Election Summary

Dr. Stutzman's letter to the Saratoga News charged that the Nov. Measure Q election was the most corrupt in Saratoga's history, primarily because “No on Q” was financed almost entirely by out-of-Saratoga interests, namely the California State Realtors' Political Action Committee, headquartered in Los Angeles.

Hold on to your hats! Dr. Stutzman had no idea how bad the election really was because the final financial reports for political campaigns were not due until the end of January, three months after the election.

• The “No on Q” campaign spent $62,439 on the election, twice as much as the most expensive City Council campaigns in Saratoga’s history.

• The “Yes on Q” campaign spent $14,000. That was donated by Saratoga residents. No PAC money, no out-of-area money.

• Of the $62,000 by “No on Q”, $50,000 was contributed by the Los Angeles-based State Realtors Political Action Committee ($49,259, precisely). Another $10,000 was contributed by two out-of-Saratoga developers/commercial property owners. The amount contributed to “No” by Saratoga residents? Trivial. Why not put a sign up over the city saying “Saratoga’s future for sale to outsiders”?

The natural question: Why weren’t we aware before election day of the extent to which outside money was purchasing the election? The answer is simple but ugly: the “No on Q” campaign broke state law in order to keep Saratogans from knowing what was happening.

• The FPPC has two statutory requirements to prevent the kind of “financial sandbagging” that occurred here. First, any contribution over $1000 from a single source that is received after the October 16 financial filing deadline must be publicly reported within 24 hours. The second requirement is that expenditures must be reported when incurred, not when paid. (Otherwise, it would be easy to order signs, direct mail pieces, etc. but no one would know about the expenditures because they were not paid for until after the October 16 reporting deadline. Between Oct. 17 and Nov. 1, the State Realtors PAC contributed $9000 to “NO on Q”, that was unreported to the City and the FPPC at the time, as required by state law.

• The second “trick”, also illegal, used by “No on Q” to hide from Saratoga voters how much was being spent on their campaign, was to not report a large amount of the campaign expenditures when they were encumbered and instead to only report them after the election.

• “Restore Saratoga” has sent a formal complaint about these illegal practices to the California Fair Political Practices Commission. They have received that complaint and it is currently under investigation.

• The LA-based “No on Q” campaign hired a Colorado phone bank firm to make calls from CO to Saratoga residents, pretending to be neighbors and urging a “No” vote on Measure Q. The “No on Q” campaign and Council members supporting that campaign refused to condemn those tactics.

• The Saratoga Planning Commission Chair, Vice Chair and another Commission member published a letter in the Mercury News urging a “No” vote on Q and stating that the changes the Planning Commission had voted on in April, 2010 did not include any change to height limits in the Village. In fact, the Planning Commission HAD voted to change the Village height standard for mixed use from 26-feet to 35-feet. There are two possible explanations. Either Planning Commissioners Robertson, Hlava and Bernald DID NOT UNDERSTAND what they voted on in April, in which case they should probably not be Planning Commissioners, or they UNDERSTOOD what they had voted for but published a lie in order to influence the election, in which case they should definitely not be Planning Commissioners.

• The “No on Q” campaign insisted Measure Q was only about the Village. In reality, the Initiative covered ALL Saratoga commercial areas, including Quito Center and the Gateway area on Sunnyvale/Saratoga, as well as the Village.

• The clearly stated ground rules for the City Council's joint meeting with the Initiative Steering Committee included that if a ballot measure could be agreed upon by both sides, the Council and the Steering Committee would BOTH PUBLICLY ENDORSE IT in the Nov. election. A ballot measure was agreed to by both sides but the Council RENEGED on their COMMITMENT (Except Jill Hunter, who supported Q from the outset.).

• Two Council members (Page and Miller) said they were considering endorsing Measure Q individually, then declined, stating they felt they had to remain neutral. Each broke that commitment late in the campaign and endorsed “No on Q”.

• At a non-televised “Council Retreat” (Jan. 28, 2011) Mayor Howard Miller said the three additional changes the Council had agreed to with the Initiative Steering Committee on June 24 and reiterated as binding commitments without regard to the outcome of the election at the Council meeting of July -, were only promises to “consider” those changes. Page nodded in agreement. The Council majority RENEGED AGAIN.

• The “No” campaign continually charged that “Yes on Q” supporters were “A Special Interest Group”. When asked to SPECIFY what “Special Interests” they refused to answer.  The truth: the 18 member “Yes on Q” Steering Committee included individuals from every area of Saratoga, of both political parties, with a wide variety of personal and business interests, working and retired people, etc. What “Special Interest?”

Dirty tricks, false allegations and name calling are easy when you can overwhelm an election with FOUR TIMES AS MUCH MONEY AS THE OTHER SIDE and when no one on your side has the integrity to say “Stop that and let's campaign on the issues”.

Does the CA State Realtors’ Political Action Committee care about the future of our community? Hardly. They care about new residential units for sale. Dr. Stutzman charged that this was the most corrupt election campaign in Saratoga's history. Unfortunately, he is CORRECT.

More Dirty Tricks??

Discovered on local front yards after the election: