Pro-housing mandate org funding Lakewood Councilmen
The org's nonprofit sues cities that don't comply with housing mandates.
By Brian Maquena
May 28, 2022
Lakewood City Council leaders are accepting campaign cash from organizations dedicated to passing and enforcing state housing mandates.
The city clerk’s office this week published updated forms showing Mayor Steve Croft and Councilman Todd Rogers, who both claim to be against state housing mandates like Senate Bill 9, accepting about $4,250 in donations from organizations dedicated to such mandates. City Council campaigns are compiling funding amounting to about $10,000 each so far.
Mayor Steve Croft and Councilman Todd Rogers, who have both served on Council a combined 38 years, have accepted donations from: the Rendon for Assembly 2022 committee; the California Real Estate PAC (CREPAC), which falls under the California Association of Realtors; Robert Garcia for Lt. Governor 2022; and, even the state speaker himself.
One of these organizations sponsors a nonprofit dedicated to suing cities who do not comply with state housing mandates.
Californians For Homeownership, a nonprofit sponsored by the California Association of Realtors, proudly brags on its website about how it has filed lawsuits against Los Angeles County cities that failed to “meet state housing planning obligations.”
“When cities and counties refuse to comply with laws intended to increase access to housing, we sue them,” the organization says on its website. “This [state] housing shortage is driven by local policies that limit the supply of housing.”
This language puts the nonprofit and by extension the California Association of Realtors at odds with Lakewood. On Tuesday, Council announced that it would join a lawsuit to resist such housing mandates from Senate Bill 9, a state law passed last year.
Via CREPAC, the California Association of Realtors funneled $1,000 to Croft’s campaign and another $1,000 to Rogers’ campaign.
Speaker Anthony Rendon, who has long been credited with passing housing mandates that include Senate Bill 9—the legislation responsible for the recently-announced transition of 11 Lakewood single-family homes into triplex complexes—has donated $1,000 to Croft via a committee and another $250 directly to Rogers’ campaign.
Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia, whom critics says purposefully stayed silent on opposing Senate Bill 9, has via a committee donated $1,000 to Croft’s campaign.
In contrast, two of those running against the longtime Council Members have received no deep-pocketed funding.
Michelle Hamlin, who is running against Rogers in Council district 1, together with her husband Christian Hamlin has entirely self-funded her campaign. The political outsider has openly criticized Rogers for not more vocally opposing state and regional leaders supporting anti-Lakewood legislation, such as state housing mandates.
Gregory Slaughter and Lauran Sanchez Ramirez are facing off against Croft in Council district 2. Slaughter has largely self-funded his campaign to the tune of $10,000, while receiving $1,550 in private individual donations, half of that evidently from a relative.
Ramirez has compiled a campaign war chest of about $8,209, with $3,000 of that funding coming directly from herself via loans. She has also received $2,000 in services from Alan W. Gafford of the Gafford Group, which provided her with consulting services.
Unlike their opponents, challengers to the Lakewood incumbents have received little to no organizational funding per the records released by the city clerk’s office this week.
Sanchez has received about $276 in non-monetary, service contributions from a committee calling itself Lakewood Now.
The Lakewood Populist has endorsed Michelle Hamlin for Council district 1, as well as Gregory Slaughter for Council district 2.
Below is a breakdown of the contributions to Mayor Steve Croft, who received the most amount of pro-housing mandate campaign cash.
Mayor Steve Croft
- Rendon for Assembly 2022: $1,000
- Robert Garcia for Lt. Governor 2022: $1,000
- California Real Estate Pac (of the California Association of Realtors): $1,000
- Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Association: $750
- BizFed Pac: $500
- LA County Firefighters Local 1014 Legislation Fund Committee All Purpose: $500
- LA County Democratic Party State Candidate Committee: $300
- Six Heron, LLC: $300
- American Promotional Events West dba TNT Fireworks: $250
- PFC Int. Inc.: $200
- H.A. Just Waterproofing: $100
- Ariel Pe: $250
- Vicki Stuckey: $250
- 27 individual contributors: $3,650
- We’re Real Estate: $191 (a nonmonetary contribution)
- Steve Croft, candidate himself: $1,000.
Get involved
Follow us at the links below. The Lakewood Populist has been banned from Reddit groups and from Facebook via shadow banning and outright banning. Much of this occurred after we posted a critical story on an incumbent Lakewood Councilmember and on Cerritos College’s CCP-styled monitoring of students. In fact, we are barely able to publish things on our Facebook page due to Facebook suspiciously not allowing images of certain articles to show up on our Facebook page’s post. We also have witnessed the view counts of our YouTube videos being lowered.
Get past the Big Tech censors by following us at the links below, but please do consider our Gab and Gettr accounts as they are totally uninhibited by Big Tech’s censorship and whoever is reporting our content to them for censorship.