During the 2022 Election, I remember getting multiple mailers from Cliff Numark when he was running for mayor.
He had served on the Torrance City Council, then got elected to the El Camino College Board of Trustees. Then he wanted to get back on the Torrance City Council, and I criticized him for abandoning one position to seek another, only to seek yet another.
Numark's campaign flooded my mailbox with lots of flyers, most likely because I am a high-propensity voter. The first round of mailers focused on his prior experience, skill set, and goals for the city of Torrance. They were decent, glossy, and clearly neutral.
Towards the end of April and into early May, His campaign ads started getting more negative.
One of the mailers, a four-page fold-out, criticized Councilman George Chen over some isolated remarks he made about the city budget in 2021. One page suggested that Chen had admitted that he was unclear about one aspect of the budget or something related to it.
It was an arcane, minimal criticism. Since when is a city councilman not allowed to admit that he made a mistake about something?
The bigger issue for me, however, was that Numark sent out a negative ad to begin with.
It showed desperation. All years that I have been following Torrance politics, I have heard from elected officials, current and retired, that going negative is often a bad sign. When a Torrance candidate waits until the last minute to attack an opponent, it means that the campaign is losing.
And look what I received from Sellout Sharon Kalani last week:
The first side targeted Mayor Chen for supporting an effort to annex El Camino College to the city of Torrance.
For the record, I think it's a good idea. The property values would help augment the city's coffers. Yes, the city would need to hire more police and fire staff, but the investment long-term would be worth it. I am not inclined to believe the negative report from city council staff, for what it's worth.
Kalani neglects to mention that Councilwoman Bridgett Lewis was the fourth vote to direct the city staff to investigate a possible annexation proposal. She was open to the proposal. Will Kalani call out her best friend on the city council for this decision? The selective outrage is off-putting, to put it mildly.
Where did the idea come from? Councilman Kaji explained his support for the notion to increase public safety in the Alondra Park area. Chen and Mattucci also supported looking into the proposal. Removing LA County jurisdiction from key properties near Torrance and bringing them under the city's control would improve public safety in the city, for sure.
On another note, Kalani's criticism is also arcane, bookish, inside-baseball. How many people in the city were aware of this proposal? How many people would even care? All the talk about increased costs to public safety doesn't matter, I think, because residents approved the SST tax increase by a 60-40 margin in 2022. More public safety in areas near the city would benefit all of us.
Notice also that she left out the discussion about property tax revenue. Why?
Here's the other side of Kalani's desperate attack ad:
This attack is the hollowest of them all, and I have seen a lot of attack ads.
How can anyone blame the mayor--or any elected official--for the police officer vacancies in the city? Is Mayor Chen supposed to become a police officer himself? What about Kalani's role in the lack of hires? I agree that the city needs a better marketing program, one that promotes the city as a better place to work compared to other municipalities. Perhaps bringing in a better city attorney who allows the police officers to do their job would help ...
Still,m how is it the Mayor's fault that the city has not filled the vacancies? There are other factors involved, including whether prospective law enforcement officers apply. How is he supposed to fix that on his own? Does Kalani claim that police officers are not applying to the city of Torrance because they don't like the mayor?
This is a silly argument, and it's an unjust attack.
And it's desperation at its most obvious.
On top of that, the law enforcement association endorsements don't mean anything. George Chen got elected in 2022 without those endorsements.
Incumbency inertia was working against Kalanai from the outset. The last time that an incumbent mayor was removed from office, Dan Walker in 2006, one could feel the anger in the city about Walker's overdevelopment. Residents from the different homeowners' associations rallied together to remove him over that specific issue. I wasn't following city politics closely back then, but I remember seeing "Recall Dan Walker" signs on sidewalk lawns that year.
That level of anger from residents doesn't exist this year. Chen will likely get re-elected without much trouble.
Kalani is on track to lose this election. She has betrayed many of her supporters and made alliances with elements (Pat Furey, for example) who do not have the city's best interests at heart. She can attack George Chen all she wants, but at this point I don't think many Torrance voters even care.
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