The Abridged version:
- Email records show that Roseville officials across multiple departments coordinated a report to explicitly challenge a City Council candidate’s claims that his district has been underserved by the city.
- The candidate, David Nelson, has referred the city’s actions to the Placer County District Attorney’s Office, alleging that officials violated election law by using taxpayer-funded resources to hurt his campaign.
- Election ethics experts said the urgency to publish information related to campaign talking points may raise ethical red flags.
A Roseville City Council candidate has accused the city of taxpayer-funded election interference, citing public records that show city officials internally coordinating a report to debunk claims the candidate made during his campaign.
Emails between city staff members, including city manager Dominick Casey, include references to District 2 candidate David Nelson’s claims that his central Roseville district has been underserved by the city, which have been a focal point of his campaign.
Documents obtained by a local resident’s public records request, which have been verified by Abridged by PBS KVIE, show that city staff prepared a report detailing a record of improvements and investments in the district. Casey shared the report with Roseville City Council members and Nelson’s opponent, Anne Carpenter. Roseville vice mayor Karen Alvord then posted it on social media.
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Nelson has referred the issue to the Placer County District Attorney’s Office for independent review, alleging that Roseville officials may have broken state election law.
In a statement to Abridged, the city of Roseville denied any wrongdoing and said that providing information to the City Council is part of the city manager’s job.
“In this instance, the City learned of potential misinformation being shared regarding investment into District 2. This report was generated to provide the Council factual information regarding investment in the district over a 10-year period,” the statement said.
What’s in the emails?
“I just love election season,” Casey wrote in an email to city staff the morning of Thursday, Sept. 17. “I know we do not track improvements by district, but I need some help correcting a ridiculous narrative that we have left district 2 behind and are just letting it deteriorate while we invest in only new growth areas.”
Casey finished the email by asking staff to turn around numbers demonstrating investments in the district by Monday, as “this is kind of timely,” and that the information “doesn’t need to be exact but will need to be defensible.”
He also asked Roseville public works director Jason Shykowski to include relevant information about Main Street in the report, “since we know (it’s) coming.”
Four hours later, Shykowski sent staff members an email announcing “a political falsehood we need to assist Dom with showing it’s not true,” asking them to list all projects completed or underway in District 2 over the past 10 years and their costs. He also included a list of district locations as ideas for staff to consider while compiling project information.
Lengthy email chains between city staff across multiple departments show a coordinated effort to collect information on recent projects related to District 2, including several upgrades to the downtown library, public spaces, infrastructure and parking garages.
In their correspondence, officials often emphasized the urgency of preparing information on District 2. Principal engineer Noah Siviglia sent staffers an email at 11:17 a.m. Sept. 21 stating he needed to get out a report on project costs and completion dates by 4 p.m. that day, adding “don’t worry about being overly precise since we don’t have time to complete with that level of detail.”
Casey sent Roseville City Council members an email with the completed summary report on Sept. 23, noting that he was made aware of a District 2 candidate’s claims that the city is neglecting the area at a recent briefing.
“These figures confirm that the narrative being shared is inaccurate and misleading,” Casey wrote at the end of the email.
City sends report to opposing candidate
Records show that a minute later, Casey forwarded this email to Carpenter with the message “FYI.” A representative for Carpenter’s campaign confirmed to Abridged that Carpenter received the email, but said that she did not do anything with the report.
The city confirmed that Carpenter requested data on investments in District 2, which was included in the summary report she received. In text messages between Casey and Nelson, Casey also says that City Council members asked for a report on District 2.
In its statement to Abridged, the city of Roseville said that it has met with and provided informational materials to both candidates upon request.
Nelson said he was never sent this report by the city.
Carpenter has been endorsed by nearly the entire Roseville City Council, several Placer County officials and numerous former city officials. Nelson’s relationship with City Council members has been more prickly, with campaign rhetoric often critical of local government.
In its most recent referral to the Placer County District Attorney’s Office, Nelson’s lawyer, Sharon Spivak, accused Roseville of using city resources to assist a single candidate in the race, which she called a violation of state election law.
Election law and ethics
California law prohibits elected local officers, including local government appointees, employees and consultants, from using public resources to advocate for or against a political candidate.
Election ethics experts told Abridged that even if the city’s actions were legal, they raise concerns about ethics.
Sean McMorris of Common Cause California, a pro-democracy nonprofit, said that he couldn’t say definitively whether or not the city’s actions were illegal — since state election law is written narrowly, it can be difficult to prove such claims in court. But a question of law is different from one of ethics.
“Something doesn’t have to be illegal to be unethical or for the public to believe it is inappropriate,” McMorris said.
There isn’t anything wrong with a city government addressing claims it feels are incorrect, McMorris added. But questions remain over whether staff would have compiled and released a similar report if claims were made by a regular citizen and not a political candidate.
City officials emphasizing urgency over precise details in the report, McMorris said, raises additional red flags.
“It suggests that the impetus was not just to provide the public with information, but to provide the public with information that would counter claims by a particular candidate in an upcoming election,” he said. “And is that appropriate? Is that ethical? I would say probably not.”
After Alvord posted the summary report on District 2, Nelson asked Casey for similar reports from Roseville’s other districts, according to a text message chain obtained by Abridged. Casey responded that since the city had not pursued any such reports, there was nothing to send.
For more information about the upcoming Roseville City Council race between Nelson and Carpenter, check out Abridged by PBS KVIE’s voter guide and previous coverage of campaign finance and endorsements.
