County supervisors play partisan politics

California Political Desk

October 27, 2008

Taxpayers Association smears Democrats running for nonpartisan offices.

Three members of the County Board of Supervisors are large financial contributors to a political action committee which says it fights taxes but whose main political activity is to attack candidates for local nonpartisan offices who happen to be Democrats.

San Bernardino County Supervisors Gary Ovitt, Paul Biane and Dennis Hansberger have together given $135,000 to the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association since April to send out negative mailers attacking Democrats running for nonpartisan office.

Ovitt is Chair and Biane is Vice-Chair of the San Bernardino County Republican Party. Each has contributed $35,000, and Hansberger has contributed $65,000.

Republican Assemblymen Bill Emmerson and Paul Cook also gave $15,000 and $10,000, respectively.

The San Bernardino County Young Republicans, led by former Assistant County Assessor Adam Aleman who is now charged with six felonies, contributed $40,000.

The Taxpayers Association PAC has recently mailed two negative political advertisements attacking Democrats running for local city councils

Its first mailer was an attack on Jeremy Baca, son of Congressman Joe Baca, who is running for a seat on the Colton City Council. It featured a photo of Baca with a black band across his mouth and the word "guilty."

"This is an unfair and unjust attack on me, personally, by the Republican party," Jeremy Baca said. "Just because I made a mistake in my life doesn't make me a bad person."

"America is a country of second chances. It's one of the things that makes this country so great," said Baca.

"The Republicans just want to maintain control over the Colton City Council, which is why they are so heavily involved in running negative campaigns against honorable citizens.

"They should just let the candidates run on their own merits for these nonpartisan offices and let the voters decide who they want without being besieged with all these lies and negativity."

The second ad is a sexist attack against Congressman Joe Baca and a personal attack against Fontana City Council candidate Angel Santiago, another candidate supported by Congressman Joe Baca.

The mailer attacks Congressman Baca for alleged remarks made against another California Congressional representative and accuses the Congressman of bankrolling campaigns against women.

It also accuses Santiago of failing to pay child support and having his drivers' license revoked.

"I have never owed any back child support," Santiago said, "and my ex-wife and children will confirm that."

Santiago is an elected official who has served six years on the Inland Empire Utilities Agency.

"I really question the motives of an organization like this for what they do and how they do it," Santiago said. "Is it to better the communities? I don't think so. I think it's only for their own self-interest. It epitomizes Bush politics and it must come to an end."

Controversy has recently surrounded a group of candidates endorsed by Congressman Joe Baca, whom he supported with a slate mailer to thousands of voters in western San Bernardino County cities.

Opponents accuse Baca of "dynasty building" while supporters say he is developing a "farm team" of highly qualified Democrats to run for local offices, just as Republicans do.

But the attacks have not been limited to candidates supported by Congressman Baca.

Last November the group sent three negative mailers to Redlands voters attacking Nancy Ruth White, another well-respected Democrat, in her nonpartisan campaign for a seat on the Redlands City Council, which she lost by a few hundred votes.

Non-partisan positions have traditionally been free of partisan campaigning but the Republican-financed Taxpayers Association has been pulling these dirty tricks for more than ten years.

While Democratic candidates for nonpartisan positions occupy themselves with positive self-promotion, the Taxpayers Association uses negative campaigning to support elitist good-old-boy politics and perpetuate a culture of corruption among locally elected Republican officials.

Many concerned citizens feel the Board of Supervisors, and the county Republican Party in general, should be concerned with their own corruption and failure to bolster the county's economy with effective policies and programs.

But, behind an iron curtain of Republican partisanship, Machiavellian power brokers continue to play a shell game with money from a variety of benignly named committees in a form of political socialism where they "share the wealth" to manipulate nonpartisan elections and deny the voters a clear and factual decision of the most qualified candidates.

It may be legal, but it is not ethical, moral, or responsible, and Democratic candidates and the County Democratic Party are now organizing to oppose it in the future.

At stake may be two Supervisorial districts which have just recently turned "blue" with more registered Democrats than Republicans to change the majority on the board.

The seats are held by Ovitt and Biane, the two supervisors who gave money to the Taxpayers Association to attack the Democrats.

Hansberger, the third supervisor who contributed to the Taxpayers Association, lost the June election to Neil Derry who has recently come under fire for hiring Jim Ervin with a six-figure salary as his Chief of Staff. Ervin received a fat severance package last year from Assessor Postmus, which some believe Ervin received from Postmus as payment for his silence about Postmus' alleged methamphetamine addiction.