MERCURIO: Board of Supervisors hypocrisy
Aug. 13, 2012
By RICK MERCURIO
Property rights. Taxpayer protection. Fairness.
Supervisors Bill Horn, Ron Roberts and Greg Cox tout these principles, but recent actions show hypocrisy at its worst.
The three supes voted to give land speculators a free ride to trash the new general plan. What would be free to the developers may cost us taxpayers $1.56 million.
It is a long, sordid story, and the shameful saga continues. The county's general plan was adopted a year ago after $16 million had been spent on many years of hearings, studies, and professional planning. Difficult compromises were reached among builders, environmentalists, and planners. The plan encompassed "smart growth" concepts, which encourage more density in town centers and lower density in outlying areas.
Horn cast the lone dissenting vote, but didn't accept his defeat.
Before the ink was dry, Horn, who is tied tightly to outside developers, began lobbying his fellow supervisors to make exceptions to the new zoning in the plan. Roberts and Cox agreed, asking the professional planners to magically manipulate the plan's guiding principles in order to accommodate speculators.
Horn's justification was that "downzoning" deprived property owners of their development rights. Of course, the properties that had received lower zoning were largely unbuildable, requiring taxpayer subsidized infrastructure in the backcountry.
More significantly, the two biggest developments affected ---- Merriam Mountains and Accretive ---- were not downzoned at all. To the contrary: Under the previous general plan, these rugged, rural properties were properly zoned for a fraction of the houses that the developers wanted.
The property rights that Horn, Roberts and Cox have hurt are those of existing residents, whose lifestyle and choice of location was premised on the county living up to its general plan.
How can Horn justify using taxpayer dollars to hand over an enormous gift of increased density, and therefore profits, to his developer buddies?
As for taxpayer protection, on June 20 Roberts did an end run. Normally, landowners must pay their own costs when seeking an amendment to the general plan. The public had been advised via the Agenda that a super-majority of four votes would be required to increase the current budget to approve funds to trump the new General Plan.
When Roberts realized that Pam Slater-Price and Dianne Jacob would not go along with his scheme, he left the meeting while public testimony was still in progress, and quietly directed staff to add the $1.56 million to the budget. He knew that this maneuver would only require three votes.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Letting Companies Settle While Denying Guilt Reconsidered by F.T.C.
Letting Companies Settle While Denying Guilt Reconsidered by F.T.C.
By EDWARD WYATT
New York Times
August 10, 2012
The Federal Trade Commission finished a settlement with Facebook on Friday over allegations that the company had violated its privacy policy, and in the process said it would re-examine its own practice of allowing companies to settle charges of wrongdoing while denying that they had done anything wrong.
J. Thomas Rosch, an F.T.C. commissioner, dissented from the Facebook settlement.
The F.T.C.’s turnabout came in response to a blistering dissent from the Facebook settlement by one commissioner, J. Thomas Rosch, who said that allowing the company to deny charges it was agreeing to settle undermined the commission’s authority.
In November, the F.T.C. said that Facebook had deceived consumers by telling them that their personal information would be kept private, while “repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.”
The commission voted 3-1, with one abstention, to impose a 20-year consent order requiring Facebook to protect its users’ privacy. The company agreed to give consumers clear and prominent notice and to obtain their express consent before revealing information beyond their previously stated privacy settings, to maintain a comprehensive program to safeguard private information, and to obtain an independent privacy audit every two years...
By EDWARD WYATT
New York Times
August 10, 2012
The Federal Trade Commission finished a settlement with Facebook on Friday over allegations that the company had violated its privacy policy, and in the process said it would re-examine its own practice of allowing companies to settle charges of wrongdoing while denying that they had done anything wrong.
J. Thomas Rosch, an F.T.C. commissioner, dissented from the Facebook settlement.
The F.T.C.’s turnabout came in response to a blistering dissent from the Facebook settlement by one commissioner, J. Thomas Rosch, who said that allowing the company to deny charges it was agreeing to settle undermined the commission’s authority.
In November, the F.T.C. said that Facebook had deceived consumers by telling them that their personal information would be kept private, while “repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.”
The commission voted 3-1, with one abstention, to impose a 20-year consent order requiring Facebook to protect its users’ privacy. The company agreed to give consumers clear and prominent notice and to obtain their express consent before revealing information beyond their previously stated privacy settings, to maintain a comprehensive program to safeguard private information, and to obtain an independent privacy audit every two years...
Saturday, July 28, 2012
CREED v. Chula Vista, Groundbreaking greenhouse gas case in California
Groundbreaking greenhouse gas case in California
Amanda Monchamp and Melanie Sengupta
Holland & Knight LLP
October 26 2011
Supreme Court Denies Review and Depublication of Case Establishing Significance Thresholds for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under CEQA
On October 19, 2011, the California Supreme Court denied the petition for review and requests for depublication of the Court of Appeal, Fourth District’s decision in Citizens for Responsible Equitable Environmental Development v. City of Chula Vista (2011) 197 Cal.App.4th 327 (CREED).
CREED captured great attention because of the only four published cases that address climate change, it is the first one to address the pivotal issue of a lead agency’s analysis of significance thresholds for greenhouse gas emissions under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). CREED, along with several notable environmental advocacy groups and the Attorney General of the State of California, sought review as well as depublication to overturn the Court of Appeal’s sanctioning of a lead agency’s use of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) as the significance threshold to assess greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts under CEQA. The critical take-away of the CREED decision is that the lead agency has the discretion to set a significance threshold, and it is proper to use AB 32 and the “business as usual” methodology for assessing the significance of impacts from greenhouse gas emissions.
City's "Business-As-Usual" Threshold OK For Evaluating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under CEQA
Jeffrey W. Forrest
Ashley T. Hirano
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP - San Diego Office
July 20, 2011
Citizens for Responsible Equitable Environmental Development ("CREED") v. City of Chula Vista, Docket No. D05779
In this clean-tech era, Citizens for Responsible Equitable Environmental Development ("CREED") v. City of Chula Vista marks only the third time that a court has published a case addressing greenhouse gases in California. In CREED, the City of Chula Vista certified a mitigated negative declaration ("MND") and approved development permits for a project that would demolish an existing Target store, a smog check facility, and a small market, and construct in its place a larger Target store. CREED filed suit, claiming that CEQA required the City to certify a full environmental impact report because the project would have a significant environmental impact on hazardous materials, air quality, particulate matter and ozone, and greenhouse gas emissions. While the court held that an EIR was likely required for other reasons, the court also held that, to demonstrate the project’s consistency with the GHG emissions reduction goals established by California's "Global Warming Solutions Act" (AB 32), the City had properly relied upon evidence the project’s emissions were below the GHG threshold of significance. The City established this threshold of significance using what has become known as the "Business-As-Usual" ("BAU") method. The court also held that the City properly relied on the thresholds of significance in the South Coast Air Quality Management District's CEQA Air Quality Handbook to conclude that the project's air quality impacts (particulate matter and ozone) were not cumulatively considerable even though the San Diego air basin is in non-attainment for particulate matter pollution.
...Finally, even though the percentage reduction from BAU necessary to meet AB 32's emissions reduction target has varied from time to time, agency to agency, and report to report, this court's decision indicates that when a public agency chooses to rely on a particular source's BAU percentage from a particular expert or agency report, it is important for the lead agency to require the project to meet at least that specific percentage if the lead agency's purpose is to demonstrate there is evidence the project is consistent with AB 32's reduction targets. To require less breaks the logical chain in the threshold and normally would require both a finding that further mitigation was infeasible and a statement of overriding considerations. Here, the permittee and the City were fortunate that the air quality report demonstrated that the project would achieve and exceed the report's stated 25 percent BAU standard.
Amanda Monchamp and Melanie Sengupta
Holland & Knight LLP
October 26 2011
Supreme Court Denies Review and Depublication of Case Establishing Significance Thresholds for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under CEQA
On October 19, 2011, the California Supreme Court denied the petition for review and requests for depublication of the Court of Appeal, Fourth District’s decision in Citizens for Responsible Equitable Environmental Development v. City of Chula Vista (2011) 197 Cal.App.4th 327 (CREED).
CREED captured great attention because of the only four published cases that address climate change, it is the first one to address the pivotal issue of a lead agency’s analysis of significance thresholds for greenhouse gas emissions under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). CREED, along with several notable environmental advocacy groups and the Attorney General of the State of California, sought review as well as depublication to overturn the Court of Appeal’s sanctioning of a lead agency’s use of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) as the significance threshold to assess greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts under CEQA. The critical take-away of the CREED decision is that the lead agency has the discretion to set a significance threshold, and it is proper to use AB 32 and the “business as usual” methodology for assessing the significance of impacts from greenhouse gas emissions.
City's "Business-As-Usual" Threshold OK For Evaluating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under CEQA
Jeffrey W. Forrest
Ashley T. Hirano
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP - San Diego Office
July 20, 2011
Citizens for Responsible Equitable Environmental Development ("CREED") v. City of Chula Vista, Docket No. D05779
In this clean-tech era, Citizens for Responsible Equitable Environmental Development ("CREED") v. City of Chula Vista marks only the third time that a court has published a case addressing greenhouse gases in California. In CREED, the City of Chula Vista certified a mitigated negative declaration ("MND") and approved development permits for a project that would demolish an existing Target store, a smog check facility, and a small market, and construct in its place a larger Target store. CREED filed suit, claiming that CEQA required the City to certify a full environmental impact report because the project would have a significant environmental impact on hazardous materials, air quality, particulate matter and ozone, and greenhouse gas emissions. While the court held that an EIR was likely required for other reasons, the court also held that, to demonstrate the project’s consistency with the GHG emissions reduction goals established by California's "Global Warming Solutions Act" (AB 32), the City had properly relied upon evidence the project’s emissions were below the GHG threshold of significance. The City established this threshold of significance using what has become known as the "Business-As-Usual" ("BAU") method. The court also held that the City properly relied on the thresholds of significance in the South Coast Air Quality Management District's CEQA Air Quality Handbook to conclude that the project's air quality impacts (particulate matter and ozone) were not cumulatively considerable even though the San Diego air basin is in non-attainment for particulate matter pollution.
...Finally, even though the percentage reduction from BAU necessary to meet AB 32's emissions reduction target has varied from time to time, agency to agency, and report to report, this court's decision indicates that when a public agency chooses to rely on a particular source's BAU percentage from a particular expert or agency report, it is important for the lead agency to require the project to meet at least that specific percentage if the lead agency's purpose is to demonstrate there is evidence the project is consistent with AB 32's reduction targets. To require less breaks the logical chain in the threshold and normally would require both a finding that further mitigation was infeasible and a statement of overriding considerations. Here, the permittee and the City were fortunate that the air quality report demonstrated that the project would achieve and exceed the report's stated 25 percent BAU standard.
Environmental Review Suffers Setbacks, Divides Officials
Environmental Review Suffers Setbacks, Divides Officials
By EVAN McLAUGHLIN
Voice of San Diego
May 4, 2007
Local environmentalists have made strides in several recent lawsuits against the city of San Diego over its supervision of local development, with the city's top two elected officials consistently at odds over a key environmental safeguard.
Recent legal setbacks have drawn scrutiny to an issue that has already proved divisive at City Hall. In the last two months, the city has lost or settled four cases, forcing it to more thoroughly study the impacts of growth and development on surrounding communities.
The lawsuits contend the city did not properly measure the impacts of certain development plans: a blueprint to triple downtown's residential population over the next two decades; the planned Regents Road Bridge in University City; a Jewish student center in La Jolla; and thousands of condo conversions that have been proposed citywide.
At the heart of the lawsuits is the city's alleged inability to accurately and thoroughly gauge the effect those projects would have on the nearby environment, such as water resources, animal life, air quality, traffic or the displacement of residents.
"It's a continuation of 'let's get away with the bare minimum, and if the public doesn't like it, just sue us,'" Councilwoman Donna Frye said.
In each of the four instances, the lawsuits prompted concessions by the city, ranging from paying the environmentalists' attorney fees to taking on further work that will delay the building plans at the center of the complaints.
Beyond their cost to the city, the legal setbacks are demonstrative of the very extraordinary dynamics that sprout from these land-use decisions. The city's process for studying the impacts development projects have on traffic, air quality and other facets of the environment has driven an ideological wedge between Mayor Jerry Sanders and City Attorney Mike Aguirre.
"It's a very awkward situation as sometimes the city attorney's advice comes very late in the process or it comes as political advice, not legal," Sanders said. The reviews are initiated by the development staff of Sanders, an ally of local real estate developers, and are regularly approved by the City Council. But the city's analyses are also subject to the scrutiny by Aguirre, who often sides with environmentalists.
Also, the environmental reviews seem to have blurred the line between policy and law, as both Sanders' staff and Aguirre have tried to make the case for more control over the reviews.
With both of those conflicts at work, the city's efforts to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, have produced some of the more contentious instances of infighting within the city camp. As a result, the city has sent mixed messages about its interpretation of the law, as well as who's to fault over its related blunders.
The recent legal developments could foreshadow the impending challenge to the environmental study on the controversial Navy Broadway Complex, which was crafted in 1990. The setbacks may also prompt the city to step up its forthcoming environmental report on the city's general plan update, which will outline San Diego's growth citywide.
Aguirre said the city's inability to wholly defend the lawsuits indicates the weakness of its environmental policies.
"There's been a real policy in the past of looking at compliance with the law as a policy choice, and that has been so thoroughly discredited now," said Aguirre, referring to the recent courtroom outcomes.
A Thin Line Between Policy and Law
Every development project reviewed by the city undergoes a CEQA review so the public and policy makers know its impacts. The Mayor's Office supervises the staff that initially decides the scope and scale of an environmental review.
In his role as the city's lawyer, Aguirre is tasked with advising the city on CEQA issues when they reach the courtroom. But he has also made efforts to influence the city to back off the courses of action suggested by Sanders' development staff by publicly issuing legal opinions that counter the mayor.
In November 2005, Aguirre issued an opinion backing up the claims by one environmental group that the city needed to conduct a comprehensive study of the impacts condo conversions had on traffic, parking and the displacement of former renters on the San Diego landscape. The opinion marked a drastic change from the city's policy of not spending time or money on a study.
Jim Waring, the top development aide for Sanders, partially attributed the settlement of the condo-conversion case to Aguirre's proclamation, claiming it fueled Citizens for Responsible Equitable Environmental Development's challenge.
"The plaintiffs in that case cited the city attorney letter in their complaint," Waring said. "It was highly unusual, and it clearly put the city in a difficult position in defending the case."
The city concluded its fight against the condo conversion challenge March 27, when the City Council preliminarily agreed to settle. In the settlement, which has not gained final approval, the city agreed to limit the conversion of housing units to 1,000 per year, issue an annual report on the developments, and pay C.R.E.E.D. $75,000.
Waring criticized Aguirre's handling of the environmental lawsuits, saying his legal advice "reflects his political bent."
"The city attorney doesn't like being an attorney. He wants to make policy," he added.
On the contrary, environmental advocates are skeptical of the Sanders administration, saying they believe his political alliance with the building industry now plays a larger role under the new strong-mayor form of government. All city departments, including the Development Services Department, now report to the mayor, hypothetically putting the influence over the CEQA decisions at his disposal.
Before, the mayor represented just one of the nine City Council votes.
"It seems to me that decisions are being made upon politics and the environmental review is being skewed to align with a predetermined outcome," said Coast Law Group attorney Marco Gonzalez, who represented the plaintiffs in the cases involving the downtown, Regents Road Bridge and La Jolla student center.
