Marin Republicans file dueling suits amid party turmoil

A conflict over an office lease is at the center of two lawsuits involving current and former members of the Marin County Republican Central Committee.

The group works to register Republican voters and promote party candidates. In September, suspended committee members Francis Drouillard and William McLaughlin filed a small claims suit in Marin County Superior Court naming their former organization as a defendant.

Both accuse committee chair John Wilkinson of spending more than $8,700 in committee funds for the first year of a San Rafael office lease without the organization's authorization in 2017, when he was treasurer, according to the suit. The suit also names former committee chair Kernan Jang as a defendant.

The plaintiffs allege that Wilkinson defrauded the committee and are demanding that he pay it restitution.

“We're not in it for the money, we want the money returned,” Drouillard said.

Joining them in the suit are former committee member John Turnacliff and former alternate member Ronald Elijah.

McLaughlin said the office lease was brought to their attention after Wilkinson told them at a subcommittee meeting that the central committee was having financial issues in renewing the lease.

Drouillard said that the plaintiffs filed the suit after spending more than a year trying to get documents from committee executives on the lease in question. They did not receive information on the lease until November 2022, he said.

After reviewing the documents, they determined that Wilkinson signed the office lease “without the necessary authority” from the central committee and was therefore responsible for the lease expense under committee bylaws, according to the suit.

McLaughlin, in an interview, alleged that the office space was used as a business address for the central committee's current vice chair, Tom Montgomery, who now works in political campaign finance services. The lawsuit alleges that Montgomery and the other defendants “hid the lease” from other committee members.

“We tried over a year to get information about this lease,” Drouillard said. “We were insulted, we were obstructed, we were thrown off the committee.”

McLaughlin, Drouillard and Elijah were suspended from the central committee as tension mounted over the disputed office lease.

Montgomery declined to comment. Jonathan Pickett, a lawyer for Wilkinson and Jang, said his clients declined to comment.

In a court hearing Wednesday , Wilkinson said the committee voted to remove the