What's Going On in the Martinez Election...The Latest on Mayor and Council Races

Ballots land; Menesini drops a MAGA-esque mailer; Ross grandstands on abortion; candidates talk affordable housing (but only because they have to) and put on a show at Campbell Theater

Note: For this newsletter, I decided to mimic the Washington Post’s “The Trailer” political newsletter and try my hand at heavy doses of tongue-in-cheek satire, meaning you’ll see more lighthearted opinion than usual. I hope it’s received in the spirit in which it’s intended (if not, keep in mind I’m doing this for free, so try to humor me like I’m trying to humor you). After all, if you can’t laugh at politicians, who can you laugh at?

It’s about three weeks until Election Day, and the candidates are all still vying to hook the one big endorsement they don’t want to let get away (the Martinez Sturgeon!). Welcome back to the newsletter, where you don’t have to venture down to Five Sons Brewing for a candidate meet and greet to get your election buzz.

But before I dive into the week that was on the campaign trail, a bit of housekeeping. I’m eager to get feedback on what readers like or don’t like about what they’ve seen over the past month, and what they would like to see more or less of in the home stretch of the campaign. Please take a few minutes to answer a few short poll questions at the bottom of this post.

Now on to the election. Voters probably noticed that mail-in ballots landed in mailboxes along with some slick (and I would say clownish) mailers from candidates trying to win their way into your hearts and the tip of your ballpoint pens when it comes time to fill in those bubbles.

Many people have likely tossed the mailers into recycling, and a few eager Martinez Beaver voters may have already filled out and sent back their ballots, but if you haven’t, a piece of advice. Wait!

I made the mistake of filling out and mailing back my ballot for the June primary too quickly; had I waited, I likely would have made one or two different choices based on information that came to light in the closing days of the campaign, or new arguments that I hadn’t considered. Your ballot counts the same whether you hand-deliver it to the Elections Department the same day you received it, or drop it off at a polling site at 7:59 p.m. on Nov. 8, so it makes sense for most voters to sit tight and let the campaigns play out before filling it out. As long as your ballot is postmarked by Election Day, it will be counted.

One thing to keep in mind: when votes are tabulated and added to the official vote count can vary widely. Most people vote by mail these days, and as long as your ballot has made its way to the Elections Department by Nov. 8, it should be counted among the first batch of results posted shortly after polls close at 8 p.m. The next batch to be posted are from the traditionalists who still choose to vote in person on Election Day (a number that grows smaller by the election). As precincts close and ballots are shipped back to the Elections Department, results will be updated through the night, usually every couple hours or so until all precincts have been accounted for (this sometimes takes until 1 or 2 a.m.).

The very last ballots to be counted are the ones that don’t arrive until Election Day itself or in the days that follow (as long as they have a Nov. 8 postmark). These ballots, along with those marked “provisional” because of some voter information that needs to be confirmed/validated, are added to the vote count over the next several weeks, until they are all accounted for. Over the years, the number of ballots that fall into this latter category has steadily grown, meaning that initial Election Night results can be somewhat misleading and sometimes subject to significant change. An example was four years ago, when it appeared on Election Night that John Stevens would defeat incumbent City Council Member Debbie McKillop, only to have McKillop squeak out a 23-vote victory when the election was finally certified weeks later.

So that’s what to know about ballots. Other questions and answers are readily available on the Elections Department website. Now on to the juicy stuff!

MAILER MANIA: I’m sure many of you caught the mailer in support of mayoral candidate (and long-ago former mayor) Mike Menesini titled “What’s Going on in Martinez…” that arrived this week. I had no idea before I glanced it over that the place I’ve called home the past 24 years had become some sort of dystopian hell, overrun with crime, homelessness, ever-growing potholes and shuttered city offices. Reminded me of Donald Trump’s “carnage” inaugural address in 2017 (only shuttered factories have been replaced with shuttered community pools and amphitheathers), or the fate of fictional Hill Valley in “Back to the Future II” when a Trump-like narcissist named Biff Tannen runs the town into the ground for his own benefit (Fun Fact: If my history is correct, Menesini was mayor when the “Back to the Future” films were released and, I guess (in his mind at least), Martinez was more like the Hill Valley of 1955 and not the one of Biff’s hellish reign. Perhaps Menesini’s campaign slogan should be MMGA (Make Martinez Great Again, “or at least as great as I made it when I ran the show 30 years ago”).

