters look at candidates, and Council members to determine who is endorsing them, and how much money they are give. For local elections:
California Secretary of State Database search https://powerserach.sos.ca.gov https://dbsearch.sos.ca.gov
California Fair Political Practices Commission Transparency Portal https://www.fppc.ca.gov/transparency.html
Solano County https://solanocounty.com/depts/rov/ https://campaign.solanocounty.com/CampaignDocsWebRetrieval/
Sometimes The County and City are a little late in posting their candidate information so I have included tools at the State level. If you don’t want to research using the links, it is a safe assumption that an endorsement from VALPAC, Napa Solano Labor Council, Jumpstart, VPOA or IAFF are toxic endorsements in that they will not change the direction or remedy the situation Vallejo is facing now, other than to give elected officials endorsed by them more money to spend the same way they have been spending for fifteen years. If you like the state of our City that is one thing, if you want change vote against candidates funded by the above, and vote no against the sales tax Measure that will enable toxic elected officials to continue their party, a party you are not invited given the state of Vallejo, but you are being asked to pay for.