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Amy Ahanotu
By JEREMY HAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
The run-up to Rohnert Park’s council election Nov. 2 has been colored with drama:
– A blizzard of attack fliers paid for by independent committees and, in a recent case, by an unknown player;
– A controversial former city manager’s candidacy;
– A fire commander who charged that his department is in crisis and who then disappeared from the race amid trouble in his personal life.
John Borba
But beneath the tumult is the fiscal crisis that since the 2008 election has dominated the council’s attention as it wrestled with a deficit that still stands at $2.5 million. Now that issue is the primary theme in the race to reshape the council.
How City Hall has handled the budgetary crisis has shaped each candidate’s platform. The field includes Mayor Pam Stafford, who is trying to keep her seat, one of two being contested.
Her campaign has focused on touting accomplishments that she says include starting the city’s new farmers market and preserving the senior and community centers from budget cuts, while also slicing nearly $3 million in city spending.
Carl Leivo
Some of her opponents have disagreed in biting terms.
“All that made our community a great place is being dismantled,” said Carl Leivo, the former city manager who was ousted in 2005. One of six candidates, he is a critic of the council’s cost-cutting decisions, management choices and use of redevelopment money.
“Pam’s been part of a council majority that’s been making decisions that I disagree with,” Leivo said.
Alliances among some candidates are clear.
First-time candidate Amy Ahanotu, whose election signs are frequently paired with Stafford’s, is far less critical of City Hall decisions.
Jack Rosevear
“Rohnert Park is moving in the right direction,” his fliers state. The city, he says, faces “financial and economic hardships that require strong leaders.”
And, he said, “I fully support” Stafford’s re-election.
John Borba, whose campaign signs often appear with Leivo’s, is more critical than Ahanotu though he does say, “Rohnert Park has taken many steps to improve the budget over the last two years.”
But the city “deserves better,” his fliers say. And on his website, he says: “New and creative thinking is necessary to guide the city out of this difficult recession.”
Roger Schwanke
Borba, who along with Leivo has been endorsed by the powerful Rohnert Park Peace Officers Association, declined to say whether he supports Stafford.
Ahanotu, a banker and chairman of the city’s chamber of commerce, and Borba, an attorney and former chamber chairman, say their business experience will help the city regain its financial footing.
Leivo points to his two-year tenure as city manager as evidence that he can right the city’s budget.
He points out that the last time the city’s budget was balanced was while he was its top manager.
Pam Stafford
Critics, however, say he balanced the budget through one-time gains from property sales and that he negotiated retiree and medical benefit plans that drove the city into the red.
A fifth candidate, retired city police officer Roger Schwanke, says the city has to attract more business and industry to broaden its economic base and boost sales tax revenue.
Crosscurrents of endorsements have also shaded the campaign. Schwanke, for example, did not get the endorsement of the city Peace Officers Association.
Councilman Jake Mackenzie and Vice Mayor Gina Belforte — who was elected in 2008 as part of a POA-backed slate that included councilmembers Joe Callinan and Amie Breeze — have endorsed Stafford and Ahanotu. Callinan and Breeze, who is stepping down, endorsed Borba and Leivo.
A Codding Enterprises-funded committee, Protect Rohnert Park, has attacked Leivo and supported Stafford and Ahanotu. A second committee — whose only known donors are residents James Henley and Bruce Hotaling — has paid for fliers that slammed Stafford for her decisions on the council.
And on Tuesday, a mailer blasting Stafford’s support of Codding Enterprises’ Sonoma Mountain Village mixed-use project hit mailboxes in M Section, the neighborhood bordering the fledgling development. The mailer had nothing indicating who was responsible for it.
Jack Rosevear, the former fire division commander, while nominally still in the race, has not campaigned since a controversy involving his wife, who got a temporary restraining order against him after a domestic argument.
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Every election there are always those people who say “If you elect X, then (name disaster) will happen.
People have short memories and seem to forget that the predicted disasters never happen no matter who the candidate is. These claims happen in every election and never materialize.
So really, just vote sanely people. The point I was making about the council passing resolutions against the war or spending double their present deficit on a “green” building is that they are ignoring the primary business of the city so that they can grandstand on a variety of national and world issues they should not be focusing on.
When the parks are cleaned up and useful, when the streets are clean and the landscaping is maintained, when the schools and pools are open in every neighborhood, when business fills up every empty office space – when all the business of the city is taken care of, then worry about an ordinance regulating bovine flatulence.
I’ll repeat, the only time Rohnert Park has prospered is when the pro-business candidates are in control. Yes, you may be in favor of Rohnert Park sending a councilperson to Darfur to hand a sandwich to a starving kid, but really… it that the priority for Rohnert Park? Spending a quarter of a million dollars so that Jake Mackenzie can “represent” Rohnert Park’s green credentials is a absurd when you’re canceling the contract with the local handicapped to pick up the trash in the city parks and closing pools and schools.
So just close your eyes and plug your nose if you must, but you have to vote in the business slate. It’s the only way Rohnert Park can recover and prosper.
Carl Leivo would bankrupt Rohnert Park if elected. He’s a devious character, and it seems that the group advocating him is just as devious as their shady reporting, OR NO REPORTING, would indicate. Rohnert Park cannot afford Carl Leivo
GW says: “Don’t worry about saving the planet or recycling or cell phone towers or climate change or compact fluorescent bulbs or any of the unrelated shiny objects being dangled by some of these people.”
It suddenly becomes clear…you’re right. I DON’T want a leader who’s going to be part of the solution to the problems you’ve listed above!
Thank you so much for correcting my line of thinking!
Every election in Rohnert Park is like this because of bogeymen. It used to be Jimmie Rogers. Before his death Rogers was routinely accused of being the power broker in control of everything in Rohnert Park.
Who is the bogeyman now? Codding? While entertaining, the accusations flying around can be easily sifted through. The only time Rohnert Park has prospered is when the pro-business slate of candidates is in control.
Yes, it’s all a conspiracy of big business to exploit the poor and downtrodden in Rohnert Park right? That bogeyman needs to be ignored.
Even if you believe the non-stop baloney, you have to admit you want the streets clean and the landscaping beautiful. You want the schools in every neighborhood and you want the pools and the parks open and clean and beautiful. And you probably want a lot of police and fire fighters living in your neighborhood. They are pretty nice people aren’t they?
And it’s easy to resent their pay and benefits, but when you consider it’s the same pay and benefits as a manager at In-N-Out burger, maybe it’s easier not to resent them so much.
And there wouldn’t even be an In-N-Out burger in Rohnert Park if Pam Stafford or Jake Mackenzie were deciding the issue today. That line of cars all the way onto Redwood Drive is killing the planet right? Our kids are too fat. The council has to protect us. Please. Vote that baloney out of office. Every business should be as successful as In-N-Out burger.
Everyone wants to be happy and friendly and prosperous. Believe the accusations if you will and vote for the liberal touchy-feely accusers if you will. But in your secret ballot, it’s better if you vote for yourself. You get business rolling in Rohnert Park and you restore Rohnert Park.
So vote for your own interests and put some smart business people on the council. Don’t worry about saving the planet or recycling or cell phone towers or climate change or compact fluorescent bulbs or any of the unrelated shiny objects being dangled by some of these people.
Don’t go crazy. Vote sanely. That’s my bumper sticker for this election.