From: Laurie alderman
Sent: Monday, September 2, 2024 7:35 PM
To: Laura Sparks <[email protected]>; Chris Simmons <[email protected]>; Damien O'Bid <[email protected]>; Ben Ford <[email protected]>; Kay Rivers <[email protected]>; Susan Harvey <[email protected]>; Sylvia Lemus <[email protected]>; Noah Housh <[email protected]>; John Bakker <[email protected]>; David Rabbitt <david.rabbitt@sonomacounty.org>; Robert Smith <[email protected]>; James Gore <james.gore@sonomacounty.org>; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Cc: Kevin Patterson <[email protected]>; George Barich ; Joe Dworetzky <[email protected]>; Angela Courter <[email protected]>; Craig Scott <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Carleton L. Briggs Attorney at Law <[email protected]>; Adina Flores < >; Michael Hilber
< >; Michael Ceremello Ceremello < >
Subject: Once again election interference/impropriety by the City of Cotati. Cotati's inability to hold elections without interference.
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Kevin, this is my citizens comment also for the September 10th, 2024 city council meeting. Please include it under citizens business in the upcoming council meeting agenda packet. Thank you.
The City of Cotati once again has this past weekend has shown that it is not capable of presenting a fair election for their citizens without their election interference. Once again, their actions (usually lack of action) have caused this coming election to be biased and unfair to the citizens of Cotati. And once again, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors looks the other way on all issues having to do with Cotati as it has done in past elections.
Public Comment
The current situation, is because the City of Cotati has refused to even put code enforcement on the agenda, after my asking since November 2023 for them to do so in public comment, now there is a situation where the current council members/incumbents, have improper financial and political influence over the council members' only opponent in the race, George Barich. The race is the three incumbents (Susan Harvey, Ben Ford, and Laura Sparks), all Democrats, against George Barich, who has the endorsement of the Sonoma County GOP.
Since June 2023, the City has been pursuing a code enforcement action against George Barich. The hearings have been going on since November 2023 for 8 alleged violations. This involved complaints from neighbors, who with Noah Housh's (Director of Community Development) encouragement to provide such evidence, provided 46 videos of Barich's property over his fence for the period of 5 days in late June/early July 2023. The City of Cotati then used these illegal videos as evidence of human habitation of a RV, which is illegal in Cotati. It was actually canine habitation of a vehicle...a spoiled dog was in the RV with the a/c on, not humans, but the City has pursued George Barich selectively since.
Up to 87% of the code enforcement attorney's billings for one month in the past 15 months for the whole city have been to pursue Barich's case. Robert Smith has received in overtime twice of his budgeted contract with the city over the past year, with the full knowledge of city staff and the council of this overtime/overbudget . Mr. Smith, the code enforcement attorney/official comingles roles as prosecuting attorney and code enforcement officer. Plus, he wrote the administrative codes for hearings that he is prosecuting Barich for. The amount of money and city resources that have been spent pursuing 15 months for one cade is astronomical. The City even paid for a police officer to sit and guard during two of the closed hearings.....one with 5 citizens in the audience, and then the next one with 4 citizens. How much did it cost to have a police officer "guard" against 4-5 citizens for a day, when the Cotati police force has only 12 officers usually, with only a few on duty at a time for the rest of the city.
This past week, the administrative law judge did not render a decision on a motion to dismiss, but rather called for more legal briefs from both parties. Due mostly to the code enforcement attorney's request for extension, now the legal briefs will be due late this month with a possible decision on this in early October. Right smack in prime campaign time.
Throughout the administrative hearings since November, 2023, Barich's side has had the argument that it is election interference as Barich planned to run for City council this November. To continue on at the administrative hearing level for 15 months now, Barich has been working two jobs to pay his attorney fees. Now, you all have a situation that he'll have to continue paying attorney fees for more legal briefs to defend against 8 code enforcement violations, now tolling at a $4k a day since September 2023 (over $1 million in proposed fines tolled --more than the worth of Barich's house) during active campaigning times. After a year of paying his attorney to defend against the taking of his home through this proposed fine, he has no money to spare to campaign properly with this burden of paying attorney fees for an administrative hearing process that will continue.
