Supes race heats up in limbo

Since June 3, incumbent First District Supervisor Valerie Brown has been waiting to see who’ll face her in November’s runoff election – and now, she’s waiting to hear whether or not state officials think she broke electoral law.
Brown failed on Election Day to gain the 50 percent needed to retain her Board of Supervisors seat, meaning a Nov. 4 runoff between the top two vote-getters. Preliminary results show Brown in the lead with 9,422 votes (44.2 percent), Will Pier at 4,796 votes (22.5 percent) and David Reber with 4,335 votes (20.4 percent). Lawrence Wiesner came in fourth with 2,705 votes (12.7 percent).
On Wednesday, Reber, Pier and Wiesner filed a complaint with the state Fair Political Practices Commission alleging that a prescription discount card sent by Brown just before the election violated two sections of California’s 1974 Political Reform Act: sending a prohibited mass mailer, and doing so without identifying the sender.
The free “Sonoma County Rx” card was made available to county residents May 7 at public libraries, senior centers and county and city offices. Included with the card is a personalized form letter from Brown – bearing an official letterhead but without the county seal – informing recipients that she has been “working with the National Association of Counties (NACo) on a revolutionary program which helps save Sonoma County residents hard earned dollars for their non-insured prescription drug purchases. … I know it will be a great benefit to our community.”
Although the envelope lists Brown’s Santa Rosa office as a return address, the bottom of the letter says “Paid for by friends of Valerie Brown for Supervisors” and lists her campaign identification number. Brown said yesterday that she saw nothing wrong with the mailer, arguing that it was “not an election piece.”
“It wasn’t paid for by the county with public money,” she said. “Sending it to somebody didn’t seem like it was outside the realm of reason.”
But the complaint holds otherwise, saying that the card itself is offered through NACo “with membership paid annually by Sonoma County in the multiple thousands of dollars.” The card also bears the county seal.
An FPPC spokesman said yesterday that officials were looking into the allegations but had not yet made a ruling. No further comment was offered by presstime.
Reber said yesterday that the card “distributed something of perceived value in an attempt to influence the electorate – that’s called cheating.”
Asked if the complaint could be perceived as last-minute campaigning on the part of the supervisorial hopefuls, Reber said, “It has everything to do with integrity and expecting public officials to behave in a certain way. From the very beginning, I’ve said the election is about good government and integrity.”
Wiesner had not commented by presstime, but Pier said yesterday he was contacted by Reber campaign manager Ed Davis and gave the matter careful thought before signing.
“I was willing to file the complaint because I felt that Valerie Brown’s mailing of that prescription card had been done in a very misleading way – it was not an official county letterhead because it didn’t have the county seal,” he said. “People were thinking they were getting something from their county supervisor, but in fact it was coming from Valerie’s campaign.”
Assistant Registrar of Voters Gloria Colter said the matter wouldn’t affect the electoral count, results of which are expected today.
“Any complaint filed with the FPPC, if the allegations are true, would be imposed in the way of a fine with them,” Colter said.
Brown said she didn’t think the mailer, which reached some local voters on June 2, had much of an impact on the election – or that it broke the law.
“I believe that what we did was perfectly within the guidelines of the FPPC,” she said. “If they decide otherwise then we’ll deal with that. We believe that we followed the rules.”