Posted on 11/11/2005 11:17:49 AM PST by NormsRevenge
The city of San Diego's Ethics Commission has levied the largest fine in its history against San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts for misidentifying contributors to his mayoral bid last year.
The Roberts campaign incorrectly identified at least 30 contributors as homemakers or retired when in fact they were employed. Roughly 900 of Roberts' 3,740 contributors were identified in that fashion, and the campaign is trying to confirm how many actually had occupations.
The commission's executive director called the campaign's efforts to inform voters of the sources of the funds as "woefully inadequate" – a characterization the Roberts campaign did not dispute last night.
The fine – $15,000 – is more than double any previous penalty from the four-year-old commission. It continues an escalation of enforcement by the panel as City Hall has become increasingly mired in financial and political crises.
The attorney for Roberts' campaign, Jim Sutton, said there's no indication that anybody tried to mislead the public. Roberts' campaign agreed to pay the fine amount to get the matter settled and move on, he said.
"The ethics committee explicitly found this investigation did not find any intent to hide information from the public," Sutton said. "This was all totally inadvertent errors by volunteers."
Stacey Fulhorst, the commission's executive director, said the Roberts campaign's "woefully inadequate" record-keeping was misleading to the public.
"By failing to disclose the correct occupation and employer information for many of his contributors, Roberts deprived the public of key information typically used to assess the nature and interests of campaign supporters," she said.
The commission's investigation found the mistakes while reviewing about 70 contributions accepted by Roberts' campaign committee. Campaign finance statements listed people as retired or homemaker when they were actually developers, teachers, bankers, physicians and lawyers.
In all, the campaign listed about 900 of the 3,740 contributors that way. Roberts has agreed to verify the occupations and employer information for those people and amend his campaign statements.
The commission's board unanimously approved the fine in a closed session about 8:30 last night.
Dorothy Leonard, the commission's chairwoman, called the fine "appropriate in light of the carelessness" exhibited by Roberts' campaign committee. She said she hopes officials take notice and become more diligent in their campaign reporting.
Roberts did not return calls seeking comment.
While the investigation revealed the campaign's fundraiser was responsible for gathering contributors' information, Roberts is still responsible for his committee's actions and must pay the fine, Fulhorst said.
Roberts' campaign fundraiser, Karolyn Dorsee, declined to comment and referred calls to Sutton.
Created in 2001, the Ethics Commission investigates complaints related to campaigns, lobbying or conflicts of interest. It can levy fines for violations of the city's ethics laws.
The fine for Roberts did not stem from a complaint. Fulhorst said the violations were discovered during a separate investigation into a different campaign.
Until now, the highest fine had been $6,000 against Hal Sadler, chairman of the Centre City Development Corp. board.
Sadler, whose former architectural firm had a contract to work on the planned downtown library project, was fined for failing to disclose income he received from the firm in 2003 and for voting on three issues related to the library as a director of the city's downtown redevelopment agency in 2003 and 2004.
Other notable figures previously fined by the Ethics Commission include Councilwoman Donna Frye, former Councilman Byron Wear and Clear Channel Outdoor Inc.
Frye was fined $3,000 for improperly noting her fundraising committee's role on three mailers widely circulated as part of her write-in mayoral campaign last fall.
Wear paid a $2,000 fine in 2002 for breaking the 90-day vendor payment law. Wear and his treasurer also paid a $3,500 fine in August for using money from a ballot-measure committee to pay a bill for his mayoral committee.
Clear Channel paid a $5,000 fine for improper activities related to a billboard advertisement posted in 2002 on behalf of Charles Lewis' City Council campaign.
OMG. I know many of the people named in this story and I can't believe they would be this sloppy.
Not that the Union-Trib would tell their readers, but Roberts is a (shhhh!) democrat. If this had been a Republican, the R word would have appeared in every paragraph.
Charles Lewis was one of the three city councilmen indicted over the "stripper-gate" bribery scandal. He died (last year?) before he could be convicted.
The other two, Inzunza and Zucchet, were convicted several months ago, although a federal judge threw out the jury convictions against Zucchet yesterday, dismissing seven counts and ordering a new trial for the other two counts.
No, he was a Republican. The runoff for SD mayor in 2004 was between two Republicans (Dick Murphy and Ron Roberts), which is why Democrat Donna Frye, running as an unallowed write-in candidate in the runoff election, got around 30% of the vote.
Thanks for the correction, heleny.
Had embattled twit Murphy (R) not colluded with surfer chick Frye (D) to produce her write-in candidacy, Roberts (R) would've been mayor and the people of San Diego would not have had to have three mayoral elections in the same one year period! Instead Murphy won narrowly and then resigned. And what do we get? We get two insiders in Frye and Sanders. More of the politics as usual here in America's Sleazy City.
I notice the campaign is being fined when it seems the people who donated would've had to provide the campaign false or misleading donor information.
Now, when is the ethics commission going to come down on the pro-Frye "independent expenditures" from the union goons which never got reported?
Never. She's a Democrat, and the money came from the big Unions.
And don't expect Frye or anyone else to account for those expenditures, either.
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