Jan 182011
 

First of all – when the CRA/Conservatives win votes, the losers run to the local media in the person of Jim Ruffalo of the Auburn Journal (that calls himself a recovering Republican) and Ed Fletcher of the Sacramento Bee.

The latest effort by Mr. Fletcher is linked here.

Mr. Fletcher reported people’s opinion as fact. Also – Fletcher is singling out Tom Hudson as the boogie man, which completely exposes his sources of information.

People’s exhibit A: (quoting the article)

Last year Hudson enraged Placer County moderates by calling out elected leaders viewed as not Republican enough and trying to influence nonpartisan races. A number of the party’s financial transactions were also questioned.

The part about the Financial transactions shows the motive of the source.

The part about enraging moderates shows that Mr. Fletcher did not do his homework. The Placer Cent Com endorsed several moderates for re-election in 2010… the first that come to mind are Mike Holmes and Bridget Powers from Auburn. We also endorsed Susan Rohan over more conservative contestants for Roseville City Council.

These choices were made under Hudson’s leadership.

Exhibit B:

Ken Campbell, a former committee chairman, said he has grown tired of the “win at all costs” attitude that now defines central committee meetings.

“When you have one side that is shutting everyone out, I don’t think it’s good,” he said.

One of the largest reasons for Ken Campbell’s demise as Chairman of the Placer County Republican Party is that he refused to work with others and made a ton of unilateral decisions. No wonder why he’d be someone the Bee would quote.

Ken – like the others in the minority were upset that they lost the elections last week. And another note to Mr. Fletcher – Jeff Atteberry won 13-8 or 61.9% and George Park / Ed Rowen won 14-7 or 66.7%.

This stands in contrast to the following sentence in the article: 

Atteberry said the supporters who had encouraged him to run for the chairmanship changed their minds and backed a slate that narrowly lost a sweep in the series of votes Wednesday.

Mostly, this article was innocuous – but I chose to highlight the most glaring inaccuracies.

Placer GOP to lose HQ as of 1/31/2011

 Placer County Republican Party  Comments Off on Placer GOP to lose HQ as of 1/31/2011
Jan 182011
 

During the contentious organizational meeting on Wed 1/12/2011 the commitee voted the postpose the matter of the lease renewal until February.

The current lease on the HQ expires on 1/31.

This means as of 2/1/2011, the Placer County Republican Party will no longer have a headquarters – the first time in six years that will be the case.

The Headquarters is now occupied by the Allard for Assembly Campaign and no further meetings will be held there. The issue brought up by some was one of favoritism – so look for the Central Committee to avoid playing favorites in Restaurant meeting rooms and office conference rooms in the coming months.

In addition – with the tabling/postponing motion – the Chairman has no power to re-negotiate a lease.

File this under the law of unintended consequences – unless it was the intended consequence of those that made an issue of the lease.

Updates from Three AD-04 Candidates: Babich to File Next Week / Bly-Chester Tomorrow / Matt Williams Press Release

 4th Assembly District Race  Comments Off on Updates from Three AD-04 Candidates: Babich to File Next Week / Bly-Chester Tomorrow / Matt Williams Press Release
Jan 172011
 

A commenter named Mike Hanson posted the following today:

Michael Babich – the 30 year military veteran and retired colonel of Auburn is going to file next week.

—- Next —-

Cheryl Bly-Chester has announced that she will file papers to run for the 4th Assembly District tomorrow at 11 a.m. Bly-Chester has owned an environmental consulting business for 14 years while being a single mother of three.

Bly-Chester founded Rosewood Environmental Engineering in 1997.  She has a 35-year engineering career in the water resources, transportation, energy and hazardous waste/environmental fields. For the last 22 years she has conducted environmental engineering projects in 22 states and 13 countries, providing consulting to dozens of industries, including ski tourism, mining and energy, water, construction and transportation. Her practice includes helping businesses unravel regulatory red tape to help protect them from undue government corrective action, fees, and fines.

The email continued for another 500+ words.

Matt Williams sent the following out to an undisclosed list of recipients:

California state government is not doing enough to attract and keep the small businesses that have been the primary engines of job creation in our state. An addition of 173,000 new jobs would add $35 billion in tax revenues over 10 years, which would go a long way in remedying our state’s revenue-expenditure imbalance. From 1990 to 2007, California lost 26 percent of its factory jobs and 35 percent of its high-tech manufacturing jobs, but we cannot blame international competition alone for this. Of the 261,000 manufacturing jobs lost from 1999 to 2002, 60 percent went elsewhere in America. In fact, more California jobs went to Texas than to China and India combined. Last year we lost 112,000 jobs; Texas gained 129,000 new jobs. Our technological base, once the envy of the world, is quickly shrinking. California now ranks 9th from the bottom in creating scientific, technical, engineering, and math jobs in the U.S. The truth is that California has become far too expensive for businesses, with operating costs 32 percent above the national average, resulting in our being appallingly ranked “the worst place in which to do business” in the entire nation – for the fifth straight year!

