Document showing Jovita Mendoza and her husband Michael Kleeman did not repay almost $378,000 through Chapter 13 bankruptcy finalized on Sept. 11, 2017.
Attacks other candidates for receiving campaign contributions, believes all candidates should self-fund
Jovita Mendoza. From her Facebook page.
By Allen Payton
Candidate for Brentwood City Council in District 1, Jovita Mendoza, has been boasting that she has been self-funding her campaign and attacking others in both her and two other races for city council and mayor for accepting contributions. However, in 2012 she filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy which on Sept. 11, 2017 ended with Mendoza not repaying almost $378,000 of the debt.
In addition, in a letter to the editor published on this website, yesterday, the writer provided proof that Mendoza and her husband also had a judgment against them and their roofing company, at the time, from Ford Commercial Credit, Inc. of San Jose for over $100,000 in 2007, before the economic downturn occurred in 2008. The writer wrote self-funding her campaign is “easy to do and say when you don’t pay your bills and you’re spending your creditor’s money.”
According to the U.S. Courts website, “A chapter 13 bankruptcy is also called a wage earner’s plan. It enables individuals with regular income to develop a plan to repay all or part of their debts. Under this chapter, debtors propose a repayment plan to make installments to creditors over three to five years.” (See post of letter)
Document filed on Dec. 11, 2017 showing Jovita Mendoza and husband Michael Kleeman’s list of Scheduled Creditors with total debt in claim of $416,633.55 and amount repaid of $81,485.99.
Another document shows a list of creditors with a total of $416,633.55 in debt and total payments of $81,485.99. But that latter amount and the amount discharged of $377,964.93 is greater than the $416,633.55.
An email with the documentation and the following questions was sent to Mendoza at 8:11 a.m. Friday, with a deadline of noon for her to respond:
“How much was the original amount included in your bankruptcy filing? The total from the list of creditors was $416,633.55. But the $378K and $81K add up to more than that.
Have you paid back any of your creditors included in these documents other than the $81,485.99? If not, don’t you think it’s wrong to be paying out-of-pocket for your own campaign expenses instead of paying back at least some of those creditors with those funds?
Someone named Brian commented on the post of Ms. Hauck’s letter on the Contra Costa Herald that ‘Those bills have been paid years ago and Jovita is self funded.’
If that’s true and you have paid any or all of your creditors back, please provide proof, your answers and any other comments you would like to make by 12:00 pm, today.”
However, Mendoza did not respond by publication time of 12:55 p.m. Please check back later for any responses from her and any other updates to this report.
Not sure who this writer is, but they were not sounding very fair-minded. The subject matter is very important and it seems if an individual such as Mendoza is handing out financial advice, then it would be nice to understand that advice in light of a past bankruptcy. I would think a true journalist would like to get to the real story before biasing the audience to the subject matter.
It is a very considerate action to invite a reply before sending an article to press, but the tone of this author’s voice makes it seem more like a shakedown. I personally do not vote and thus do not follow politics in general. However, due to the fact I interact with city and county officials, I do try to keep up to date on who I might have to interact with very soon. I like to see articles that reflect the pro and cons of each individual and not articles like this that seem to be on the hunt create sensationalized news.
I would think a journalist would realize you do your job correctly regardless of the political, timeline. With the correct mindset, you might actually find the information you were looking for, and we as the audience might benefit from sage advice that Ms. Mendoza might have gained by going thru the bankruptcy (or counter point learned that they didn’t learn much from the experience).
Non-voting resident,
Thank you for reading the Herald, taking the time to comment and attempting to hold us accountable in the work we do.
But, how is reporting factual information about a candidate for public office and giving them the opportunity to respond biased?
Ms. Mendoza still has the opportunity to respond and provide any other information but has so far chosen not to. Instead, she had her attorney respond later on the day of publication, not to this article, but to a letter to the editor published the day before about her finances, with a baseless threat to sue us which will go nowhere in court, as one, the letter writer asked questions about Ms. Mendoza’s finances and two, she’s now a public figure for whom there are less legal protections about what can be said about her. Obviously, the information provided in the article is accurate.
Your comments about a “shakedown” and this being “sensationalized news” is humorous. Holding candidates, and elected and appointed officials accountable, and asking them sometimes tough questions, no matter when the information upon which the questions are asked is received, is the role of the media. We did our job and we’d do it again. People who want to be in charge of taxpayer money and hold the power of government must expect scrutiny of decisions in their own lives, especially if they don’t match up with what they’re claiming publicly. Then it’s up to the voting public to decide if their responses are adequate.
You could also say thank you for being the only media outlet to provide you with this information about a candidate for public office, as well as providing you the news for free. It’s unfortunate that this information wasn’t received sooner so we could have published the article earlier in the campaign so that more voters could be made aware of her handling of finances, (which another newspaper praised her for and gave as a reason for their endorsement of her) prior to voting. It might have made a difference in the outcome of the election. But, who knows? The fact is Ms. Mendoza was elected and we can hope she is held accountable to ensure she handles the public’s finances better than her own.