Gonzalez said the city is missing warning signs along the way, an indication that they could be bowing to political influence. He pointed to the Regents Road Bridge lawsuit, which challenged the environmental study of spanning Rose Canyon with a street that would connect the two ends of University City. Gonzalez said red flags were raised by Aguirre, members of the public, planning commissioners and the local planning group.
"And for whatever reason, both the mayor and the council approved this project," he said.
Frye, who has regularly voted against the mayor's determinations, said the she didn't think the city's environmental review process is any worse than before strong-mayor. She attributed the recent success of CEQA challenges to a more active opposition. "I think where the changes are coming is that the communities are becoming more organized and are better able to raise money to challenge projects," Frye said.
By EVAN McLAUGHLIN
Voice of San Diego
May 4, 2007
Local environmentalists have made strides in several recent lawsuits against the city of San Diego over its supervision of local development, with the city's top two elected officials consistently at odds over a key environmental safeguard.
Recent legal setbacks have drawn scrutiny to an issue that has already proved divisive at City Hall. In the last two months, the city has lost or settled four cases, forcing it to more thoroughly study the impacts of growth and development on surrounding communities.
The lawsuits contend the city did not properly measure the impacts of certain development plans: a blueprint to triple downtown's residential population over the next two decades; the planned Regents Road Bridge in University City; a Jewish student center in La Jolla; and thousands of condo conversions that have been proposed citywide.
At the heart of the lawsuits is the city's alleged inability to accurately and thoroughly gauge the effect those projects would have on the nearby environment, such as water resources, animal life, air quality, traffic or the displacement of residents.
"It's a continuation of 'let's get away with the bare minimum, and if the public doesn't like it, just sue us,'" Councilwoman Donna Frye said.
In each of the four instances, the lawsuits prompted concessions by the city, ranging from paying the environmentalists' attorney fees to taking on further work that will delay the building plans at the center of the complaints.
Beyond their cost to the city, the legal setbacks are demonstrative of the very extraordinary dynamics that sprout from these land-use decisions. The city's process for studying the impacts development projects have on traffic, air quality and other facets of the environment has driven an ideological wedge between Mayor Jerry Sanders and City Attorney Mike Aguirre.
"It's a very awkward situation as sometimes the city attorney's advice comes very late in the process or it comes as political advice, not legal," Sanders said. The reviews are initiated by the development staff of Sanders, an ally of local real estate developers, and are regularly approved by the City Council. But the city's analyses are also subject to the scrutiny by Aguirre, who often sides with environmentalists.
Also, the environmental reviews seem to have blurred the line between policy and law, as both Sanders' staff and Aguirre have tried to make the case for more control over the reviews.
With both of those conflicts at work, the city's efforts to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, have produced some of the more contentious instances of infighting within the city camp. As a result, the city has sent mixed messages about its interpretation of the law, as well as who's to fault over its related blunders.
The recent legal developments could foreshadow the impending challenge to the environmental study on the controversial Navy Broadway Complex, which was crafted in 1990. The setbacks may also prompt the city to step up its forthcoming environmental report on the city's general plan update, which will outline San Diego's growth citywide.
Aguirre said the city's inability to wholly defend the lawsuits indicates the weakness of its environmental policies.
"There's been a real policy in the past of looking at compliance with the law as a policy choice, and that has been so thoroughly discredited now," said Aguirre, referring to the recent courtroom outcomes.
A Thin Line Between Policy and Law
Every development project reviewed by the city undergoes a CEQA review so the public and policy makers know its impacts. The Mayor's Office supervises the staff that initially decides the scope and scale of an environmental review.
In his role as the city's lawyer, Aguirre is tasked with advising the city on CEQA issues when they reach the courtroom. But he has also made efforts to influence the city to back off the courses of action suggested by Sanders' development staff by publicly issuing legal opinions that counter the mayor.
In November 2005, Aguirre issued an opinion backing up the claims by one environmental group that the city needed to conduct a comprehensive study of the impacts condo conversions had on traffic, parking and the displacement of former renters on the San Diego landscape. The opinion marked a drastic change from the city's policy of not spending time or money on a study.
Jim Waring, the top development aide for Sanders, partially attributed the settlement of the condo-conversion case to Aguirre's proclamation, claiming it fueled Citizens for Responsible Equitable Environmental Development's challenge.
"The plaintiffs in that case cited the city attorney letter in their complaint," Waring said. "It was highly unusual, and it clearly put the city in a difficult position in defending the case."
The city concluded its fight against the condo conversion challenge March 27, when the City Council preliminarily agreed to settle. In the settlement, which has not gained final approval, the city agreed to limit the conversion of housing units to 1,000 per year, issue an annual report on the developments, and pay C.R.E.E.D. $75,000.
Waring criticized Aguirre's handling of the environmental lawsuits, saying his legal advice "reflects his political bent."
"The city attorney doesn't like being an attorney. He wants to make policy," he added.
On the contrary, environmental advocates are skeptical of the Sanders administration, saying they believe his political alliance with the building industry now plays a larger role under the new strong-mayor form of government. All city departments, including the Development Services Department, now report to the mayor, hypothetically putting the influence over the CEQA decisions at his disposal.
Before, the mayor represented just one of the nine City Council votes.
"It seems to me that decisions are being made upon politics and the environmental review is being skewed to align with a predetermined outcome," said Coast Law Group attorney Marco Gonzalez, who represented the plaintiffs in the cases involving the downtown, Regents Road Bridge and La Jolla student center.
Gonzalez said the city is missing warning signs along the way, an indication that they could be bowing to political influence. He pointed to the Regents Road Bridge lawsuit, which challenged the environmental study of spanning Rose Canyon with a street that would connect the two ends of University City. Gonzalez said red flags were raised by Aguirre, members of the public, planning commissioners and the local planning group.
"And for whatever reason, both the mayor and the council approved this project," he said.
Frye, who has regularly voted against the mayor's determinations, said the she didn't think the city's environmental review process is any worse than before strong-mayor. She attributed the recent success of CEQA challenges to a more active opposition. "I think where the changes are coming is that the communities are becoming more organized and are better able to raise money to challenge projects," Frye said.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Parks boss steps down over secret $54 million hidden from budget makers
Obviously, we need more transparency in government.
Parks boss steps down over secret funds
The state discovered $54 million hidden from budget makers
By Ashly McGlone and Matt Clark
UT-SD
July 20, 2012
The discovery of $54 million stashed away in the state parks department has resulted in the resignation of the agency’s director and the firing of a top assistant.
The state is launching an agencywide audit of the parks department — and is reviewing all 560 special funds in the state budget, which hold upwards of $33.4 billion.
...“I am floored,” said Rick Barclay, chairman of the Friends of Palomar Mountain State Park, a group that spent the last year gathering donations to insure that one of the most popular local state parks in the county would remain open. “If that money really was there and could have been used to keep parks open, then we will all be scratching our heads wondering, why did we go through all that.”
Some 70 parks were threatened with closure this year in anticipation of $22 million in cuts to the department’s $364 million operating budget.
In late June the parks department announced that, at least for the time being, enough money had been found to keep all 70 parks open. Those included the San Pasqual Historic Battlefield museum near the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and two large state recreation areas in Imperial County: Salton Sea and Picacho on the Colorado River.
Bill Meister, president of the nonprofit Sea and Desert Interpretive Association which has been fighting to keep the Salton Sea State Recreation Area open, said he was shocked by the news.
“An awful lot of people — employees, lovers of the park — have had a lot of sleepless nights not knowing if they were going to have jobs or if the park would close,” he said. “We’ll have to see how this all plays out, but it doesn’t look good.”
State investigators in January began looking into a secret $271,000 vacation cashout program for parks staffers. Officials tapped the department’s new deputy director of administrative services, Aaron Robertson, to examine agency finances. He is credited with finding the hidden funds.
State investigators have determined that nearly $20.4 million, or 39 percent of the money in the State Parks and Recreation Fund, was not disclosed to state budget officials. Nearly $33.5 million, or 20 percent, of the money in the parks’ Off Highway Vehicle Fund was also not reported. Both accounts subsist on revenue from park visitor fees.
The finance department and the attorney general are reviewing whether criminal activity was involved in hiding the assets. Officials said preliminary findings suggest the reporting errors date back at least 12 years.
Ruth Coleman, state parks director for the last eight years, resigned Thursday, even as she said she had no knowledge of the hidden funds.
“I have always taken the public trust to heart and honored it and I am personally appalled to learn that our documents were not accurate,” Coleman wrote in her resignation letter to the governor.
The state discovered $54 million hidden from budget makers
By Ashly McGlone and Matt Clark
UT-SD
July 20, 2012
The discovery of $54 million stashed away in the state parks department has resulted in the resignation of the agency’s director and the firing of a top assistant.
The state is launching an agencywide audit of the parks department — and is reviewing all 560 special funds in the state budget, which hold upwards of $33.4 billion.
...“I am floored,” said Rick Barclay, chairman of the Friends of Palomar Mountain State Park, a group that spent the last year gathering donations to insure that one of the most popular local state parks in the county would remain open. “If that money really was there and could have been used to keep parks open, then we will all be scratching our heads wondering, why did we go through all that.”
Some 70 parks were threatened with closure this year in anticipation of $22 million in cuts to the department’s $364 million operating budget.
In late June the parks department announced that, at least for the time being, enough money had been found to keep all 70 parks open. Those included the San Pasqual Historic Battlefield museum near the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and two large state recreation areas in Imperial County: Salton Sea and Picacho on the Colorado River.
Bill Meister, president of the nonprofit Sea and Desert Interpretive Association which has been fighting to keep the Salton Sea State Recreation Area open, said he was shocked by the news.
“An awful lot of people — employees, lovers of the park — have had a lot of sleepless nights not knowing if they were going to have jobs or if the park would close,” he said. “We’ll have to see how this all plays out, but it doesn’t look good.”
State investigators in January began looking into a secret $271,000 vacation cashout program for parks staffers. Officials tapped the department’s new deputy director of administrative services, Aaron Robertson, to examine agency finances. He is credited with finding the hidden funds.
State investigators have determined that nearly $20.4 million, or 39 percent of the money in the State Parks and Recreation Fund, was not disclosed to state budget officials. Nearly $33.5 million, or 20 percent, of the money in the parks’ Off Highway Vehicle Fund was also not reported. Both accounts subsist on revenue from park visitor fees.
The finance department and the attorney general are reviewing whether criminal activity was involved in hiding the assets. Officials said preliminary findings suggest the reporting errors date back at least 12 years.
Ruth Coleman, state parks director for the last eight years, resigned Thursday, even as she said she had no knowledge of the hidden funds.
“I have always taken the public trust to heart and honored it and I am personally appalled to learn that our documents were not accurate,” Coleman wrote in her resignation letter to the governor.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
Is a marine morally obliged to remain a Republican for life?
A Newspaper Frets Over Fletcher and the GOP Brand
May 3, 2012
By Scott Lewis
Voice of San Diego
On Sunday, U-T San Diego implied in an editorial that Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher's integrity as a Marine was in question after he abandoned the Republican Party in the middle of his run for mayor.
While that point seemed to get the most attention in the discussion the editorial provoked, it was the part right before that I found most intriguing (emphasis added):
And in leaving the Republican Party as he did, criticizing it as equally to blame for political dysfunction, he essentially left his colleagues behind, harming Republicans running for office. Does this demonstrate a Marine’s loyalty?
I asked U-T editorial page editor Bill Osborne, over Twitter, how Fletcher was hurting other local Republican candidates. His answer: "... the editorial was saying he damaged the GOP brand."
The paper also says he's got some questions to answer.
Fletcher has decided to hit the U-T back, saying he already answered them in an interview shortly after leaving the party.
His campaign released the audio and a transcript of a March 29 on-the-record interview he did with the editorial board. Here's a link to the transcript of it, produced by Fletcher's campaign team. And here's audio (mp3).
The conversation opens a window into the newspaper's worry about the Republican Party and a broader confusion in the community between party and principle.
As people discuss Fletcher's defection from the party, these two concepts seem to have become interchangeable. They are not.
And if we can understand them better, we might be able to understand what's going on.
Take this question from U-T editor Jeff Light to Fletcher during the interview:
I think this whole thing is interesting. Let me ask you this. I think you’ve put us sort of in a tough position. We as an editorial board do not want to see Bob Filner get through to the general election, because the environment around the general election is much more favorable to Bob Filner. So we certainly want to keep that from happening. On the other hand, some of the things you said, it was a little more than just 'hey I just want to be an independent voice.' And I think this was what Pete Wilson was reacting to. It was sort of that message that 'well, the Republican Party is bad.' How can we get behind you given that we've got a lot of Republican backing and Republican tradition? I think that puts us in a tough position.
Fletcher's response:
Well I think you’ve got to go and look at what I actually said. And what I said is that I’m rejecting the partisan environment of today. People say ‘well did you ever consider becoming a Democrat.’ I didn’t. Because I think there’s unwillingness on that side as well to step out and solve problems, whether we’re talking about pensions or managed competition or some of these other types of issues.
And the other thing is that there’s not one position of mine that’s changed. There’s not one issue that’s changed. There’s not one principle that’s changed. The only thing that’s changed is the party label. And folks that have a tremendous amount of consternation in the move, it’s more of an adherence to that label than to what I represent and what I’ve been. I’m the exact same person today as I was yesterday as I was the day before.
Many folks have struggled with this point and say things like "But he's still a Republican! His wife worked for George W. Bush!" Even Tony Krvaric, the chairman of the San Diego County Republican Party, put it this way in a recent U-T story: "This is somebody who was a partisan Republican and is trying to sell himself as something different."
Actually, a partisan, with its strict definition, is exactly what he no longer is.
A party in this country is a collection of individuals and interests who organize together in order to gain power. Here, our parties are not ideologically pure.
What Fletcher was doing was not saying he was becoming more liberal or more like the Democratic Party. What he was just saying was that he was sick of working with the Republican Party and trying to please them.
And what the U-T appears to be saying, in many, many words, is that it is now partisan above other considerations. I know, it's not exactly news that the U-T prefers Republicans. But it wasn't that long ago that the paper endorsed a Democrat named Mike Aguirre for city attorney. It has endorsed others.
Fealty to the GOP would be a new litmus test for support from the paper.
Liberals who are suspicious that Fletcher has not actually become more progressive in the last two months should be. He insists time and time again, in this extraordinary discussion with the U-T, that he has not changed his positions...
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Port execs eat well, fly first class: Port execs eat well, fly first class
Port execs eat well, fly first class
Amid cuts, travel budget is $713,400, up from $416,100 a year ago
Jeff McDonald
March 24, 2012
Chairman Lou Smith flies first class when he travels on port business. Last March, at a top steakhouse in Washington, D.C., he ordered a $49 roast prime rib for dinner and the Port of San Diego picked up the tab.
Commissioners Dan Malcolm, Ann Moore and Robert “Dukie” Valderrama also took first-class flights last year - to Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Costa Rica, respectively. Valderrama visited Hawaii each of the past two years.
Commissioner Bob Nelson traveled first class from San Diego to San Francisco on his way to Europe in May and switched to business class on the ensuing flights to Frankfurt, Germany and Bilbao, Spain.
Nelson, a board member of the San Diego Middle Class Taxpayers Association, billed the port more than $18,400 for the two-week trade mission to Europe, including $308 for international phone calls and text messages and $126 for laundry...
Amid cuts, travel budget is $713,400, up from $416,100 a year ago
Jeff McDonald
March 24, 2012
Chairman Lou Smith flies first class when he travels on port business. Last March, at a top steakhouse in Washington, D.C., he ordered a $49 roast prime rib for dinner and the Port of San Diego picked up the tab.
Commissioners Dan Malcolm, Ann Moore and Robert “Dukie” Valderrama also took first-class flights last year - to Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Costa Rica, respectively. Valderrama visited Hawaii each of the past two years.
