With less than two weeks
left to go, this election seems to be bringing out a lot of ugliness in people. Even Bites, according to some observers,
has let the old manners lapse a bit recently. But there’s a difference between being impolite or impertinent and just
being a bully.
In his Saturday morning column, Bee columnist Marcos Bretón
dismissed most of the mayoral candidates as being, “court jesters” and “not worth any more ink.”
Not surprisingly, long-shot candidate Shawn Eldredge shot off an e-mail, “I am offended by
your article and am continuously disappointed in your words and actions.”
All pretty normal;
that’s what these guys do. But then there’s Bretón’s surprisingly strange hostile response to Eldredge’s
e-mail—which Eldredge promptly forwarded to half the city.
“There were literally
times during the Bee’s debate where your comments and those of the other fringe candidates made me sick to my stomach,”
Bretón told Eldredge, recalling the Bee/Channel 10 televised mayoral debate earlier this month. At other times, he
added, “I was holding my head thinking I could be with my children instead of listening to you.”
Wow. Bites really feels for the guy, having these “fringe candidates” breathing up all his air. There
he is, head in hands, fighting off the waves of nausea, brought on by doing his job. What a burden it must be, just trying
to scrape up a living, getting paid to write about this terrible election process—it’s so messy and frustrating,
and, egalitarian. Why, you couldn’t pay Bites enough to put up with what Mr. Bretón has to put up with every
day. Oh wait, yeah you could.
It looks like the Sacramento Police Officers Association
needs some Alka-Seltzer, too. Bites recently got a peek at an angry letter from the SPOA to SMUD Board Member
Genevieve Shiroma. (Yep, Bites is working the other-people’s-mail beat this week.)
Readers may recall that Shiroma was one of several women, including former State Sen. Deborah Ortiz
and former Mayor Anne Rudin, who held a press conference at police headquarters, saying there was something
fishy about the way St. Hope handled its “impartial investigation” into a claim by a student that Kevin
Johnson had touched her inappropriately. They wanted the Police Department to release the police report of the incident,
and pressed the point that it looked like St. Hope had broken laws regarding reporting possible child abuse.
It seems like a reasonable request to Bites, figuring that a little sunshine goes a long way. But the SPOA was “disgusted
and offended” by the request, and called it an “unwarranted assault” on all Sacramento police officers and
Chief Rick Braziel. In the letter, SPOA president Brent Meyer demanded that Shiroma produce a public apology
to city cops.
You have to read the whole letter to understand how over-the-top
it is, detailing Shiroma’s “ignorant and wrong” assertions about the investigation, her “lack of any
knowledge or understanding” of state public-records law. Never mind that Shiroma’s concerns about that investigation
are shared by the federal government, which is conducting its own investigation now. Never mind that the department’s
policy of not releasing the records is pretty flimsy, violating the spirit, and probably the letter, of the California
Public Records Act.
“I don’t see why asking for information would provoke
such an extreme reaction,” Shiroma said. “I have a right, as a citizen, to ask questions and not be retaliated
against.” And the thing is, Shiroma actually sounded kind of rattled by the letter when she talked to Bites. “For
a couple of days, I felt like I had a target on my back.”
Hopefully, it’s just a
political target. “I regret that this Association ever supported your desire to publicly serve,” Meyer wrote.
Not only is the SPOA never going to endorse Shiroma again in the future, they are actually taking back their endorsement of
Shiroma in 2006. Bites knew police powers were expanding lately, but didn’t know they included time travel.
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, April 22, 2008 Story appeared in METRO section, Page B1
Shawn Eldredge is considering investing in a cow costume. Or maybe drumming up some kind of juicy political
scandal.
Because he can't figure how else he's going to get people to remember that this is more than a two-person
mayoral race.
He doesn't really expect to win. Now that KJ's on the scene, he says he's realistic enough to know how bright
star power can shine. But he threw his non-Stetson in the ring to talk issues, and so far, he says, it ain't happening.
"Here I've been, out pounding the issues on the Internet, being out in town, and nothing," he said. "What
do we have to do to be heard?"
He told me this at a press conference he held Friday afternoon. I was the press.
For the record, Eldredge supports transit development, is proposing a half-cent countywide sales tax bump
to support law enforcement and is a Leo.
But enough of those pesky details. Bring on the cow costume.
What does it take for a mayoral candidate to be taken seriously
in this town? At least $500,000.
Which is bad news for Shawn Eldredge, who’s running
a definitively no-budget campaign and has watched, frustrated, as the mayor’s race turns into a showcase of money and
celebrity.
“I thought I was going to get my doors blown off by people
who are smart,” Eldredge said of the alarming lack of substance in the race so far—or at least in the local media’s
coverage of the race so far.
“They’re giving all this air time to this guy who’s
putting out fluff. But we need to be talking about nuts and bolts.”
