Riverside County Election 2020: Intimidation, Theft, Absurdity

As you may know, I am running for the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, 3rd District, and I have some tea to spill about this campaign.

Elections in Riverside County aren’t “free and fair”. If you didn’t already know this...well...I'm sorry to burst your bubble. There’s no meritocracy or “cream of the crop” rising to the top here. What happens when a seat opens up in nearly any district across the county is that the existing political elite on that board/commission hand-pick someone they’d like to fill that seat (read: who can be easily made into a puppet) and they run that person. Usually, their Chosen One wins, thanks to the money and backing that the political ruling class pour into him/her. Outsiders typically don’t stand a chance.

As a political outsider, I’ve seen how little the political elite care about their districts and how hard they’ll fight to keep their seats. Without them, how will they get kickbacks and rub elbows with the wealthy donor class of RivCo? How will they easily glide their development projects through permitting? Can you imagine how hard it would be to get a track of half-million-dollar homes approved without support from the people you paid to put into elected office? Oh, the horror.

I’ve had an interesting experience with obstruction during this campaign. I decided to host a women’s political summit at one of the Temecula libraries in February. It was wildly popular; over 120 people RSVP’d. The need for more female voices in our local representation is great.

On a whim, I called the library a day before the event, just to do a last-minute check in. I was floored when I was told that the event had been cancelled…and they had a note that I cancelled it.

Excuse me? No, I certainly hadn’t cancelled it. It was a county-wide event that over 100 people were expected to attend. After speaking with the events coordinator, we got the issue sorted out. Get this, people: someone had called the library and posed as me to cancel the event three days prior and requested no call back- a sticky note was passed to the events coordinator with no contact information included.

Pretty sketchy, right?

But wait, there’s more!

I recently held a get together in a local Temecula Park, billed as a car chalking event and fundraiser. The Temecula Community Services Department contacted me, telling me that I could not solicit donations in the park. No problem. I had everyone who wanted to donate do so days beforehand so that no money was exchanged on site, and I let the Community Services representative know that while also giving him my personal cell phone for any follow-up questions or comments. I never received a call.

We all showed up for a fun event that weekend. Soon after the event, a Parks Department truck patrolled the parking lot. I go to this park nearly every weekend and I spend hours there every single visit. I have never seen a Parks Department vehicle there on patrol.

About an hour later, we were approached by a Parks Department employee, asking if we had received the notification that we could not meet at the park that day. We made sure to let her know that no one was exchanging money on premises that day and that the artist providing the drawings was not being paid. I showed her the email I sent to her department with my personal cell phone number and instructions to call me when they got the email. She was surprised and said she hadn’t gotten that email forwarded to her.

She claimed to be at the park every Sunday; I’ve never seen her there. I’ve never actually seen any Parks Department employees at any of the parks while I’ve been there in the five years I’ve lived here, including the massive 4th of July celebration at the Ronald Reagan Sports Park. She left us to continue our event.

It would be amazing if the people I know who’ve called code enforcement for noise complaints or trash complaints received this level of “attention”. The connection? The incumbent in my race used to be the mayor of Temecula and enjoys support from the current political elite of the city. I’ll leave it to you to decide if this was purposeful use of city services in order to intimidate a political opponent...or not.

Yard signs are another point of contention. I recently dropped off a yard sign for a campaign supporter in Murrieta. She reported that it was gone the day after it was dropped off; someone stole it from her yard. Yes. Someone was petty enough to walk up her lawn to steal a yard sign. I dropped a second one off, along with some bumper stickers. I don’t think the thief is brazen enough to scrape stickers off of someone’s car. But you never know around here. But I DO know that if people are so threatened by one of my yard signs that they'd trespass and commit a crime to remove it, I'm doing something right.

I recently placed a yard sign in a public area; an intersection in Temecula. I noted that the incumbent in my race had placed a yard sign on the same corner approximately two weeks ago, and it has remained there since. Within three days, both of our yard signs were removed from the public area. It’s amazing how quickly that happened once my yard sign was placed in public view, just feet away from the first sign. Who knows how long the incumbent’s sign would have languished there, lacking attention, had I not placed my sign by his. But local code enforcement certainly made sure to remove both signs with alacrity once my sign was noticed. Only a slight few other signs for candidates around town have been taken down since they were put up, weeks ago. Most remain, unless they were taped or stapled to light poles or signs- it's amazing that only the signs on that corner were removed by code enforcement.

I could go on. The antics I’ve seen in this race would possibly be intimidate a person of lesser conviction. I certainly won’t back down. My record is spotless. I will not be cowed by the greed that runs through this county. That scares a lot of people.

Should I fail to make it past the primary, I am not going away. I am training a new generation of middle-class leaders who will become successful candidates in other local races. I’m currently recruiting poll watchers to make sure that none of my voters’ ballots somehow get miscounted or go missing on election day. This movement far outpaces a single person. We are coming.

And for the local political elite reading this, because you know you read my social media posts and articles, I have some advice for you: enjoy what you have now. Hurry up and enrich yourself at the taxpayers' expense while you can. It won’t last long. Angry single mothers, frustrated teachers, and political outsiders are coming for you. See you at the ballot box.

Oh, and warm up my seat for me. #micdrop