Over the last few months the Inland Empire Taxpayers Association has taken a interest in the race for the 31st Congressional District. They seem to have it out for one candidate Paul Chabot and the attacks now have moved from negative mailers to a robo call that will go out to voters in the 31st Congressional District days before the June 7th primary on Tuesday.
Earlier today Paul Chabot put out a message to supporters:
Friends. A fake anti tax organization supporting my opponent is about to run a negative robo call against our campaign. The fake anti-tax organization is called the Inland Empire Taxpayers Association run by Ross Sevy a District Rep for Assemblymember Obernolte and Chris Mann a Deputy Chief of Staff to San Bernardino County Supervisor Josie Gonzales. They are hired guns who take money and promote slanderous and libel ads. We will hold these individuals legally accountable for what they have already posted on their website. I call upon Jay Obernolte and Josie Gonzales to stop allowing tax payer staff to moonlight running special interest political action committees. The Inland Empire Taxpayers Association has lost all credibility and its very existence reminds voters of rampant political corruption in our region.
They have now taken in over 20K to run an unethical and dishonest campaign of hate and ignorance.
I worked with voters in 2015 to defeat a tax that this same so called anti tax organization actually took money to help promote. We defeated their dishonest campaign by 77 percent in 2015.
Together I will fight corruption in San Bernardino County and in Washington when elected.
Looking at the Inland Empire Taxpayers Association Facebook page it looks like Paul Chabot may be right. Here are just a couple reasons why:
- The Inland Empire Taxpayers Association has endorsed and is actively working to pass Measure D in the City of Colton! This is a common-sense measure that will allow the City to maintain service levels without raising taxes or fees. In fact, it guarantees that electric utility rates will not increase for at least 5 years. – What measure D does is allow the city to raid the public utilities fund to cover up the lack of money that exists to provide essential services. Cities that have done this have had to sell off their utility departments and provide less than adequette services due to no extra funds to make much needed repairs and upgrades Colton voters will vote on this come June 7th.
- In 2015 the Inland Empire Taxpayers Association supported a tax increase on residents in Rancho Cucamonga that was defeated by 77 percent by the voters.
- The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association instructed the Inland Empire Taxpayers Association to remove the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association logo from their site. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association as you may know is the largest anti tax association that has worked tirelessly to protect California residents from the dangers of eliminating Prop 13 in California (On June 6th, 1978, nearly two-thirds of California’s voters passed Proposition 13, reducing property tax rates on homes, businesses and farms by about 57%.)
Many thing stick out as outright lies from the Inland Empire Taxpayers Association here are the top lies on their attack website on Paul Chabot:
- Paul Chabot was a no show on Parole votes – Paul Chabot was there at the votes in question but had not had the time to review the case or be present for the testimony because Paul was serving our country in Iraq so instead of voting without all the information he abstained.
- Claiming that Paul Chabot is just chasing another government paycheck – Wrong once again, if Paul Chabot is wrong for running the Freestyle Foundation then so is Mental Health Systems, Reach Out, ICSC and the other organizations that take millions in State and County money to run Drug and Alcohol programs in the local region. Mental Health Systems is paid over 3 million each year to run anti drug coalitions in a hand full of cities in San Bernardino County. The Inland Empire Taxpayers Association claims that Paul Chabot makes over a 100 thousand each year for running anti drug programs but that is the entire budget for Drug Free RC, Inland Valley Drug Free Coalition and Drug Free California.
- The Inland Empire Taxpayers Association uses a highly edited video to turn Paul Chabot’s words against him. Paul is asked in a TV interview why Marijuana is still illegal and labeled a schedule 1 narcotic according to the Federal Government. Paul lays asks why we make other things illegal like LSD, Heroin & Child Porn. The Inland Empire Taxpayers Association uses this short clip to insinuate that Paul Chabot is for Child Exploitation???? The problem is medical marijuana has led to a sharp rise in youth access and abuse. Many local Law Enforcement Agencies have seen Marijuana surpass both tobacco and alcohol use in people under the age of 18.
Finally why are employees of the County being allowed to act as hired guns who take money and promote slanderous and libel ads? What happened to the days of making sure the staff of agencies that are there to act on the communities best interest? Are the top staff of Jay Obernolte and Josie Gonzales spending tax payer time attacking residents running for public office? We can tell you that we did over hear a conversation between Joe Baca and Dan Flores a senior staff member for Josie Gonzales at the City of Rialto Memorial Day event complaining about the Memorial Day event in Bloomington where Paul Chabot just happened to be one of the Military speakers:
It appears that this election cycle will be one of the dirtiest elections in as many years and its not just on the presidential side of things.
rialtonow 