Bottles up

Chargers lobbyist Mark Fabiani, still trying to get a public subsidy out of San Diego taxpayers for the football team, has found enough extra time to write a few campaign checks. He gave $700 on November 25 to the Seventh District state assembly race of Michael Allen, a Santa Rosa Democrat, former Service Employees International Union executive, and district director for state senator Patricia Wiggins. The assembly district includes Napa County, where Fabiani’s boss, Alex Spanos and his son-in-law Ron Berberian, along with other family members, own Bell Wine Cellars, a tony boutique winery in Yountville that they bought in 2002. High-end cabernet sauvignon is its specialty.

Last March Fabiani gave $1000 to Democrat Kamala Harris’s bid to succeed Jerry Brown as state attorney general; she is currently San Francisco’s district attorney. And Fabiani chipped in $2400 on August 25 for Democratic senator Barbara Boxer’s reelection effort, to which members of the nominally Republican Spanos family have also heavily contributed. … While Fabiani and the Spanoses tacked left, Padres honcho Jeff Moorad banked exclusively on the GOP, giving $4200 to the county Republican Party on October 2 and $10,000 to the state GOP on December 27. He contributed $5000 to Major League Baseball’s political action committee on November 20 and $2400 to California GOP congressman John Campbell November 4.

Meanwhile, Tom Gores, the chief executive of Platinum Equity, which owns the Union-Tribune, was as fair and balanced as could be, giving $30,400 each to national Democratic and Republican committees. The line of Copleys who owned the paper before him always gave Republican.