Nov. 1 Update: Devcon, SCS Finance Police PAC
Developers Devcon and SCS jumped into the campaign during the last week of October with donations of $20,000 and $10,000 respectively to the Santa Clara Police Officers Association PAC.
A new PAC, Yes on Measure H, received $4,000 in donations from Council Member Suds Jain. A No on H committee has received no donations and doesn’t appear to even have an FPPC committee ID.
Candidates Lisa Gillmor and Karen Hardy reported new donations of $7,735 and $5,510 respectively; bringing their total direct donations to $27,771 for Gillmor and $12,780 for Hardy.
The 49ers upped their donations to their independent expenditure PACs by another $1.05 million, which brings their total donations for this election to $4.1 million.
Throughout the election, Silicon Valley Voice will endeavor to keep up with the campaign donations in Santa Clara’s political races. This Follow the Money 2022 article is as of Nov.1, 2022.
Follow the Money 2022 update: Oct. 17
As of Oct. 17, the 49ers put another $105,000 into their six independent expenditure committees to bring the total spending to $3.1 million. No other donations were recorded this week.
Editor’s Note:
Due to a double reporting on documents downloaded by the Silicon Valley Voice, some of our previous numbers need correction. Follow the Money is a compilation of data from different sources. As such, we sometimes make mistakes.
Oct. 5 Follow the Money 2022 Update Correction
On Oct. 5, 2022, this news agency reported:
“In the last week, they put another $583,000 into their six independent expenditure committees supporting Anthony Becker for Mayor, and Karen Hardy and Raj Chahal for re-election to the City Council and opposing council candidates Larry McColloch and Christian Pellecchia and Gillmor for re-election. This brings the 49ers’ PACs’ war chest to $3.8 million.”
However, the statement should be corrected to read:
“In the last week, they put another $453,000 into their six independent expenditure committees supporting Anthony Becker for Mayor, and Karen Hardy and Raj Chahal for re-election to the City Council and opposing council candidates Larry McColloch and Christian Pellecchia and Gillmor for re-election. This brings the 49ers’ PACs’ war chest to $2.5 million.”
Sept. 27 Correction
On Sept. 27, 2022, this news agency reported:
“As of the same date, the 49ers have put $2.5 million into six PACs. Three of these PACs oppose Santa Clara mayor Lisa Gillmor and two first-time City Council candidates: Larry McColloch and Christian Pellecchia. The second three PACs support candidate for mayor and District 6 City Council Member Anthony Becker, and incumbent Council Members Raj Chahal (District 2) and Karen Hardy (District 3).
The 49ers PACs have spent $709,000 on independent expenditures supporting the three candidates. They have also spent $1.8 million opposing Gillmor and the two council challengers; $828,000 alone on anti-Gillmor TV ads and mailers.”
However, the statement should be corrected to read:
“As of the same date, the 49ers have put $2.1 million into six PACs. Three of these PACs oppose Santa Clara mayor Lisa Gillmor and two first-time City Council candidates: Larry McColloch and Christian Pellecchia. The second three PACs support candidate for mayor and District 6 City Council Member Anthony Becker, and incumbent Council Members Raj Chahal (District 2) and Karen Hardy (District 3).
The 49ers PACs have spent $1.4 million on independent expenditures supporting the three candidates. They have also spent $728,000 opposing Gillmor and the two council challengers; $419,000 alone on anti-Gillmor TV ads and mailers.”
Supposedly the Forty Niners spending is now approaching $3,500,000 dollars according to Kirk Vartan and Doctor Tom Shanks of the SCU Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. They talk about in the latest episode of their video series on public trust in local government:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-baD08nJJw
On the topic of the Forty Niners spending I previously posted a comment asking how it is that a photograph of Raj Chahal that illustrates a 2018 Silicon Valley Voice profile of Chahal has ended up being the main photograph illustrating the website that the Forty Niners paid for to support him.
https://www.svvoice.com/santa-clara-city-council-district-2-candidate-raj-chahal/
https://www.voterajchahal.com/
Did the Silicon Valley Voice give the Forty Niner PAC for Chahal this photograph? The one on their website is higher resolution and has a wider crop so it could not be taken off the above linked Silicon Valley Voice article.
