Former oil mogul invests $200,000 in PAC to sway voters against tax measures in Yolo County

A Woodland business owner has invested $200,000 in a PAC that is working to defeat local tax measures, including a bond for Woodland Joint Unified School District that would fund repairs and improvements for school facilities.

The Yolo County Business PAC has already spent $50,000 on web ads, mailers and text blasts opposing the school bond measure. Prior to the Woodland Joint Unified school board’s vote to place Measure P on the ballot, the PAC wrote in a letter to the district that it was prepared to spend $100,000 to defeat the measure.

“The choice is yours today, but know that you are fully informed on what will happen in the community if you go forward with this bond proposal,” the letter reads.

Local business owner Jeffrey Morgan is the PAC’s primary bank roller, having contributed $200,000 since December 2023. Smaller donors include farm network Grow West and two administrators associated with Woodland Christian School.

On the PAC’s mailer, which features a panhandler asking for money, the PAC claims that the average homeowner in Woodland would see an increase of $12,000 on their tax bill.

“Help! I can only afford to feed my children or pay the $12,000 property tax hike…,” it reads. “Vote NO on Measure P. It’s the compassionate thing to do.”

Proponents for Measure P say that this isn’t true, and that Morgan is spreading misinformation to serve his own commercial interests.

What is Measure P?

Measure P is one of the many local bond measures on the ballot this November that would raise property taxes to fund needed improvements to schools.

Approving Measure P would authorize Woodland Joint Unified to borrow $160 million in bonds to address the district’s aging infrastructure. Former board member and Yes on Measure P committee member Jake Whitaker said that half of the district’s schools were built before color television was invented.

“Children are learning in rooms with failing HVAC, and we have to send students home at least once a year due to a heat wave,” he said. “This is the result of a lack of funding coming into public education for public school facilities.”

To pay back the bonds, local property owners would be taxed at a rate of $58 per $100,000 of assessed value. The median assessed value of a home in Woodland is about $335,000, which means the homeowner would pay a rate of about $195 per year, or a total of $5,850 over the 30-year life of the loan. The median cost to buy a home in Woodland is around $545,000, meaning that a newer homeowner would pay $316 annually, or a total of $9,480.

Community activist and advocate for Measure P Sylvina Frausto estimated the tax bill on her townhome would go up $58.

Opponents of the measure, including the Yolo County Business PAC and those who submitted the ballot opposition argument, claim that the price tag will be closer to $12,000 to $14,000 for the average property owner in Woodland.

The PAC arrived at a figure of more than $12,000 by dividing $275 million, which is the estimated total sum of taxes, including interest to be repaid over the bond period, by the number of parcels in the school district. Those in favor of the measure say that this method of calculation obscures the fact that the property owners are taxed based on the value of their parcel, which includes those who own commercial real estate.

“The Yolo Business PAC is intentionally spreading misinformation to kill funding for public schools in Woodland,” Whitaker said. “Their claim that the measure will cost the average homeowner $12,000 is absurd.”

Matt Rexroad of Strategy Insights, the political consultant group representing the PAC, said he finds “the whole disinformation thing comical.”

“Averages are used to represent large data sets, and if the school district doesn’t like the use of averages, then I think they should remove the use of grade point averages,” Rexroad said.

Rexroad believes that the backlash to the No on Measure P campaign is a reaction to last-minute fear that the bond measure isn’t going to pass.

Alongside the May letter warning the district to not move forward with the election, the PAC sent its own polling results, which Rexroad claimed were “a whole lot more accurate” than the polling research done by the school district. Their survey found that only 19% of voters said they would definitely vote yes on the measure, where Woodland Joint Unified’s poll showed that 54% would definitely vote yes after being presented with information about it.

“It’s hard for me to understand why they’re complaining,” Rexroad said. “We told them that this is going to happen and this is what’s happening.”

Who is Jeff Morgan and what is the Yolo County Business PAC?

Morgan is a local farmland and restaurant owner. He previously worked in the oil industry as the CEO of oil drilling company National EWP and as both president and owner of WDC Exploration and Wells.

Morgan owns JDM Organic Farm, a 147-acre farm growing olive and grape varietals, which also serves as an event venue. The farm has an assessed value of over $2 million, according to the Yolo County Assessor.

Frausto, the community activist, expressed disappointment in the effort to defeat the measure.

“It’s sad that having all these millions, they don’t ask themselves, ‘we have all this money, so how can we help our community and our kids?’” Frausto said. “

Morgan said that he is representing community members and small-business owners’ interests.

“The purpose of the PAC is to give a voice to the individual taxpayers and small businesses throughout our community,” Morgan wrote in an email. “We are doing that by actively engaging in political campaigns in a way that will make local elected officials and their policies more fiscally responsible and friendly to individuals and small businesses.”

Morgan grew up in Woodland and graduated from Woodland High School.

“As a fellow graduate of Woodland High, I am disappointed that he now wants to spend his fortune to deprive the children growing up in our community today of the same quality education that he received when he attended Woodland’s public schools,” Whitaker said.

The PAC is also campaigning against Measure U, a one-cent sales tax measure that would provide annual local funding for civil services like repairing roads, maintaining public spaces and improving emergency response times. So far, $33,000 has been spent on online ads and texts to local voters.

This is not Morgan’s first foray into politics. In March, his PAC spent nearly $30,000 to defeat Woodland’s Measure M, which would have allowed the city to accept up to $300 million for the Lower Cache Creek Flood Risk Management Project, championed by Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry. Several local farmers also came out in opposition to the measure, and voters ultimately rejected the measure, with 80% voting no.

The PAC has also contributed $25,000 in support of Prop. 36 and $5,500 to Fred Lopez’s campaign against David Moreno for a Woodland City Council seat.

This story was originally published October 22, 2024 at 5:00 AM.

Jennah Pendleton

The Sacramento Bee

916-321-1068

Jennah Pendleton is an education reporter for The Sacramento Bee. She previously covered schools and culture in the San Francisco Bay Area. She grew up in Orange County and is a graduate of the University of Oregon.