Setting the Record Straight

About the posts and the mailer attacking me on "ethics". This week, a mailer started landing in Richmond mailboxes with my photo and big green “Right” and “Wrong” street signs. It tells voters to vote no on me. If you haven’t seen the mailer, here is what it says, and here is what actually happened.

Who paid for it.

The fine print on the back says the mailer comes from an independent committee supporting Ahmad Anderson for mayor. It is sponsored by the Richmond Police Officers Association. Its top funders are the police union’s Political Action Committee, Boilermakers Local 549, and IBEW Local 302. My opponent’s campaign didn’t send it directly, but this money is being spent to elect him.

What the vote was.

In July, three council members proposed creating a new independent ethics commission. They asked the council to have the city attorney draft a measure for the November ballot. The commission was budgeted at about $1 million in its first year, an ongoing cost of roughly 1% of our general fund. The proposal failed 4 to 3. Mayor Martinez, Vice Mayor Robinson, Councilmember Wilson and I voted no.

Claim 1: "I was the deciding vote that kept voters from creating an ethics commission."

The vote was 4 to 3, and four of us voted no. You could pin the “deciding vote” on any of the four. The mailer picked me because I’m running for mayor.

Here’s why I voted no. A million dollars a year is real money in a city with real needs. The proposal came with a short staff report and no plan for how the office would actually run. At the same time, we were asking voters to approve a bond to repair our fire stations, some of which are about 80 years old. I said at the meeting that I’d rather put that money into fire stations, parks and roads, which is what residents ask me for. I still feel that way.

Claim 2: "Richmond is the only major Northern California city without an ethics commission."

This is blatantly false. This is a lie. These commissions are rare. Only a handful of California’s more than 480 cities have one, and they are mostly big cities like Los Angeles and San Diego. Not one city in Contra Costa County has one. Richmond isn’t falling behind; we’re doing what nearly every city our size does.

Councilmember Sue Wilson knocked this down from the moment the idea was proposed in the July 21st City Council meeting. Start watching at 4:33:20 in the video, as she dismantles this argument piece by piece. The whole exchange is worth watching but this is the key point:

“There’s one way you can look at California and say ‘this is where it’s normal to have an ethics committee,’ and that’s for the ten largest cities. I think there is a problem with putting out an agenda report in which you have misinformed the public. They’re not watching now. It’s 9:30pm. They are never going to hear me say this. But it’s dishonest… It’s incorrect. I don’t mean to say dishonest because that’s a value judgement. It’s just incorrect information that you presented.”

“We have the Fair Political Practices Commission, the Secretary of State, we have the Internal Revenue Service, we have the County District Attorney, and we have the federal Department of Justice, and probably a half-dozen more … I’m more comfortable allowing these external agencies to do an investigation than I am doing so internally.”

- Councilmember Sue Wilson

Claim 3: "Complaints about Richmond officials get sent back to the City to investigate itself."

That’s not how it works. If a Richmond elected official breaks the law, the state Fair Political Practices Commission, the Contra Costa District Attorney, the Secretary of State and federal agencies can all investigate. These are independent agencies with far more staff and legal power than a small city office would ever have.

Claim 4: I should have been investigated as a “delinquent landlord.”

Here’s the whole story. In 2017, years before I ran for office, my family moved to Colombia for a time. We rented our house to a tenant and rented the backyard unit to another. We registered with Richmond’s Rent Program a few months later than we should have. That was my mistake, I fixed it, and I have explained it publicly in full. A late registration from nine years ago, before I held office, is not public corruption. An ethics commission wouldn’t have handled it anyway; rental registration is the Rent Program’s job.

Claim 5: Richmond’s next mayor shouldn’t be afraid of an ethics commission.

I’m not afraid of accountability. I want accountability that actually works and that we can afford. To me, that means watching city contracts closely, making sure Richmond collects what it’s owed, and spending public money where people can see results.

Why this mailer exists.

 The people behind this proposal knew how the vote would go, and now it’s on a campaign flyer weeks before the election. Four of us voted no anyway. My colleague Sue Wilson said it well: “turning down bad ideas regardless of political consequences is what good leaders do.”

If one of these lands in your mailbox or you see a post on social media, remember who paid for it. These are the same people and special interests that want to spend City funds on the same-old tactics that have failed Richmond in the past. We want the people of Richmond in charge. 

If you see people with questions, please share the link to this post. We need to set the record straight. 

– Claudia