Rachel Clark battles back
The city clerk debates between incumbent Rachel Clark and Challenger Joseph Turner had gone about like this: Turner rips Clark for not being vigilant enough in ensuring tax code compliance and requiring business licenses of renters who house parolees and sex predators while Clark sticks to her 17 years of strong service platform.
A forum sponsored by two women's groups Tuesday night was a little different.
Turner came out swinging on a new front, ripping Clark for the campaign mailer written by former Mayor Judith Valles that overtly plays on the notion that Turner is a racist who would target Latinos.
"Now you tell me who's playing the race card," an indignant Turner said.
But Clark had some firepower of her own ...
click below for more and video clips ...
Her target was a campaign mailer Turner turned loose to local voters' homes this week. It's cover asks "Do you have a sex predator living next door?" and lists the name and address of a convicted rapist who, Turner claims, lives in an unlicensed rental property near an elementary school.
Clark said it was a lie.
"Well guess what," Clark asked rhetorically, waiving the mailer in her hand. "This property is in fact rented and has had a rental license since 1985."
She went on, saying that what the public and her opponent "doesn't understand" is that individual rental units are not licensed, but the total property in which the units are housed.
Here is her boldest move yet in this race:
Clark then said 104 sexual predators were listed in Turner's mailer "guide" and that of those, 48 live in licensed facilities, 18 in owner-occupied homes and 13 have been liened because they don't have licenses.
Obviously, Clark thoroughly researched Turner's mailer.
Turner responded, his air of cocky cool noticably perturbed, by saying he has the records to prove that the man on the cover of his mailer lives in an unlicensed rental property. He said he possesses a fax from a member of Clark's staff saying that the property in question is unlicensed.
"I'm not sure what happened in your office," he said, "but obviously you guys are not on the same page."
Here is Turner earlier on, when he first went after Clark for not running a "clean campaign."
In sum, the forum was notable because Turner attacked Clark for bankrolling Valles' attack piece against him despite vowing not to engage in such tactics. Turner also had one other new twist, saying that he would make the office more transparent by drastically increasing the amount of public records, including candidate financial statements, available on the city Web site. Lastly, Turner mentioned his police union endorsement at least four times, a noticable uptick in odes to his boys in blue. In Turner's mailer, by the way, he is pictured with uniformed officers.
Clark's new twist, following the issuance of the toughly-worded Valles mailer last week, was coming straight at Turner on the accuracy of his campaign mailer. It's too early to tell who is accurate on whether Turner's poster-boy for dangerous sex predators actually lives in an unlicensed property. But it's still notable that Clark took the time to research her opponent's claims in advance of a public jab, particularly one week after the Valles mailer.
Clark, like Milligan in the city attorney's race, has switched from defense to offense. Milligan clearly made the move because Penman was scoring points at her expense with impunity. Not sure whether Clark made the move because she's concerned that Turner may be moving up by knocking her down or because she's just tired of absorbing unrequited criticisms.
It is very late, but I wanted to touch on a couple of things before I went to bed.
Mrs. Clark is clearly rattled by my campaign mailer where I list all sexual predators in the City of San Bernardino by address and make a point to highlight one particular sexual predator on my cover.
For the record, and I have the fax to prove it, the sexual predator listed on the cover of my mailer is living in an unlicensed rental property according to the City Clerk's office.
She has stated repeatedly that she has upgraded the software to track business licenses. If that is the case, how is it that her office could fax me in writing a statement attesting to this particular address being unlicensed, if it has in fact been licensed since 1985?
She can't have it both ways. Either the property is licensed or it isn't. Either she has upgraded the database software or she hasn't.
It is evident by the fact that my mailer barely hit the mailbox on Tuesday, the day of this forum that she is rattled.
I am curious as to how she managed to find the time in her busy schedule to check 104 listings in my mailer within a couple of hours before the debate?
I am even more curious to know why she hasn't done this before given that all the information is public record.
Further, by her own admission above, she admits that over one-third of the sexual predators she checked are living in unlicensed rental properties.
This is a statement I have made based on my own research and investigation and her own comments support what I have been saying all along.
Please note however, that there are 300 sexual predators listed in my mailer.
It would be interesting to know how Rachel Clark prepared for her debate.
#1 Did she use city time, while working, to personally research the information?
#2 Did she have staff do the research?
#3 If yes, did she submit a request as a member of the public and have it researched in the order received?
