Editor’s note: The most recent version of this story is updated to show that both Casey Tanaka and Mike Donovan declined to comment about whether or not they knew who conducted the push polls. As of Oct. 2, it appears that John Duncan has access to Coronado Happenings.
A decision by the popular “Coronado Happenings” Facebook group to ban mayoral candidate John Duncan from the platform has triggered a social media controversy – and questions of hypocrisy.
It also has dragged the nation’s divisive presidential politics directly into a local election campaign.
In online posts, Coronado Happenings creator and administrator Charles Crehore has claimed he blackballed Duncan two years ago because the current City Council member put up posts declaring he was the only candidate endorsed by unions for local firefighters and police officers.
Crehore argued that union members are not Coronado residents so their support should have no bearing on the election.
Legal and media experts stress that Crehore, as overseer of a private Facebook group, is free to accept or reject whoever he chooses.
In fact, Crehore vets applicants for membership and posts rules for all those who are accepted.
Those rules do not prohibit local political campaigning such as that conducted by Duncan, who is one of three candidates for mayor. But they do impose a total ban on partisan political commentary – a restriction that Crehore ignored when he defended his decision to oust Duncan.
At one point in the rancorous debate, Crehore referred to Duncan as “an overly ambitious political jerk.” A group member listed as Kathleen Smith chided the administrator for using vitriolic language, whereupon Crehore responded: “oh please, John Duncan supports a man who’s made a career out of calling people names.”
Smith answered back, suggesting Crehore not lower himself to the same level. The response: “maybe John shouldn’t lower himself to supporting someone who thinks it’s okay to grab women by their private parts.”
Go tell that to DJT.Charles Crehore
For anyone unsure whether those posts were references to former President Trump, Crehore clarified after Smith urged him to keep his social media page more respectful. “Go tell that to DJT,” he retorted.
Crehore did not respond to an interview request submitted via Coronado Happenings or to a message left at his residence.
The two unions are now endorsing Duncan for mayor, and he remains banned from Coronado Happenings.
Coronado Happenings
The Facebook group was created by Crehore in 2012, one year after he completed a prison sentence for conspiracy to possess and distribute 1,000 kilograms of marijuana, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons website.
While not much is known about Crehore, his criminal background has been brought up on occasion in Coronado Happenings. In 1994, he was convicted by a jury on the conspiracy charge after DEA agents identified him as a marijuana courier. He was sentenced to 20 years, serving 16 before his release.
Coronado Happenings has 33,100 members according to Facebook’s statistics – a far greater number than the island’s population of about 19,000.
The social media page is extremely active, with diverse content. In the early afternoon of Sept. 24, the group already had 47 new posts, and within the last week, added 52 new members. There are posts about lost pets, the best place on the island for sushi, club announcements and community concerns, including local politics and events.
The upshot: It’s an influential source of information in a small town.
Crehore has adopted 10 rules for group members. Besides the ban on partisan politics, they include: “No real estate ads. No trolling. No pointless memes. Posts must be appropriate for the group.”
But what constitutes partisan politics – and what’s appropriate for the group – seems to be up to Crehore.
After Crehore’s exchange with Smith, Mark Fleming, a current City Council candidate, posted a critique: “It seems that you are now mixing national politics into this thread. How do you know what Presidential candidate that John (Duncan) or anyone else supports and what does it have to do with running for Mayor? … And if John does happen to vote for the Presidential candidate that you are referring to, who are you to be the moral judge over anyone?
“Are you now going to remove me from your little kingdom?”
Crehore responded with, “No, I’m not going to remove you. I want you to stay so everyone can see how ignorant and/or disingenuous you are. Did you not look at the push poll? It only mentions two elections, the one for Mayor of Coronado and … wait for it … President of the United States. So I’m not the one who’s brought national politics into it, John and his minions are. And that’s the problem a lot of people have.”
A push poll had been posted to the group with screenshots of the questions being sent out to people’s phone numbers. It seemed to favor Duncan and sparked a thread on the history of push polls and their reputation for asking leading questions.
Kicking people out
This is not the first time Crehore stirred up controversy by ousting a local political leader.
In 2020, he also removed Coronado’s current mayor, Richard Bailey, from Coronado Happenings amid the pandemic because Crehore disagreed with Bailey’s decision to leave local beaches open, according to an article by the San Diego Reader.
