New Super PAC attracts financial support from Long Beach businesses

A new Super PAC representing Long Beach business interests has aroused controversy this spring over the content of its campaign materials while also demonstrating a formidable ability to raise money.

The group, called Long Beach Citizens for Good Govement, previously existed as an independent committee supporting Councilman Daryl Supeaw’s successful effort in last year’s 4th District special election. Supeaw himself had no coection to the group; he describes himself as “100 percent” nonpartisan and said he never provided a contribution to it.

Long Beach Citizens for Good Govement has so far taken a more active role in this year’s three City Council campaigns than the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce’s political arm. The new group has amassed contributions of $78,400 before the end of the financial disclosure period that ended Wednesday – an amount that exceeded the contributions this calendar year to campaigns of the 10 Long Beach candidates ruing in this year’s contests .

Add $78,400 to the total the Super PAC raised last year, and the sum is $115,410.

The citizens and businesses giving to Long Beach Citizens for Good Govement include several figures from Long Beach’s restaurant and real estate industries as well as other sectors. Among the more prominent individuals and companies on campaign filings are:

• JetBlue Airways Corporation Crewmember PAC ($1,000);

• Molina Healthcare Chief Financial Officer John C. Molina ($500);

• Worthington Ford ($1,000);

• And former Long Beach Councilman Gary DeLong ($2,750).

“I don’t speak for the Long Beach Citizens for Good Govement PAC, but I can tell you I donated to the PAC because I am very conceed about the financial future of our city,” DeLong said in an email. “I support the PAC because it was formed to help candidates who will keep a close eye on how our taxpayer dollars are spent and who will support community based economic development to grow our city’s tax base.”

DeLong went on to say the Super PAC has no institutional preference for Democrats, Republicans or independents and is a needed counterbalance to the pro-labor interests that spend large sums in Long Beach politics.

The group has already backed a candidate — Supeaw — who defeated an opponent that enjoyed substantial support from labor unions. Long Beach’s police and fire unions, as well as the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, spent thousands of dollars supporting Herlinda Chico’s losing effort in last year’s special election.

Advertisement

Among other donors to the new Super PAC: three limited liability corporations that are registered in Califoia Secretary of State filings as having the same Phoenix address as Ensemble Real Estate Services. Those companies — Long Beach Hotel Properties, LLC; 442 Ocean Apt. LLC and Desert Commercial II LLC, each gave $10,000 to the Super PAC.

State filings show the firms all have the same contact for serving legal papers, Ensemble Chairman Kambiz Babaoff. Babaoff did not retu phone calls and an email this week.

The Califoia Real Estate PAC and KSLB Holding Co., LLC, of Long Beach, also gave $10,000 each to the Super PAC.

The mailer issue

The PAC has thrown its weight behind two candidates, Joen Gaica and Wesley Tubow, who are both ruing on a pro-business platform.

Gaica is ruing against another business owner, Eric Gray, as well as labor advocate Jeaine Pearce, in the city’s 2nd District, which spans from the Port of Long Beach area to include part of downtown and coastal neighborhoods as far east as Redondo Avenue.

Tubow is ruing in the 8th District against incumbent Councilman Al Austin and Cal State Long Beach business manager Laurie Angel.

The Super PAC attracted the criticism of 9th District councilman Rex Richardson, who also represents North Long Beach neighborhoods, in late March after the group dispatched a pro-Tubow mailer that juxtaposed a shadowy figure wearing a hooded garment with crime statistics.

In the eyes of Richardson and four others who signed a statement condemning the ad, the mailer evoked negative stereotypes associated with young minority men. DeLong has said that no racial message was intended, and he offered a personal apology to anyone bothered by the imagery.

Another mailer targeting Gray in the 2nd District called attention to the fact that he received a notice of default for back payments on his condo in 2012. Gray’s campaign quickly struck back, decrying the ad as a “false and malicious attack” in statement that went on to acknowledge that he made a late homeowners association payment in 2015, but said he had not defaulted on his condo and that his finances were in good health.

A review of Los Angeles County Recorder’s records showed that although Gray indeed received a notice of default in October 2012, that notice was rescinded about seven months later.

Despite the controversy, Signal Hill-based political consultant and Long Beach observer Jeff Adler opined that recent instances of negative campaigning are not that outrageous when compared to the mud-slinging of the current presidential campaign or other local elections.

“Not telling the whole truth is part and parcel of what a campaign in supposed to do,” Adler said after referring to anti-Gray mailer’s content.

At least one of the new Super PAC’s donors, however, went public to oppose the mailer. Luis Navarro, who owns Lola’s Mexican Cuisine, posted on Facebook that he and his wife took offense to what he termed the “hateful political mailers” sent in the 2nd and 8th District races.

Navarro said in an interview that the new Super PAC’s supporters did not have malicious intent, and he contributed to Long Beach Citizens for Good Govement because of his conces over city govement’s move to mandate minimum wage increases and his sense the City Council needs to be more attentive to small businesses.

“This PAC is active. They are business-friendly and that was kind of our opportunity to voice our conce with the minimum wage issue that was going on,” he said.

Long Beach’s council voted in January to raise the city’s minimum wage. More recently, Gov. Jerry Brown and Sacramento Democrats agreed to do the same for the entire state.

Although Austin supported the minimum wage increase, with the caveat that employers be allowed to temporarily compensate intes with a lower training wage, Navarro said he decided to support the 8th District’s incumbent because of the help he received opening a new Lola’s Mexican Cuisine branch in Bixby Knolls.

Other contributors

The Super PAC’s favored candidate in the 2nd District race, Gaica, said it’s hard to disce just how effective a mailer may be when it comes to wiing voters’ support.

“With so much activity going on, it’s hard to gage the impact of an individual mail piece. I have found coecting with voters at their doors and in their living rooms, person-to-person to be the most effective,” she said in an email.

Long Beach Citizens for Good Govement is not the only group campaigning for this year’s candidates. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor’s political arm has spent thousands in support of its favored candidates — Pearce in the 2nd District, two-term incumbent Dee Andrews in the 6th District and Austin in the 8th. The Long Beach Police Officers Association has also put its money behind Gray and Austin.

The Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce also has its own political action committee. The chamber’s political arm has given $400 max contributions to Gaica and Andrews, but has otherwise been quiet during this campaign cycle.

Randy Gordon, the chamber’s executive director, said that may change after the April 12 Primary Election since the elections will go to runoffs between the top two finishers in races where no one can achieve a majority of votes.

Gordon also said he welcomes the appearance of another advocate for business, but emphasized that the current leaders of the chamber’s PAC want to avoid negative campaigning.

“Our current PAC board doesn’t want to go negative,” he said. “We have not been negative in many years.”