Santa Cruz United's Jane Becker Admits Some Recall Signature Gatherers were Paid

As recently as yesterday, Santa Cruz United members have directly disputed reports from Keith McHenry of Food Not Bombs, who has described on social media his encounter with a person outside of Trader Joe's who was paid $6 per recall petition signature (see photos).

Santa Cruz County Republican Party Central Committee member Paige Concannon said that McHenry's claims were "not true". Concannon stirred controversies of her own recently when she stated that she "started" the recall campaign "with some friends". Concannon, an avid supporter of Donald Trump, was a Santa Cruz City Council candidate in 2018 who lost the race to Councilmember Glover by a significant margin: Glover received 10,972 votes, with Concannon receiving only 3,276.

If individuals were paid directly by a relative to gather signatures for Santa Cruz United, that would be a violation of campaign finance law.

According to the SCU website, "Santa Cruz United is a lean, all-volunteer organization. Expenses include this website, printing, meeting rooms, filing fees, records requests and small miscellaneous costs." (see photo)

Additionally, SCU organizer (and major donor to the campaign) Carol Polhamus has stated the organization's "tablers" are all volunteer and that she is in charge of them.

"Our tablers are 100% volunteers, and I know that because I organize them and assign them," Polhamus stated on a post to Councilmember Glover's Facebook page (see photo).

Polhamus also stated in that post that SCU was taking "seriously" the report of bad behavior from recall signature gatherers at Whole Foods (see photo).

Today's admission represents a quick reversal of public statements from Jane Becker, who is also a leader in the so-called "public safety" group Take Back Santa Cruz. On Saturday, she posted on Santa Mierda that, "nobody is getting paid" to collect signatures (see photo). Adding to Becker and SCU's credibility issues, is a recent encounter captured on video where Becker is caught attempting to physically prevent a community member from reading a recall petition. It is a criminal violation of the law to prevent a voting citizen from reading a recall petition.

At this time, there has been no public comment regarding the subject of paid signature gatherers on any of the official web pages published by Santa Cruz United and, as mentioned earlier, their donation page still claims the organization is "all-volunteer".

A list of donors to the recall campaign can be found: here.

A list of businesses to boycott whose owners are supporting the recall effort can be found: here.