Commissioner Bob Nelson traveled first class from San Diego to San Francisco on his way to Europe in May and switched to business class on the ensuing flights to Frankfurt, Germany and Bilbao, Spain.
Nelson, a board member of the San Diego Middle Class Taxpayers Association, billed the port more than $18,400 for the two-week trade mission to Europe, including $308 for international phone calls and text messages and $126 for laundry...
Thursday, March 22, 2012
A Big Water Fight and a "Secret Society"
I suspect that the people in power at Metropolitan Water District aren't doing this simply because they want their personal water bills to be lower. There must be some benefit to them that is not readily apparent.
Five Takeaways from a Big Water Fight
March 21, 2012
By Rob Davis
Voice of San Diego
...If you're a public official and you're going to call your exclusive group something secret, you'd better not do it by email.
A group of 20 water agencies that are members of Metropolitan has been meeting and discussing the County Water Authority's lawsuit and even hired a former Metropolitan general manager, Ron Gastelum, as a consultant. Their meeting agendas and many emails the authority released blandly refer to the group as the "Member Agency Managers MWD Working Group."
But in one email the County Water Authority obtained, a public works official for the city of Beverly Hills, an agency participating in the effort, calls the group "The Secret Society."
"It's what I briefed you about from the last Secret Society Meeting," the official, Chris Theisen, says in the email. "Ron Gastelum is the former [Metropolitan] CEO that the Secret Society hired as an advisor."
Metropolitan has said the meetings aren't secret. But they're not open to the public or to the County Water Authority...
Five Takeaways from a Big Water Fight
March 21, 2012
By Rob Davis
Voice of San Diego
...If you're a public official and you're going to call your exclusive group something secret, you'd better not do it by email.
A group of 20 water agencies that are members of Metropolitan has been meeting and discussing the County Water Authority's lawsuit and even hired a former Metropolitan general manager, Ron Gastelum, as a consultant. Their meeting agendas and many emails the authority released blandly refer to the group as the "Member Agency Managers MWD Working Group."
But in one email the County Water Authority obtained, a public works official for the city of Beverly Hills, an agency participating in the effort, calls the group "The Secret Society."
"It's what I briefed you about from the last Secret Society Meeting," the official, Chris Theisen, says in the email. "Ron Gastelum is the former [Metropolitan] CEO that the Secret Society hired as an advisor."
Metropolitan has said the meetings aren't secret. But they're not open to the public or to the County Water Authority...
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Study: Statehouses at High Risk for Corruption
Study: Statehouses at High Risk for Corruption
By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press
March 19, 2012 (AP)
State governments lack transparency and accountability to citizens, and remain at high risk for corruption, according to a new study of all 50 statehouses.
Not a single state received an A in the State Integrity Investigation ranking, a product of the Center for Public Integrity, Public Radio International and Global Integrity.
"It's telling that no state received an overall grade of A," said Caitlin Ginley, a staff writer for the Center for Public Integrity and a project manager on the study. "In every state, there's room to improve the ethics laws, the level of transparency on government proceedings, the disclosure of information, and — most importantly — the oversight of these laws.
"One of the major findings was that even when ethics laws are passed, they are difficult to enforce and lack meaningful consequences for violators."
Only five states got rankings of B, led by a surprising recipient: New Jersey. It got a B-plus, with an overall score of 87 out of a possible 100.
Despite — or perhaps because of — recent corruption scandals, New Jersey got the top ranking because of steps it took to combat corruption, including tough ethics and anti-corruption laws it adopted in response.
New Jersey has a colorful tradition of corruption in government, including a U.S. congressman taking a bribe from an FBI agent posing as a wealthy Arab sheik, a Jersey shore councilman caught on tape bragging to an undercover officer that he would never get caught because "I could smell a cop a mile away," and a decade-long string of 150 state and local officials who were either convicted or pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges. The cases ranged from Motor Vehicle Commission employees selling fraudulent licenses to politicians peddling their influence for kickbacks.
Cases stemming from the 2009 roundup of 44 people in what was dubbed by the feds as "Operation Bid-Rig" are still working their way through the courts.
But that history of corruption also led to strong reforms designed to prevent it in the future. Among them was a law prohibiting campaign contributions by most firms doing business with the state.
"It's nice to be recognized for being ahead of the curve," said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Gov. Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney who prosecuted many of the recent cases. "The governor is proud of the changes he's made and the resources he's made available to the public in terms of government transparency. Government operates and behaves better when it's open and transparent, and taxpayers feel informed and a part of the process when they can see how their money is spent, who is getting contracts and who's on the payroll and such."
The report found that states with well-known scandals or histories of corruption often have the toughest laws and enforcement that bring them to light. Conversely, the report found, so-called "quiet" states may be at higher risk for corruption, with fewer means to bring corrupt practices to light.
Reporters in each state researched 330 corruption risk indicators across 14 government categories, including access to information, campaign finance, executive accountability, legislative accountability, judicial accountability, budgeting, civil service management, procurement, internal auditing, lobbying disclosure, pension fund management, ethics enforcement, insurance commissions, and redistricting.
Rounding out the top five states were: Connecticut (B, 86), Washington state (B-minus, 83), California (B-minus, 81) and Nebraska (B-minus, 80).
Nineteen states got grades of C, and 18 got a D. Eight states got an 'F,' with grades of 59 or lower: North Dakota, Michigan, South Carolina, Maine, Virginia, Wyoming, South Dakota and Georgia.
Individual reports for all 50 states can be found at http://www.stateintegrity.org.
By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press
March 19, 2012 (AP)
State governments lack transparency and accountability to citizens, and remain at high risk for corruption, according to a new study of all 50 statehouses.
Not a single state received an A in the State Integrity Investigation ranking, a product of the Center for Public Integrity, Public Radio International and Global Integrity.
"It's telling that no state received an overall grade of A," said Caitlin Ginley, a staff writer for the Center for Public Integrity and a project manager on the study. "In every state, there's room to improve the ethics laws, the level of transparency on government proceedings, the disclosure of information, and — most importantly — the oversight of these laws.
"One of the major findings was that even when ethics laws are passed, they are difficult to enforce and lack meaningful consequences for violators."
Only five states got rankings of B, led by a surprising recipient: New Jersey. It got a B-plus, with an overall score of 87 out of a possible 100.
Despite — or perhaps because of — recent corruption scandals, New Jersey got the top ranking because of steps it took to combat corruption, including tough ethics and anti-corruption laws it adopted in response.
New Jersey has a colorful tradition of corruption in government, including a U.S. congressman taking a bribe from an FBI agent posing as a wealthy Arab sheik, a Jersey shore councilman caught on tape bragging to an undercover officer that he would never get caught because "I could smell a cop a mile away," and a decade-long string of 150 state and local officials who were either convicted or pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges. The cases ranged from Motor Vehicle Commission employees selling fraudulent licenses to politicians peddling their influence for kickbacks.
Cases stemming from the 2009 roundup of 44 people in what was dubbed by the feds as "Operation Bid-Rig" are still working their way through the courts.
But that history of corruption also led to strong reforms designed to prevent it in the future. Among them was a law prohibiting campaign contributions by most firms doing business with the state.
"It's nice to be recognized for being ahead of the curve," said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Gov. Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney who prosecuted many of the recent cases. "The governor is proud of the changes he's made and the resources he's made available to the public in terms of government transparency. Government operates and behaves better when it's open and transparent, and taxpayers feel informed and a part of the process when they can see how their money is spent, who is getting contracts and who's on the payroll and such."
The report found that states with well-known scandals or histories of corruption often have the toughest laws and enforcement that bring them to light. Conversely, the report found, so-called "quiet" states may be at higher risk for corruption, with fewer means to bring corrupt practices to light.
Reporters in each state researched 330 corruption risk indicators across 14 government categories, including access to information, campaign finance, executive accountability, legislative accountability, judicial accountability, budgeting, civil service management, procurement, internal auditing, lobbying disclosure, pension fund management, ethics enforcement, insurance commissions, and redistricting.
Rounding out the top five states were: Connecticut (B, 86), Washington state (B-minus, 83), California (B-minus, 81) and Nebraska (B-minus, 80).
Nineteen states got grades of C, and 18 got a D. Eight states got an 'F,' with grades of 59 or lower: North Dakota, Michigan, South Carolina, Maine, Virginia, Wyoming, South Dakota and Georgia.
Individual reports for all 50 states can be found at http://www.stateintegrity.org.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
San Diego lawmakers received overseas trips
Assemblyman Brian Jones, R-Santee, went to the Fairmont Kea Lani resort in Maui for a week. The $2,415 junket was courtesy of the California Independent Voter Project, a San Diego nonprofit with funding from oil companies, utilities, pharmaceutical companies and a cigarette maker, according to the newspaper.
...Assemblyman Marty Block, D-San Diego, took a $10,735 Italy trip paid for by the California Foundation on the Environment and Economy, a San Francisco-based nonprofit made up of oil companies, utilities and environmental groups. The trip included plant tours and meetings on energy issues, from solar power to smart meters.
Block also went on a $3,883 trip to Israel sponsored by Faith2Green, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit made up of faith-based organizations interested in environmental issues.
...Not all the trips had big budgets. Sen. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, reported accepting a $219 gift of lodging and meals from the California Independent Petroleum Association as part of a symposium.
Report: SD lawmakers received overseas trips
Associated Press
March 11, 2012
Several San Diego County legislators received all-expenses-paid trips last year to Hawaii, Mexico, Israel and Italy _ renewing calls from critics that state gift-giving rules should be tightened.
Disclosure reports show the treks, bundled with meetings and plant tours, were sponsored by nonprofits that receive contributions from influence peddlers with a stake in legislation and the budget, according to an investigation by UT San Diego (http://bit.ly/ApmvwP) published Sunday.
Representatives from the corporations, utilities, labor unions and environmental groups often joined the excursions, giving them access to lawmakers, the newspaper said.
State law limits the value of gifts. But travel, if funded by a nonprofit, can be accepted as long as lawmakers participate in a meaningful way _ by giving a speech or sitting on a panel, for example.
California Common Cause, a government accountability group, says it's a loophole that should be closed. The group has lobbied for tightening gift-giving rules and providing full disclosure of who is contributing how much to the nonprofit group listed as the trip's sponsor.
"This is another way to get money into politics," Phillip Ung, policy director of California Common Cause, told UT San Diego.
The newspaper cited 10 lawmakers who reported accepting trips in 2011. Among them was Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, who took a $5,866 trek to Israel to discuss homeland security and Iran. It was sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles...
...Assemblyman Marty Block, D-San Diego, took a $10,735 Italy trip paid for by the California Foundation on the Environment and Economy, a San Francisco-based nonprofit made up of oil companies, utilities and environmental groups. The trip included plant tours and meetings on energy issues, from solar power to smart meters.
Block also went on a $3,883 trip to Israel sponsored by Faith2Green, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit made up of faith-based organizations interested in environmental issues.
...Not all the trips had big budgets. Sen. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, reported accepting a $219 gift of lodging and meals from the California Independent Petroleum Association as part of a symposium.
Report: SD lawmakers received overseas trips
Associated Press
March 11, 2012
Several San Diego County legislators received all-expenses-paid trips last year to Hawaii, Mexico, Israel and Italy _ renewing calls from critics that state gift-giving rules should be tightened.
Disclosure reports show the treks, bundled with meetings and plant tours, were sponsored by nonprofits that receive contributions from influence peddlers with a stake in legislation and the budget, according to an investigation by UT San Diego (http://bit.ly/ApmvwP) published Sunday.
Representatives from the corporations, utilities, labor unions and environmental groups often joined the excursions, giving them access to lawmakers, the newspaper said.
State law limits the value of gifts. But travel, if funded by a nonprofit, can be accepted as long as lawmakers participate in a meaningful way _ by giving a speech or sitting on a panel, for example.
California Common Cause, a government accountability group, says it's a loophole that should be closed. The group has lobbied for tightening gift-giving rules and providing full disclosure of who is contributing how much to the nonprofit group listed as the trip's sponsor.
"This is another way to get money into politics," Phillip Ung, policy director of California Common Cause, told UT San Diego.
The newspaper cited 10 lawmakers who reported accepting trips in 2011. Among them was Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, who took a $5,866 trek to Israel to discuss homeland security and Iran. It was sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles...
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Whistleblowers, Aguirre Sue Utility Watchdog
Whistleblowers, Aguirre Sue Utility Watchdog
Utility Watchdog Hounded by FBI, Whistleblowers
March 9, 2012
By Rob Davis
VOSD
When the Utility Consumers' Action Network began the process of dissolving, its executive director described the effort as a ruse to elicit a lawsuit from former city attorney Mike Aguirre.
If so, it worked. Aguirre, who represents two UCAN whistleblowers, filed suit Friday, alleging that the organization's board and top leaders had breached their fiduciary duty by failing to take internal complaints about UCAN's financial management seriously. (Read the lawsuit here.)
We broke down the bulk of the complaints against UCAN when the organization filed to dissolve:
UCAN filed its intent to dissolve in San Diego Superior Court, saying in papers that it faced an "imminent threat to its ability to carry on," due in part to legal threats by members of its own staff. Still, it insisted the organization would remain viable, despite the major crisis it clearly faces.
The move comes a week after an FBI agent subpoenaed UCAN's internal records and nearly a year after two employees alleged that UCAN had embezzled money, awarded illegal bonuses, set up suspicious bank accounts and failed to properly audit its books. The organization says it has investigated those complaints and found them unsubstantiated.
What The Plaintiffs Seek: Audits of UCAN's books and all of executive director Michael Shames' payments and bonuses. Damages, restitution and attorneys fees. (No amounts were specified.) And they want declarations that UCAN's members can elect the organization's board and decide whether the group should dissolve.
Why They Sued: Aguirre explained it this way in a press release: "Every red flag for financial mismanagement and fraud has been raised as the result of internal inquiries by UCAN’s employees. But instead of investigating with a public audit as required by the organization’s charter, UCAN’s Board has met secretly with Michael Shames to conduct an orchestrated cover-up.”
What Shames Says: He said he hadn't seen the suit yet but believed it was likely rehashing allegations that UCAN had already investigated and found unsubstantiated. "I will be looking for tangible evidence, documents, something, to support their allegations and not a continuation of the insinuations we've seen thus far," he said.
One Substantiated Issue The Suit Alleges: That UCAN didn't properly audit its books in 2006 as required by state law. Shames acknowledged today that the organization should've conducted an audit that year by a certified public accountant. He said an accounting firm was in the process now of auditing its books for last year and 2006.
Utility Watchdog Hounded by FBI, Whistleblowers
March 9, 2012
By Rob Davis
VOSD
When the Utility Consumers' Action Network began the process of dissolving, its executive director described the effort as a ruse to elicit a lawsuit from former city attorney Mike Aguirre.
If so, it worked. Aguirre, who represents two UCAN whistleblowers, filed suit Friday, alleging that the organization's board and top leaders had breached their fiduciary duty by failing to take internal complaints about UCAN's financial management seriously. (Read the lawsuit here.)
We broke down the bulk of the complaints against UCAN when the organization filed to dissolve:
UCAN filed its intent to dissolve in San Diego Superior Court, saying in papers that it faced an "imminent threat to its ability to carry on," due in part to legal threats by members of its own staff. Still, it insisted the organization would remain viable, despite the major crisis it clearly faces.
The move comes a week after an FBI agent subpoenaed UCAN's internal records and nearly a year after two employees alleged that UCAN had embezzled money, awarded illegal bonuses, set up suspicious bank accounts and failed to properly audit its books. The organization says it has investigated those complaints and found them unsubstantiated.
