Placer: Two challengers raise development concerns

Placer County Supervisor Bruce Kranz has taken a different path in raising money for his third election campaign.

He's still relying heavily on developer contributions, as he has in the past two elections. But he's also been forced to diversify to make up for lost donations caused this year by a poor economy, he said.

Kranz, who is being challenged for the Supervisorial District 5 seat by Robert Houston and Jennifer Montgomery, said donations are coming from firefighters and the real estate industry, among others.

"I'm getting a lot of money from the ski resorts – Squaw Valley, Homewood, Alpine Meadows, Sugar Bowl," he said. "I'm getting more money from the Tahoe area than ever before."

Latest campaign disclosure statements, which were due Thursday, show that Kranz, 59, of Colfax, has raised $104,690 since Jan. 1.

He also raised $97,032 in 2007 and $26,836 in 2006 for a three-year total of $228,558.

Houston, 72, of Meadow Vista and Montgomery, 47, of Soda Springs have raised $129,134 and $90,994, respectively.

The primary election is June 3. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters will square off in the Nov. 4 election.

District 5 consists of communities east and north of Auburn, including Foresthill, Colfax and areas in the Tahoe region.

The challengers acknowledge that defeating an incumbent will be difficult.

Houston, who loaned himself $100,000 for the campaign, said he's planning to send at least a half-dozen mailers to get his message out.

Montgomery said she is running "a classic grass-roots campaign" with coffee klatches, meet-and-greets and standing in front of supermarkets and post offices.

"One-on-one is important to people," she said.

The two say they are candidates because of concerns over possible development up the Interstate 80 corridor to Tahoe and because Kranz accepts large sums from developers.

Montgomery said Kranz presented himself as a pro-environment candidate in 2004 when he defeated incumbent Rex Bloomfield, who'd beaten Kranz in the 2000 election.

"People took him at his word," she said. "But now people say he is not presenting himself as he did to voters four years ago."

Houston said he would appoint people to committees and boards "where their decisions can't be questioned."

The statement was an apparent reference to Kranz's appointment of Michelle Ollar-Burris, a Realtor, to the Placer County Planning Commission.

Ollar-Burris was later removed by Kranz after news stories revealed she split properties, possibly violating the State Subdivision Map Act.

Kranz said he was aware of the questions about Ollar-Burris but kept waiting to see if the Placer County District Attorney's Office, which was investigating her, was going to prosecute.

"That's why I appointed her – because the DA didn't file anything against her," he said.

About money from developers, Kranz said he accepts their donations because it takes money to run a campaign. But he said he votes on projects based on their merits.

"Of all the projects we've approved, they've all been by 5-0 votes," he said.

Over the past three years, Royal Gorge LLC of Redwood City, which plans a ski resort and mountain community in the Sierra Nevada, has given Kranz $20,000 in campaign contributions.

Owners of Placer Vineyards, a community planned for West Roseville, have donated $15,000. Squaw Valley Ski Corp., developer William Cummings of Sacramento and real estate investor Carole McNeil of San Francisco have donated $10,000 each.

As a former state parks supervisor, Kranz insists he is out to protect the environment.

His top campaign issues are controlling catastrophic wildfires and creating a biomass plant, he said.

"Eighty percent of my district is forested land," he said. "I lobbied to reduce the threat of wildfires, which lead to air pollution and poor water quality."

Kranz is excited about taking biomass – dead trees, branches and brush in the forests – and converting it to clean fuel to reduce air pollution.

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