Use of City’s Letterhead on Mailer Upsets Councilmen

Incensed by a campaign mailer sent to voters on city letterhead by Councilwoman Patricia C. Bates last week, Councilmen Eddie Rose and Mark Goodman will ask their colleagues to censure the city’s first mayor.

Bates, who is running for the Republican nomination in the 73rd Assembly District, called the one-page letter “a printer’s mistake.” But Rose and Goodman said they aren’t satisfied and called for discussion at the June 2 meeting.

“The intent here is to defraud voters and make voters believe the entire city government is behind her,” Rose said. “The use of our names on city letterhead violates at least the spirit of the law.”

Rose said he requested that the district attorney’s office investigate the matter as a possible violation of the Political Reform Act; however, Gary Huckaby, a state Fair Political Practices Commission spokesman, said reproducing city letterhead on a political mailer does not appear to violate state campaign laws.

Because the letterhead was copied onto a mailer, Goodman said that Bates didn’t run afoul of a city policy restricting council use of city letterhead paper. But he said he will propose passing a city law making unauthorized use of the city letterhead a criminal misdemeanor.

Rose and Goodman, usually political foes, have endorsed Jim Lacey over Bates in the Assembly race. The councilwoman said there was no intent to mislead the voters. She said the printer was handed a copy of the city letterhead to use as a guide for making her mailer but didn’t remove the other council members’ names as instructed.

The resulting mailer reproduced the city letterhead, complete with the names of all five council members. The letter was signed by Mayor Linda Lindholm and two Bates supporters.

“It was totally a mistake,” Bates said. “When I discovered it, I was absolutely shocked and stunned. . . . I love this city and would never do anything to denigrate it.”

Bates has agreed to set the record straight with the voters, but said possible legal questions and her printer’s schedule may keep a clarification from being mailed by the Tuesday election.