Valle Shows Fundraising Strength, But Still Outraised By Hayashi

ELECTION ’12//ALAMEDA COUNTY SUPERVISOR DIST 2 | Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi and appointed Alameda County Supervisor Richard Valle are nearly neck and neck in fundraising for the District 2 supervisorial seat, according to recently released campaign finance reports. Hayashi barely scraped past Valle with the help of a transfer of funds from her own large assembly campaign war chest.

Valle raised a total of $152,959 and Hayashi with $158,017 but Valle expended significantly more than Hayashi ending with a cash balance of $63,048 compared to Hayashi’s $121,991.

As expected, Valle showed strong labor support during his appointment period. He received large donations from numerous labor PACs and Hayashi, whose history in the assembly dealt largely with health, received significant donations from PACs in health, physician and orthopedic associations.

Furthermore, Hayashi transferred $20,000 from her 2010 “Democrat for Assembly” committee containing $465,526 in past contributions. Hayashi also has a third account, “Mary Hayashi Assembly 2010 Officeholder Account,” that raised $20,700 this past financial period but expended $14,421; the ending cash balance is $40,928.

Hayashi’s supervisor account has far fewer donators than Valle but she made up the difference in addition to her large fund transfer with a few very large donations. Four large contributors, mainly PACs, gave Hayashi $10,000 to $20,000. GTECH, a gaming tech company for state lotteries and Personal Insurance Federation of CA Agents & Employees PAC gave $20,000 over all. Other contributors, capping at $10,000, include California Dental PAC and Farmers Group.

Hayashi’s pull in the health industry has further attracted other donors that although dip below $10,000, range from $1,000 to $5,000. Donors include The Doctors Company PAC, California Pharmacists PAC and The Dentists Insurance Company. Colleagues in the Assembly, such as Jose Solorio, Ricardo Lara and Fiona Ma donated significant sums of cash ranging from $1,000 to $2,500.

In the past few months Valle has witnessed vast support from labor, the Democratic Party and its affiliates gathering at the wings of his campaign. It was a stark transition from Hayashi to a new candidate that was relatively unknown in the East Bay prior to his appointment this past spring. Large swaths of local politicos have donated small sums of money but enough to help catch up with Hayashi’s financially impressive “Hayashi for Supervisor” account. Valle has said before that they hope to raise enough money to close the gap with Hayashi’s half a million dollar treasure trove kept in her officeholder account but with less than four weeks away it’s starting to look unlikely.

Local politicians such as Hayward Mayor Michael Sweeney, Hayward CouncilmemberS Marvin Peixoto and Mark Salinas, and former San Leandro Mayor Sheila Young donated funds to Valle. Labor PACs such as Operating Engineers Local 3, District 20 PAC and International Assignment of Firefighters, Local 55 gave significant, but timid, sums of money ranging from $1,000 to $2,000. One of the largest donations was from Potential Industries Inc., a recycling company and Service Employees Union Local 1021, that dished out $20,000 each to Valle.

Furthermore, Tom Silva, of Eden Realty who’s been active in the local political scene for quite some time donated $1,000 to both Valle and Hayashi. John Dutra of Dutra Enterprises donated $500 and former CEO of St. Rose, Michael Mahoney donated $250.

Union City Mayor Mark Green, however, did not fair so well in attracting donors to his campaign for supervisor. Green reported just $7,074 in cash in hand, based on $6,975 in donations. He also loaned his campaign an additional $5,846. Republican Mark Turnquist did not file a fundraising report for the third quarter.

The financial reports show a definitive difference in campaign fundraising. Hayashi has opted for her legislative health experience to garner large donations from health PACs and her time in politics at the state level to pull donations from noteworthy politicians in Assembly. Valle on the other hand has shown strength in pulling smaller donations but from large amounts of donors in a hardscrabble fundraising campaign to out beat Hayashi who has been at battle over her guilty plea of stealing $2,450 in apparel from a high-end retailer in San Francisco. Valle’s financial records show strong financial backing, but his strategy thus far in this race has been to avoid publicly denouncing Hayashi’s indiscretion at recent candidate forums.

Instead Valle has been more forward with The Citizen in one-on-one conversations and spoke of forthcoming mailers that will speak more openly about Hayashi’s crime. Hayashi on the other hand has been more aggressive with recently attacking Valle’s raise in executive pay at Tri-CED in 2009 and his connections to St. Rose Hospital as its finances dwindled over the past few years.

GREEN….$  6,975..$ 5,846..$  7,074….$5,945