Mexico
I’m more than a little peeved about the press release from Fifth District Supervisor candidate Ryan Sundberg’s campaign, which was sent to the Times-Standard earlier today (see below). In it, the campaign declines to participate in the series of political debates that the NCJ and KHUM will be producing throughout the month of May. (Tune in tonight, 6-7 p.m., to hear Ryan Burns talk with the candidates for Sheriff.)
If this release is to be believed, Sundberg is bowing out because KHUM is owned by Lost Coast Communications, Inc., which is majority-owned by rival candidate Patrick Cleary and his family. This, it seems, presents a “conlict of interest,” though what that conflict could be is entirely unclear. The Journal is moderating the debates and asking the questions; KHUM employees will be there to twiddle the knobs, but will not otherwise participate.
We tried to call Sundberg and reassure him of this yesterday. We left a message on Sundberg’s cell, but instead got a call back from Sundberg’s, uh, high-energy campaign manager, Rich Mostranski. Mostranski — never shy about answering questions on his candidate’s behalf — assured us that it was an obvious conflict for Cleary’s station to host a debate on the Fifth District race. I’m sorry to say that he couldn’t really define what the conflict was, or what it would look like in practice, but he insisted that it was obvious. Because the Journal would tilt the debate simply out of gratitude for being given some KHUM airtime (making ourselves look like fools in the meanwhile)? No, no, Mostranski said. It wasn’t to do with the Journal. Because Cleary would line his pockets with revenue from the smash-hit broadcast of a political debate? Unclear.
So now the Sundberg/Mostranski camp is asking Cleary to “do the right thing” by recusing himself, but gives no sort of indication of what “recusal” might look like in this instance. Not showing up himself? Banning his people from holding a debate at all? It’s all a bit confusing.
We wanted to have a frank and smart discussion of the issues on the most popular radio station in Humboldt County, and there’s no reason that shouldn’t be possible, Cleary or no Cleary. Again: Tune in tonight for an example. And unless there’s a change of heart — and why shouldn’t there be? — you can hear Cleary and fellow candidates Patrick Higgins and Jeff Lytle debate the issues in the Fifth District on May 20.
Sundberg is universally regarded as the nice guy to end all nice guys, and that has certainly been our experience. We can’t help but believe that he’s getting some bad advice about this. Call us, Ryan! If there’s anything at all we can do to assure you that the thing will be clean and fair, we will do it.
Ryan Sundberg Declines Invitation to Lost Coast Communication’s KHUM Radio Debate
North Coast Journal and HKUM (sic), a Lost Coast Communications radio station, are requesting candidates for 5th District Supervisor to participate in a live radio forum.
Sundberg is politely declining to participate because one of the candidates, Patrick Cleary, owns Lost Coast Communications, and Sundberg believes there is an inherent conflict of interest.
When previously asked by Hank Sims, of the North Coast Journal, about potential conflict of interest for a Supervisor as a radio station owner, Patrick Cleary said he would recuse himself. Here is the opportunity for Mr. Cleary to demonstrate his ability to recognize a conflict of interest, and do the right thing.“I am appreciative that KHUM has provided a public service by introducing the public to candidates who are running for a variety of county offices. However, in this particular race, the station’s owner and CEO is running for 5th District Supervisor. This would be akin to a newspaper owner running for office and being interviewed by a reporter from his paper. The public has to be assured of professional objectivity”, said Sundberg.
Sundberg welcomes the opportunity to participate in a public forum with other 5th District candidates, but feels this is only appropriate on a radio station not owned by Lost Coast Communications. He has participated in two public forums hosted by the League of Women Voters, co-sponsored by Kiwanis of Willow Creek, and Healthy Humboldt in McKinleyville, and will participate in the KEET forum May 12.
This article appears in Suddenly Sexy Assessor!.
If the candidate’s business is involved in the debate in an official capacity (any capacity), to me it creates the potential for a conflict of interest. Appearances matter.
Why not have the Journal host the debate by itself and invite all interested media to broadcast it? Sever official ties to the candidate’s company. What’s the harm? The public can only benefit from more media outlets broadcasting the event.
(FYI, although I’ve worked on campaigns before, I have no connection to anyone in this race.)
So if Rob Arkley was running for office and he had the Eureka Reporter host a forum where he himself would participate "as a candidate" that would be – uh, no conflict?
Or if The Trinidad Rancheria decided to host a candidate’s forum… no conflict there either?
I dunno, Hank – I think he has a point.
If KHUM personnel were moderating the debate, there might be a conflict. But the Journal is moderating the debate, KHUM personnel aren’t involved. The Mostranski analogy comparing a newspaper owner running for office and being interviewed by a reporter who works at the paper makes no sense. This is a bad decision and I hope Ryan overrules it. It’s a bad idea anyway to anger the media when you are involved in politics, especially for no good reason.
