The advertisement ran on Page 3A of the Half Moon Bay Review on Oct. 20.
The $629.20 quarter-page ad painted Lundell, then a candidate for one of two open seats on the Cabrillo school district board, as anti-growth and primarily interested in stalling construction of a new school within the proposed Wavecrest Village development.
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Cabrillo board President Jolanda Schreurs said the third man is Kirk Riemer. Riemer's name appears on a list of Coastsiders who endorsed Lundell's opponent, Charles Gardner. Riemer did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
Schreurs, who runs a graphics business, confirmed that she designed the ad to look like Lundell's and helped arrange for Gardner to give up his space. Larimer said he contributed wording for the advertisement.
The ad itself became a campaign issue - not so much for what it said as for what it left unsaid.
The ad ran next to a similarly sized advertisement supporting Lundell. The ad was bordered in the same color as the ad Lundell had been running for weeks in the Review. The small print said it was paid for by "Citizens for Coastside Schools" and that a state identification number was pending.
Both Lundell and Gardner, reserved the space on Page 3A for ads in the weeks leading up to election. But on Oct. 20, Gardner abandoned his prepaid slot and shared ad space with fellow candidate John Moseley elsewhere in the paper. Moseley and Gardner won election on Nov. 2; Lundell was defeated.
After the advertisement ran, Lundell asked the paper for more information about Citizens for Coastside Schools.
"It's sort of the usual suspects," Lundell said upon being told who was behind the ad. "I'm hopeful that the response ... will put a lid on it in the future."
Mickelsen said he intended to file with
the California Secretary of State as a Political Action Committee at the time he purchased the ad. He said he later learned he wouldn't have to do so since he spent less than $1,000 on the ad.
The California Fair Political Practices Commission confirmed last week that the
group did not need to file with the state. Further, Theis Finlev, a press assistant for the commission, said the FPPC does not regulate ad content and, therefore, there is nothing legally wrong with saying the ad was paid for by a committee or that state identification is pending.
Lundell said he thinks Gardner should claim the price of the ad as a donation made at his behest. He notes that Schreurs was an active supporter of Gardner. And, he suggested he might press the FPPC for a ruling.
"I'm going to raise the issue, yes," he said.
Mickelsen defended the ad's content and noted that similar shadowy groups have worked behind the scenes in past Coastside elections.
"Artistically, I'll concede that it was deceiving," he said. "But editorially there was nothing wrong with it."
"On the Coastside, unfortunately, it's not just about education," Schreurs said. "The issue of Wavecrest has tied up this community for so long."
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