What The Plaintiffs Seek: Audits of UCAN's books and all of executive director Michael Shames' payments and bonuses. Damages, restitution and attorneys fees. (No amounts were specified.) And they want declarations that UCAN's members can elect the organization's board and decide whether the group should dissolve.
Why They Sued: Aguirre explained it this way in a press release: "Every red flag for financial mismanagement and fraud has been raised as the result of internal inquiries by UCAN’s employees. But instead of investigating with a public audit as required by the organization’s charter, UCAN’s Board has met secretly with Michael Shames to conduct an orchestrated cover-up.”
What Shames Says: He said he hadn't seen the suit yet but believed it was likely rehashing allegations that UCAN had already investigated and found unsubstantiated. "I will be looking for tangible evidence, documents, something, to support their allegations and not a continuation of the insinuations we've seen thus far," he said.
One Substantiated Issue The Suit Alleges: That UCAN didn't properly audit its books in 2006 as required by state law. Shames acknowledged today that the organization should've conducted an audit that year by a certified public accountant. He said an accounting firm was in the process now of auditing its books for last year and 2006.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
California's political watchdog panel eases its approach to ethics issues
California's political watchdog panel eases its approach to ethics issues
The Fair Political Practices Commission has eased restrictions on gifts to lawmakers, called fewer open meetings and stopped notifying the public of pending investigations. Some good-government advocates are angry.
By Patrick McGreevy
Los Angeles Times
February 14, 2012
Reporting from Sacramento -- Three decades after Gov. Jerry Brown played a key role in creating a state political watchdog, the panel — now dominated by his appointees — has retreated from its aggressive approach to ethics enforcement.
As part of a top-to-bottom rewrite of regulations in the last year, the Fair Political Practices Commission has eased restrictions on gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers, scaled back its open meetings and stopped notifying the public of pending investigations. Its job is to enforce laws on election campaigns, lobbying and conflicts of interest involving public employees, including the governor.
Commission Chairwoman Ann Ravel, whom Brown appointed in February 2011, said she was trying to make rules fair, clearer and easier to comply with and to focus on the worst offenders rather than on those who make minor mistakes. But she has outraged some good-government advocates along the way.
"I think the agenda is to basically castrate the commission," said fellow Commissioner Ronald Rotunda, a Chapman University law professor appointed by the state controller.
The panel prosecuted some big cases against politicians in the five years before Ravel took over, assessing them large fines, and tightened restrictions on the activity of public officials. Ravel, a veteran government attorney, said Brown gave her no marching orders when he appointed her.
"What we want to do is make sure that public officials use their positions for the good of the public and aren't doing it for their own self-interest," she said in an interview in her downtown Sacramento office.
The commission was born as part of the Political Reform Act, an initiative co-authored by Brown and approved by California voters in 1974 after a series of political scandals. So that no single official has undue influence over it, two members are appointed by the governor and one each by the attorney general, secretary of state and controller.
But because Brown was California's attorney general before becoming governor a year ago, he has appointed the majority of commission members. He also made the body's top attorney a political appointee rather than a civil servant, which allows the governor to replace the person who advises the commission and politicians on what's allowable.
Brown declined to be interviewed. His spokesman, Gil Duran, said the governor has no specific agenda for the commission but supports what his chairwoman is doing.
"The governor believes Ann Ravel is doing an outstanding job and operating in the best traditions of an independent agency, advancing the public trust in a practical and intelligent way," Duran said.
Brown's first appointee to the commission, in 2009 when he was attorney general, was controversial. He tapped Lynn Montgomery, who had managed the gubernatorial run of former Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante six years before. The campaign paid one of the largest fines in FPPC history.
"To appoint somebody who had a history of being involved in a campaign that crossed the line in the most egregious way in ethics law violations is troubling," said Kathay Feng, president of California Common Cause.
And the governor has had a sometimes contentious relationship with the commission.
In 1981, the FPPC called for a criminal investigation into whether key aides to then-Gov. Brown had perjured themselves, destroyed some records and withheld others to thwart a probe of possibly improper political activity in the governor's office. State law bars government resources from being used for campaigns or other political purposes.
Brown denied any wrongdoing by his office, which challenged the FPPC's jurisdiction in the matter, and prosecutors filed no charges. But Brown's reelection campaign later reimbursed the state $2,000 for the use of its computers.
Brown opposed the commission in court in 1990, after voters approved Proposition 73, which placed limits on campaign contributions. Then chairman of the state Democratic Party, he was part of a lawsuit to nullify the measure, which he called "one of the most pernicious campaign laws ever enacted." His side won.
He battled the commission again in 2000, when he was mayor of Oakland and was pursuing an ambitious redevelopment program for the city. The FPPC found that Brown had a conflict of interest because the program could have affected the value of his residence. Accusing the panel of applying the law too broadly, Brown sued and won in an appeals court.
Ravel had also argued from the outside for the FPPC to ease up. As Santa Clara County counsel in 2003, she won relaxed conflict-of-interest rules for county supervisors.
One of her first acts as commission chairwoman was to rescind public notices about pending investigations. Her predecessor, Dan Schnur, a former GOP strategist who now runs the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, had posted such information on the panel's website in hopes of deterring politicians from misbehaving.
Ravel argued that public airing of allegations that had not yet been substantiated violated the due-process rights of those accused.
She also canceled about half of the commission's monthly meetings, which Schnur also questioned. "It's important for the political community to know that the body responsible for its oversight is meeting on a regular basis," Schnur said.
Ravel's biggest dispute with open-government advocates has involved the overhaul of gift regulations.
State law requires officials to disclose gifts they receive and bars them from accepting gifts worth more than $10 from lobbyists. Ravel noted that the FPPC had allowed exceptions over the years if an official was dating the lobbyist or was a guest in the lobbyist's home.
The dating exemption is now written into state regulations, with a requirement that officials refrain from action on issues involving those with whom they are in a "dating relationship."
That will prevent abuse, Ravel said, without poking the government's nose into people's personal lives.
"The fact that somebody getting an engagement ring from somebody and they truly have a relationship — I don't consider that a serious problem," she said. "And I don't think that's the FPPC's issue."
Feng of California Common Cause disagreed, saying, "Potential corruption does not stop just because the relationship has entered the bedroom."
The Fair Political Practices Commission has eased restrictions on gifts to lawmakers, called fewer open meetings and stopped notifying the public of pending investigations. Some good-government advocates are angry.
By Patrick McGreevy
Los Angeles Times
February 14, 2012
Reporting from Sacramento -- Three decades after Gov. Jerry Brown played a key role in creating a state political watchdog, the panel — now dominated by his appointees — has retreated from its aggressive approach to ethics enforcement.
As part of a top-to-bottom rewrite of regulations in the last year, the Fair Political Practices Commission has eased restrictions on gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers, scaled back its open meetings and stopped notifying the public of pending investigations. Its job is to enforce laws on election campaigns, lobbying and conflicts of interest involving public employees, including the governor.
Commission Chairwoman Ann Ravel, whom Brown appointed in February 2011, said she was trying to make rules fair, clearer and easier to comply with and to focus on the worst offenders rather than on those who make minor mistakes. But she has outraged some good-government advocates along the way.
"I think the agenda is to basically castrate the commission," said fellow Commissioner Ronald Rotunda, a Chapman University law professor appointed by the state controller.
The panel prosecuted some big cases against politicians in the five years before Ravel took over, assessing them large fines, and tightened restrictions on the activity of public officials. Ravel, a veteran government attorney, said Brown gave her no marching orders when he appointed her.
"What we want to do is make sure that public officials use their positions for the good of the public and aren't doing it for their own self-interest," she said in an interview in her downtown Sacramento office.
The commission was born as part of the Political Reform Act, an initiative co-authored by Brown and approved by California voters in 1974 after a series of political scandals. So that no single official has undue influence over it, two members are appointed by the governor and one each by the attorney general, secretary of state and controller.
But because Brown was California's attorney general before becoming governor a year ago, he has appointed the majority of commission members. He also made the body's top attorney a political appointee rather than a civil servant, which allows the governor to replace the person who advises the commission and politicians on what's allowable.
Brown declined to be interviewed. His spokesman, Gil Duran, said the governor has no specific agenda for the commission but supports what his chairwoman is doing.
"The governor believes Ann Ravel is doing an outstanding job and operating in the best traditions of an independent agency, advancing the public trust in a practical and intelligent way," Duran said.
Brown's first appointee to the commission, in 2009 when he was attorney general, was controversial. He tapped Lynn Montgomery, who had managed the gubernatorial run of former Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante six years before. The campaign paid one of the largest fines in FPPC history.
"To appoint somebody who had a history of being involved in a campaign that crossed the line in the most egregious way in ethics law violations is troubling," said Kathay Feng, president of California Common Cause.
And the governor has had a sometimes contentious relationship with the commission.
In 1981, the FPPC called for a criminal investigation into whether key aides to then-Gov. Brown had perjured themselves, destroyed some records and withheld others to thwart a probe of possibly improper political activity in the governor's office. State law bars government resources from being used for campaigns or other political purposes.
Brown denied any wrongdoing by his office, which challenged the FPPC's jurisdiction in the matter, and prosecutors filed no charges. But Brown's reelection campaign later reimbursed the state $2,000 for the use of its computers.
Brown opposed the commission in court in 1990, after voters approved Proposition 73, which placed limits on campaign contributions. Then chairman of the state Democratic Party, he was part of a lawsuit to nullify the measure, which he called "one of the most pernicious campaign laws ever enacted." His side won.
He battled the commission again in 2000, when he was mayor of Oakland and was pursuing an ambitious redevelopment program for the city. The FPPC found that Brown had a conflict of interest because the program could have affected the value of his residence. Accusing the panel of applying the law too broadly, Brown sued and won in an appeals court.
Ravel had also argued from the outside for the FPPC to ease up. As Santa Clara County counsel in 2003, she won relaxed conflict-of-interest rules for county supervisors.
One of her first acts as commission chairwoman was to rescind public notices about pending investigations. Her predecessor, Dan Schnur, a former GOP strategist who now runs the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, had posted such information on the panel's website in hopes of deterring politicians from misbehaving.
Ravel argued that public airing of allegations that had not yet been substantiated violated the due-process rights of those accused.
She also canceled about half of the commission's monthly meetings, which Schnur also questioned. "It's important for the political community to know that the body responsible for its oversight is meeting on a regular basis," Schnur said.
Ravel's biggest dispute with open-government advocates has involved the overhaul of gift regulations.
State law requires officials to disclose gifts they receive and bars them from accepting gifts worth more than $10 from lobbyists. Ravel noted that the FPPC had allowed exceptions over the years if an official was dating the lobbyist or was a guest in the lobbyist's home.
The dating exemption is now written into state regulations, with a requirement that officials refrain from action on issues involving those with whom they are in a "dating relationship."
That will prevent abuse, Ravel said, without poking the government's nose into people's personal lives.
"The fact that somebody getting an engagement ring from somebody and they truly have a relationship — I don't consider that a serious problem," she said. "And I don't think that's the FPPC's issue."
Feng of California Common Cause disagreed, saying, "Potential corruption does not stop just because the relationship has entered the bedroom."
Saturday, February 04, 2012
Did SDPD supervisor Kevin Friedman undermine prosecution of cop Anthony Arevalos?
"The woman testified that Arevalos sexually assaulted her multiple times during her arrest. Friedman was at the scene that night and testified that he never saw Arevalos do anything inappropriate. The jury acquitted Arevalos of all charges related to the arrest."
New Scandal Brewed as SDPD Sergeant Testified
Feb 3, 2012
By Keegan Kyle
When San Diego police Sgt. Kevin Friedman took the stand in November, a jury got its first glimpse of the man responsible for supervising the defendant, former cop Anthony Arevalos.
Friedman was Arevalos' boss until March last year, when police arrested Arevalos and charged him with soliciting sexual bribes from seven women while on duty. Police accused Arevalos of committing 21 felonies, the jury found him guilty of eight.
The breadth and severity of the allegations, part of a larger spike in police misconduct, raised the most serious questions about internal oversight at the Police Department in the last decade. It spurred apologies from the police chief and promises to reform.
But Friedman's role supervising Arevalos — a focal point of internal scrutiny — didn't become public until the final days of Arevalos' criminal trial. Arevalos' attorneys called Friedman to testify about several traffic stops involving him and Arevalos.
Even today, as headlines reveal Friedman's own legal battles, his involvement in one of the city's biggest scandals in the last decade isn't well known. When media outlets across the city broke news last week that Friedman has been charged with fixing two traffic tickets, none mentioned Arevalos.
At the trial, Friedman's testimony played a pivotal role in reducing Arevalos' maximum prison sentence. Arevalos' attorneys pushed Friedman to poke holes in the prosecution's case and undermine the credibility of one accuser. A third of the felony charges were related to her accusations alone.
The woman testified that Arevalos sexually assaulted her multiple times during her arrest. Friedman was at the scene that night and testified that he never saw Arevalos do anything inappropriate. The jury acquitted Arevalos of all charges related to the arrest.
During its cross-examination of Friedman, the prosecution pressed him to explain any unusual behavior by Arevalos. Those questions elicited some of the most damning evidence about Arevalos' character during the entire trial.
Friedman testified that Arevalos was known to target female drivers and brag about the beauty of the women he arrested. Friedman said officers nicknamed Arevalos "the Las Colinas transport unit" because he arrested so many women.
"If someone was attractive, he would display it," Friedman testified.
The testimony provided some of the most concrete evidence that officers within the department knew Arevalos acted suspiciously but did nothing to address the behavior. Until one woman stepped forward in March last year, Arevalos continued patrolling San Diego's streets, where he arrested more women than his peers.
After the trial, Friedman went back to work at the Police Department and stayed out of public limelight until December, when his name and picture aired in a story by NBC7 San Diego.
The station broke news that Friedman was also the subject of a misconduct investigation. Police suspected he'd fixed traffic tickets for two county prosecutors last year.
Then, in January, the Attorney General's Office made the accusations official. It pressed misdemeanor charges against Friedman and one of the county prosecutors, Allison Debow.
According to the criminal complaint, a San Diego police officer issued citations to Debow and county prosecutor Amy Maund because they weren't wearing seat belts during a May 28 drive. Debow called Friedman, a close friend, and asked if there was something he could do about the tickets.
Friedman hid or destroyed the Police Department's record of the tickets, the complaint says, and then told Debow to shred her own copy. The complaint says Maund had no knowledge of the scheme until Debow told her to shred her ticket, too.
The complaint doesn't confirm how authorities learned of the incident. In December, NBC7 reported that a county prosecutor unknowingly had her ticket destroyed and later reported it to her superiors. The Attorney General's complaint only says Maund unknowingly had her ticket destroyed, not whether she reported it.
The District Attorney's Office declined to say when it began investigating the incident, but the Police Department first knew of the allegations July 8, spokeswoman Lt. Andra Brown said. The department pulled Friedman from patrol, assigned him to administrative duties and launched an internal investigation.
According to the Police Department's timeline, Friedman was under internal investigation throughout Arevalos' entire criminal trial. Brown said the department completed its probe Dec. 8, about a month after Friedman took the stand. In total, the department's investigation of Friedman took five months.
Though Friedman has been formally charged, he is still assigned to administrative duties and being paid. Debow is also on paid administrative leave until the case is resolved. Their next court hearing is scheduled for March 7.
New Scandal Brewed as SDPD Sergeant Testified
Feb 3, 2012
By Keegan Kyle
When San Diego police Sgt. Kevin Friedman took the stand in November, a jury got its first glimpse of the man responsible for supervising the defendant, former cop Anthony Arevalos.
