This article has been updated to reflect comments made at the Tulare County Board of Supervisors’ meeting on Tuesday, February 27.
No one can escape the negative campaign detritus landing in our mailboxes, being sent to our cell phones, floating through social media, and arriving through the radio waves.
And it’s getting ugly.
Through insinuation and misleading statements, some campaign mailers, texts and radio commercials would have you believe that Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux is responsible for ten million illegal immigrants crossing our border, Tulare County Supervisor Larry Micari as responsible for last year’s flooding, and that devoutly Christian Assembly District 33 (AD33) Candidate Alexandra Macedo is a pro-choice drunk.
When asked if she would respond to her AD 33 Republican challenger Xavier Avila’s accusations, Macedo said, “I don’t want to take up any headspace responding to Xavier’s lies.”
Mudslinging from both sides of the aisle
As part of his AD33 campaign, Avila sent out a paid text message blast to voters in his district, and is also running Facebook ads.
The blast, and a Facebook ad, states that “Alexandra Macedo wants the Sacramento elite lifestyle so badly; she is pro-choice, supports the high-speed rail, and is backed by Sacramento elites and liberal unions. She can’t be trusted.”
In another text and Facebook ad, Avila claims Macedo has “a radical liberal agenda.”
Macedo has, on the other hand, sent out positive campaign messages focusing on her experience and qualifications. She added that though she is aware that Avila has baggage, she does not approve of opposition research and will not be conducting it. She added that Avila hasn’t raised enough money to send out mailers – so he has resorted to text message marketing.
Cheyne Strawn, Avila’s campaign manager, said they did not send out mailers because people just throw them away.
Democrats Angel Ruiz and Ruben Macareno are also running in the AD33 race.
Boudreaux said that his Congressional District (CD20) challenger, Assembly member Vince Fong, freaked out when Boudreaux won the endorsements from virtually all the Kern County elected officials. Fong is a Kern County resident and is favored to win the majority of the votes in that county.
Boudreaux said that $700,000 in Political Action Campaign money started flowing into Fong’s coffers which he used to release a string of negative radio commercials on KMJ and send out misleading mailers.
In the mailers and radio commercials, Fong refers to him as “liberal Mike Boudreaux” and claims that Boudreaux is soft on the border and would vote for amnesty along with Congress member Nancy Pelosi and President Biden. Fong is also running a Facebook ad to the same effect.
Boudreaux said Fong’s decision to go negative presents a clear choice to the voters. He said you can either elect a person who is running a campaign of deceit and who is going to lie to the voters – or you can vote for someone who will tell you the truth.
“I will never lie to my constituents,” said Boudreaux.
Micari’s challenger for TC Supervisor District 1, Joe Soria, has sent out a half a dozen mailers to voters in his district. In the flyers he claims, “Politician Larry Micari failed Tulare County.”
The mailer states that under Micari’s watch crime has risen, he failed to build more water storage and insinuated that Micari was responsible for last year’s flooding.
Micari countered that crime has gone down and that the state is responsible for building dams, not county supervisors.
Micari says he has run a clean and positive campaign despite his challenger’s tactics.
Gaffe at Legacy Church’s political event
Visalia’s Legacy Church held a candidates’ forum that ruffled a few feathers during their Sunday morning service on February 25.
Though billed as a forum, only one candidate from each of the local races was invited to speak. The five candidates were Boudreaux running for Congressional District 20; Tulare County District 2 Supervisor Pete Vander Poel; Tulare County District 1 Supervisor Larry Micari; Congressional District 21 Candidate Michael Maher, and AD33 candidate Macedo.
Located at 3890 South Lovers Lane, Legacy is a nondenominational church which supports socially conservative positions: during the forum, Pastor John Dunn lambasted politicians that supported abortion rights, transgender rights, and same-sex marriage – saying those issues were his “big three.”
“If you can’t get those three right, you’re insane. You’re filled with darkness, and why would we vote people into office with that much darkness if they can’t get those three right?” Dunn said.
Before and after the candidates spoke, Pastor John Dunn said that his church would not shy away from political involvement.
“The enemy’s waging war on all fronts, all fronts. So we need to wage war in the spirit, war in the natural […] we need righteousness,” Dunn said after the candidates spoke. “Who would you rather be legislating laws for, these five, who believe in pro-life and God is King, or other people who say that there is no God, and that you can kill a baby any time? Who do we want?”