I must echo the above comments, Hank. I think Sundberg has a valid point.
Appearances do matter and while no one would question your objectivity it is Cleary’s station.
KHUM personnel will be involved, Andy, even if not directly involved in the questioning. I thought of the Eureka Reporter angle along with Rose. Don’t get pissed Hank, you guys are doing a good job covering the races, get creative instead of pissed.
And tell that damn Burns that Camp Pendleton is a Marine Corps facility, not an Air Force base (been wanting to write for weeks now!)
So explain to me how this "conflict" works in practice. Cleary keeps a little button under his seat that he can press to add flatulent sound effects to any Sundberg statement?
The analogy to the Reporter is flawed for the reasons that Andy stated. If you’re calling me or Ryan Burns or the Journal Cleary-biased, say so.
We wanted to have all sides come and have a discussion of the issues. Now, despite our best efforts, it looks like we’ll have all sides but Sundberg’s to have a discussion of the issues. How that’s a less lopsided discussion I can’t tell.
Again — tell me how the "conflict" quasi-identified in the press release above works to Cleary’s favor in practice. Take me through it step by step.
Hank,
Who gives a shit.
There are too many forums anyways. An Orick forum, McK forum, Trinidad, Willow Creek, KEET, Ocean West (at least my year in 2002), Healthy Humboldt, Humboldt Association of Realtors, Builders Exchange,etc.
By the Ocean West Forum in 2002, we knew what each other would say so much that I used Ben Shepherd’s close verbatim from memory. It left him speechless. So fking funny…
Believe me that was priceless…
I don’t really see a conflict here as the dj isn’t doing the moderating.
The deal is khum has the equipment to get the signal back to the radio station and most stations can’t easily do this. Only khum and khsu that I know of.
One possibility is for everyone to take an internet feed from Access Humboldt.
If that were worked out, I would be willing to put it on KGOE 1480 AM which is not owned by Cleary.
I would do that for Mr. Sundberg if it would ease his mind.
Debates are better when everyone is there.
Mr. Sundberg, I can be reached at KGOE, it’s in the local phone book
Mike: You’re a prince.
OK, I’m over it. I’m still peeved that we won’t get to produce as complete a debate as we otherwise would have liked, for reasons that I still don’t quite understand.
I note that Sundberg likewise is not present at the Fifth District debate airing right now on KHSU. Maybe he has something against the medium. (Or maybe his team does, I should say — I will continue to believe this is the case until proven otherwise.)
But whatevs. I’ve done everything I can think to do. If the Sundberg campaign wants to turn its back on KHUM and KHSU listeners, that’s its right. I, personally, don’t see the political advantage in this, but then again I’m not an overbearing campaign manager. Or any sort of campaign manager.
Carry on.
Hank –
Had Cleary went to the League of Women Voters and asked them to host yet another forum at a neutral independent site (not KHUM), then I believe Ryan Sundberg would agree.
Then again with Sundberg in a commanding lead and Cleary/Higgins duking it out on the far left it’s not a bad move.
Remember Ryan (and Mostranski) it’s your race, not Hank’s.
Sorry Hank, you’re not the candidate. And the candidate does NOT have to listen to your advice.
Whither in your peeveness.
Luv you to Hank.
off to survivor at 8
Here are a few simple ones.
Someone on the Journal staff gives Cleary the questions ahead of time. In theory, a staff member could do that for any of the candidates, but the Journal has a business relationship with the candidate’s business (if not, then invite all radio/TV stations to participate).
Someone on the Journal staff involved in formulating the questions influences the questions in favor of Cleary’s strengths, or against his opponent’s weaknesses.
Someone on KHUM’s staff has technical problems with one of Cleary’s opponent’s mics, maybe the volume is low or the mic cuts out or has noise. Now even an honest mistake or bad luck taints the entire event.
There’s the plain old psychological issue of home field advantage.
It’s a question of appearances. It doesn’t matter what two media companies we’re discussing. If a candidate owns or is affiliated with one of the companies, there is the appearance of a conflict of interest. If it’s the phrase that is a sticking point, then we could say it’s the appearance of undue influence.
AJ: Thanks. I understand your scenarios are hypothetical and are not direct accusations against the Journal, so I won’t bother refuting them.
Like I said: Over it. I’ve done the best I could. My conscience is clean. We’ll have a great discussion with our without Mr. Sundberg.
