Mayor Garcia Sent Councilmember(s) This Text Message After Meeting On Candidate-Filing-Deadline Day With CONO's Fox That Resulted In Fox Not Entering Mayor's Race

' Mayor Garcia Sent Councilmember(s) This Text Message After Meeting On Candidate-Filing-Deadline Day With CONO's Fox That Resulted In Fox Not Entering Mayor's Race

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(March 27, 2018, 6:05 a.m.) -- Less than two hours after Council of Neighborhood Organizations leader Robert Fox sent a mass emailing announcing he decided not to run for Mayor after a filing-deadline-day meeting with Mayor Robert Garcia in which Fox said Garcia agreed to certain actions, Garcia texted at least one Council office (and perhaps others) stating that Mr. Fox's email "to his CONO folks [contained] complete exaggerations and untruths" about a "pleasant meeting" the pair had "for a couple of hours" earlier that day in which they "discussed a bunch of things."

Garcia's text message, belatedly released by the City [not by Garcia's office] over two months after LBREPORT.com's request under the Public Records Act [in a response LBREPORT.com believes is incomplete] indicates it was received by at least one Council office at 8:03 p.m. on January 12. Mayor Garcia's text message stated: "He [Fox] had been considering filing for Mayor. I told him that I would be happy to host some round table talks with neighborhood folks only after new maps came out. Only me to listen. I also reiterated my position with him about rent control which everyone already knows, which is I don't support.Anyways, he took that and numerous things we discussed and sent out a strange email. Anyways, I am confirming with folks who ask what happened, and that's all. Have a good weekend. Thx."

[Scroll down for further.]

A day earlier (Jan. 11), Mr. Fox filed a hand-written "Candidate Intention Statement" signaling his intention to enter the Mayor's race. The document doesn't legally commit the individual to run; additional paperwork is required.

As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, at 6:31 p.m. Mr. Fox had sent a mass email stating that he had the candidate filing paperwork in hand to run for Mayor but in "discussion with Robert [Garcia] today if I did not run for the Mayorshoip [sic], he would pull tmihe [sic] LUE off of the February calendar" and "will also pronounce in his announcement tonight his opposition to Rent Control and some reasons for his position." Mr. Fox added, "Although I will not be running for Mayor right now, I have every intention of keeping my hand in the political stream."
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As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, at 7:40 p.m., Mayor Garcia's Chief of Staff emailed the following statement:

[Garcia statement] Over the last couple of days, I've had some great conversations with Robert Fox, the President of CONO and a longtime community leader. We have been discussing next steps on the Land Use Element and other important issues. We are working together to host a series of Mayoral Land Use Roundtables in the weeks ahead.
In addition, we have been discussing ways to ensure that we focus on housing production in the Downtown, including affordable housing for seniors. We don't believe that rent control works, or is the right solution. Just look at rent controlled cities like San Francisco, the most expensive market in the country. I look forward to working with Mr. Fox on this and other issues in the future.

And as also previously reported by LBREPORT.com, at 8:18 p.m., in an email he titled "Correction in my email to you, Mr. Fox wrote in pertinent part: "Just to clarify.. My conversation with Robert Garcia was a great discussion.. I did not make him give us something for me not running. I was there to discuss our issues, and we did. I decided after we had agreed on so many things, that I had no need to run for Mayor."

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Mr. Fox, a resident of LB's Second Council district, was among the first contributors ($1,000, August 28, 2017) to the now-ongoing signature-gathering effort to recall 2nd district incumbent Councilwoman Jeannine Pearce. In recent weeks, speculation has swirled over who might enter a 2nd district recall election to replace Pearce. Some have speculated Mr. Fox might do so; others have mentioned Eric Gray (who finished second to Pearce in a June 2016 runoff) plus another individual (as of a month ago not registered to vote in the 2nd district.)

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