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    Barry
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    PD article on Evans vs Hopkins


    Union launches campaign supporting Noreen Evans against Lynda Hopkins for Sonoma County supervisor

    ANGELA HART
    THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | May 28, 2016, 5:03PM


    Sonoma County’s largest labor union has poured more than $65,000 in the past two weeks into an outside campaign supporting former state Sen. Noreen Evans in the race to succeed Efren Carrillo on the Board of Supervisors.

    The independent spending by the political arm of the Service Employees’ International Union Local 1021 is paying for mailers and social media advertisements supporting Evans and attacking her chief rival in the 5th District contest, Lynda Hopkins, over the sources of her campaign funding.

    SEIU is the first group to launch an independent expenditure campaign in the race, and the rush of spending two weeks before the June 7 primary escalates the battle between Evans and Hopkins, the two presumptive front-runners in the west county race.

    Hopkins and Evans — along with their allies — have hurled sharp criticisms at one another in newspaper editorial pages, on social media and at candidate forums in recent weeks. At issue is the role of special interests in the race, which appears likely to continue into a November runoff.

    The SEIU spending, which is not coordinated with Evans’ campaign, signals the influential union’s bid to secure a pro-labor majority on the Board of Supervisors, where Evans could join incumbents Shirlee Zane and Susan Gorin, both of whom are also up for re-election. Zane is running unopposed.

    “When we start to see independent expenditure money, we start to get some inkling of the stakes in the race and influence special interests are looking for,” Sonoma State University political scientist David McCuan said. “The board will look very different depending on who wins. What’s at stake are decisions on issues like water, housing, winery event centers — important land use and quality of life issues.”

    The outside spending is in addition to torrid fundraising over the past month by Hopkins and Evans, who together have pulled in $95,000, according to campaign finance reports released Thursday.

    Hopkins, a political newcomer and organic farmer, raised $64,025 between April 24 and May 21. Evans raised $31,277 over the same period.

    Hopkins has brought in $181,788 this year, while Evans has raised $142,892, campaign finance reports show.

    The other candidates in the 5th District race are Tim Sergent, a special-education teacher in Santa Rosa; Tom Lynch, Carrillo’s appointee to the Planning Commission; and Marion Chase, a county social services worker.

    Together, the three have raised less than $20,000, nearly two-thirds of it by Sergent.

    Lisa Maldonado, Santa Rosa-based field director for the SEIU Local 1021, said the union jumped into the race to advance a liberal agenda in favor of rent control, higher wages for low-income workers and tighter land-use limits on the region’s expanding wine industry.

    “We in SEIU make no bones about supporting candidates who support working families, especially because this county is turning into a place where working families can’t afford to live,” Maldonado said. “We think voters will care about who is funding these campaigns, and Noreen has never been ashamed of our support or tried to hide it.”

    Hopkins so far has not benefited from any outside spending on her behalf.

    She has received a large share of her financial support from real estate, business and farming interests.

    Some of her largest donors include the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce; Sebastopol grape grower Steve Dutton; Barbara Grasseschi, co-owner of Alexander Valley’s Puma Springs Vineyards; Occidental grape grower Terri Balletto, the North Coast Builders Exchange, a construction trade group; and the Sonoma County Alliance, a business advocacy group. She has also received several large donations from people associated with Syar Industries, a gravel mining company in Sonoma and Napa counties.

    Hopkins said her fundraising reflects her ability to build a broad coalition that also includes some environmental activists.

    “My supporters don’t all agree with one another,” Hopkins said. “Those who are funding my campaign will not drive my policies. Period.”

    But the SEIU-funded mailers and social media posts have taken aim at Hopkins’ largest backers. “Warning,” read one mailer sent to likely west county voters this month. “Big business interests, real estate (political action committees), developers and Russian River gravel miners have given tens of thousands of dollars so far to … Lynda Hopkins.”

    “Only Noreen Evans will stand up to developers and big business interests to protect our environment and our coast,” claimed another mailer.

    Santa Rosa political consultant Rob Muelrath, Hopkins’ campaign strategist, said the mailers paint an unfair image of Hopkins and raise questions about Evans’ political allegiances.

    Evans has signed a labor-rights pledge from SEIU that states basic workplace labor rules and includes the clause “to publicly support and actively encourage employers to negotiate good faith collective bargaining agreements with their workers.”

    Muelrath said the union’s outside spending presents a “huge conflict” for the former state legislator and Santa Rosa councilwoman.

    “We have failing infrastructure, we have mental health issues, we have a housing crisis,” he said. “We have all these issues and the question is where is her priority going to be if elected? Is it going to be on crumbling roads or affordable housing, or is it going to be labor unions?”

    Evans regularly mentions her support from labor groups on the campaign trail, saying she is proud to support efforts of unions statewide to address the escalating cost of living.

    She has also acknowledged recent campaign attacks over the county’s rising pension costs, but said the state and the Board of Supervisors have taken significant strides to rein in taxpayer costs, up more than 500 percent since 2000, to $113 million.

    But Evans said criticism of her support from organized labor was misguided.

    “There is a strong effort by some to create division between public servants and the people they serve,” Evans said. “I believe that is an old, tired and artificial division. My record shows we can deliver public services and treat public employees fairly. In fact, public employees are the very people who deliver those services we say we want.”

    Evans has received campaign contributions from labor unions and environmentalists. The most recent campaign reports show donations from the county’s Democratic Party; former county supervisor and environmental activist Ernie Carpenter; Judith Olney, a vocal opponent of winery expansion in the county; Guy Conner, husband of the late state Sen. Pat Wiggins, who Evans succeeded in office; and Lucy Kortum, wife of the late environmentalist Bill Kortum.

    Evans has been endorsed by the Sierra Club and Sonoma County Conservation Action, the county’s largest environmental advocacy organization as well as the county’s Democratic Party.

    Hopkins’ endorsements include the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, the Sonoma County Alliance and the Northern California Engineering Contractors Association.
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