Health & Fitness
The Grey Eminence behind the PAC endorsing Gérard Boulanger and his two running mates, Dan Romero and Bill Wilkins
A PAC paid a flyer endorsing the election of Gérard Boulanger and his running mates, Dan Romero and Bill Wilkins. The Secretary of State lists that PAC under Anton Jungherr's phone number.
The Grey Eminence behind the PAC endorsing Gérard Boulanger and his two running mates, Dan Romero and Bill Wilkins
Occasional Report No. 44
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It’s Anton Jungherr. Anybody surprised?
Find out what's happening in Pinole-Herculeswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Anybody want a short French lesson? This, from Wikipedia: An éminence grise (French for "grey eminence") is a powerful decision-maker or advisor who operates ‘behind the scenes’ or in a non-public or unofficial capacity.” The use of French seems appropriate, since this concerns the PAC which sent out the flyer endorsing Gérard Boulanger (and his two running mates, Dan Romero and Bill Wilkins). Gérard is Hercules' most outstanding (and most thoroughly exposed and documented) liar and fraud. That includes election fraud.
The document pasted below is a page from the Secretary of State's website. It shows that the phone number provided for Hercules Voice PAC, FFPC# 1347576, is (510) 799-1141. Hercules Voice PAC was the PAC behind the flyer sent out yesterday, the one which endorsed the election of Pinocchieaux Boulanger to the city council, as well as his running mates, Dan Romero and Bill Wilkins. (510) 799-1141 is one of several phone numbers listed for Anton Jungherr.
Anton is the guy who brought us the recall, a crusade which, viewed 16 months later in the context of the wreckage of its aftermath, seems considerably less noble than it did at the time. The results of the recall weren’t all bad. It terrified Mayor Ed Balico into resigning, citing his newly-discovered need to spend more time with his family. Balico was ultimately replaced by Dan Romero. I cannot say that Romero is as bad as Balico, because nothing in the history of Hercules city council misgovernment is as bad as Balico. Romero is a bit better than Balico. That incremental improvement is the net positive result of Anton’s recall. “Better than Balico” is not much of a standard.
The negative effects? First: Don Kuehne, an ineffectual jerk who never accepted that he shared the blame for the Oliva Fiasco, was replaced by Gérard Boulanger, a fraud and an inveterate liar, who lied his way on to the council in the recall election with a fake biography, got caught, was exposed, and then tried to wriggle out of his own trap by creating a scheme to ensnare his closest friends and supporters into helping him against an invented plot to replace him with Sherry McCoy. See article #12.
Second: Joanne Ward, a really nice lady and an ineffectual jerk who never accepted that she shared the blame for the Oliva Fiasco, was replaced by Bill Wilkins, who is probably not as bad as Boulanger. Is that the standard for election to our council? Not as bad as Boulanger? In any event, Bill Wilkins has aligned himself with Boulanger, is being promoted alongside Boulanger on the political flyer sent out by Anton Jungherr’s PAC, so the argument that Wilkins is not as bad as Boulanger may no longer be sustainable. And anyhow, Bill Wilkins did participate in the Virgil-didn’t-sign-the-recall-petition scheme (explained below, in an excerpt from article #23), so that sustainability may not have ever been significant.
Anton is the guy who destroyed the Citizens’ Legal Ad Hoc Committee and its work on bringing ethics to Hercules government. He presented himself as a citizen speaking on his own behalf, mysteriously obsessed with the (alleged and trivial and, if indeed they ever happened, unintentional) Brown Act violations which probably no one was aware of…except perhaps Dan Romero, who views two of the committee members, Toni Leance and Phil Simmons, as his enemies.
This is the view of one of my sources, as to the benefits provided by Anton’s recall:
“The Balico council at least formed the Citizens Ad Hoc Finance Committee. The pre-recall council formed the Citizens Ad Hoc Legal Committee. This council with Dan Romero's mayorship has done all it can do to bring those committees to a close and disregard most of their findings, so far. This council is far less concerned with the public voice than the last one.
“The last council left us with multi-millions of $'s of debt.
Eventually money can be repaid or washed out.
This council is moving into selling of the city assets and leaving it a mere shell of its former potential self.
Once done it will never be repairable, or at least not for many decades to come.”
Attachment 1:
This is the information on the Secretary of State’s website, http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1347576:
View Information:
(Due to the amount of data, these pages may take some time to load.)
General Information
Contributions Received
Contributions Made
Expenditures Made
Late and $5000+ Contributions Received
Late Contributions Made
Late Independent Expenditures
Electronic Filings
This is the official name of the committee, political party, or major donor as registered with the Secretary of State.
