COMMENTARY: Taking the 5th
by Frank Robertson
I got a call the other day from Eric Koenigshofer. I kind of figured I would. It was about the last column I wrote.
“You bastard,” said Eric. It was that kind of call.
The column complained that Eric, as a supporter of Efren Carrillo (and opponent of Rue Furch in the 5th District Supervisors’ race), wanted me to ask the candidates to release personal financial records covering the last few years, when Furch’s property taxes were delinquent. My column made it sound like it was all Eric’s idea, which it wasn’t.
“You guys asked about the income taxes first,” said Eric.
He was right. In a questionnaire prior to the June primary, Sonoma West asked all the candidates whether “personal financial information, such as tax returns, should be made public.”
Carrillo said, “Yes, absolutely.
Furch said, “All information that is relevant to the office sought should be disclosed to the voters
So Eric’s got a point. My column was a cheap shot. It lacked context to suggest financial disclosure was all Eric’s idea.
A little voice in my brain is now saying, “OK, wise guy, you brought it up, why don’t you follow through?”
I don’t know. Maybe it just seems a little over-worked. Would it make any difference after a year’s worth of forums, news stories, meet-and-greets, mailers, blogs and word of mouth? Are there any voters in the 5th Distict who haven’t already made up their minds? What more do we need to know? Physical exams? Breath analyses? Shoe sizes? Horoscopes? This could go on forever, and it already seems like it has.
I’m not worried about the taxes, property or income. I’ve been late too. Furch’s true value, if you really want to get Machiavellian about it, rests in her extraordinary interest in and knowledge of what’s up in Sonoma County in general and in the 5th District in particular.
That Efren Carrillo is a rising star who’s going places isn’t in doubt. What’s worrisome about his sudden emergence this year as a political presence in places like Guerneville and Monte Rio is that in any political context. he’s never been here before.
Efren says he’s the candidate without “baggage,” but that’s the funny part, because anyone running for supervisor in the 5th District who doesn’t think the support of say, historically conservative and powerful Santa Rosa old-boy villains such as the Sonoma County Alliance, isn’t baggage, hasn’t been paying attention.
If you want to talk about baggage, why does Carrillo always seem to have Nick Tibbetts around to help him out? Nick Tibbetts? Former aide to Doug Bosco when Bosco was a congressman gaining headlines for speculating in real estate? Nick Tibbetts the 4th District gravel industry lobbyist? In the 5th District you might as well have Dick Cheney by your side. It’s stuff like this that makes people think this Carrillo campaign has a dark side that’s not transparent, that something is going down and know one knows exactly what it is, including Carrillo.
Maybe it’s just the usual suspects, real estate developers, the building industry, who want a friend on the board of supervisors, and from whose perspective Efren looks friendlier than Rue. That’s fine. That’s life.
But as long as the Russian River remains part of Santa Rosa’s sewage disposal system, Santa Rosa will be a civilization fated to having an adversarial political relationship with its downstream neighbors. Where Carrillo’s heart lies in this context remains unclear.
It may be worth noting that when he ran for supervisor against Mike Reilly in 1996 Eric Koenigshofer declined a Sonoma County Alliance endorsement. “In terms of the Alliance and a constructive forward movement,” Koenigshofer said 12 years ago (how’s that for breaking news?) “I’m not real certain of what the vision of the Sonoma County Alliance is 20 or 30 years from now.”
I wonder whether he’s certain now. Maybe I should ask him.
Here’s a question for the next supervisor. Mike Reilly says there are 27 villages in the West County. Rue says there are 32. Are five villages missing? What are we going to do about that?
- Frank Robertson is Senior News Editor for Sonoma West Times& News