Or was that photo give to the Silicon Valley Voice by Raj Chahal back in 2018? If so then I wonder if Chahal also supplied a higher resolution version of this photograph to the Forty Niner PAC for him that is supposed to be totally independent of him and not have communication or cooperation with him.
More spending at this time will have little or no effect. Most voters have already made up their minds. For myself, I’ve sent in my ballot last week entering in my one single vote for Becker. As for your continuing comments on the Chahal photo, I suggest you gather up together all the information you have and put it together into a very neat package and tie it up with a big yellow ribbon and mail it to the Lisa Gillmor campaign, or maybe even to Lisa herself. I’m sure they’ll thank you and later have themselves a big laugh and store away your data into the nearest circular file.
Davy,
I am asking because I am curious.
And now I am curious about why Carolyn and others at Silicon Valley Voice choose to not answer such a simple question. If I were them I would not want to give the impression that I have something to hide by ignoring the question.
It is a natural question for a reader to want to know if a publication provides even minor favors to political campaigns they cover.
And it is a natural question for a voter to want to know if a political candidate is violating laws on independent expenditure committees spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for him are not actually independent from cooperation with him like they are legally required to be. Even if that cooperation is very minor.
By ignoring your stupid questions, they plainly are indicating to you that your questions are not worth their time or effort for a reply. After all, it is their publication. They have the right to act as they well please. You in turn have the every right to not read their materials. However, you most certainly do not have the right to insist or demand that they need to act or respond in whatever way or manner to ever do as you may wish. Please stop being a dolt.
Davy,
Silicon Valley Voice has the right to publish what they want and to selectively ignore comments from readers or not. I do have the right to insist or demand something from them and they have the right to ignore or refuse me.
But I have merely asked them these questions. Thank you to the Editor for answering it below.
You have the right to be uncivil and to insult me even though I have not been uncivil to you.
You also have the right to just simply ignore my comments if the only response to them that you have to make is to be insulting. I think this would be the better course of action for everyone but if you insist on representing Anthony Becker’s supporters as you have been doing you will find no objection from me in continuing to do so.
I agree you have the right to do as you wish. But please do not deny me this same right.
Allow me to settle this, please. Buchser Alum, we’re a small paper and I have many duties. It’s difficult to reply to every inquiry, especially the ones that require a little more research.
While I do not usually post to the website, looking at the photo of Raj Chahal, I can tell that it was professionally taken. As such, I am guessing that it was a professionally taken headshot that was provided to us and other media outlets during his campaign. It is a public headshot that anyone can request and was also used on the Voter’s Edge website in 2018.
https://votersedge.org/ca/en/election/2018-11-06/santa-clara-county/council-member-santa-clara-city-council-district-2/raj-chahal
Furthermore, the Silicon Valley Voice does not web protect our images. That means, while not legal, just about anyone can right-click on an image and save it to their desktop. Any person with a beginner to moderate background in photo editing can change that image to look like the one on the 49ers PAC website.
I appreciate the spirited debate that the two of you have engaged in. I also appreciate that you have kept it civil. Please continue to do so.
Thanks for the information. I also wish to apologize for the many times “Buchser Alum” and I have behaved in such bad manners and behaviors towards each other.
Editor,
Thank you for the reply and the link to Chahal’s Voter’s Edge profile. I asked you first because I thought that someone at Silicon Valley Voice might know off the top of their head whether the photograph of Chahal in that 2018 profile article was given to Silicon Valley Voice by Chahal or if someone from Silicon Valley Voice photographed Chahal for the article.