#4 Did she research the information on her own time? Which would not be available to others.
I hope she did not take advantage of her position to acquire information more quickly than any other member of the public. If she did it raises some questions.
I would hope she used city time along with city resources since the claim is that she is not doing her job to make sure these properties are not licensed. Seems to me that it is her job to get those properties that does not have license to comply. Also, it would be to her benefit to verify information presented to her, how else is one to know if Mr. Turner’s facts are right, however it doesn’t seem like the “facts” are an important issue in this race. It is unfortunate that he received incorrect information from her office, but sometimes it takes a little more effort when trying to disprove one's character.
Also thank goodness for the great software for her to be able to do such a quick job, however I did not think that the focus on licensing rentals of those who house sexual predators was the only requirement for licensing rental property. If the list was only 300, is the city really losing millions of dollars? I believe the going rate the rental property is $60 a year. Even if all the properties were not licensed (which is not the case) – you do the math!!!!!!
Official Sex Predator Guide – mailed to San Bernardino residents by Friends of Joe Turner. Mr. Turner and his cronies must really think the folks in San Bernardino are dumber than doorknobs if he thinks they will believe everything he has included in this document. Right off the bat, on the front cover, he lists a blatant lie. The address at 3981 Genevieve Street is licensed and has been since prior to 1985; however, it is an apartment and is listed under the address of 3969-81 Genevieve. The residents are family members of Mr. Arrey, but he does not reside at that address.
At least three times he indicates that he is Joseph Turner San Bernardino City Clerk. OOPS – He just conveniently forgot to put in the word "for" prior to the words, "San Bernardino City Clerk." I can’t help but wonder whether the printing company that did his printing for him didn’t notice this blatant lack of integrity, but birds of a feather stick together.
Rick Lawhead, President, San Bernardino Police Officers Association, is quoted as saying " . . . he is the only candidate for City Clerk with a real plan to tackle the true source of our crime problems." I’ve never heard what that plan is, other than Mr. Turner’s pie in the sky ramblings. And if this is the kind of investigation he does prior to running these folks out of their homes, we should have a few more lawsuits to keep our attorney’s office busy.
Last, but not least, his attempt to convince people that he was endorsed by The Sun newspaper was nothing more than pathetic. Everyone who reads the paper knows The Sun endorsed Rachel Clark for City Clerk. In fact, what The Sun said was that "It’s no place for the political extremism of Turner . . . City Clerk is a technical, bureaucratic position that requires attention to administrative detail and complete fairness above all else."
All I can say is Mr. Turner and the Police Officer’s Association must be feeling desperate, that they don’t even care that people will actually check out their facts and see their outrageous duplicity and lack of integrity. Or, they are actually intimating that the residents of San Bernardino are so dumb and ill informed, that no one would notice these facts? Either way, I can only hope that the citizens of this city see Mr. Turner for what he really is and vote on November 6 for Rachel Clark for City Clerk.
This may be a little unrelated, but not really. For an organization who is supposed to be upholding the law it just blows my mind that these officers are selling their t-shirts out of their cars in the Police Dept. parking lot. In San Bernardino transient merchants are not allowed - Mr. Penman was always after the individuals selling flowers at the freeway off-ramps. Are they above the law????
Apparently, Supporter of the Truth doesn't understand the difference between using city resources to prepare for a poitical debate or conducting routine business. Surely if a member of the public went into the clerk's office with a laundry list of addressess to be checked they would not have received a 2 hour turnaround. A little integrity would help.
Dear Supporter of the Truth:
Oh, where do I begin.
First, in a legal ruling last year dealing with the County Assessor's race, there is nothing illegal or forbidden with my use of "San Bernardino City Clerk" instead of "for San Bernardino City Clerk".
Not sure if you have been paying to the City Attorney's race, but Marianne Milligan does the same thing and it is a rather common practice.
Clearly, you fail to grasp the facts and are responding to a matter in which you are ill-equipped to respond.
Second, in your first post you state that it is "unfortunate that [I] received incorrect information" with respect to Steven Arrey on the cover of my mailer and then in the second post you accuse me of blatantly lying about it. Huh?
How am I lying about something when I specifically requested and received written verification on whether or not this property is licensed. When I did a search of the properties, the address was never identified as 3961-89 Geneveive St.
That is simply not true.
You can try to spin this all you want, but the City Clerk's office supposedly operating under the new and improved software verified that this property was not licensed.