Bailey told The Coronado News he never heard from Crehore on why specifically he was removed. He said online groups like Coronado Happenings serve as a modern-day public square, and it’s unfortunate that democratically elected representatives for the city have been removed from those sites.
A private page for public information
It is unclear how many members of Coronado Happenings have been banned over the years.
Those who object are often told they can start their own Facebook group if they don’t like it. And that’s exactly what some did in 2020, creating “Coronado Happenings 2.0” for people that had been removed. It has over 3,000 members.
“A lot of people think Coronado Happenings is a media source, when what it actually is is a party,” Crehore wrote. “And, like any private party, if you get too obnoxious, you may be made to leave.”
A lot of people think Coronado Happenings is a media source, when what it actually is is a party. And, like any private party, if you get too obnoxious, you may be made to leave.
Charles Crehore
Despite what Crehore wrote, the Facebook page is a media source – a publication of local happenings and viewpoints read by a high percentage of local residents.
In August, Crehore explained on his site that he had a problem with Duncan announcing his endorsements.
“In big communities, fire and police personnel frequently live in the city they work in. That’s rarely the case here. And it’s for that reason I strongly feel their unions shouldn’t be involved, in any way, with local elections,” Crehore wrote.
Crehore also said in his comment that he had asked Duncan multiple times to stop posting about his endorsements, but that Duncan didn’t stop. “So I put him on a time out.”
He claimed that Duncan repeatedly said he was suspended for political reasons, to which Crehore responded, “Hogwash. I suspended him for the reasons stated above.”
We, as citizens of Coronado, pay our safety officers to protect us, not muddle in our politics.
Charles Crehore
In a separate post, Crehore said, “We, as citizens of Coronado, pay our safety officers to protect us, not muddle in our politics.”
These posts were part of a lively exchange between people who accused Crehore of arbitrary censorship and others who defended him by saying the site is private and if they don’t like it they can leave.
One user, Sherri Bailey wrote, “Someone just wrote a post about how fair and ethical this page is. And welcomes ALL opinions! Unless it differs from theirs that is.”
Crehore responded with, “John’s obvious sense of entitlement does not extend to my group.”
In a comment further down, he added: “Bottom line, if Duncan won’t take stop as an answer, I can make him stop, and I will.”
Duncan gave no comment about Coronado Happenings, but did make a general statement regarding debates on social media.
I believe that if people have good arguments, they will allow opposing views, and that they will support their argument against that opposing view. When they cannot do that, they delete posts, they edit their own posts, they ban people and don’t allow the argument to be fully discussed because they don’t believe that their argument will win when compared to the other side of the issue.
John Duncan
“I believe that if people have good arguments, they will allow opposing views, and that they will support their argument against that opposing view,” Duncan said. “When they cannot do that, they delete posts, they edit their own posts, they ban people and don’t allow the argument to be fully discussed because they don’t believe that their argument will win when compared to the other side of the issue.”
Donovan and Tanaka both declined to comment on issues related to Coronado Happenings, but spoke to the unions endorsing Duncan.
A possible conflict of interest
Donovan said he could understand where some in the community might feel uneasy about the endorsements of Duncan “since there could be a perception of a conflict of interest.”
“This is because the City Council has the final approval of the contracts between the city and the unions, so the case could be made that the elected official receiving a campaign endorsement should then recuse themselves from future City Council decisions regarding any applicable union contracts,” Donovan said.
However, both Donovan and Tanaka said that the unions have the right and should be free to endorse people of their choice, even if they do not live in the city they are voting for.
I support the right of people to unionize and it is to be expected that most of the people who work in Coronado would live outside of Coronado because of the extremely high cost of living in Coronado.
Casey Tanaka
“I support the right of people to unionize and it is to be expected that most of the people who work in Coronado would live outside of Coronado because of the extremely high cost of living in Coronado,” Tanaka wrote in an email.
Bailey said that “any individual or organization that chooses to exercise their First Amendment right and endorse candidates for office should expect that their representatives will consider all matters equally and with impartiality regardless of endorsement status. The First Amendment is not, and should not be, a disqualifying factor.”
It should be noted that, if unions have a conflict of interest because they may be affected by City Council action, the same is technically true for every other Coronado resident, business owner and worker.
For example, the grants that are given out each year. Someone representing the Coronado Historical Association could be endorsing a certain person for mayor, yet they will also make a grant request and have to interact with that candidate if they become mayor. Real estate agents are affected by zoning decisions, bicycle shop owners are affected by e-bike ordinances, tennis players are affected by fees, members of Emerald Keepers by city subsidies, etc.
