Darrell Issa's $50 million

Sidewalk vids

It may seem an audacious request for a mayor and council having difficulty finding their way through the trials and travails of running a big city, but according to a document posted online last month, “the City is issuing this Request for Sponsorship to identify a company that is interested in developing a marketing partnership in the city wayfinding category.”

Adds the request: “The city wayfinding partnership goals include, but are not limited to, providing information to the public regarding wayfinding, storm warnings, emergency updates, information on homeless services, and bus schedules.” Then the document gets to the real point, soliciting vendors who want to “generate revenue through third-party advertising” on sidewalk video screens. “No more than 49% of the kiosk screen time shall be dedicated to the display of commercial advertisements,” per the rules.

“Advertising for alcohol, adult entertainment products or businesses, tobacco, or cannabis products is not permitted at any time in relation to this partnership.” As for the city’s cut: “Partner agrees to provide the City a marketing rights revenue share dependent on final negotiated terms of the agreement. Partner should detail the advertising revenue share model as well as any in-kind value including donations to City-sponsored events or programs.”

...How wealthy is Republican Darrell Issa, who made his fortune in the car alarm business before moving on to the House of Representatives? His latest personal 2020 financial disclosure with the Clerk of the House, filed July 16 of this year, lists a host of assets, including three valued at “over $50,000,000”: “iShares Russell 2000,” “SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average,” and “UBS Bank USA Deposit Account.”

Weber’s big bucks

Charter school advocate Bill Bloomfield came up with $6100 for Democrat Shirley Weber’s 2022 California Secretary of State election campaign on October 26, state disclosure records show.

The wealthy entrepreneur is noted for his rough-and-tumble political style, including launching a volley of hit pieces against Los Angeles Unified School District board incumbent Jackie Goldberg in the March 2020 primary campaign.

“I’ve never before in my life been attacked with vicious lies like this,” Goldberg complained to the Los Angeles Times in the paper’s February 18, 2020, account of the race. “The barrage of campaign mail flooding voters in a Los Angeles school board race includes images of a child holding what appears to be a gun, with the message that school board member Jackie Goldberg is responsible for putting children at risk from gun-related violence,” per the story.

“The multiple mailings that Goldberg calls ‘pieces of lies’ also suggest that she is responsible for the notorious sexual misconduct at Miramonte Elementary that came to light in 2012, and that she doesn’t care about Latino children.” Replied Bloomfield in a written statement to the Times: “We need board members who are focused on making dramatic improvements to the system by putting children first. That is not Jackie Goldberg.”

Times columnist Steve Lopez followed up a few days later with his own take. “Bloomfield made a what-goes-around-comes-around argument. He said that when charter-friendly Marshall Tuck ran for state superintendent of schools in 2018, he was smeared by union-friendly supporters of the victorious Tony Thurmond. Bloomfield ripped he Times for not criticizing negative campaigning in that race, and maybe his gripe is fair. The union side can play dirty, too, and in recent years has pilloried charter supporters as tools of President Trump. Bloomfield insists he is no fan of Trump.” Goldberg ultimately won the school board seat.

Other big October givers to Weber’s campaign are Stephen Silberstein of Belvedere and Ron Conway of San Francisco, each with $8100. “Stephen ‘Steve’ Silberstein is a left-of-center donor from California known for his focus on income inequality and changing the way Presidents of the United States are elected,” per the website InfluenceWatch.org. Ron Conway is famous as the Godfather of Silicon Valley, according to InsidePhilanthropy.com.

In other campaign giving, on October 25, the AdvaMed California political action committee of Washington, D.C. forked over $5000 to a campaign fund set up by California Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins to run for state Lieutenant Governor four years from now. AdvaMed, short for the Advanced Medical Technology Association, has been lobbying California legislators against passing a so-called Right to Repair law that would require manufacturers to give up their monopoly on equipment repairs, reports Bloomberg News. “Patients deserve to know that the machines literally keeping them alive have been repaired by experts who are accountable to and following FDA regulation,” AdvaMed chief Scott Whitaker said in a written statement to the news service. Heavy hitters behind AdvaMed include Medtronic, Philips, and Johnson & Johnson.

— Matt Potter (@sdmattpotter)

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