The sad thing about the money primary is that Eldredge’s
résumé actually isn’t half bad for this contest.
He ran the Midtown Business Association; he runs a busy
contracting business. He’s been a regular at city council and community meetings. And unlike some candidates, he’s
done a lot of homework.
“It’s all about the funding. We need to be talking
about how we’re going to fund our city,” Eldredge told Bites last weekend.
That means figuring out how to fund a city that’s been too
dependent on suburban-style development. “We’ve got to be talking about land use and how we’re going to
make money on infill development.”
It also means raising taxes, not a proposition taken lightly by
this fiscal conservative.
City officials are contemplating a property-tax
measure to fund public safety, the police and firefighting agencies. But Eldredge is proposing a different approach: a sales
tax to put more cops on the street. Numbers he got from city budget officials suggest a half-cent sales tax could net about
$30 million. A new property-tax assessment would bring in something closer to $15 million.
Bites is not yet ready to endorse the cop tax; after all, as Eldredge
pointed out, the picture gets a lot more complicated when you add in the need for some sort of new funding measure for public
transportation.
Just having a solid proposal on the table is worth the price of
admission. So, let’s see how the other candidates’ plans stack up. Like Eldredge, Bites is ready to have the old
doors blown off by people who are smart.
Of course, it helps when people actually pay their taxes.
The Franchise Tax Board earlier this month released its list of the top tax scofflaws in the state. The biggest deadbeat in
the Sacramento area is the imposingly named B&B Property Investment Development and Management Company Inc., which
is on the hook for $1,113,450.90 in unpaid corporate income taxes.
But in some ways more interesting is the Roseville-based Padwell
Inc., listed by the FTB as owing $818,570.85.
A little clicking around showed that John and Roberta Padjen,
the owners of Padwell, have been in tax trouble since the late ‘80s. They owned NASCAR-style speedways in Chico and
Placerville and even faced jail time back in 1990 for unpaid taxes.
The weird, infuriating, there-obviously-is-no-God thing
about their case is that, in the middle of the whole investigation, the couple won $4 million in the state lottery. Wouldn’t
that have been a good time to catch up on some bills?
Excerpt from 3/27/08 Sacramento News and Review Article by Cosmo Garvin
.........
So how does one run an actual grassroots campaign event? Perhaps it looks something like
the No Business as Usual rally being put on Thursday by mayoral contender Shawn Eldredge .
“This is not a fund-raiser; I am not accepting money,” Eldredge explained. “It
is an opportunity to be heard, and make a stand for no business as usual in City Hall.”
Instead, he’s inviting local music acts, the public and the other mayoral candidates to
come to the event he’s billing as a chance to “bring attention to the importance of human involvement in their
local politics.”
The rally will be held at I Dragoni , 2724 J Street, Thursday, March 27 from 5 to 8 p.m.
No campaign contributions? All other candidates invited? That’s certainly not business as usual. To underscore that
point, Eldredge added, “Jimmy Yee will not be endorsing this event.”
Excerpt from Sacramento News & Review Article By Cosmo Garvin
3/20/08
......... Shawn Eldredge
ESPM nickname: Air Eldredge
Chances: If the front-runners crash, he can make his move.
The 42-year-old is a longtime Midtown player and business owner. His Capitol Painting and Construction
is one of the main contractors on the new Old Soul Co. coffeehouse at the Weatherstone on 21st Street and the MARRS building
across from SN&R/ESPM headquarters.
Eldredge had a full fight card before jumping into the mayoral battle, trying to pay his daughter’s
way through a college in Europe and running a busy general-contracting company. He’s also an avid motorcycle racer,
something he expects to be doing when the June 6 mayoral vote comes in.
Because of their propensity to crash, “I can beat young guys,” Eldredge explained.
“So I’m not afraid of entering a race I’m not supposed to win.”
Eldredge has a long history in neighborhood politics. He was a major force behind the revitalization
of the Midtown Business Association, serving as that organization’s president for several years.
A self-described “white-trash hippie from Carmichael” and devotee of the Midtown
music scene, Eldredge sometimes surprises people when he tells them he’s a fiscal conservative and registered Republican.
“The first thing I’m going to do is sit down with [Assistant City Manager] Gus Vina
and figure out how we got $58 million upside down.”
He says that a series of failed development projects have hurt the city’s image. “The
arena deal, the Towers, K Street: They’ve all added to the image that this is a crappy town.”
With the budget mess sorted out, Eldredge says he’d figure out how to get a new Kings arena
built. “I’ll put that sucker right smack downtown. I don’t care if I have to put an Indian casino on top
of it to get it done.”
Eldredge refuses to raise money for his mayoral bid—and is relying on word-of-mouth, free
media and his Web site (www.shawn4mayor.com) to reach voters. “I want people to come here because we rock. We have some real rock-star humans here.
We’ve been dissed far too long.”
