Spoooooky Anonymous Email Account Plays Role in Newport Politics

This Halloween election season, a spooky email account seems to be playing quite the role.

For about a year, I have been receiving information from someone called “Whoo Dat“, who has apparently been contacting many influencers in Newport Beach for a while now.  In many of his emails, Dat refers to itself as male, so I will run with that.  He typically signs his name with a pun, but he also starts many of his sentences with independent clause markers– a habit I have also had for many years.  This sheds a lot of light on his possible identity to me, but all I really care about is that those emails keep comin’!

Over the next few days, I’ll be releasing his emails, each of which contains its own nuggets of information– while the speculation is sometimes inaccurate, the links that are provided are always solid.  Here’s one of the most recent ones, about council candidate Jeff Herdman and SPON (Still Protecting Our Newport) and Line in The Sand (or LITS).  I have reached out to their members for comment, and I received a “No comment.” as a reply.  For his part, Herdman says that the email he wrote (linked below) definitely was not attempting to bash Woody’s Wharf.  Woody’s Wharf disagrees, and has told me that Herdman has been a painpoint of theirs for many years, specifically regarding his support for the giant development next door.  You can judge for yourself.  Here’s the email:

Subject: Has SPON has lost their integrity?

On Monday, October 24, 2016 9:48 PM, Whoo Dat[email redacted] wrote:
Jeff Herdman has been a longtime advocate for Big Development, even to the point of advocating the destruction of historic establishments in order to do so.

See here in his own words as he attacks Woody’s Wharf so he can make it easy on the new developers: http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/opinion/tn-dpt-me-1018-mailbag-20151015-story.html
Now watch him deny it from the podium with a straight face: West Newport Beach Assn. City Council Candidates Forum – August 31 2016
Mike Glenn has been a longtime advocate for SPON’s [stated] goals in Newport Beach and fighting for property rights, like fighting against the Measure Y [sic] which would have massively increased both traffic and development.  He even spoke against Measure Y sponsor Tony Petros at a Republican Women’s forum… and won.

Glenn is also the only candidate to bring up Greenlight violations in every forum I’ve seen recorded (and likely more).  He speaks of 79 hotel units that have been converted into condos in a fashion that is both clear and convincing.  Nobody else brings this up.  Nobody.

However, without even interviewing Glenn or introducing him to the larger SPON group, several board members simply decided to take action on unfairly endorsing Herdman and proceeded to build a marketing campaign to promote a non-starter candidate with a rocky history, to say the least.

According to very widespread rumors from highly knowledgable [sic] sources, Herdman is currently polling 6% lower than Glenn and Lowrey, who are tied for the lead.  SPON will cannibalize Glenn voters which many would say he rightfully earned through his years of hard-earned activism and turn them against him, making them into Herdman voters, even as Herdman’s tradition for supporting Big Development goes completely unquestioned.  In a sick twist of irony, SPON may play the most pivotal role in delivering Lowrey a win.

So is SPON really advocating for someone who will help fight Big Development and protect Greenlight?
Or are they simply promoting a friend, despite his long track record of advocating against the very causes that the organization proclaims to protect?
Or is it something else?

It’s definitely not the first one listed.
If it’s the second one listed, then they have lost all integrity.
If it’s the third, then they should speak up and make their position clear so that people don’t presume it’s the second.

What a mess they have made of all of Dat.