Allen Payton, Publisher & Editor
Thank you for your reply.
Is this the same Allen Payton who had to pay $72,000 in restitution for false advertising? The former Antioch Council Member who was sued for slander against a political rival?
That too is all factual information.
Bill Guill,
Too funny you bringing up something from over 20 years ago in my business and political experience that are completely unrelated to the article I wrote, and incomplete in an attempt to obfuscate the information provided in it about now-Councilwoman Mendoza and her husband’s own finances, and then her bragging she was self-funding her campaign. Of course you didn’t provide anything to refute what was reported in the article. Instead your approach is a ridiculous “yeah, but.”
Yet, let me help you better understand what actually occurred, rather than your twisted and incomplete comment. My wife (at the time) who was also my business partner, and I chose to take on the $72,000 fine for the radio advertising campaign that included our customers sharing their testimonials about their own experiences on the products we were selling, which the DA’s of two other Bay Area counties claimed violated the federal Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act of 1994, because it prohibits making claims about natural products that haven’t undergone the same double-blind studies as synthetic drugs/pharmaceuticals, for three reasons: the manufacturer agreed to repay us $60,000 of the fine (basically hiding behind us, as they weren’t willing to back up what they themselves taught to their distributors, of which we were one, and fight the DA’s who used against us the very information in the book written by the doctor about the main ingredient in the main product in dispute, who developed the product, and whom the manufacturer promoted); second, because it avoided the top 150 distributors in our organization from being fined and negatively affecting their businesses; and three, it was a business decision as the $12,000 we had to pay was much less than it would have cost us in legal fees had we continued to fight it – which I wanted to do if we could round up other manufacturers of similar products with the same main ingredient and getting them to join the fight. But that would have taken too long. Based on all of that and the fact we didn’t admit to any wrong doing, we chose to settle out of court.
If you’ve ever owned a business you would understand sometimes you have to cut your losses recognizing the fight would be too costly in money and time. The bottom line is we took the heat for all of our top distributors who participated in the ad campaign, as well as the company, knowing it would hurt me politically and did as the case was settled in 1998 and made headlines during my campaign later that year when I was running for State Assembly against Tom Torlakson. But we did what we thought was best for everyone involved and I stand by that decision. The bottom line is the DA’s of Marin and Sonoma Counties thought we were this big fish in the pond of the Bay Area, because we were spending about $50,0000 per month on Bay Area radio stations, whose reach included their counties. Our own county’s DA didn’t come after us and rightfully so. They had real crime to fight. All the two other DA’s had to do was send us a cease and desist letter explaining why, because there were no victims as no one was injured or harmed by either the products we were selling nor the customer testimonials in the radio ads. We disagree that there was any false advertising. We just weren’t allowed to use what our customers said about their own experiences on the products in the ads.
Second, as for getting sued by a candidate for Antioch City Council over a campaign mailer against him which was completely accurate and I still stand by, today, you know that anyone can sue anyone for anything. What you’re failing to recognize and include in your comment is the outcome of the cases. The fact is the judge in the first case got it wrong, allowing the lawsuit to move forward. The judge literally said our use in the mailer of the dictionary definition of “at gunpoint”, which is “under threat of death by being shot”, which the two police officers were clearly facing because the candidate would not put down his loaded gun when they ordered him to after they arrived at his trailer on a burglar alarm call, and they had to give him the order a second time before he unloaded his gun and put it down, because the average person who received the flier wouldn’t understand that definition, since he wasn’t actually pointing his gun at the officers. So, the issue was semantics and a dispute over the definition of the use of words. The judge also falsely claimed, because he clearly didn’t understand the details, that the man was not the only one who was given an exemption to paying street lighting and landscaping maintenance district assessment because railroad rights-of-way and PG&E-owned property below their power line towers were also exempt. We pointed out in the mailer that the man was the only residential or commercial property owner in the city who was granted a special exemption after requesting it, to not have to pay his SLLD assessment. So, instead of fighting it further, I agreed with my insurance company-provided attorney, to settle out of court with the guy who sued me as long as he didn’t make a penny (only that his attorney’s fees were paid) and it didn’t cost me a penny.
Following the case, I told the Times’ reporter that I stood by everything in the mailer, so the guy sued me, again. This time, a different judge got it right, ruled in my favor and the guy who sued me had to pay my attorney’s fees. So, I, and the others who helped develop and fund the mailer, who I didn’t name and for whom I took all the heat in the lawsuit, did and wrote nothing wrong for which the man sued me. Period. Interesting side note, the guy who sued me and I later became friends.
So, now you have the complete facts, instead of just basing your accusations on a couple headlines you may have read. In the future, you might want to do a little more research and get your facts straight before making accusations against someone, as well as do a better job in defending someone you support instead of a seriously weak and unrelated, “yeah, but”.
I stand by what is written in the article and to date, neither the councilwoman nor her husband have provided any information to dispute any of it. But she was elected and is serving now, so, it’s time to move on.
Allen Payton, Publisher