Friedman was Arevalos' boss until March last year, when police arrested Arevalos and charged him with soliciting sexual bribes from seven women while on duty. Police accused Arevalos of committing 21 felonies, the jury found him guilty of eight.
The breadth and severity of the allegations, part of a larger spike in police misconduct, raised the most serious questions about internal oversight at the Police Department in the last decade. It spurred apologies from the police chief and promises to reform.
But Friedman's role supervising Arevalos — a focal point of internal scrutiny — didn't become public until the final days of Arevalos' criminal trial. Arevalos' attorneys called Friedman to testify about several traffic stops involving him and Arevalos.
Even today, as headlines reveal Friedman's own legal battles, his involvement in one of the city's biggest scandals in the last decade isn't well known. When media outlets across the city broke news last week that Friedman has been charged with fixing two traffic tickets, none mentioned Arevalos.
At the trial, Friedman's testimony played a pivotal role in reducing Arevalos' maximum prison sentence. Arevalos' attorneys pushed Friedman to poke holes in the prosecution's case and undermine the credibility of one accuser. A third of the felony charges were related to her accusations alone.
The woman testified that Arevalos sexually assaulted her multiple times during her arrest. Friedman was at the scene that night and testified that he never saw Arevalos do anything inappropriate. The jury acquitted Arevalos of all charges related to the arrest.
During its cross-examination of Friedman, the prosecution pressed him to explain any unusual behavior by Arevalos. Those questions elicited some of the most damning evidence about Arevalos' character during the entire trial.
Friedman testified that Arevalos was known to target female drivers and brag about the beauty of the women he arrested. Friedman said officers nicknamed Arevalos "the Las Colinas transport unit" because he arrested so many women.
"If someone was attractive, he would display it," Friedman testified.
The testimony provided some of the most concrete evidence that officers within the department knew Arevalos acted suspiciously but did nothing to address the behavior. Until one woman stepped forward in March last year, Arevalos continued patrolling San Diego's streets, where he arrested more women than his peers.
After the trial, Friedman went back to work at the Police Department and stayed out of public limelight until December, when his name and picture aired in a story by NBC7 San Diego.
The station broke news that Friedman was also the subject of a misconduct investigation. Police suspected he'd fixed traffic tickets for two county prosecutors last year.
Then, in January, the Attorney General's Office made the accusations official. It pressed misdemeanor charges against Friedman and one of the county prosecutors, Allison Debow.
According to the criminal complaint, a San Diego police officer issued citations to Debow and county prosecutor Amy Maund because they weren't wearing seat belts during a May 28 drive. Debow called Friedman, a close friend, and asked if there was something he could do about the tickets.
Friedman hid or destroyed the Police Department's record of the tickets, the complaint says, and then told Debow to shred her own copy. The complaint says Maund had no knowledge of the scheme until Debow told her to shred her ticket, too.
The complaint doesn't confirm how authorities learned of the incident. In December, NBC7 reported that a county prosecutor unknowingly had her ticket destroyed and later reported it to her superiors. The Attorney General's complaint only says Maund unknowingly had her ticket destroyed, not whether she reported it.
The District Attorney's Office declined to say when it began investigating the incident, but the Police Department first knew of the allegations July 8, spokeswoman Lt. Andra Brown said. The department pulled Friedman from patrol, assigned him to administrative duties and launched an internal investigation.
According to the Police Department's timeline, Friedman was under internal investigation throughout Arevalos' entire criminal trial. Brown said the department completed its probe Dec. 8, about a month after Friedman took the stand. In total, the department's investigation of Friedman took five months.
Though Friedman has been formally charged, he is still assigned to administrative duties and being paid. Debow is also on paid administrative leave until the case is resolved. Their next court hearing is scheduled for March 7.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Irwin Jacobs and SOHO are leading opposing plans to upgrade Balboa Park for its 1915 centennial
On Dec. 16, Superior Court Judge Judith F. Hayes, in a preliminary ruling, deemed the memorandum illegal for the time being. With final ruling pending, Jacobs declined to comment.
The Battle Over Balboa Park
By Delle Willett
San Diego Metro
January 29, 2012
Balboa Park’s plazas were originally designed like the grand plazas of Europe, accommodating pedestrians, automobiles and pigeons. Over the years, however, the park has literally been taken over by cars with nearly 7,000 vehicles driving through the plazas and promenades daily. With 12 million visitors to the park each year, conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles abound.
This problem has long been recognized, and every plan for the park in the past 60 years has had a goal to remove the cars and return the park’s core to people.
With the 2015 Centennial Celebration of the 1915 Panama-California Exhibition in Balboa Park presenting the perfect opportunity, plans have been developed to make the Plaza de Panama a centerpiece for the centennial, removing approximately 54 parking spaces as well as preparing the park for the additional pedestrians and cars that it will require.
The two major plans being considered are The Plaza de Panama Circulation and Parking Project, presented by The Plaza de Panama Committee, a nonprofit entity formed by Dr. Irwin Jacobs, and the SOHO Precise Plan “Lite” that complies with the existing Balboa Park Master Plan and Central Mesa Precise Plan, represented by Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO) and a coalition of over 20 groups and organizations.
The Plaza de Panama Project is a permanent plan that involves building a bypass road— the Centennial Bridge—from the Cabrillo Bridge through the Alcazar Garden parking lot and on to a new 785-space, paid-parking, underground garage south of the Spreckles Organ Pavilion, topped with a two-acre park; free accessible tram service from the parking structure to the Plaza de Panama, resurfacing the plaza with contemporary hardscape materials, and adding shade trees, benches and replicas of the original street lights. Overall, the project adds 267 parking spots in the heart of the park and provides for increased disabled parking, a safe drop-off area and valet service.
All told, the project will reclaim 6.3 acres of parks and plazas (the Plaza de Panama, West El Prado, Plaza de California and the Esplanade) for pedestrian use only from what are now roads and surface parking lots, and significantly reduce conflicts between pedestrians and cars. This plan has been vetted by CIVITAS, a landscape and planning firm. The project is estimated to cost $40 million. Approximately $25 million of this cost is for plaza and park improvements, the construction of Centennial Bridge and Road, and improvements to the Alcazar Garden parking lot. The underground parking structure is estimated to cost $15 million.
Financing
The project will be paid for by private donations raised by the Plaza de Panama Committee and a self-supporting bond. No taxpayer funds will be required. The bond will be repaid with revenue generated from parking lot charges. The revenue will also pay for operation and maintenance of the garage and free tram service. A study found that the parking structure would generate enough revenue to support a construction bond, operations and maintenance of the structure, and the operation of the free tram.
The Plaza de Panama Committee has agreed to cover all cost overruns to ensure that there is no risk to taxpayer funds. The Committee will spend over $1,000,000 on the Environmental Information Report (EIR). Leading up to the MOU meeting, Jacobs, co-founder of Qualcomm Inc., has already spent over $2 million on public meetings and planning.
The Plaza de Panama Project must be approved by the San Diego City Council. Leading up to the decision by the City Council, a number of other bodies must provide advisory votes on the project. These include the Balboa Park Committee, the Park and Recreation Board, the Historical Resources Board and the Planning Commission.
It is anticipated that the Draft EIR will be completed and ready for public review and comment January 2012; presented to the City Council in summer 2012; and with all approvals in place, construction started by January 2013 with a scheduled completion date of January 2015.
To date the Committee has participated in roughly 90 meetings with citizen groups, Balboa Park organizations and other stakeholders. Feedback has resulted in positive changes to the project from the first meeting, held more than a year ago. Since then, there have been countless improvements made to the project based on public feedback, and there continue to be.
Alternative Plans
On July 19 the city approved a Memo of Understanding (MOU) with the Plaza de Panama Committee, which served as a contract to continue with the Plaza de Panama plan. At the same time, a number of alternatives to this proposed project are also being thoroughly studied in the EIR. The environmental review process will assess potential impacts of the proposed project and alternatives in the areas of traffic circulation, cultural and historic resources, biological resources, and a number of others. Some people believe as is, the MOU puts the city in the position to go with Jacobs’ plan and precludes them using any alternative.
In response to the memorandum, SOHO sued in San Diego Superior Court to rescind the memorandum claiming the city approved the contract illegally before the completion of a state environmental review. On Dec. 16, Superior Court Judge Judith F. Hayes, in a preliminary ruling, deemed the memorandum illegal for the time being. With final ruling pending, Jacobs declined to comment...
The Battle Over Balboa Park
By Delle Willett
San Diego Metro
January 29, 2012
Balboa Park’s plazas were originally designed like the grand plazas of Europe, accommodating pedestrians, automobiles and pigeons. Over the years, however, the park has literally been taken over by cars with nearly 7,000 vehicles driving through the plazas and promenades daily. With 12 million visitors to the park each year, conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles abound.
This problem has long been recognized, and every plan for the park in the past 60 years has had a goal to remove the cars and return the park’s core to people.
With the 2015 Centennial Celebration of the 1915 Panama-California Exhibition in Balboa Park presenting the perfect opportunity, plans have been developed to make the Plaza de Panama a centerpiece for the centennial, removing approximately 54 parking spaces as well as preparing the park for the additional pedestrians and cars that it will require.
The two major plans being considered are The Plaza de Panama Circulation and Parking Project, presented by The Plaza de Panama Committee, a nonprofit entity formed by Dr. Irwin Jacobs, and the SOHO Precise Plan “Lite” that complies with the existing Balboa Park Master Plan and Central Mesa Precise Plan, represented by Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO) and a coalition of over 20 groups and organizations.
The Plaza de Panama Project is a permanent plan that involves building a bypass road— the Centennial Bridge—from the Cabrillo Bridge through the Alcazar Garden parking lot and on to a new 785-space, paid-parking, underground garage south of the Spreckles Organ Pavilion, topped with a two-acre park; free accessible tram service from the parking structure to the Plaza de Panama, resurfacing the plaza with contemporary hardscape materials, and adding shade trees, benches and replicas of the original street lights. Overall, the project adds 267 parking spots in the heart of the park and provides for increased disabled parking, a safe drop-off area and valet service.
All told, the project will reclaim 6.3 acres of parks and plazas (the Plaza de Panama, West El Prado, Plaza de California and the Esplanade) for pedestrian use only from what are now roads and surface parking lots, and significantly reduce conflicts between pedestrians and cars. This plan has been vetted by CIVITAS, a landscape and planning firm. The project is estimated to cost $40 million. Approximately $25 million of this cost is for plaza and park improvements, the construction of Centennial Bridge and Road, and improvements to the Alcazar Garden parking lot. The underground parking structure is estimated to cost $15 million.
Financing
The project will be paid for by private donations raised by the Plaza de Panama Committee and a self-supporting bond. No taxpayer funds will be required. The bond will be repaid with revenue generated from parking lot charges. The revenue will also pay for operation and maintenance of the garage and free tram service. A study found that the parking structure would generate enough revenue to support a construction bond, operations and maintenance of the structure, and the operation of the free tram.
The Plaza de Panama Committee has agreed to cover all cost overruns to ensure that there is no risk to taxpayer funds. The Committee will spend over $1,000,000 on the Environmental Information Report (EIR). Leading up to the MOU meeting, Jacobs, co-founder of Qualcomm Inc., has already spent over $2 million on public meetings and planning.
The Plaza de Panama Project must be approved by the San Diego City Council. Leading up to the decision by the City Council, a number of other bodies must provide advisory votes on the project. These include the Balboa Park Committee, the Park and Recreation Board, the Historical Resources Board and the Planning Commission.
It is anticipated that the Draft EIR will be completed and ready for public review and comment January 2012; presented to the City Council in summer 2012; and with all approvals in place, construction started by January 2013 with a scheduled completion date of January 2015.
To date the Committee has participated in roughly 90 meetings with citizen groups, Balboa Park organizations and other stakeholders. Feedback has resulted in positive changes to the project from the first meeting, held more than a year ago. Since then, there have been countless improvements made to the project based on public feedback, and there continue to be.
Alternative Plans
On July 19 the city approved a Memo of Understanding (MOU) with the Plaza de Panama Committee, which served as a contract to continue with the Plaza de Panama plan. At the same time, a number of alternatives to this proposed project are also being thoroughly studied in the EIR. The environmental review process will assess potential impacts of the proposed project and alternatives in the areas of traffic circulation, cultural and historic resources, biological resources, and a number of others. Some people believe as is, the MOU puts the city in the position to go with Jacobs’ plan and precludes them using any alternative.
In response to the memorandum, SOHO sued in San Diego Superior Court to rescind the memorandum claiming the city approved the contract illegally before the completion of a state environmental review. On Dec. 16, Superior Court Judge Judith F. Hayes, in a preliminary ruling, deemed the memorandum illegal for the time being. With final ruling pending, Jacobs declined to comment...
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
California attorney general sues to stop $200 billion regional transportation plan; San Diego has seventh-worst ozone pollution
Morning Report: Attorney General Rocks San Diego Planners
January 24, 2012
By Randy Dotinga
VOSD
The state attorney general has sued to stop the $200 billion regional transportation plan that makes freeways a priority, saying it doesn't do enough to get drivers out of cars.
"The 3.2 million residents of the San Diego region already suffer from the seventh worst ozone pollution in the country," Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a statement. "Spending our transit dollars in the right way today will improve the economy, create sustainable jobs and ensure that future generations do not continue to suffer from heavily polluted air."
The plan, drafted by a local coalition of governments, sets a blueprint for the next 40 years.
Our story provides plenty of ways for you to understand this ongoing story, including a look at how the state became skeptical of the plan in the first place, a San Diego Explained video about where the money goes, a summary of key issues and a reader's guide to the whole debate.
January 24, 2012
By Randy Dotinga
VOSD
The state attorney general has sued to stop the $200 billion regional transportation plan that makes freeways a priority, saying it doesn't do enough to get drivers out of cars.
"The 3.2 million residents of the San Diego region already suffer from the seventh worst ozone pollution in the country," Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a statement. "Spending our transit dollars in the right way today will improve the economy, create sustainable jobs and ensure that future generations do not continue to suffer from heavily polluted air."
The plan, drafted by a local coalition of governments, sets a blueprint for the next 40 years.
Our story provides plenty of ways for you to understand this ongoing story, including a look at how the state became skeptical of the plan in the first place, a San Diego Explained video about where the money goes, a summary of key issues and a reader's guide to the whole debate.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
San Diego County User Guide to Online Campaign Finance Disclosure
San Diego County User Guide to Online Campaign Finance Disclosure
http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/voters/Eng/proceed.html
What is on this Site?
Campaign finance disclosure reports for all filers who have "local" filing requirements. This includes filings for county offices, county propositions, special districts, and school districts, located or campaigning within the County of San Diego.
Historical campaign disclosure reports going back four years.
What is not on this Site?
State filers. State filings are available on the Secretary of State’s website at http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/campaign/.
City campaign finance disclosure reports. Please contact your city clerk. Contact information for city clerks can be found at the following link: http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/voters/Eng/reports/pubofficials.pdfa>
Candidates who do not raise or spend more than $1,000 are not required to provide detailed disclosure of contributions or expenditures. However, these candidates still have filing requirements. For information regarding those filing requirements, upcoming elections and filing due dates, please vi
http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/voters/Eng/proceed.html
What is on this Site?
Campaign finance disclosure reports for all filers who have "local" filing requirements. This includes filings for county offices, county propositions, special districts, and school districts, located or campaigning within the County of San Diego.
Historical campaign disclosure reports going back four years.
What is not on this Site?
State filers. State filings are available on the Secretary of State’s website at http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/campaign/.
