A city-sponsored ad campaign warning residents about San Diego’s crumbling stormwater system echoes some themes of a separate political campaign supporting Measure E, a proposed sales tax hike on the ballot. For years, the city has used its Think Blue public awareness campaign to urge people to do their part to help protect local waterways. This fall, months after flooding ravaged city neighborhoods, the campaign bears a different message — saying the city’s aging stormwater system “needs significant investment.” That’s similar to the message of the Measure E campaign, which says the new revenue from the one-cent sales tax increase would boost city services and provide badly needed money for infrastructure, giving sidewalks, roads and the stormwater system as examples. The Measure E campaign has spent nearly $700,000 on mailers and ads. City officials considered a separate ballot measure to levy a parcel tax to fund stormwater projects but decided to pursue only Measure E. It is illegal for government agencies to use taxpayer money to advocate for or against ballot measures, but agencies are legally allowed to inform and educate the public. City officials say the Think Blue campaign, which began in late August and has featured hundreds of ads on TV and radio, has nothing to do with Measure E. They acknowledge the theme of Think Blue shifted this fall from advocating changes to individual behavior, like not pouring paint into storm drains, to focusing on systemic challenges the stormwater system faces. But they say that was prompted by the floods last January, not by Measure E being on the ballot. “The historic Jan. 22 storm has put a spotlight on stormwater infrastructure like never before in the city of San Diego,” said city spokesperson Nicole Darling. “This necessitated a change in tone. The new ads note we have an aging stormwater system in need of significant investment.” Invoices provided by the city summarizing the Think Blue campaign show the city created five separate ads: two 10-second spots, two 15-second spots and one 30-second spot. “Much of the city’s stormwater system was built in the 1940s and ’50s and needs significant investment. Learn about our funding challenges. Go to thinkblue.org,” a narrator says in one 10-second ad. Think Blue ads have run on KGB and KOGO radio and TV stations including KUSI, Channel 8, Fox 5 and NBC 7/39. The Think Blue campaign also includes ads on billboards and at bus stations. Darling stressed that the campaign was conceived and planned before Measure E was officially placed on the ballot this summer. Critics, including the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, say the campaign may have been been carefully crafted to remain just barely legal. “These cities and public agencies know how to skate real close to the line of information versus advocacy,” said Laura Dougherty, the association’s director of legal affairs. She also questioned the timing of the recent Think Blue push, which began about 10 weeks before the election and is scheduled to run through Nov. 5, which is Election Day. “Anything close to an election is going to be concerning,” she said. Darling said there was no coordination with Measure E supporters and that the timing is entirely coincidental. The dates for the campaign were chosen based on when San Diego’s rainy season begins, she said. She said Think Blue has run ads every spring and fall since the campaign was revived in 2021 after a roughly 10-year hiatus. She said the only difference this year is the shift in the focus of its message. She said Think Blue’s advertising budget is about $100,000 per fiscal year and has not changed this year. The leader of the Measure E opposition, Haney Hong of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, said it would be unethical for the city to use Think Blue to advocate for the proposed sales tax increase. “It would be a blatant abuse of position and a blatant abuse of taxpayer trust,” he said. Hong stressed that he can’t be sure city officials have done so with Think Blue this fall, but said it would be highly disappointing if they had. “It would be really sneaky,” he said. “If Think Blue was originally intended for environmental stewardship and making sure no one is doing something nasty, then this move by the city would constitute some intentionality.” Mike Zucchet, who is leading the “Penny for Progress” campaign supporting Measure E, said neither he nor other supporters have done any coordinating with the city’s Think Blue campaign. “Neither MEA nor the Penny for Progress campaign coordinates or is even aware of the city’s internal communications efforts on any subject,” said Zucchet, referring to the labor union he leads, the Municipal Employees Association. Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, can understand why the content and timing of the Think Blue campaign has raised concerns, but he suspects the city probably hasn’t done anything illegal. Think Blue is a well-established campaign that pre-dates Measure E, and the January floods are a plausible rationale for stepping up public information efforts on stormwater infrastructure, he said. One of the top criticisms of ballot box legislation, Kousser said, is that voters don’t fully understand what they are voting for or against. So public information campaigns are crucial to help voters understand, he said. “Governments have the right to articulate the need for resources, especially when decisions on revenue are pending,” Kousser said. Kousser said opponents of Measure E or anyone with concerns about the Think Blue campaign can complain to the Fair Political Practices Commission in Sacramento and see if the commission is willing to investigate. No such complaints appear to have been filed. Cities’ spending to promote sales-tax ballot measures has drawn enforcement action elsewhere in California where the campaign’s purpose has been explicit. In 2020, Los Angeles County was fined $1.35 million for conducting an illegal campaign in favor of a successful 2017 ballot measure that raised the local sales tax rate to fund homeless services. County officials were fined by the FPPC because they ran ads with positive messages about the measure. But those ads specifically mentioned the measure and advocated voting for it, whereas the Think Blue campaign doesn’t mention Measure E or voting. Dougherty, the Howard Jarvis attorney, said California is badly in need of greater enforcement of election rules. “The FPPC needs more power than it currently has,” she said. She said the most important legal precedent on what constitutes illegal advocacy by government agencies is the 1976 California Supreme Court ruling in Stanson v. Mott, which focused on whether state parks officials had improperly advocated for a 1974 state parks bond measure. “A fundamental precept of this nation’s democratic electoral process is that the government may not ‘take sides’ in an election contest or bestow an unfair advantage on one of several factions,” the decision said. But the ruling also created uncertainty and subjectivity, Dougherty said. That’s because the judges ruled that the distinction between government advocacy and education “depends upon a careful consideration of such factors as the stvle, tenor and timing of the publication; no hard and fast rule governs every case.”