The Menesini mailer’s vision of Martinez in 2022: Hell on Earth? Anyone see a dude wearing a ski mask lurking around their house?

By the way, anyone have an ID on the guy with the ski mask and crow bar in the mailer apparently trying to “smash and grab” some unnamed downtown antique store? (I also wonder how much that dude got paid to appear in the stock photo likely shot hundreds of miles from Martinez?) The mailer (which was paid for by the Build Jobs PAC, not Menesini’s campaign) had so many hellish problems to document that it unfortunately ran out of room before it could discuss the effects of racism on our Black residents, but perhaps that topic can be kicked down the road (like it always is) until Menesini runs for something else in a couple years (I suggest city clerk, a job where the person elected then seemingly goes into a witness-protection program and is rarely seen or heard from until the next election). The only thing missing from the mailer was a statement by Menesini declaring “I alone can fix this.”

Then there was the second pro-Menesini mailer that touts the endorsement of scandal-tarred county Assessor Gus Kramer, who only stays in office because not enough voters have the foresight to google “Gus Kramer scandals” when he comes up for re-election every four years (and his opponents, for some head-scratching reason, don’t bother to bring up his Trump-like antics in county politics).

Speaking of crime, last year our then police chief was kind enough to compile the following spreadsheet at my request documenting the number of Martinez robberies from Jan. 1, 2020, to Nov. 18, 2021. As you can see below, there were 24 such incidents during that period (or an average of slightly more than one a month), and only a handful involved weapons. Unless things have gotten drastically worse over the past 11 months, it could be that the Menesini campaign’s “out of control crime” narrative is a bit overblown (you think?). I just hope that the bizarre yogurt shop tear gas incident from January 2020 doesn’t create any future stock image mailer ideas for the Menesini camp; after all, nothing screws up a cup of self-serve yogurt than a topping of tear gas.

Fortunately for Menesini, his campaign machine didn’t have the clownish mailer market all to itself last week. Fellow mayoral candidate Mark Ross decided to devote some of the precious space in his to highlighting his defense of a woman’s right to choose on the issue of abortion. I have a sneaking suspicion that even the most disengaged voter has a pretty good idea that the mayor of Martinez has absolutely no influence over one’s ability to access reproductive health care. (Can you imagine the number of Martinez women who would be fleeing across the Benicia Bridge if their right to choose truly was dependent on the political savvy of folks like Ross and current Mayor Rob Schroder?).

The cynic in me says Ross’ abortion pitch was a cheap ploy to siphon a few votes from his female council colleagues who are also running for the top job (I have a hunch that Brianne Zorn and Lara DeLaney also are pretty strong supporters of reproductive rights, even if they don’t waste campaign advertising space on something irrelevant to the office for which they’re running).

Candidate Mark Ross grandstanding on abortion rights (an issue the mayor of Martinez has no control over)

For the other campaigns that haven’t settled on their mailer stock photos yet, consider saving the time and sparing us voters. These mailers are even more junk than the regular junk mail we get, and hopefully most voters understand that and toss them into recycling with nary a glance (or have as much fun mocking them as I did here). For those who spent hard-groveled campaign cash on whatever “political consultants” you hired to create these laughable mailers, the fact you let yourselves get fleeced like this is downright criminal!

LET’S TALK HOUSING: I swung by City Hall last Wednesday to catch four of the six candidates for mayor (Lara DeLaney, Mark Ross, Sean Trambley and Brianne Zorn) and one of the four running for City Council (incumbent Debbie McKillop) take part in a joint City Council-Planning Commission workshop on the city general plan’s housing element. Mainly, I wanted to hear candidates talk about a topic they seem to have no interest discussing on the campaign trail (the desperate need for low-income housing in Martinez).