The entire text is linked here.

Jan 162011
 

Blogger’s Note – the CRA endorsed Ted Gaines for State Senate in the SD-01 Special. Ted Gaines stayed true to his CRA roots and voted with the CRA 100% of the time last night. It is exceedingly rare for an elected to be present at a Central Committee Meeting voting for themself – Ted was there all evening.

Karen England and Ken Campbell were a different story. Both claim to be conservative, both claimed affiliation with the CRA at one point.

Both supported Moderate Republican Jon Green (who is a good guy, by the way, just liberal) over Past CRA State Vice President Jeff Atteberry for Chairman.

Both participated in the drama that was brought to last night’s meeting mostly by Committee Member Cheryl Bly-Chester (who is also a candidate for Assembly against John Allard and Beth Gaines for AD-04).

Cheryl Bly-Chester is a more libertatian Republican (pro-choice, non descript on Prop 8 etc) that was appointed by Arnold Schwarzenegger to two commissions. She also ran for Governor in the 2003 recall election.

Karen England is the executive director of the Capitol Resource Institute – a pro-life, pro-family organization and a former state officer in the CRA. The CRA is the most conservative organized grassroots group in the California Republican Party.

You’d have never been able to prove any difference between the two of them last night.

Ken Campbell said next to nothing, but voted with the Moderates all evening. This is ironic since the Placer CCR unit (aka the Placer Congress) attempted to overthrow then Placer County Chairman Ken Campbell’s team from the Central Committee in 2002 – and Ken supported their current President, Jon Green for Central Committee Chairman!

What a difference 8 years makes… Campbell seems to think that the current FPPC audit that the Central Committee is going through is unique. Tom Hudson reminded him that he represented the Central Committee at least twice during his (Ken Campbell’s) tenure as Chairman in FPPC audits…

What both Cheryl and Karen England had to say was far beyond Ken Campbell’s attempt to re-write history.

Cheryl basically said in a packed room that George and Tom embezzled money from the Central Committee. She repeated that lie multiple times during the evening. It is generally not wise to start an Assembly campaign by slandering activists.

During officer elections – Karen England, in the disguise of a question – asked George if he had ever been treasurer or officer of a committee that had been investigated by the FPPC and/or the FBI. She then proceeded to tell a story about how the FBI came to her house to get a copy of the check her then adult daughter had been paid for participating the Placer Cent Com’s 2008 prop 8 effort – followed by the FBI agents asking 1 1/2 hours of questions. She forgot to talk about the black helicopters.

Karen also spoke out at a different time about needing “diversity” – yes, she used that word – as a reason to support Liberal Republican Mike Holmes (who opposed prop 8 ) over Placer CRA board member Joe Dorr.

From a CRA standpoint – Karen England who was once a leader in the Prop 8 and conservative movement supported no on 8 moderates for leadership positions in the Placer County Republican Party. Let that sink in.

Jon Green – the President of the Placer Congress, is a man I have excellent rapport with. He did not really participate in the personal attacks that were levelled against George and Tom. I worked with him on the endorsement committee and I was taken aback that hostilities were renewed.

None of us in the CRA / Conservative Movement showed up that night ready for a brawl. There were some that wanted to “get” Tom Hudson, but this is not a post I wanted to write, either – no one wins when dirty laundry is aired.

As far as Karen England and Ken Campbell are concerned – personal hatred trumps values, end of story. They no longer have the cannon of being a social conservative any more.

As a P.S. – it should be noted that Doug LaMalfa in the person of Mark Spannagel voted with the Moderates for the duration of the evening. (CORRECTION – Spannagel left after Jeff Atteberry was elected Chairman, Spannagel voted for Green) He was the only partisan elected with a seat on the Central Committee that sided with the Moderates.

AD-04 Update: Jeff Randall Withdraws

 4th Assembly District Race  Comments Off on AD-04 Update: Jeff Randall Withdraws
Jan 152011
 

In a comment left on a post and confirmed by a direct email – Dry Creek Trustee Jeff Randall withdrew from the AD-04 Circus:

After a lot of soul searching, I have decided that I am not ready to put forth a credible campaign.  While I truly believe that I have a lot to offer the voters of the 4th assembly district, I do not have the organization, the money, and the time to run.  I will continue to serve the Dry Creek School district on the Board of Trustees, and my 140 7th graders at Arcade Middle School.  Perhaps down the road I will launch a campaign for the State Legislature- but I will need more time, and be better organized to do it right.