Labor flexes spending muscle in supervisorial race

The Business Journal has a long-standing policy of not endorsing candidates. That will not change here.

But we do have a keen interest in sound public, fiscal and economic policy that balances the interests of all community stakeholders whether they are taxpayers, business owners, environmentalists or otherwise.

In the Third District supervisorial race in Sonoma County, that moderate approach is being threatened.

The source of the threat is not necessarily the candidates themselves. Former Santa Rosa Mayor Sharon Wright and nonprofit executive Shirlee Zane are both decent people.

The threat is that large public-sector unions based outside of Sonoma County have chosen to use this race to push their agenda and hopefully gain influence

over policy and the county?s $1.4 billion budget.

Since May, the Sonoma County Progressive Labor Coalition and the Coalition for a Better Sonoma County have funneled $153,000 into independent expenditure committees to oppose Ms. Wright and support Ms. Zane. Many of those dollars, which overwhelm independent expenditures on Ms. Wright?s behalf, have been used to fund hit pieces that distort facts about her long career in public service.

Some speculate that if the unions succeed in the Third District, in the future they will go after other seats now held by moderates and potentially form a board majority.

One might ask, so what?

Again, what?s important here is balance. Yes, many business groups ? whose members, by the way, provide jobs to tens of thousands of Sonoma County residents ? are supporting Ms. Wright. They have done so not because they expect her to vote on their side every time. They?ve done so because they know she will at least listen before making a decision that is hers alone to make.

That approach to our challenges ? and they are many and complex whether they involve the economy, the environment or human services ? is why Sonoma County is the great place that it is for so many, not just a single group.

That is the kind of leadership that retiring Third District Supervisor Tim Smith has provided for two decades.

That?s a tradition that should continue.