Of course, the non-cynic might conclude that the fact the workshop was held at all is a sign that city leaders truly care about building more housing for the marginalized and disadvantaged who likely have to resort to side hustles like appearing as criminal thugs in stock photos for shameless campaign mailers to drum up enough money to put a roof over their head. Alas, every city is required by law to create a housing element as part of a general plan where it can at least pretend to figure out ways to address California’s affordable housing crisis before sweeping the problem under the rug and getting back to important business like coming up with the best possible nickname for the city’s semipro baseball team (see poll at the bottom of this post to pick your favorite).

Not surprisingly, the big takeaway from the meeting was that Martinez (like pretty much every city in the region and state) has done a terrible job of creating the level of low-income housing that it should be under state directives (it’s built virtually none in recent years, while routinely approving market-rate developments). But you don’t have to take this cynical newsletter writer’s word for it. In a refreshing bit of candor, Rob Schroder (who is ending his 20-year reign as mayor in a few weeks) freely acknowledged that Martinez has done a terrible job when it comes to creating low-income housing. Of course, there wasn’t much else to say when the consultant’s PowerPoint projected onto the big screen in the City Council Chamber showed the following about the city’s progress toward meeting its affordable housing goals:

Schroder’s acknowledgment (and that of the candidates to succeed him who were present) brought to mind for me a hypothetical meeting of NFL owners where they’re forced to acknowledge that they’ve failed miserably to protect players from debilitating brain disease or advance diversity in hiring coaches, without explaining why they spent years largely ignoring the problem (hint: the answer is fans don’t care about those things, just as the interest groups that most influence local elections don’t care about affordable housing, because they’re sitting pretty in their homes). In any case, there was plenty of finger-pointing about the lack of progress (mostly at forces and interests outside their control) and commitment to do better, but one would think that if they were truly committed to the effort, they’d be spending more time playing it up in their campaign pitches, especially since, as was noted by some, polls show that voters seem to be coming around to wanting more affordable units as the crisis grows ever deeper.

For anyone interested, you can check out the video of the meeting here , including my own public comments where I observe that I hear more talk about our beloved Martinez Sturgeon among certain candidates than the need to build low-income housing or address racial equity/inclusion issues. And the folks behind Menesini’s campaign mailers will be happy to know that when I returned to my car around 9:30, my hubcaps were still intact and there was no sign of forced entry of my 2009 Chevy Impala (maybe things are different for the Martinez elites who cruise the town in their Mercedes or BMWs).

SHOWTIME AT CAMPBELL: The Campbell Theater was packed on Friday night as the mayoral and City Council candidates attended a forum sponsored by the Martinez Chamber of Commerce. I wasn’t able to make it in time for the live event (seating was closed more than hour before the forum began) but will check out the recording when it’s posted (the chamber said it would be a few days after the event) and provide any observations/thoughts I might have. Check the Martinez Chamber website for updates and, depending on your TV provider, you should be able to find it on Comcast 28, Uverse 999 or Astound 1029. If anyone attended the event and has thoughts, feel free to chime in with comments below. And I hope you made it home safely without encountering any stock photo actors wearing ski masks and wielding crowbars.

That’s it for this update. I had hoped to have some more campaign finance data to report, but it seems that our city drags its feet on coughing up routine election filings the same way it does on building low-income housing, so maybe next time (otherwise, I’ll file a California Public Records Act violation complaint).

P.S. I tried to share this post on Martinez Rants & Raves this morning only to discover that for some unknown reason, I’ve been suspended from the group (though I’ve been subjected to plenty of hate there over the years, I’ve never dropped an f-bomb on anyone). I actually shared a very positive RAVE about the school district the other day, and no one seemed to have a problem with my Free for All Friday poll about candidates and democracy. My only guess is that perhaps I’m annoying too many of Martinez’s privileged elites with uncomfortable truths. If that’s the case, I’ll take the suspension as a badge of honor.

I would love to get your feedback on this newsletter based on what you’ve seen so far. If you don’t mind, please take a few minutes to answer the following questions.