I know that anyone can save any image on a website. But as I pointed out before the version of the photograph used on Chahal’s Forty Niner PAC website is higher resolution than the one that Silicon Valley Voice used. So it could not have been the PAC simply downloading it from svvoice.com.
So from your answer it seems that Raj Chahal gave a headshot photograph to the Forty Niners PAC that is not supposed to have communication or cooperation with him or his campaign. Sharing a photograph is not a big deal but it does raise the question of what other cooperation there might be given that any is against campaign finance laws.
I find it curious that a news platform focused on Santa Clara does not find this an interesting question to report on.
I disagree with your interpretation. Please read the “Editor” comment: “It is a public headshot that anyone can request and was also used on the Voter’s Edge website in 2018.” This in no way implies that Chahal “gave” this photograph to the 49ers. Since it resides in “public”, it is available to all without requesting permission.
Carolyn,
Your numbers do not seem to add up. Public Trust Review did an episode on Oct 21, 2022 citing Oct 14, 2022 data. We closed the total spent by the “DeBartolo Corp. & Affiliated Entities, including 49ers Football Co., LLC” at $3,446,312. You quote it three days later at only $3,100,000. This seems wrong. And the corrections you have made in the articles are very confusing. You could easily just have a table that shows weeks and total spent. Please correct your article again with the correct data. If you would like to see our numbers based on the 460s, lease review our 15 min episode.
P.S. The donation number are INCREASING not slowing down.
-Kirk
Mr. Vartan,
As The Weekly has communicated with you in the past, please refrain from linking sites for personal gain in your comments. I have removed the link from your comment, but as you will note, that is the only alteration made to your comment. We welcome free speech but we will not allow you or anyone else to use our platform for personal gain.
Sincerely, The Weekly Editorial Team
Sorry, Kirk. Looks like you’ve been caught misbehaving again.
Editor,
Kirk’s video series with Tom Shanks on his “Public Trust Review” YouTube channel are not something that brings him personal gain. They are not monetized videos and Vartan does not gain any financial benefit from any of his political activity.
Banning his links makes Silicon Valley Voice look petty. I would feel embarrassed at censoring links to videos that you have mocked for having hardly any views on the ridiculously claimed ground that they are “for personal gain.”
Buchser:
I find it interesting that you made this complaint to the Editor whereas Kirk Vartan did not. Also, interesting is that this is not the first occasion that the Editor has communicated their objection to Kirk Vartan. Not certain what this YouTube video contains, but it’s possible that this video may advertise other monetized videos.
I went to the “YouTube” site, and may have found the answer you are looking for. As you’re aware, “YouTube” makes its revenue from advertisements. As such, it needs its contributors and so it shares part of their revenue with their contributors.
Davy,
Once again you are just trying to argue what you wish was true or what you wish others would believe is true while displaying that you do not know what you are talking about.
YouTube only pays creators in their partner program and only on monetized videos. Vartan’s channel is not in the partner program and they are not monetized. He makes nothing from it and gains no personal profit from the videos.
I believe you are wrong. Obviously, there must be a reason for the Weekly to delete the link. Again, isn’t it interesting that Vartan never complained? This was not the first time that his “links” were deleted. I believe he knows well why his links were deleted. But we hear not a “peep”. Since the Weekly has not replied, perhaps Vartan can enter the conversation, and inform us as to why these “links” were deleted. Anyways, I believe your attacks on the Weekly were unfounded. Again, you have a nasty habit of making unfounded accusations.
Well, the truth is your accusations are wrong, as usual. I believe when the Editor deleted Kirk’s link the first time, he informed Kirk the reason for the deletion. The second time, the Editor did not bother to repeat the reason. Kirk did not respond since he knew he was in error both times. On the other hand, since you had no knowledge, immediately jump to the wrong conclusion and state with your false accusations.
Buchser,
I notice you have a nasty tendency to make accusations that are unfounded.
Buchser,
I believe you owe the Editor an apology.