By Robert Haugh

We’ve been hearing rumors for months about an independent expenditure to help Dominic Caserta’s supervisorial campaign.  In fact, we predicted it in January.  Now, it’s happening.

The major groups supporting Caserta with big checks are the 49ers and developers.

Caserta is a major 49er backer.  Here are major items where Caserta supported the 49ers in 2017:

• lift the weekday stadium curfew — they lost.
• withhold documents from the city — lawsuit pending.
• employ Landmark Event Staffing over union workers — they won.

Now it looks like the team is paying him back.

The name of the committee is Santa Clarans for Good County Government, Supporting Caserta for Supervisor 2018. Here’s what we know from public disclosures:

Connections to the 49ers —

• Councilwoman Patty Mahan’s sister, Jeannie Mahan, is one of three organizers. The other two are: David Llamas of San Jose and Mike Kasperzak of Mountain View. Patty Mahan was a major 49er stadium supporter. She’s also received financial contributions from the team and the notorious BluPAC, the dark money group with 49er ties that backed her during her last election.

• Russell Miller is the treasurer. He was also the treasurer for the 49er stadium campaign in 2010.
• Gary Filizetti gave $7,000. He owns Devcon Construction, the contractor that the 49ers hire to build the stadium.

• Robert Bothman, the CEO of Bothman Construction gave $4,250. His firm has done work for the 49ers at the stadium.

In addition to the 49ers, developers are writing big checks to Caserta’s independent expenditure. It looks like they’re paying him back, too.

Connections to developers —

• Prometheus Development gave $15,000. Wow. They’re developing the controversial Moonlight Lanes project that Caserta supports.
• Davne Investments gave $2,500.  Who? We had to do some Googling to find out that this is David Neale of the Core Companies. We wonder if Core was trying to hide this contribution. Caserta supported giving them an extension for a exclusive negotiating agreement for the BAREC development last Tuesday.

All these contributions came in the last week. We’ll watch for more.

By the way, contributors can give more than the legal limit for a supervisorial campaign ($1,000) to the independent expenditure committee. But it’s supposed to be completely independent and not coordinated with the supervisorial campaign.

Multiple sources in rival campaigns say there’s evidence of coordination. That’s a big no no with the Fair Political Practice Commission. So we’d like to see the evidence. If there’s any truth to it and someone files a complaint, this will be a much bigger story. Stay tuned.