City campaign finance disclosure reports. Please contact your city clerk. Contact information for city clerks can be found at the following link: http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/voters/Eng/reports/pubofficials.pdfa>
Candidates who do not raise or spend more than $1,000 are not required to provide detailed disclosure of contributions or expenditures. However, these candidates still have filing requirements. For information regarding those filing requirements, upcoming elections and filing due dates, please vi
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Fired administrators allowed to gather more evidenceTri-City Healthcare lawsuit
This story is interesting since Ray Artiano walked out of his own deposition when he sued me for defamation.
Attorneys allowed to gather more evidence in Tri-City wrongful termination suit
Nathan Scharn
Nov. 29, 2011
OCEANSIDE — A U.S. District Court judge issued an order Monday allowing attorneys to gather more evidence in wrongful termination suits between former Tri-City Healthcare District administrators and their former employer, including trustees of the public health care district.
Judge Thomas J. Whelan ruled that attorneys for the administrators would be able to take depositions from defendants involved in a meeting held at Coco’s Restaurant in Vista on Nov. 20, 2008 regarding the discussion at the restaurant. They were fired in 2009 in an overhaul by the elected board of Tri-City’s leadership.
Whelan concluded that the meeting, attended by an attorney and now Chairwoman Rosemarie Reno and trustees Kathleen Sterling, George Coulter and Charlene Anderson, violated the state open government law called the Brown Act.
The law requires public notice of discussions of public business by a majority of elected officials on a board. At the time, only Sterling, who has since been dropped from the case, and Reno were on the board. Coulter and Anderson had been elected, but had not yet assumed office, which constituted a future majority, Whelan said in the ruling.
“The Brown Act also prevents future majorities from gathering privately to make collective commitments affecting the future of the local agency without public input,” Whelan wrote.
The get-together at Coco’s is not related to another controversial dinner meeting, held at West Steak and Seafood in Carlsbad in May 2010 and attended by Reno, Sterling and Coulter, though that meeting has been a factor in several lawsuits, including criminal hearings.
Much of the Coco’s meeting has been kept secret under Magistrate Judge Bernard G. Skomal’s July 18, 2011 discovery order, which held that the discussion at the meeting fell under attorney client privilege. Whelan reversed that, saying the meeting violated the law “in furtherance of a present criminal act,” the ruling said, and was thus exempt from the privilege.
The depositions could provide significant facts in the wrongful termination suit between the former administrators and the health care district.
Trustees fired nine employees after placing them on paid administrative leave. Then-Chief Executive Arthur Gonzalez received a severance package in 2009 worth as much as $1 million. Seven others sought damages in excess of $100,000.
Earlier this year, former vice president of strategic services Allen Coleman received $385,000 and former vice president of performance improvement William “Terry” Howell received $390,000 in settlements, their attorney Ray Artiano and Tri-City officials have confirmed. The other five employees are still pursuing the lawsuit.
The other employees fired were Suellyn Ellerbe, chief operating officer and chief nurse executive; Robert Wardwell, chief financial officer; Doreen Sanderson, vice president of human resources; Daniel Groszkruger, director of information systems; and Ondrea Labella, director of patient business services.
Whelan denied part of the ex-administrators’ contention that Skomal had erred as a matter of law.
Public Tri-City Healthcare District serves residents in Carlsbad, Oceanside and Vista.
Attorneys allowed to gather more evidence in Tri-City wrongful termination suit
Nathan Scharn
Nov. 29, 2011
OCEANSIDE — A U.S. District Court judge issued an order Monday allowing attorneys to gather more evidence in wrongful termination suits between former Tri-City Healthcare District administrators and their former employer, including trustees of the public health care district.
Judge Thomas J. Whelan ruled that attorneys for the administrators would be able to take depositions from defendants involved in a meeting held at Coco’s Restaurant in Vista on Nov. 20, 2008 regarding the discussion at the restaurant. They were fired in 2009 in an overhaul by the elected board of Tri-City’s leadership.
Whelan concluded that the meeting, attended by an attorney and now Chairwoman Rosemarie Reno and trustees Kathleen Sterling, George Coulter and Charlene Anderson, violated the state open government law called the Brown Act.
The law requires public notice of discussions of public business by a majority of elected officials on a board. At the time, only Sterling, who has since been dropped from the case, and Reno were on the board. Coulter and Anderson had been elected, but had not yet assumed office, which constituted a future majority, Whelan said in the ruling.
“The Brown Act also prevents future majorities from gathering privately to make collective commitments affecting the future of the local agency without public input,” Whelan wrote.
The get-together at Coco’s is not related to another controversial dinner meeting, held at West Steak and Seafood in Carlsbad in May 2010 and attended by Reno, Sterling and Coulter, though that meeting has been a factor in several lawsuits, including criminal hearings.
Much of the Coco’s meeting has been kept secret under Magistrate Judge Bernard G. Skomal’s July 18, 2011 discovery order, which held that the discussion at the meeting fell under attorney client privilege. Whelan reversed that, saying the meeting violated the law “in furtherance of a present criminal act,” the ruling said, and was thus exempt from the privilege.
The depositions could provide significant facts in the wrongful termination suit between the former administrators and the health care district.
Trustees fired nine employees after placing them on paid administrative leave. Then-Chief Executive Arthur Gonzalez received a severance package in 2009 worth as much as $1 million. Seven others sought damages in excess of $100,000.
Earlier this year, former vice president of strategic services Allen Coleman received $385,000 and former vice president of performance improvement William “Terry” Howell received $390,000 in settlements, their attorney Ray Artiano and Tri-City officials have confirmed. The other five employees are still pursuing the lawsuit.
The other employees fired were Suellyn Ellerbe, chief operating officer and chief nurse executive; Robert Wardwell, chief financial officer; Doreen Sanderson, vice president of human resources; Daniel Groszkruger, director of information systems; and Ondrea Labella, director of patient business services.
Whelan denied part of the ex-administrators’ contention that Skomal had erred as a matter of law.
Public Tri-City Healthcare District serves residents in Carlsbad, Oceanside and Vista.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
'Dear Tri-City': OC supervisor's NC ghost writer responds to broadside
'Dear Tri-City': OC supervisor's NC ghost writer responds to broadside
Logan Jenkins
Oct. 25, 2011
A contender, if not the favorite, for my “Poison Pen Letter of the Year” award was received by Bill Campbell, chairman of the Orange County board of supervisors.
The undersigned on the thrillingly cheap shot are RoseMarie Reno, chair of the Tri-City Healthcare District’s board of directors, and Larry Anderson, the hospital district’s CEO.
The target is Leon Page, a Carlsbad resident (and Orange County deputy counsel) who sent a “cease and desist” letter, the precursor of a lawsuit, to Tri-City after the board majority voted to banish two recalcitrant members — Kathleen Sterling and Randy Horton — from closed meetings.
Surely not a regular fan of Tri-City’s follies, Campbell must have been nonplused as how to respond. He quickly passed the venom-soaked letter to Page’s boss, County Counsel Nick Chrisos, who told me he had never read anything remotely like it. (In case you’re wondering, that’s not a compliment.)
On a pro bono basis, I’m offering Campbell a draft of the letter he should send to Tri-City.
•••
Thank you for your letter in which you ask the Orange County board of supervisors to investigate the unethical behavior of Leon Page.
I take it you would like us to probe and punish Page. Judging by the urgency of your complaint, you would consider flogging with bicycle chains a suitable disciplinary measure.
You note that Page has initiated legal actions against two government agencies — Tri-City and MiraCosta College. What Page says is his altruistic “hobby” you evidently see as a form of treason to the public sector.
The merits of Page’s public-interest actions, which he conducts on his own time, don’t appear to matter to you. An attorney on the public payroll should always side with his public-sector “team.”
It’s my understanding, however, that Page sued MiraCosta to claw back money that a high court ultimately agreed was a gift of public funds to an outgoing president.
You focus solely on the “adverse legal interests” Page’s lawsuit visited upon the college, not the public good of a sane precedent to protect agencies from someone who threatens to sue if a contractually limited severance package is not sweetened.
You also imply that Page may be a shakedown artist, a grifter in cahoots with Ron Cozad, a North County attorney whom Page retained for the legal work in the MiraCosta case.
Specifically, you suggest (without proof) that Page is a frontman for Cozad, filing lawsuits against public agencies and then, when lavish attorney fees are awarded, Page taking a secret cut.
You insinuate, again without evidence, that Mr. Page may be on the take from the two banished directors. You also pose the ominous possibility that Page’s real ambition is “to destroy the District’s reputation and operations for the benefit of competing hospitals in South Orange County.”
You take pains to accuse Page and Cozad of shoddy research because they failed to appreciate how disruptive these two board members are and how necessary their exile is from secret sessions even if their absence does deny represenation to the voters who elected them.
To sound authoritative, you cite legal precedents for the summary removal of elected officials and suggest that Orange County’s right to ostracize troublesome pols is threatened if I’m on the same page as Page, so to speak.
Finally, you ask me “to take corrective actions” against Page “and notify us of actions taken.”
Let’s start at the end. No corrective action is planned. Consider yourself notified of that fact. Remember the old saying about throwing mud at a wall? Well, nothing is sticking in the OC.
By the way, I’ve read clippings that celebrated Page for his role in cleaning up the MiraCosta scandal. One Union-Tribune columnist — Loren Jennings perhaps? — tagged Page as a North County Hero of the Year.
Frankly, I consider your arguments bizarre at best; at worst, un-American. (I come from one of the most conservative counties in the nation. We talk like that.)
About the only thing I can say in your favor is that you’re trying to spend as little money as possible in keeping a sinking ship from sinking. Faint praise, I know.
You suggest that we in Orange County should be worried about our freedom to punish disorderly elected officials. We don’t have problems with decorum. We don’t have a board member attending meetings via telephone; another who uses an apparently fake title of “Doctor”; and yet another, a nurse, with a dicey record accounting for pills.
And those last two are among the majority who banned the pair of dissidents.
The way to get rid of bad elected officials is through the polls. If I may be so bold, it isn’t your job to slam the boardroom door on your political rivals whenever you get the willies.
In my humble opinion, you should be grateful that one of the OC’s best attorneys is offering you free legal advice.
Take it!
Logan Jenkins
Oct. 25, 2011
A contender, if not the favorite, for my “Poison Pen Letter of the Year” award was received by Bill Campbell, chairman of the Orange County board of supervisors.
The undersigned on the thrillingly cheap shot are RoseMarie Reno, chair of the Tri-City Healthcare District’s board of directors, and Larry Anderson, the hospital district’s CEO.
The target is Leon Page, a Carlsbad resident (and Orange County deputy counsel) who sent a “cease and desist” letter, the precursor of a lawsuit, to Tri-City after the board majority voted to banish two recalcitrant members — Kathleen Sterling and Randy Horton — from closed meetings.
Surely not a regular fan of Tri-City’s follies, Campbell must have been nonplused as how to respond. He quickly passed the venom-soaked letter to Page’s boss, County Counsel Nick Chrisos, who told me he had never read anything remotely like it. (In case you’re wondering, that’s not a compliment.)
On a pro bono basis, I’m offering Campbell a draft of the letter he should send to Tri-City.
•••
Thank you for your letter in which you ask the Orange County board of supervisors to investigate the unethical behavior of Leon Page.
I take it you would like us to probe and punish Page. Judging by the urgency of your complaint, you would consider flogging with bicycle chains a suitable disciplinary measure.
You note that Page has initiated legal actions against two government agencies — Tri-City and MiraCosta College. What Page says is his altruistic “hobby” you evidently see as a form of treason to the public sector.
The merits of Page’s public-interest actions, which he conducts on his own time, don’t appear to matter to you. An attorney on the public payroll should always side with his public-sector “team.”
It’s my understanding, however, that Page sued MiraCosta to claw back money that a high court ultimately agreed was a gift of public funds to an outgoing president.
You focus solely on the “adverse legal interests” Page’s lawsuit visited upon the college, not the public good of a sane precedent to protect agencies from someone who threatens to sue if a contractually limited severance package is not sweetened.
You also imply that Page may be a shakedown artist, a grifter in cahoots with Ron Cozad, a North County attorney whom Page retained for the legal work in the MiraCosta case.
Specifically, you suggest (without proof) that Page is a frontman for Cozad, filing lawsuits against public agencies and then, when lavish attorney fees are awarded, Page taking a secret cut.
You insinuate, again without evidence, that Mr. Page may be on the take from the two banished directors. You also pose the ominous possibility that Page’s real ambition is “to destroy the District’s reputation and operations for the benefit of competing hospitals in South Orange County.”
You take pains to accuse Page and Cozad of shoddy research because they failed to appreciate how disruptive these two board members are and how necessary their exile is from secret sessions even if their absence does deny represenation to the voters who elected them.
To sound authoritative, you cite legal precedents for the summary removal of elected officials and suggest that Orange County’s right to ostracize troublesome pols is threatened if I’m on the same page as Page, so to speak.
Finally, you ask me “to take corrective actions” against Page “and notify us of actions taken.”
Let’s start at the end. No corrective action is planned. Consider yourself notified of that fact. Remember the old saying about throwing mud at a wall? Well, nothing is sticking in the OC.
By the way, I’ve read clippings that celebrated Page for his role in cleaning up the MiraCosta scandal. One Union-Tribune columnist — Loren Jennings perhaps? — tagged Page as a North County Hero of the Year.
Frankly, I consider your arguments bizarre at best; at worst, un-American. (I come from one of the most conservative counties in the nation. We talk like that.)
About the only thing I can say in your favor is that you’re trying to spend as little money as possible in keeping a sinking ship from sinking. Faint praise, I know.
You suggest that we in Orange County should be worried about our freedom to punish disorderly elected officials. We don’t have problems with decorum. We don’t have a board member attending meetings via telephone; another who uses an apparently fake title of “Doctor”; and yet another, a nurse, with a dicey record accounting for pills.
And those last two are among the majority who banned the pair of dissidents.
The way to get rid of bad elected officials is through the polls. If I may be so bold, it isn’t your job to slam the boardroom door on your political rivals whenever you get the willies.
In my humble opinion, you should be grateful that one of the OC’s best attorneys is offering you free legal advice.
Take it!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Otay Water District: A History of Death Threats, Scandal and Sewage-Tainted Water
A History of Death Threats, Scandal and Sewage-Tainted Water
October 16, 2011
by Rob Davis
Voice of San Diego
The officials' phones often rang late at night or after meetings. It was the early 2000s, and the Otay Water District was roiled by scandal, by accusations of mismanagement, bribery, fraud and self-dealing.
What followed was never good.
Sometimes came only the sound of a single kiss. A warning, police said. The kiss of death.
Sometimes came an ominous message. Rap music, blaring the same threat: Come on, motherfucker, come on.
When agency attorneys investigated, the answer they uncovered sounded like the kicker to a campfire horror story: The calls had been coming from inside — from the phone of one of the district's own board members.
The conflict typified the dark days at what could otherwise be an unremarkable agency with a routine task. But even a decade later, the Otay Water District is hardly unremarkable. It's proven that safely delivering water to 206,000 people from Otay Mesa to Jamul isn't always routine — though its customers may wish it was.
Across the county, more than 20 public agencies like Otay play a key role in daily life. They're middlemen who buy water from major suppliers and deliver it to the taps of homes and businesses. While big suppliers bring water here from sources far away, agencies like Otay maintain local pipes, read your meter and send you a bill every month or two.
They typically do that in relative obscurity. It's why you may not have heard of agencies like the Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District. But they are powerful entities. Otay has the authority to set and raise water rates. It determines how much developers must pay to connect new homes and offices to the water system. Its board has the discretion to spend millions of dollars on construction. Otay's service territory includes large stretches of a Southern California rarity: Undeveloped land. And it controls the only local water connection between San Diego and Tijuana.