So, just listened to KHSU interview with 5th District Candidate, sans Mr. Sundberg. Wondering if Ryan is just avoiding debates altogether since he even skipped out non the organic farmers forum—maybe Cleary eats too many organic greens. But, considering this, shouldn’t have Higgins not participated in the KHSU Thursday Night Talk since his campaign manager works for DUHC/Cobb and is the "program Coordinator for Thursday night Talk? Could help but notice that Pat got lobbed a few AND got the last word.
Also noticed in the NCJ article that Sundberg’s camapaign manager answered a chunk of questions posed to Ryan. Maybe the 5th will be electing a campaign manager from Eureka instead of Ryan. Good company with his developer funders from Eureka.
Dan:
When the Eureka Reporter was publishing, I took my candidates into their editorial board meetings to seek the newspaper’s endorsement – even though my candidates were liberal and we knew the editorial board was conservative and the owner of the newspaper had a vendetta against one of the candidates I represented. Refusing to meet with the Eureka Reporter’s editorial board would not have been fair to the newspaper, and it would have been a sign of weakness on our part, in my opinion. We had nothing to be afraid of. We felt the issues were on our side.
Any candidate worth voting for should be able to handle himself in any type of environment. This decision is a disservice to Ryan Sundberg. It’s Palinesque.
Is it possible that Sundberg feels that he doesn’t do well against the left?
As a voter in the 5th district,I thought that he didn’t do very well in the first debate in McKinleyville.
He seemed to be a conservative with few new ideas.
This is all quite ridiculous, especially since there were all these same battle cries over the League of Women Voters/Healthy Humboldt debates. Those turned out to be totally objective, and thanks to those groups, we had the FIRST EVER live broadcast from McKinleyville, and quite a spirited and informative debate it was.
Our democracy is healthier for it–the more we can hear straight from the candidates’ mouths, the better.
Shame on Ryan Sundberg for taking an easy way out of what is surely very hard work. If this is how he would approach the job of being an elected official, I am totally unimpressed.
A candidate who is ahead in the polls and has a weak opponent can win with the strategy of avoiding debates. When you have a strong opponent that you know will beat you in the debate, you’re screwed no matter what you do. Sundberg is screwed.
Hank –
A conflict of interest (COI) occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other.
"A candidate who is ahead in the polls and has a weak opponent can win with the strategy of avoiding debates. When you have a strong opponent that you know will beat you in the debate, you’re screwed no matter what you do. Sundberg is screwed."
Maybe not entirely screwed,but is sure making a dumb decision.I may argue differently if it were only him and Cleary in the race,and the conflict thing may be more poignant,but there are 2 other challengers who don’t give a rats ass about any potential conflicts,and are willing to take the opportunity to express their views and to answer what could be difficult questions about issues important to them in defining the 5th district.What he is doing is a cop out to putting himself in a position where he’d be forced to answer the same difficult questions being asked to all of the candidates.
i wouldn’t do it either. it is a little bizarre that a candidate would offer their media services for free to a newspaper for a debate they are participating in.
also – as to the farmers debate i believe they had a death in the family. i wouldn’t call that "ducking".
I have to agree with Mike, after many debates, our comments were converging. I do think that Sundberg made the correct decision in this matter. Going on your opponent’s station for a debate moderated by Hank, who seems to have a bias, would show poor judgement.
Debates are important but they need to be a fair opportunity for candidates to answer questions and the requirements for candidate time needs to be reasonable.
"I dunno, Hank – I think he has a point."
Rose always manages to find merit where she must.
"I do think that Sundberg made the correct decision in this matter. Going on your opponent’s station for a debate moderated by Hank, who seems to have a bias, would show poor judgement."
Only one of the candidates owns the station,the two others are in the same boat as Sundberg,and have made the better decision to participate and give their potential constituents a better chance of knowing where the candidates stand on any given issue.Ryan owes his potential constituency the same respect.
What he is doing is a cop out,no way around it.
His opponent needs to show respect for the process as does Hank. Ryan clearly is way out front of Cleary and Higgins. I believe that Higgins is ahead of Cleary. Sundberg’s time is best spend doing his walking and directely meeting voters, which shows more respect for his consituency than spending time on KHUM, which has a very low listenership in the 5th.
The only thing “Tell All” tells us is that he’s for Sundberg. That’s just another reason to support Cleary.
Lost Coast Communications is owned by Blue Lake Rancheria
It’s 43%-owned by Blue Lake Rancheria.
“My conscience is clean. We’ll have a great discussion with our without Mr. Sundberg.”
How’s that conscience doing these days?
Boo sundberg. Anybody firm in their beliefs would have jumped at the chance to talk to any amount of locals over local radio, loaded questions or not. It’s not a fox network, this isn’t gameshow county.