Local restaurateur Matthew Oliver announces plans for Rocklin City Council run

Local businessman Matthew Oliver’s next venture could be a run for Rocklin City Council in November, the Placer County restaurateur announced at an event in his Lincoln restaurant this month.

Oliver owns three restaurants — House of Oliver, Oliver’s Brewhouse and Grill and Oliver’s Antler Steakhouse. He is also a senior pastor of the Family Church in Roseville.

Already, Oliver boasts endorsements from Lincoln mayor Holly Andreatta and Rocklin City Councilmen Joe Patterson and Tracy Mendonsa, according to his campaign website, which launched with the announcement on June 16.

In April, Lincoln Councilman William Lauritsen was accused of slapping Oliver during a livestream of California’s 3rd Congressional District candidate forum and was subsequently censured by his fellow council members.

“I realized when I was violently assaulted by a City Council member that this is the product of what happens when no one runs,” Oliver said. “He ran in Lincoln, uncontested. No one else was willing to stand up and represent their community, and that’s the result they got. This is going to most likely be an open seat, and what I want to do is make sure we have good people representing the community.”

Oliver said that he does not identify as a politician, and that he never imagined he would run for office. It was state and national politicians “rubbing in our face the hypocrisy and how much they didn’t care,” he said, that drove him to become involved in local politics for the first time.

For Oliver, the California government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has been especially influential to his shift toward politics. Oliver has pushed back against state-mandated COVID-19 restrictions throughout the pandemic, pledging in November 2020 to keep one of his restaurants open past curfew in protest against health orders.

“The hypocrisy of the pandemic, the hypocrisy of these laws, has absolutely spurred me,” Oliver said. “Every time a business closes, I know in my heart the days, the pain and the tears that go into opening that restaurant or that business.”

If elected, Oliver said, he hopes to focus on aiding small businesses, building partnerships with neighboring city councils and increasing the number of police officers in Rocklin. He also emphasized the importance of directing city attention toward issues of homelessness, education and mental health in the community.

“It’s interesting, the moment you put your foot in the arena, how many people step back in the political realm because you’re an outsider, coming in,” Oliver said. “They’re like, ‘What qualifies you? Who gave you permission to run? Who grants you this opportunity?’ I didn’t know there was a political protocol to get permission to run for a city seat.”

The candidate filing period for November’s election opens July 18, according to the Placer County elections office. Given the Rocklin City Council’s at-large system, where council members represent the city as a whole rather than individual districts, Oliver is not running to represent a specific area of the city.