CONCORD — For decades, Mary Jo Rossi has been either a friend or a foe to Contra Costa County’s business and political elite, excoriating her opponents, ardently defending her friends and being paid to represent powerful people with long lists of enemies.
So when FBI agents visited Rossi’s Concord home last week — the agency’s latest apparent search of an East Bay political player’s residence — no one seemed to know precisely what the investigation might be about.
Rossi has not responded to calls, emails and text messages since the March 13 raid. Multiple knocks at her front door have gone unanswered.
The feds haven’t said anything about what they might be looking for — standard policy for an agency that in the past two years has built cases of civil-rights violations against Antioch police officers and an alleged bribery plot involving Oakland’s ex-Mayor Sheng Thao. Rossi has not been charged with any crime or wrongdoing.
Unlike the subjects of the FBI’s probe in Oakland, Rossi keeps a lower profile. But her political ties in Concord are vast, spanning police officers unions, politicians and special interests that hold significant influence over the multi-racial working-class suburb.
“She’s a no-holds-barred politician,” Jeff Smith, a former Contra Costa County supervisor, said in an interview. “And politics is a no-holds-barred blood sport when you’re talking about campaigns.”
That ruthless attitude has long helped Rossi build a reputation for instilling fear among colleagues during election season. Past opponents and former clients declined to be interviewed on the record for this story out of fear she would target them politically.
Political consultant Mary Jo Rossi inside her office Tuesday afternoon Oct. 31, 2006. (Dan Rosenstrauch/ Bay Area News Group archive)
The last campaign Rossi supported, a county supervisorial bid by former Pittsburg cop and Antioch Councilman Mike Barbanica, fell short despite abrasive election materials she arranged against his opponent, former Pittsburg Councilwoman Shanelle Scales-Preston, with hundreds of thousands of dollars from the union representing deputy sheriffs.
The campaign flyers mailed to voters’ homes charged that Scales-Preston was responsible for crime running rampant in a city with no chain grocery store — claims that were patently false, Pittsburg’s leaders said in the aftermath.
Rossi acknowledged in a December column for the Clayton Pioneer that others have referred to her as the “Queen of Mean,” but in the same essay she credited a “hard work ethic” and “courageous take-no-prisoners approach” for her brand of politics. Men, she noted, would be referred to by different nicknames.
“In many ways, politics are like sports,” fellow East Bay political consultant Sam Singer said in an interview about the similarities between his style and Rossi’s; he said they both support strong candidates and fair policies. “At the end of every game, there’s a winner and loser,” he said.
“Nothing beats winning,” Singer added. “It’s one of the greatest feelings in the world.”
Rossi, 66, began her career in earnest as a staffer for Willie Brown in the early 1980s, back when the future mayor of San Francisco was the speaker of California’s Assembly — where, as legend goes, he had dubbed himself the elected body’s “Ayatollah.”
There, Rossi learned from Brown and his right-hand man, Richie Ross, to hone a competitive streak that focused aggressively on winning elections at all costs and wielding power over those in positions of influence.
The crash course paid off when Rossi began consulting for election campaigns in Concord’s city races during the 1990s.
Campaign assistant Mary Jo Rossi in Concord, Calif. on Tuesday, June 6, 2006. (Dan Honda/Contra Costa Times/KRT)
She built an unshakeable alliance with the Concord Police Association, which at the time was called the city’s “most potent political force.”
In the ensuing years, Rossi and the officers union targeted candidates with personal attacks or even unfounded allegations of past alcoholism, failure to pay child support and underhanded aliases, the last of which carried racial overtones.
She has partnered with other police associations, including in Oakland, and developed a reputation for throwing public barbs at those who didn’t seek her services.
After a stint living in Rhode Island for family reasons during the 2000s, Rossi returned to Concord and expanded her political ties across the East Bay, especially with police unions in various Contra Costa County jurisdictions.
Rossi has a penchant for backing polarizing candidates, having organized successful campaigns to support Sheriff David Livingston, former District Attorney Mark Peterson and Assessor Gus Kramer.
While working with state Sen. Tim Grayson during his time on the Concord City Council, the two came under political scrutiny when they allegedly mingled with suitors seeking to redevelop the city’s enormous Naval Weapons Station.
An outside investigation found that during the selection process, Rossi had suggested to one prospective development team that it partner with a local firm on the project — a potentially inappropriate overture that garnered criticism.
Later, she was a paid consultant for another development group that included homebuilder Albert Seeno III and was slated to transform the naval property into thousands of new homes — plans that faced widespread opposition from environmentalists and ultimately fell apart.
Outside of politics, Rossi is known for her ability to build strong friendships, even out of rivalries. She grew close to former Concord Councilmember Edi Birsan after organizing mailers that accused him of hiding a more foreign-sounding middle name. And she won the respect of Kramer, despite opposing him in his 2020 run for supervisor.
“That’s what makes her a professional – it’s that she has the ability to work on something that you’re opposed to, or you’re for, and still maintain a professional relationship and a friendship,” Kramer said.
When the coronavirus pandemic struck, Rossi taught friends how to cook over Zoom, at one point giving away spare cooking pans to former Supervisor Karen Mitchoff. She is often spotted at lunches around Concord with a tight-knit circle of political insiders.
But in the end, Rossi always returns to campaigning. The attacks she arranged against Scales-Preston, the county’s newest supervisor, marked her latest salvo on behalf of the Contra Costa Deputy Sheriffs’ Association.
In January, her staunch alliance with Joe Garaventa — one of five siblings warring for control of a family-run East Bay garbage-handling empire — appeared to morph into unfounded allegations of misconduct she leveled against an executive of the waste company, Mt. Diablo Resource Recovery. Company officials denied the charges.
That appears to be the last public maneuver by Rossi before FBI agents visited her home last week — an investigation that remains unexplained. The county’s best-connected power broker has been radio silent ever since.
“I’ve never seen her not follow the rules,” Birsan, her foe turned friend, said in an interview. “That’s how she’s survived for 20-30 years in this industry. You don’t survive that long by making mistakes and being sloppy.”