Third, I am not sure how it is exactly that you are on such good terms with Steven Arrey's family. But, I appreciate you informing the public that he is in noncompliance with his registration requirement and is in violation.
I would hope that you would contact local authorities to report this fact.
Additionally, I never stated I was endorsed by the San Bernardino Sun. I simply informed the voters that the San Bernardino Sun found my ideas and my plan intriguing and suggested City Hall consider them.
At the risk of embarassing you further, it is clear that you simply do not have a fundamental grasp of the arguments I am making, so I will spell it out for you.
I have not said that all properties containing sexual predators are unlicensed. What I have said and Rachel Clark has never refuted is that there are thousands of unlicensed rental properties and that one third of our sexual predators live in unlicensed rental properties.
If you put the number of unlicensed rental properties at 5,000 (which is not unrealistic based on Rachel Clark's comments in the SB Sun podcast), and multiply that number by 60 dollars over 17 years, you have a loss of over $5 million in revenue.
Please understand the argument before you dismiss it.
I could go on and on about your failure to bring up the sales tax fiasco or that you conveniently ignore the blatant lies and smears put out by Rachel Clark via the Valles letter that was sent only to Hispanic households, but I think enough ground has been covered.
Joe,
I've said it before and I'll say it again. You're bright and articulate and have good things waiting for you in your future.
Clearly, the issue of sexual predators is something you have invested a lot of time and energy into compiling lists off the Internet for. I care about sexual predators, too. I remember "the old days", when I would visit the terminals at the SBCo Office's first floor counter for the public to do these searches. I would enter the zip codes, collect the data and inform the public.
Perhaps because my main concern was elevating awareness in the public about these people with aberrant predilections living near children, stay at home moms and other more vulnerable members of our society, it never occurred to me to investigate the registration of the properties where they reside. Obviously, you did think to do that and have a different take on the situation than mine (I was only interested in elevating awareness; you seem interested in making sure they register their addresses, if rentals, as well as their addresses with local law enforcement.) Cool by me.
Why don't you use your successful group formation model to form a group of concerned citizens to oversee these sexual predators' addresses? Another level of oversight couldn't hurt ~ as Rachel Clark and you indicated at last evening's forum in City Hall Chambers, there are several sexual predators with issues that need attending.
It pains me to see a person, like you, with the answers to problems in our society in your hands (literally) and the solutions dangled before us with no action being taken.
Please Joe, start a group, or something. Use the information you have taken the time to compile to see that things in our local community are bettered.
By just talk-talk-talking and not taking action to FIX IT, you are proving the truism, "If you aren't part of the SOLUTION, you are part of the PROBLEM".
In order to stop being part of the problem, Joe, you need to take a moment to form a group, or, if so inclined, handle it yourself and see to it that these sexual predators have all their affairs in order.
Are any of these predators still on parole? If so, have you contacted their parole agents, yet? That seems the most expeditious means for assuring compliance with all of our laws, rules & regulations. Let their overseers know that they are not in compliance with the requirements of our community.
This may well become the activity for you, Joe! There are SO MANY sexual predators across our nation. You mention your failed illegal immigrant ideas and how they made Wall Street Journal, back in the day. This could be the thing you throw against the wall that sticks. You may be able to make a name for yourself the endures through developing a wide network of civilian watchdogs that see to this detail in the lives of the sexual predators among us all throughout the USA.
I know there is a place for you to soar in America, Joe. By exploring all your options and not focusing on one self-limiting goal, you may best be able to realize your potential for doing good in America in with your life's time.
I am willing to work with you to establish a citizen's oversight committee for the sexual predators among us on the local level, freeing you up to expand the program to a national level.
The more of us that train our eyes upon the proven sources of danger in our communities, the safer we will all become.
Are you interested in going forward with this, Joe?
Your Friend & Neighbor,
Susana Atanasova
Definition of Condescension:
Susana Atanasova's last post. Could you have sounded more like a kindergarten teacher offering a cookie to a student? Why would you take someone that was "bright and articulate and have good things waiting for you in your future" and marginalize them in such a way. Why wouldn't we as a municipality reward such people by putting them in leadership positions?
Maybe the smear campaigns about him are wrong? If he has impressed the great Susana Atanasova, he is surely no farce. Does Susana want a cookie? Does that sound like fun?
Please...think first...then type.