FILER ID:
1347576
FILER PHONE:
(510) 799-1141
SUMMARY INFORMATION - HERCULES VOICE (ID# 1347576)
CURRENT STATUS
ACTIVE
This committee has not electronically filed a Form 460/461/450 for this election cycle. For further information, click on prior sessions to see if historical filings are available. Also check for late contribution filings if a major filing deadline has not yet occurred for this election cycle.
Attachment 2:
The Simpleminded Mockingbird: Bill Wilkins
Posted on August 3, 2012 at 2:57 pm
#23 in a series of occasional reports
Back to the Dark Side: Bill Wilkins did one Great Big Dirty Trick, and since I was a part of that scheme, an essential tool, I know what happened. I'm convinced that Bill knew exactly what he was doing, knew that it was false, and did it anyway. The dirty trick was this: I had volunteered to help with Bill's election campaign in 2011, after a conversation with Dan Romero indicated that Bill's presence on the council could be helpful to Dan's agenda. (At that time, I expected Dan's agenda to be something very different from what it actually became.) I met with Bill and his political wife, Sue Tarvin. Bill had been one of the leaders of the recall, and for that reason he had (or told me that he had) a copy of the complete recall petition, with all signatures. I don't remember who started it, Bill or Sue, probably Sue, but they both insisted that Virgil de la Vega, Bill's opponent in the election, had not signed the recall petition. From the vantage point of today, having seen the negative consequences of the recall, I'm not so sure I would see that as a bad thing now; at that time, though, I did. The idea was for me to spread the tale on the Patch, to expose Virgil as someone so lacking in commitment to reform that he had failed to sign the recall petition. Because I have a deathly horror of libel lawsuits, I did all I could to ensure that Bill and Sue had looked at each and every signature on the petition, and were absolutely certain that Virgil did not sign. And they said they had looked at every signature, and they were certain. And because my horror of libel litigation is really quite deathly, I had them both confirm those facts...and then reconfirm those facts. They did.
And so I posted the story in the Patch, and a very big deal was made of it. Then, at the debate, Virgil said that, notwithstanding reports to the contrary, he had indeed signed the petition. And Bill and Sue backed away from the no-sign story so quickly that they left skid marks. (Is that a cliché? Sounds like a cliché. I try to avoid clichés.) Virgil said he did sign, and, right after the debate, Bill was telling me that there was the possibility that not all signatures were legible. Perhaps, but the printed versions written alongside were. Anyhow, that possibility didn't seem to exist on the day the scheme was hatched, or at least, neither Wilkins nor Tarvin raised that excuse at that time.
Outside of that one seriously-bad experience, Bill Wilkins may not be as dishonest as Dan Romero…although all of the information with which Dan provided me in order to damage his opponents, all of it was true, which cannot be said of Bill’s Virgil story. Bill surely doesn’t lie as much as Gérard Boulanger (but, hey! Who does?); but, Bill has demonstrated that he knows how to be dishonest. In an email dated 2/3/12, from Myrna de Vera to Steve Duran, Myrna wrote: “Steve, Who is this Nicky Mastay and did you perform a best hiring process before hiring her? This action may be perceived as cronyism.” At the July 24 council session, Bill twisted that into an actual accusation of cronyism. Toni Leance, a private citizen, has criticized Steve Duran, on her own behalf; Bill Wilkins, on July 24, managed to make it seem that Toni’s comments were Myrna’s responsibility.
In spite of the dishonesty and dirtytricks politics of the Virgil-didn’t-sign scheme, as confirmed and reconfirmed by Bill Wilkins; and, in spite of Bill’s ability to contort facts into a shape which fits into his own agenda…whatever that may be…I cannot say that I totally distrust him now. It's quite possible that the no-signature scheme was largely the product of Sue Tarvin, and that Bill went along reluctantly. I say that because of a comment he made at the time the scheme was being concocted, to the effect that Virgil de la Vega had called him and that Virgil wanted to run a clean campaign. That comment may have been Bill’s subtle suggestion that he'd rather not do to Virgil what we were about to do to Virgil. Bill did confirm and reconfirm the truth of the no-signature allegation, and he did not waver; but it was really Sue Tarvin who was actively enthusiastic about this, like a kid in a candy store…yep, a cliché. Like Charlton Heston in a gun store, with Mitt Romney’s credit card. Maybe Bill would have preferred not to do the Virgil smear...but he did.