Otay hasn't enjoyed the same obscurity as other water districts here. During the last decade, it's delivered sewage to drinking water taps, tried to squelch criticism with legal action and endured costly litigation from its customers, employees and board members.
Though the board member implicated in those late-night calls a decade ago is gone, death threats have continued even today.
♦♦♦
During the tumult's peak in the early 2000s, a long-time board member got fed up and quit.
The board member, Mark Watton, lashed out against the district's leadership, setting his sights on one man: Otay's board president, a radio station owner named Jaime Bonilla trying to distance himself from accusations of favoritism engulfing the rest of the agency. In a letter to La Prensa San Diego, Watton said Bonilla was right in the middle of Otay's problems.
Subscribe to the Morning Report.
"A (hopefully) short sad chapter in the Otay story, and what happens when public officials like these (including Mr. Bonilla) only want the position for their own ego, power and enrichment," Watton wrote.
Now, 10 years after he resigned, Mark Watton runs the Otay Water District. He was the county's highest-paid water official in 2010, in a job that gives him 71 days of leave annually. Add in weekends, and that's almost half the year.
Watton today says that he had it wrong. Bonilla was wearing a wire, working as an informant for the FBI. Watton said he didn't know Bonilla was trying to nab two other board members and a prominent Los Angeles lobbyist in a failed bribery sting. The case eventually fell apart.
"I didn't have the full picture of what was going on," Watton said.
Watton today answers to the district's five-member board.
Its president, still, is Jaime Bonilla.
♦♦♦
Something was terribly wrong with the water in Suite 109.
It was the summer of 2007. Business owners throughout the Fenton Business Center in Chula Vista's Eastlake neighborhood reported that their tap water suddenly appeared yellow. Others said green. They all agreed the water was foul, so gross some were embarrassed to have customers use their restrooms.
The story of what went wrong there unfolds across hundreds of pages of court documents in a case that has stretched on for four years. It's one of several lawsuits that have successfully targeted Otay as a defendant.
In the Fenton case, Otay blamed the problem on stagnant water in the newly constructed complex and told the businesses to flush their lines. It didn't help. When the district came out and checked, they tested the water at a nearby fire hydrant, where it looked fine, not at the businesses' taps. The color lingered for days.
The mysterious cause was unimaginably foul. Worse, it had been happening undetected for more than a year.
The district had been delivering partially treated sewage to drinking water taps since the park opened. People had been drinking and washing their hands in water contaminated by human waste. In lawsuits, they said they'd even brushed their teeth with it and suffered from countless gastrointestinal illnesses without knowing why.
No one noticed at first because the sewage was diluted with tap water. But that summer, Otay began buying more treated sewage to put in its purple pipe system — suitable for lawns but not people. After that, what came out of the businesses' taps was 100 percent treated sewage.
The district had put a potable water meter on a pipe meant for irrigation and missed chances to catch it. Otay didn't re-inspect the facility after discovering one of its inspectors had taken a bribe on another project from a contractor involved in the park's construction.
A civil jury found Otay and other developers had acted negligently. Lawsuits have held the district liable for $3 million in damages, money Watton said will be covered by an insurer, not ratepayers. But the settlements are the latest to inflate Otay's legal bills and leave a thick trail of paper in courthouse files over the last decade.
There came Tom Harron, the district's former attorney, in 2001. He alleged that he was fired because he was white so the newly elected Bonilla could hire Latino friends. Two rival former Otay board members and a former auditor testified under oath in the case that they'd regularly heard Bonilla call Harron "El Gringo" or "white boy" — allegations he denied.
"With Mr. Bonilla," one rival board member testified, "it is not enough to simply put a man out of his job. He wants to just completely annihilate this person."
The district apologized and settled with Harron in 2007 for nearly $700,000.
There came a class of six employees (five white and one black), alleging racial discrimination as the cause of their departures around the same time as Harron. One rival board member said Bonilla had used a slur to describe the fired black employee. The former auditor, then suing the district, testified that shortly before winning his seat, Bonilla had said about Otay: "We got to get rid of all the gringos." Bonilla denied that.
The district settled in 2007 for $371,000.
♦♦♦
This case was terribly flimsy. And it carried echoes of the political retribution that had once clearly defined Otay's dark days.
But this was March 2011, and an attorney for the Otay Water District was making a case for censure to the Chula Vista Ethics Board. One of the advisory group's members, a businessman named Chris Shilling, had run unsuccessfully in November against an Otay board member, David Gonzalez Jr.
The election hadn't been close. Gonzalez, the brother of Red Sox first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, won easily after far outspending Shilling.
Shilling had taken his campaign against Gonzalez to Facebook, on a page with 46 followers. There, he called the district corrupt and accused Gonzalez of stealing campaign signs. They were baseless comments, hardly noteworthy during election season.
But they sure got the water district's attention. Otay pursued legal action. Bonilla filed a complaint with the ethics board to get Shilling booted.
Bonilla didn't do that on his own dime though. The district's ratepayers paid for the agency's attorney to work on the complaint, which purported to come from the agency's board of directors. But the board hadn't agreed to send it. Bonilla told the Union-Tribune that he, Gonzalez, Watton and an attorney had decided to.
Watton said the district got involved because Shilling had noted in campaign literature that he served on the ethics board, making his criticism carry more weight.
"If someone is just out making stuff up and lying to the public, that is of interest to the district," Watton said. "We're not corrupt."
Bonilla later told the board that he'd pay for any litigation himself, according to meeting minutes. But he didn't reimburse the district for its legal expenses.
When the agency's attorney, Dan Shinoff, presented his case to the ethics board in March, he zeroed in on what he called Shilling's malicious critique of Gonzalez and Bonilla. Shinoff, who's paid $250 an hour by the district, appeared to be settling a campaign score. Talking to commissioners, he unfurled an inflated oratory filled with its own baseless accusations.
Shinoff tried to connect Shilling to an anonymous website that attacked Gonzalez. And yet Shinoff offered no proof it was Shilling's site. Shinoff said the criticism was symptomatic of the country's devolving political discourse.
"Somebody's going to be a victim if we continue this in this society," Shinoff told the board, noting the shooting rampage that had left six dead and 13 wounded in Tucson, Ariz. a few weeks earlier.
He said an ethics board member shouldn't be allowed to make such attacks — not with so much at stake. A rebuke was absolutely necessary, he said.
"I urge you with my heart and with my soul for you to do the right thing," he said. "I come from a family of concentration camp survivors. And I can tell you from a very personal perspective, permitting this sort of dialogue only leads to tragedy."
The ethics board dismissed the complaint.
♦♦♦
Customers in the Otay district often have little reason to complain.
They pay some of the county's lowest water rates. In 2009, while other water districts told customers to cut back on their consumption or face penalties, Otay didn't, saying its customers had already conserved.
But this August, customers went berserk. A standing-room-only crowd filled a mid-afternoon board meeting. They were furious about the district's push to guarantee health care coverage for all current employees after they retire.
While other water agencies and government bodies are doing the opposite, Otay was about to increase its employees' retirement benefits. The district had struggled to articulate a clear reason why.
The fight that day was between Otay leaders and the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, and it turned nasty. Just before voting, Bonilla said something that in any other district might've sounded unusual, which evoked memories of the chilling phone messages that he and other agency officials had received a decade earlier.
"You should see the emails we got, threats to our families," Bonilla told the crowd. "It was motivated by this organization."
Fixed-income retirees erupted in howls of protest, bringing the board's discussion to a halt. Retirees were already upset about the retirement benefit boost, concerned it may impact water rates increasing faster than they said they could afford. Now it appeared that Bonilla was blaming death threats on the taxpayers association. "You're going to lie! Shut up!" one bellowed.
Bonilla quickly clarified. The taxpayers association hadn't actually convinced people to threaten board members, he said. They'd just misled the public and gotten people angry.
Two months later, Bonilla cited the anonymous threats again. This time, he was writing to the taxpayers association's board, calling the group's criticism unfounded, misleading and dangerous. Two threatening emails — "You are US enemies and deserve to die," one said — were attached as evidence.
And just as Otay had done months earlier with Shilling, another public critic, the letter concluded with its own threat.
If the taxpayers association's attack continued, Bonilla wrote, the district would sue.
Otay Water District GM Defends $300K Salary
Mark Watton Would Accept Pay Cut If Board Asked
10News.com
July 22, 2011
SAN DIEGO -- One of the highest-paid public employees in California is defending his $301,000 salary as water rates continue to rise.
10News learned Mark Watton, general manager of the Otay Water District, earns more money than Gov. Jerry Brown and spends a quarter of the year on vacation.
Watton, whose agency has 51,000 customers, told 10News, "This job is just like any CEO's job. It's 24/7. I'm never away from email or the phone, and I'm always on these premises.
According to information obtained by 10News, Watton isn't exactly there every day. His lucrative ratepayer-funded salary includes 71 days of vacation. He could take every Friday of every month off and he would still have 18 days of vacation left.
"You're trying to allude or relate us to some type of criminal prosecution going on in other cities. I agree with those prosecutions, but if you want to imply that's the case here, I disagree with that," said Watton.
There are no accusations of wrongdoing at the Otay Water District, but there are questions about Watton's salary.
Watton served on the water board since 1983, at the same time he was a business owner.
"[I] had a real estate company for a while and a waste disposal company," he said.
"You go directly to your position as general manager?" asked 10News reporter Craig Fiegener.
Watton replied, "Yes. I had certificates and coursework to be successful in the endeavor I chose."
"Would you accept a pay cut to help the agency and save consumer money?" asked Fiegener.
"If the board asked me to do that I would," he said.
10News learned Watton assumed his role in 2004. He is not a specially educated business executive.
Watton's compensation came under scrutiny after the Otay Water District approved another 7.7 percent water rate increase effective next February.
Watton's next contract negotiation could happen next month and could include another raise.
October 16, 2011
by Rob Davis
Voice of San Diego
The officials' phones often rang late at night or after meetings. It was the early 2000s, and the Otay Water District was roiled by scandal, by accusations of mismanagement, bribery, fraud and self-dealing.
What followed was never good.
Sometimes came only the sound of a single kiss. A warning, police said. The kiss of death.
Sometimes came an ominous message. Rap music, blaring the same threat: Come on, motherfucker, come on.
When agency attorneys investigated, the answer they uncovered sounded like the kicker to a campfire horror story: The calls had been coming from inside — from the phone of one of the district's own board members.
The conflict typified the dark days at what could otherwise be an unremarkable agency with a routine task. But even a decade later, the Otay Water District is hardly unremarkable. It's proven that safely delivering water to 206,000 people from Otay Mesa to Jamul isn't always routine — though its customers may wish it was.
Across the county, more than 20 public agencies like Otay play a key role in daily life. They're middlemen who buy water from major suppliers and deliver it to the taps of homes and businesses. While big suppliers bring water here from sources far away, agencies like Otay maintain local pipes, read your meter and send you a bill every month or two.
They typically do that in relative obscurity. It's why you may not have heard of agencies like the Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District. But they are powerful entities. Otay has the authority to set and raise water rates. It determines how much developers must pay to connect new homes and offices to the water system. Its board has the discretion to spend millions of dollars on construction. Otay's service territory includes large stretches of a Southern California rarity: Undeveloped land. And it controls the only local water connection between San Diego and Tijuana.
Otay hasn't enjoyed the same obscurity as other water districts here. During the last decade, it's delivered sewage to drinking water taps, tried to squelch criticism with legal action and endured costly litigation from its customers, employees and board members.
Though the board member implicated in those late-night calls a decade ago is gone, death threats have continued even today.
♦♦♦
During the tumult's peak in the early 2000s, a long-time board member got fed up and quit.
The board member, Mark Watton, lashed out against the district's leadership, setting his sights on one man: Otay's board president, a radio station owner named Jaime Bonilla trying to distance himself from accusations of favoritism engulfing the rest of the agency. In a letter to La Prensa San Diego, Watton said Bonilla was right in the middle of Otay's problems.
Subscribe to the Morning Report.
"A (hopefully) short sad chapter in the Otay story, and what happens when public officials like these (including Mr. Bonilla) only want the position for their own ego, power and enrichment," Watton wrote.
Now, 10 years after he resigned, Mark Watton runs the Otay Water District. He was the county's highest-paid water official in 2010, in a job that gives him 71 days of leave annually. Add in weekends, and that's almost half the year.
Watton today says that he had it wrong. Bonilla was wearing a wire, working as an informant for the FBI. Watton said he didn't know Bonilla was trying to nab two other board members and a prominent Los Angeles lobbyist in a failed bribery sting. The case eventually fell apart.
"I didn't have the full picture of what was going on," Watton said.
Watton today answers to the district's five-member board.
Its president, still, is Jaime Bonilla.
♦♦♦
Something was terribly wrong with the water in Suite 109.
It was the summer of 2007. Business owners throughout the Fenton Business Center in Chula Vista's Eastlake neighborhood reported that their tap water suddenly appeared yellow. Others said green. They all agreed the water was foul, so gross some were embarrassed to have customers use their restrooms.
The story of what went wrong there unfolds across hundreds of pages of court documents in a case that has stretched on for four years. It's one of several lawsuits that have successfully targeted Otay as a defendant.
In the Fenton case, Otay blamed the problem on stagnant water in the newly constructed complex and told the businesses to flush their lines. It didn't help. When the district came out and checked, they tested the water at a nearby fire hydrant, where it looked fine, not at the businesses' taps. The color lingered for days.
The mysterious cause was unimaginably foul. Worse, it had been happening undetected for more than a year.
The district had been delivering partially treated sewage to drinking water taps since the park opened. People had been drinking and washing their hands in water contaminated by human waste. In lawsuits, they said they'd even brushed their teeth with it and suffered from countless gastrointestinal illnesses without knowing why.
No one noticed at first because the sewage was diluted with tap water. But that summer, Otay began buying more treated sewage to put in its purple pipe system — suitable for lawns but not people. After that, what came out of the businesses' taps was 100 percent treated sewage.
The district had put a potable water meter on a pipe meant for irrigation and missed chances to catch it. Otay didn't re-inspect the facility after discovering one of its inspectors had taken a bribe on another project from a contractor involved in the park's construction.
A civil jury found Otay and other developers had acted negligently. Lawsuits have held the district liable for $3 million in damages, money Watton said will be covered by an insurer, not ratepayers. But the settlements are the latest to inflate Otay's legal bills and leave a thick trail of paper in courthouse files over the last decade.
There came Tom Harron, the district's former attorney, in 2001. He alleged that he was fired because he was white so the newly elected Bonilla could hire Latino friends. Two rival former Otay board members and a former auditor testified under oath in the case that they'd regularly heard Bonilla call Harron "El Gringo" or "white boy" — allegations he denied.
"With Mr. Bonilla," one rival board member testified, "it is not enough to simply put a man out of his job. He wants to just completely annihilate this person."
The district apologized and settled with Harron in 2007 for nearly $700,000.
There came a class of six employees (five white and one black), alleging racial discrimination as the cause of their departures around the same time as Harron. One rival board member said Bonilla had used a slur to describe the fired black employee. The former auditor, then suing the district, testified that shortly before winning his seat, Bonilla had said about Otay: "We got to get rid of all the gringos." Bonilla denied that.
The district settled in 2007 for $371,000.
♦♦♦
This case was terribly flimsy. And it carried echoes of the political retribution that had once clearly defined Otay's dark days.
But this was March 2011, and an attorney for the Otay Water District was making a case for censure to the Chula Vista Ethics Board. One of the advisory group's members, a businessman named Chris Shilling, had run unsuccessfully in November against an Otay board member, David Gonzalez Jr.
The election hadn't been close. Gonzalez, the brother of Red Sox first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, won easily after far outspending Shilling.