The incumbents in the council member's race have unfair and improper influence on their only opponent. They are involved in that they have and have had financial control over whether the code enforcement attorney, city manager, etc. under their purview continue to pursue the action against the only opponent in the race. Obviously, with this latest action of an extension granted because of the code enforcement attorney's request, the City (with approval from the city council) will continue this financial control over their only opponent.
I am asking for intervention now, to stop this election interference with the city council race.
Some of the City council had already soiled the November election as being fair with their actions representing themselves as citizens, not public officials, in order to get the roundabout ban repeal on the November ballot also. The city council members in Cotati have a long history of misrepresenting themselves as citizens rather than in their official city public official capacity. The only way that the roundabout ban could be repealed is by a petition/vote of the citizens. So the city council members, including incumbent Laura Sparks, the current mayor, past and current council members and planning commissioners, and a handful of citizens with government contracts, i.e. Eris Weaver of the Sonoma County Bicycle Commission, went around misrepresenting to the citizens signing the petition, that the roundabout ban was just about liking or not liking roundabouts.
While not seemingly being able to put my citizen requested agenda item of code enforcement on the agenda for at that point, 8 months, the City of Cotati turned around and gave special treatment to the roundabout ban repeal. The petition was served on the City at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday night, and by 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, there was a 9 page agenda item in the agenda packet about the roundabout ban appeal.
Now, the roundabout ban repeal is soiled by the City's actions. 700 citizens were told by their city leaders that the repeal was just about liking or not liking roundabouts, and how "silly" citizens were to have such a ban. That was far from the truth on the reasons the citizens' will was to enact the roundabout ban.
This is just how they have manipulated the 2024 election to not make it a fair and free election. There was not a municipal election in 2022, because there were only 2 candidates for 2 open seats. The candidates were appointed and the municipal election cancelled. In 2020, there was also election interference on part of the City of Cotati as far as what would be Measure S, the 1% add on sales tax.
I had long figured out why with Measure S was being put on the ballot in November, 2020. Measure G was in effect, but had a sunset date of June 2023. The only reason to have Measure S on the ballot in November 2020 was to make it a forever tax. I knew of the city's financial troubles, and figured out why...they needed to make the Measure G add on tax permanent to secure income far into the future to secure bonds. That's exactly what happened-- soon after Measure S was passed making the 1% add-on tax "permanent" the work began on securing bonds. By 2022, the $12 million in bonds were secured by the City of Cotati, $6 million for unfunded pension liability and $6 million for critical street repairs.
Of course, being the City of Cotati, the City of Cotati and council interfered and used city resources to secure the passage of Measure S. Sonoma County Superior Court judge, Gary Nadler, found a prima facie case that the ballot measure wording was misleading, and ordered the City of Cotati to show cause why it should not be stricken from the November 2020 ballot. The City sent 500 pages in response, but purposefully omitted a community survey's results that the citizens of Cotati supported a ballot measure with a sunset date far above a "forever" tax. Because of ROV printing deadlines, there was no real recourse though to deal with the misleading ballot measure wording for Judge Nadler to pursue....he hoped that the opposition could overcome the misrepresentations during campaigning on the issue.
Like the council and city officials did in 2014, the Cotati Neighbors for Measure S fundraising committee was made up mostly of city employees, city council members, city affiliated associations and businesses. Not one actual individual citizen residing in Cotati contributed to the committee. The city officials and leaders misrepresented themselves as "citizens" i.e. neighbors to further their interests. Damien O'Bid, the city manager, was even paid by the committee to run the "Yes on S" website according to the election documents. Damien used city resources on fundraising website---for instance he used city pictures with "Measure G at work" labels and stuck "Yes on S" labels on them.
This is just our recent history of election interference in Cotati. Many citizens know the truth and whole truth about what has happened over the years....it was no surprise to many informed citizens that once again the City of Cotati is interfering with the integrity of an election. Once again, this November election will not be a free and fair election in Cotati, because of the City's actions spanning over a decade.
Please do something to bring back the true citizens of Cotati's right to vote in a free and fair election in Cotati.
Sincerely,
Laurie Alderman
Cotati resident (family has lived in current address in Cotati for 52 years)