Just in case you believed the whole line that some candidates are spitting that they won’t accept support from this or that special interest, let’s not forget that letting a PAC put your face and your name on their collateral is a form of support.

There’s a door hanger floating around on Alamedans Facebook pages, but here’s the latest expenditure from Alamedans in Charge:

In case you’re wondering which side Trish Spencer falls on the whole Measure K issue, it’s a Yes on K for her and who cares how deceptive the information on the mailer is with her face on it.

Oh hey, this was sort of one of the questions that was posed by ACT PAC/ A Better Alameda. They asked what the candidates would do if PACs that support the candidate publish untrue and derogatory information about the candidate’s opponents. While this is not about an opponent it IS untrue information. But the so called good governance PAC is not publishing the actual responses received from candidates so we have no way of knowing what metrics ACT PAC/ A Better Alameda used to make their decision on who they would be supporting. Most, if not all, other grounds with endorsements post those answers so for full disclosure. Good governance groups, I suppose, are beyond such niceties.

Anyway, it’s really shocking to see a group that was decrying simple “rent stabilization” as going too far are now trying to rebrand this rent stabilization as “rent control” to be preserved by the people who need rent control.

Putting aside the weirdness of using “San Francisco-style” and “activists” as though we’re supposed to fear this, it’s a strange mix of trying to appeal to people who both like and don’t like the idea of rent control. It’s like someone actually said “renters won’t read the actual text and will just read the part about saving rent control and vote for it.” The fact that Trish Spencer put her name, face, and a really misleading quote should be concerning to anyone who wants to believe she is an “independent” voice on the City Council. What this should show everyone is that Trish Spencer has a price and that is her face on a a lot of mailers that she doesn’t have to fundraise to pay for.

Here’s the biggest problem with Measure K. Even if you love rent stabilization and do not think that the ordinance goes far enough. Measure K puts this rent stabilization in the charter which will make it very costly to make any sort of modifications in the future whether weakening the current rent stabilization ordinance or making it stronger. It flies in the fact of the whole representative democracy model. If people don’t trust this or future City Council’s to balance the needs of all members of the community, then change the City Council make up.

It’s not surprising that most of the voices that were upset with SunCal and the amount of money that company threw at their ballot measure (which didn’t even seek to change the charter) are now so so quiet in the face of the sheer volume of money that has been raised and spent by large, non Alameda companies. And to boot their cover girl, Trish Spencer, is being supported by those expenditures as well.