The forum raised concerns on social media how a church with tax-exempt status can hold a partisan event.
“Providing an opportunity for a candidate to talk to their congregation is not illegal or unconstitutional. In fact it would probably be unconstitutional to prevent a church from doing it,” a local free speech lawyer told the Valley Voice.
While Boudreaux and Maher gave five minute campaign speeches, and Macedo told her story of encounters with God throughout her life, Vander Poel and Micari had some negative moments – in Micari’s case, causing a backlash on social media and press coverage from KSEE24/CBS47.
Video from the forum was later removed from the church’s Facebook, but remains live on its YouTube page, and is embedded above.
Vander Poel told the crowd “off the record” that the only reason he has a challenger for the first time in 16 years “is because I’m white and conservative,” asking the crowd why that mattered when he believes “every single person, every single interest” in Tulare County deserves a voice.
Benny Corona is running against Vander Poel for the District 2 seat.
Towards the end of Micari’s opening statement, he claimed Eddie Valero wanted to purge Tulare County’s staff of white leaders.
“We just changed our personnel rules that it takes a four-fifths vote to terminate your department head or the CAO. You want to know why?” Micari asked the crowd. “Because Eddie Valero was running his mouth, saying that once he gets his Latino majority, they’re going to fire all the white department heads because the county’s too white.”
As Micari made his statement, video of the forum shows Vander Poel nodding his head in the background and mouthing “yeah” or “yep.”
The Voice reached out to Vander Poel for comment, but one was not received by publication time. If a response is received, this article will be updated.
The ordinance passed last year means four out of five supervisors have to vote yes to remove or appoint department heads.
Tulare County Supervisor Eddie Valero responded to Micari’s comments in a written statement, “Yesterday, at the Legacy Church candidate forum, I was disheartened to see a video with slanderous remarks made about me by a colleague. As someone deeply invested in serving Tulare County and people of all backgrounds, my colleague’s statements are 100% false. My colleague is trying to instill race baiting and mongering as a cheap political tactic.”
In a comment to the Voice on Monday, Micari acknowledged the clip sounds “terrible” without more information, but restated allegations of Valero’s racial bias.
“Ever since I have been in office, it has been reported that Supervisor Valero has made negative comments based on race. On numerous occasions, Supervisor Valero has insinuated he prefer to work only with Latino staff,” Micari’s statement read on Monday. “The County updated personnel rules for clarity and consistency, one of the items was the four fifths vote to appoint or terminate a department head. The clarity of these rules as well as my intention is to protect all employees. I admit the sound bite sounds terrible. As always, there is more information to the story than a few minutes allotted on stage at a forum. I apologize if there are any misunderstandings.”
By Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Micari had apologized to Valero, an apology that Valero told the public he accepted. Valero told the public that he hoped that he and Micari could “learn and grow from this experience.”
“Chairman Micari, thank you for reaching out and offering your apology. I truly appreciate your willingness to acknowledge harm caused by this situation. While I understand that mistakes happen, I want to emphasize the importance of honesty and integrity in our interactions,” Valero said at the meeting. “Your apology means a lot, and I accept it wholeheartedly. Moving forward, let’s ensure that open communication and mutual respect guide our interactions. I believe that we can learn and grow from this experience, ultimately strengthening our relationship. Thank you once again for your apology, and I look forward to positive interactions in the future.”
Micari said that both he and Valero wanted to put the situation behind them.
“I have always said, since day one on the dais, that if I had done anything to hurt someone — whether intentional or unintentional — and it was brought to my attention, that I would publicly apologize on the dais. And I’m a man of my word, and I will do that every time. It’s come to my attention that Supervisor Valero has received some, I’m just gonna say mail, that’s not very nice and polite towards him,” Micari said.
“And I personally ask everyone to stop – leave it alone – if you’ve got any issues, come to me. There’s no reason to take it out on him for what’s happened, so you come to me for any issues at all. We don’t need to do that. I’m sorry for that, Supervisor Valero, and again thank you for accepting my apology. For the media, there will be no further comments on this. we want to put this behind us and move forward, and that’s what’s gonna happen; so, if you call me, you’re not gonna get a comment.”