By Brian Maquena
June 5, 2022
After being confronted about his political alliances with those supporting housing mandates, Councilman Todd Rogers attacked his opponent’s character.
The anti-Rogers mailer by Michelle Hamlin was sent out this weekend, showing an August 2021 photo of Speaker Anthony Rendon and state Senator Bob Archuleta taking a campaign-styled photo of them handing Rogers a $2 million oversized check. The money was for a City of Lakewood and NOT Rogers. However, the mailer clarifies itself by saying, “Councilman Todd Rogers’ Cycle of Donations and Endorsements Brought us SB9.”
The mailer could have used a better presentation better clarifying that none of the $2 million went to Rogers. But the substance of the mailer was accurate in regard to Rogers’ relationship (campaign donations and endorsements) with pro-housing density officials.
The Lakewood Populist since 2021 has reported on Rogers’ cozy relationship with Speaker Rendon, the state official responsible for the passage of legislation that brought 11 triplexes to former single-family homesites in Lakewood. The issue picked up steam after City Council on May 24 announced the coming triplex development.
Rogers was instrumental in getting Lakewood voters to back Rendon in 2020, despite the state speaker having a long history of backing housing-density mandates. A city contractor even directed the Lakewood Populist to Senate Bill-828 (2018) and Senate Bill-6 (2019) and Senate Bill-167 (2017)—all of which Rendon helped push through the state assembly—as bills largely responsible for housing mandates. This was in addition to Senate Bill-9, the latest and most drastic of such bills, that Rendon was instrumental in passing in fall 2021.
Rogers says he is against the housing mandates, excusing his political alliance with Rendon by saying he and the Council has fought SB-9 “tooth and nail.” However, Speaker Rendon’s campaign manager indicated that wasn’t the case.
Two Lakewood leaders used social media to call out Rendon over SB-9, said Jose Ugarte, who couldn’t remember the names of the individuals, describing them as Republicans.
“We saw it and immediately called them,” said Ugarte, who explained that Rendon helped mitigate SB-9 with about five provisions.
Whatever the case, Rogers has gone to his “Government Official” Facebook page to address a mailer highlighting an August 2021 campaign-styled photo he took with Rendon and state Senator Archuleta shortly before they passed SB-9.
The Lakewood Populist during the Council’s public comments from Aug. 24, 2021, had then-criticized Council for making a last-minute ditch to stop SB-9 while at the same time playing footsie with the very state officials passing the law. Hamlin took up this very valid argument Saturday, using the photo to show the questionable relationship Rogers has with men whose housing-density mandates he/Rogers says he opposes.
Further complicating matters are campaign donations from Rendon and a realtors’ association that sponsors anti-city lawsuits as a means of enforcing housing mandates. The longtime Councilman, along with Mayor Steve Croft who also receives such campaign contributions, has received criticism from anti-housing density leaders.
“It’s very important to understand who is making donations to your campaign, especially when it’s a conflict over such a contentious topic,” wrote Susan Candell, executive board member of the California Alliance of Local Electeds, which opposes state housing mandates.
All of this has apparently hit a nerve with Rogers as he has pointedly celebrated in the Lakewood Populist being banned from social media for apparently publishing things contrary to his interests.
“This is especially despicable as our staff provided her widely banned blogger friend all of the documentation to show that no city, including Lakewood, has this authority,” wrote Rogers on June 4, regarding Hamlin asserting that Lakewood could oppose the SB-9 housing mandates.
The Lakewood Populist has been banned from several Facebook and Reddit groups, requiring the grassroots news blog to print 8,000 newsletters and distribute it across Council districts 1, 2, and 5. The Lakewood Populist successfully completed its distribution Sunday and received positive feedback from residents. In the distribution was an article addressing the very thing Rogers wished to be address, but we don’t receive thousands of dollars in special interest funding to help with updating our site as quickly as he would like.
State of the race
Our canvassing of district 1 showed Rogers having a significant advantage in the Lakewood country club neighborhood, the area he lives in or near. Rogers is also known to golf at the country club. Hamlin’s area of strength is her home neighborhood south of Biscailuz Park.
In both respective areas, the two candidates campaign signs dominate. However, elsewhere in district 1, Rogers’ campaign signs are scattered around, while Hamlin had very little outside of her home area.
But that may not tell the whole story.
Hamlin has done a targeted campaign of likely voters. She says she has met with many who are inclined to vote for her even though they don’t wish to post up a campaign sign.
“I don’t care whose sign you have on your lawn,” said Hamlin. “What matters is who you vote for on June 7th.”
One home had a Rogers and Hamlin sign up side-by-side.
Rogers has used Facebook to mock Hamlin on her lack of campaign funds and endorsements.
“I guess if you don’t have any notable qualification for public office and you don’t have any endorsements and you don’t have any campaign contributors, all you’re left with is taking a shot at negativity and trying to discredit your opponents,” said Rogers, declining to mention he started the negativity in an unprovoked attack against Hamlin.
Win or lose, Hamlin says she plans to continue fighting local corruption and for people’s rights. She says that she wants a deeper look into how the city’s commission members are chosen.
The Lakewood Populist has reported how Veronica Lucio, who is running against Cassandra Chase for Council district 5, was put on a city commission coincidentally in time to make her appear as having a background of public service, something Rogers says Hamlin lacks.
“It seems like it is an insider group,” said Hamlin, making a criticism that others have made against Lakewood’s political system. “If you’re not part of that group, then you don’t get selected for these commissions. You don’t get access.”
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Back in or around 2012, a political gadfly told this writer how the city officials put people on committees to set them up for an eventual seat on Council. Gregory Slaughter also agrees with Hamlin’s criticism of the city’s unofficial political system. And, many were upset that in 2020 when Councilwoman Diane DuBois retired that instead of choosing one of the 2020 candidates to replace DuBois, the Council chose Vicki Stuckey, who was also sitting on a commission.
It should also be noted that Cassandra Chase is on the Measure L Committee due to a random selection, not being selected by Council. Chase is running against Lucio, a current commission/committee member.