CPOA President Darren Hamilton said that Duncan was the only mayoral candidate who approached the unions and made known his vision for improvements within the city.
“We were looking for the best candidate for the city,” Hamilton said. “It was an extensive vetting process … It was a clear cut kind of choice for us. This was going to be the guy that was going to do all the right things for all the right reasons for the city.”
All five members of the CPOA board, who also all work as police officers for Coronado, voted to endorse Duncan.
Tanaka said that the CPOA did not reach out to him but that CFA did, and all three candidates responded to the CFA process. Both unions, according to Tanaka, endorsed Duncan before the closing of the candidate period.
“I am not a fan of getting union endorsements, particularly from those representing city employees where City Council members have the final say on the terms of their contracts,” Donovan said.
He wrote that he had intended to meet with both police and fire representatives to learn more about their issues and concerns, but before he could schedule a meeting, heard that CPOA had already announced they were endorsing Duncan.
But Donovan said he would not accept an endorsement from the unions, even if it was offered.
The CFA did not respond by the deadline.
First Amendment rights
Some members of Coronado Happenings don’t seem to be happy about Crehore’s use of his group.
One member of Coronado Happenings, Joe Kennedy, wrote to Crehore: “You’re silencing a candidate because the organizations that endorse him, while they serve this community, in your opinion aren’t actually members of this community?”
Another went as far as to compare Crehore’s management of Coronado Happenings to that of Elon Musk with X, saying, “1 in 3 people in the U.S. are on X. Elon has full control over who can tweet, what they can tweet, and what tweets people receive or don’t receive. Let that magnitude of power sink in.”
That power Crehore has over Coronado Happenings, according to Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment expert and University of California, Los Angeles, law professor, is completely within his rights under California social media statutes.
“There’s no law that stops him from [removing people],” said Volokh. “If there was such a law, then you’d have to ask, ‘Does he have the First Amendment right to resist that law or this state? Does he get a First Amendment defense to that law?’ But there’s no law, it’s just not illegal in the first place.”
You might say it’s not very good that he has that kind fo influence. And if that’s so, maybe people should deny that influence by leaving the group and going to a different one.
Eugene Volokh
“You might say it’s not very good that he has that kind of influence,” Volokh added. “And if that’s so, maybe people should deny that influence by leaving the group and going to a different one.”
In online posts, Crehore wrote that his group is not meant to provide a platform for one candidate to abuse as he thought Duncan did two years ago. He asked members to consider how many posts they see from the other candidates, Donovan and Tanaka.
A quick scan of the group shows Crehore has reposted a few statements from Tanaka’s public account, even sharing one post with the comment, “Bravo, Casey (BTW, notice I shared this post, it was not posted by Casey).”
He also uploaded a picture of a banner that read “Tanaka for Mayor” and wrote, “In light of some recent posts, I can’t wait to see how many people tell me this cover is inappropriate,” accompanied by a laughing emoticon.
A push poll
The push pull (explained briefly above) further fueled debate on Coronado Happenings because some members believed it was biased against Tanaka.
The Coronado News was unable to determine who conducted the poll and what candidate or group they are affiliated with.
Some of the questions posted to the group in a screenshot were:
- “Casey Tanaka was first elected in 2002, but never tried to solve the TJ sewage issue. Are you more or less likely to vote for him?”
- “Tanaka supports bringing Gov. Newsom’s ‘progressive policies’ to Coronado. Does this make you more or less likely to vote for him?”
- “The Coronado Police Officers Association endorsed John Duncan for Coronado Mayor. How likely are you to vote for John now?”
Tanaka said he found the push poll to be offensive as it deliberately attributed inaccurate statements to him.
“It also sends the wrong message to our voters in that it normalizes the point of view that candidates need to campaign in a manner that involves polling and/or subtle or overt smear campaigns,” Tanaka said.
Duncan said he has not done any polling and will continue to not conduct any push polls. He declined to respond on whether he knew who created it.
Tanaka and Donovan also declined to comment about push polls.
Duncan also urged the community that if anyone had concerns or comments about him, to approach him and ask.
“When I do my meet and greets, I always say at the start of every one of them … ‘Ask me your hardest questions. Ask me your toughest questions,’” Duncan said. “But I have to do it in the real world where we can have a back and forth and a real discussion, not a manipulated one on social media.”
