Royal Calkins insinuates I reneged on an agreement for which he claims I was paid to create a blog website for him. I have an email from Royal regarding his blog from 6/27/2014 where Royal writes “My daughter and wife found some time to help me put a basic blog site together, so I’m going to move ahead with that…so I’ll go it alone now. Thanks for your help and encouragement.” He and I had only begun corresponding about creating the blog site a little over a week earlier. No money was exchanged.
Regarding Wharf lease issues, to provide full community transparency into decision making, I wrote a public memorandum (still available to be read) regarding my decision-making process to arrive at market rate leases for City property. The memorandum included many facts and details, one of which was the amount of sales tax generated by wharf businesses. The amount used in the memorandum was provided to me by the City’s Finance Manager during a meeting at which the City Manager was present. The City Manager publicly took responsibility for providing a number for the amount of tax revenue generated being higher than the actual revenue. I made the correction on the public memo, but the tax revenues from the wharf remained significant and valid.
I have a current campaign website that has a link to my prior web site from 2018. The prior website is historical and shows my consistency on issues throughout my time in politics. Rather than being a misrepresentation, it demonstrates that my positions and values are real and consistent over time. That should be considered a positive. Royal has several supposed quotes from me on his blog. They are completely fabricated and made up.
Additionally, on October 9th I offered Royal an opportunity to make an appointment with me for an interview, and he declined the opportunity. The kinds of misrepresentations in the blog show the underbelly of politics and seem a blatant attempt to manipulate voters’ emotions and obfuscate the facts pertinent to an election.
Candidate for Monterey Mayor
