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Thursday, Sep. 24, 2009

Are Modesto voters looking for change?

District 5 council race offers only incumbent on the ballot

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November's first-ever district elections will let voters pick someone from their own neighborhood to be their voice at City Hall. In north-central Modesto's District 5, voters also get a chance to say whether they're happy with the status quo.

The race between Councilwoman Kristin Olsen, 35, and newcomer Joe Cataline, 25, is the only one of the city's three council races with an incumbent on the ballot.

Olsen, running for her second term, has amassed a campaign war chest in the $40,000 range. She's regarded as an advocate for quality-of-life issues, such as her work to recruit the Amgen Tour of California cycling race to the city, and her efforts to speak up for citywide beautification.

Nonetheless, she's the only incumbent running for re-election from a council that over the past two years has made a number of unpopular budget-cutting moves.

Chief among them was a June vote to lay off eight police officers after the Modesto Police Officers Association refused to defer promised pay raises. That vote obscured Olsen's lobbying in previous budget rounds over the past four years to earmark cash to keep police on the street.

"This is a time when people aren't in love with incumbents, so I'm not taking anything for granted," she said.

Cataline hasn't filed any campaign finance statements, but said he's raised about $4,000. He said he's fighting Olsen's resources with a low-cost strategy: shoe-leather campaigning. Cataline said he's been knocking on District 5 doors almost every day since mid-August.

Backing the underdog

Like Olsen, Cataline was born and raised in Modesto. He owns a photography and video business.

Cataline said Modesto voters have a history of backing underdogs over well-funded opponents, pointing to Denny Jackman's 2002 victory over incumbent Kenni Friedman and Bruce Frohman's defeat of Pat Dobbs in the 1999 council race. In both cases, the winners spent less than their rivals.

Olsen, however, unseated Jackman in 2005.

"I really believe there's a clear-cut pattern that if a candidate has the right message and is doing it for the right reasons, that they triumph over special interests," Cataline said. He believes Olsen gets too much of her funding from big corporations and developers, and that her priorities are out of step with what residents want.

Cataline said Olsen's support of a ban on Dumpster diving and her push to make businesses collect abandoned shopping carts are examples.

Cataline called the new laws "frivolous." He said he worries that the Dumpster-diving ban could hurt people who collect recyclables to make ends meet.

"The notion that we have to use extra police resources to manage that as opposed to using those resources to manage gang and crime activity is something that bothers me," he said. "I think we have bigger fish to fry."

Olsen: Vote supported police

Olsen said people unfairly link her with the Dumpster-diving ordinance. The Police Department wrote the law, then brought it to the council for approval. Olsen said she voted in favor of it because police said it was a tool they needed to better fight crime.

She became identified with the measure because her husband, Rod, was a victim of identity theft after his financial records were stolen from a Dumpster outside a brokerage firm on McHenry Avenue.

Cataline also criticizes Olsen for accepting a raise in her council pay earlier this year. (The council later took a 5 percent pay cut in solidarity with city employees facing furloughs and layoffs.)