Shilling had taken his campaign against Gonzalez to Facebook, on a page with 46 followers. There, he called the district corrupt and accused Gonzalez of stealing campaign signs. They were baseless comments, hardly noteworthy during election season.
But they sure got the water district's attention. Otay pursued legal action. Bonilla filed a complaint with the ethics board to get Shilling booted.
Bonilla didn't do that on his own dime though. The district's ratepayers paid for the agency's attorney to work on the complaint, which purported to come from the agency's board of directors. But the board hadn't agreed to send it. Bonilla told the Union-Tribune that he, Gonzalez, Watton and an attorney had decided to.
Watton said the district got involved because Shilling had noted in campaign literature that he served on the ethics board, making his criticism carry more weight.
"If someone is just out making stuff up and lying to the public, that is of interest to the district," Watton said. "We're not corrupt."
Bonilla later told the board that he'd pay for any litigation himself, according to meeting minutes. But he didn't reimburse the district for its legal expenses.
When the agency's attorney, Dan Shinoff, presented his case to the ethics board in March, he zeroed in on what he called Shilling's malicious critique of Gonzalez and Bonilla. Shinoff, who's paid $250 an hour by the district, appeared to be settling a campaign score. Talking to commissioners, he unfurled an inflated oratory filled with its own baseless accusations.
Shinoff tried to connect Shilling to an anonymous website that attacked Gonzalez. And yet Shinoff offered no proof it was Shilling's site. Shinoff said the criticism was symptomatic of the country's devolving political discourse.
"Somebody's going to be a victim if we continue this in this society," Shinoff told the board, noting the shooting rampage that had left six dead and 13 wounded in Tucson, Ariz. a few weeks earlier.
He said an ethics board member shouldn't be allowed to make such attacks — not with so much at stake. A rebuke was absolutely necessary, he said.
"I urge you with my heart and with my soul for you to do the right thing," he said. "I come from a family of concentration camp survivors. And I can tell you from a very personal perspective, permitting this sort of dialogue only leads to tragedy."
The ethics board dismissed the complaint.
♦♦♦
Customers in the Otay district often have little reason to complain.
They pay some of the county's lowest water rates. In 2009, while other water districts told customers to cut back on their consumption or face penalties, Otay didn't, saying its customers had already conserved.
But this August, customers went berserk. A standing-room-only crowd filled a mid-afternoon board meeting. They were furious about the district's push to guarantee health care coverage for all current employees after they retire.
While other water agencies and government bodies are doing the opposite, Otay was about to increase its employees' retirement benefits. The district had struggled to articulate a clear reason why.
The fight that day was between Otay leaders and the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, and it turned nasty. Just before voting, Bonilla said something that in any other district might've sounded unusual, which evoked memories of the chilling phone messages that he and other agency officials had received a decade earlier.
"You should see the emails we got, threats to our families," Bonilla told the crowd. "It was motivated by this organization."
Fixed-income retirees erupted in howls of protest, bringing the board's discussion to a halt. Retirees were already upset about the retirement benefit boost, concerned it may impact water rates increasing faster than they said they could afford. Now it appeared that Bonilla was blaming death threats on the taxpayers association. "You're going to lie! Shut up!" one bellowed.
Bonilla quickly clarified. The taxpayers association hadn't actually convinced people to threaten board members, he said. They'd just misled the public and gotten people angry.
Two months later, Bonilla cited the anonymous threats again. This time, he was writing to the taxpayers association's board, calling the group's criticism unfounded, misleading and dangerous. Two threatening emails — "You are US enemies and deserve to die," one said — were attached as evidence.
And just as Otay had done months earlier with Shilling, another public critic, the letter concluded with its own threat.
If the taxpayers association's attack continued, Bonilla wrote, the district would sue.
Otay Water District GM Defends $300K Salary
Mark Watton Would Accept Pay Cut If Board Asked
10News.com
July 22, 2011
SAN DIEGO -- One of the highest-paid public employees in California is defending his $301,000 salary as water rates continue to rise.
10News learned Mark Watton, general manager of the Otay Water District, earns more money than Gov. Jerry Brown and spends a quarter of the year on vacation.
Watton, whose agency has 51,000 customers, told 10News, "This job is just like any CEO's job. It's 24/7. I'm never away from email or the phone, and I'm always on these premises.
According to information obtained by 10News, Watton isn't exactly there every day. His lucrative ratepayer-funded salary includes 71 days of vacation. He could take every Friday of every month off and he would still have 18 days of vacation left.
"You're trying to allude or relate us to some type of criminal prosecution going on in other cities. I agree with those prosecutions, but if you want to imply that's the case here, I disagree with that," said Watton.
There are no accusations of wrongdoing at the Otay Water District, but there are questions about Watton's salary.
Watton served on the water board since 1983, at the same time he was a business owner.
"[I] had a real estate company for a while and a waste disposal company," he said.
"You go directly to your position as general manager?" asked 10News reporter Craig Fiegener.
Watton replied, "Yes. I had certificates and coursework to be successful in the endeavor I chose."
"Would you accept a pay cut to help the agency and save consumer money?" asked Fiegener.
"If the board asked me to do that I would," he said.
10News learned Watton assumed his role in 2004. He is not a specially educated business executive.
Watton's compensation came under scrutiny after the Otay Water District approved another 7.7 percent water rate increase effective next February.
Watton's next contract negotiation could happen next month and could include another raise.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
San Diego Ethics Commission refuses to release information about its attorney-lobbyists or attorney who works for SEDC
“You have an excellent reputation in the community; you are an extremely careful person, and I don’t see why your answer should not be sufficient,” Commissioner and retired Judge William Howatt Jr. told Fulhorst.
The ethics of the Ethics Commission
By Dave Maass
San Diego City Beat
Oct 12, 2011
At a September meeting of the San Diego Ethics Commission, the agency’s executive director, Stacey Fulhorst, presented the mother of all catch-22s.
While inspecting lobbyist-activity records, CityBeat had learned that private attorneys retained by the Ethics Commission are also working as counsel for the Southeastern Economic Development Corporation (SEDC), a city redevelopment agency, and as lobbyists for private companies. The relationships seem to present a potential conflict of interest on multiple levels, since the commission both regulates lobbyists and enforces ethics in city government, including SEDC. Asked about this, Fulhorst said the law firm—Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff and Holtz—and the commission have put several firewalls in place.
However, since attorney-client confidentiality covers legal agreements, Fulhorst couldn’t offer proof of these safeguards without first asking the commission’s seven members to release the information.
“I would personally recommend that you do approve a waiver, a very limited waiver of just, literally, a handful of paragraphs, because I do think it’s important to demonstrate to the public that we recognize it would not be appropriate for us to receive legal services from the same law firm that was providing general counsel to SEDC on SEDC matters,” Fulhorst told commissioners on Sept. 23.
Paradoxically, Fulhorst couldn’t show the commissioners the relevant paragraphs because they’d then become public record. Nor could the commission turn to its legal counsel for advice, since the lawyers were the subject of the discussion.
The commission deliberated for 15 minutes on whether an agency that investigates conflicts of interests should be transparent regarding its own potential conflicts. Some members wondered why CityBeat wouldn’t just take Fulhorst’s word.
“You have an excellent reputation in the community; you are an extremely careful person, and I don’t see why your answer should not be sufficient,” Commissioner and retired Judge William Howatt Jr. told Fulhorst.
Some worried about setting a precedent.
“I just think we should be careful with granting such a waiver,” Commissioner Larry Westfall, an accountant, said. “Once you do it, we start to open the door for every little, two-bit newspaper in town to come here and make requests for information, too.”
Some recognized the public interest in releasing the document, but Commissioner and attorney John O’Neill alone saw that as overriding other concerns.
“I think it puts to rest any suspicion there is any impropriety here,” O’Neill said. “I don’t think it helps us to not give the document.”
The commission voted 5-1 (one member was absent) against releasing the information, rejecting Fulhorst’s offer to conduct more research on an issue that wouldn’t have come up a year ago.
With Proposition E in 2004, San Diego voters authorized the Ethics Commission to hire its own legal counsel instead of relying on the advice of the City Attorney’s office. Proponents argued it was problematic for the city attorney to represent both the commission and the city officials subject to commission investigations. They also noted that City Attorney staff are also subject to commission enforcement actions.
For the first five years, the commission employed a staff attorney, but when the lawyer departed last year, the agency decided to contract with an outside firm to allow more flexibility. The Stutz firm submitted a bid and, Fulhorst said, was selected because of the “unique expertise and knowledge” of Christina Cameron, a longtime City Hall staffer specializing in ethics and campaign reform who’d recently earned a law degree. Under the terms of the bid, Cameron would serve as a general counsel, working under the supervision of “associate general counsel” Prescilla Dugard and Leslie Devaney. All three were serving as counsel to SEDC and lobbyists, but the firm agreed that Cameron would be severed from SEDC matters and no longer register as a lobbyist.
In the first half of 2011, the Ethics Commission paid the Stutz firm $48,000 in fees, and another $3,000 to a second firm that handles cases when a conflict arises. During the same period, the Stutz firm collected at least $203,000 from SEDC. As a lobbying organization, the firm represents EverFlow Resources, Staff Pro and Western Towing.
Fulhorst, Cameron and Devaney described to CityBeat many of the physical and procedural measures in place to protect against a conflict. The firm also amended its lobbyist reports following CityBeat’s inquiry to better reflect Devaney and Dugard’s involvement with the Ethics Commission: Each provided less than an hour of legal services in the first half of the year.
Tracy Westen, CEO of the Center for Governmental Studies, a Los Angeles-based watchdog organization, says he’s less concerned with the specific SEDC issue than he is alarmed to learn that registered lobbyists are providing legal advice to lobbyist regulators.
“Ideally, if you contract for ethics advice with outside counsel, you want that outside counsel to give you independent advice,” Westen says. “But if the outside counsel is also lobbying the city, its advice may tilt in favor of lobbyists in general. Simply recusing themselves from judgments involving a client they’re lobbying for is a good idea, but it does not purge them of pro-lobbyist sentiments.”
Of the 106 complaints processed by the commission in 2010, 38 percent—the largest portion—were alleged violations of the city’s lobbying ordinance, according to the commission’s annual report.
“If a matter were heavily related to lobbying and I felt it was inappropriate to talk to [Devaney or Dugard] because they are registered lobbyists, then I have other partners and other senior attorneys that I can work with if I need to,” Cameron says.
Westen says that’s not enough. “It’s very difficult for a law firm to purge itself of this appearance of a conflict if some partners are lobbying and others are not,” Westen says. “I think the city really needs to go to a law firm that is not doing lobbying.”
Fulhorst says that’s an impractical idea coming from someone “working in academia,” since the “vast majority of law firms” in San Diego are registered as lobbyists under the city ordinance...
The ethics of the Ethics Commission
By Dave Maass
San Diego City Beat
Oct 12, 2011
At a September meeting of the San Diego Ethics Commission, the agency’s executive director, Stacey Fulhorst, presented the mother of all catch-22s.
While inspecting lobbyist-activity records, CityBeat had learned that private attorneys retained by the Ethics Commission are also working as counsel for the Southeastern Economic Development Corporation (SEDC), a city redevelopment agency, and as lobbyists for private companies. The relationships seem to present a potential conflict of interest on multiple levels, since the commission both regulates lobbyists and enforces ethics in city government, including SEDC. Asked about this, Fulhorst said the law firm—Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff and Holtz—and the commission have put several firewalls in place.
However, since attorney-client confidentiality covers legal agreements, Fulhorst couldn’t offer proof of these safeguards without first asking the commission’s seven members to release the information.
“I would personally recommend that you do approve a waiver, a very limited waiver of just, literally, a handful of paragraphs, because I do think it’s important to demonstrate to the public that we recognize it would not be appropriate for us to receive legal services from the same law firm that was providing general counsel to SEDC on SEDC matters,” Fulhorst told commissioners on Sept. 23.
Paradoxically, Fulhorst couldn’t show the commissioners the relevant paragraphs because they’d then become public record. Nor could the commission turn to its legal counsel for advice, since the lawyers were the subject of the discussion.
The commission deliberated for 15 minutes on whether an agency that investigates conflicts of interests should be transparent regarding its own potential conflicts. Some members wondered why CityBeat wouldn’t just take Fulhorst’s word.
“You have an excellent reputation in the community; you are an extremely careful person, and I don’t see why your answer should not be sufficient,” Commissioner and retired Judge William Howatt Jr. told Fulhorst.
Some worried about setting a precedent.
“I just think we should be careful with granting such a waiver,” Commissioner Larry Westfall, an accountant, said. “Once you do it, we start to open the door for every little, two-bit newspaper in town to come here and make requests for information, too.”
Some recognized the public interest in releasing the document, but Commissioner and attorney John O’Neill alone saw that as overriding other concerns.
“I think it puts to rest any suspicion there is any impropriety here,” O’Neill said. “I don’t think it helps us to not give the document.”
The commission voted 5-1 (one member was absent) against releasing the information, rejecting Fulhorst’s offer to conduct more research on an issue that wouldn’t have come up a year ago.
With Proposition E in 2004, San Diego voters authorized the Ethics Commission to hire its own legal counsel instead of relying on the advice of the City Attorney’s office. Proponents argued it was problematic for the city attorney to represent both the commission and the city officials subject to commission investigations. They also noted that City Attorney staff are also subject to commission enforcement actions.
For the first five years, the commission employed a staff attorney, but when the lawyer departed last year, the agency decided to contract with an outside firm to allow more flexibility. The Stutz firm submitted a bid and, Fulhorst said, was selected because of the “unique expertise and knowledge” of Christina Cameron, a longtime City Hall staffer specializing in ethics and campaign reform who’d recently earned a law degree. Under the terms of the bid, Cameron would serve as a general counsel, working under the supervision of “associate general counsel” Prescilla Dugard and Leslie Devaney. All three were serving as counsel to SEDC and lobbyists, but the firm agreed that Cameron would be severed from SEDC matters and no longer register as a lobbyist.
In the first half of 2011, the Ethics Commission paid the Stutz firm $48,000 in fees, and another $3,000 to a second firm that handles cases when a conflict arises. During the same period, the Stutz firm collected at least $203,000 from SEDC. As a lobbying organization, the firm represents EverFlow Resources, Staff Pro and Western Towing.
Fulhorst, Cameron and Devaney described to CityBeat many of the physical and procedural measures in place to protect against a conflict. The firm also amended its lobbyist reports following CityBeat’s inquiry to better reflect Devaney and Dugard’s involvement with the Ethics Commission: Each provided less than an hour of legal services in the first half of the year.
Tracy Westen, CEO of the Center for Governmental Studies, a Los Angeles-based watchdog organization, says he’s less concerned with the specific SEDC issue than he is alarmed to learn that registered lobbyists are providing legal advice to lobbyist regulators.
“Ideally, if you contract for ethics advice with outside counsel, you want that outside counsel to give you independent advice,” Westen says. “But if the outside counsel is also lobbying the city, its advice may tilt in favor of lobbyists in general. Simply recusing themselves from judgments involving a client they’re lobbying for is a good idea, but it does not purge them of pro-lobbyist sentiments.”
Of the 106 complaints processed by the commission in 2010, 38 percent—the largest portion—were alleged violations of the city’s lobbying ordinance, according to the commission’s annual report.
“If a matter were heavily related to lobbying and I felt it was inappropriate to talk to [Devaney or Dugard] because they are registered lobbyists, then I have other partners and other senior attorneys that I can work with if I need to,” Cameron says.
Westen says that’s not enough. “It’s very difficult for a law firm to purge itself of this appearance of a conflict if some partners are lobbying and others are not,” Westen says. “I think the city really needs to go to a law firm that is not doing lobbying.”
Fulhorst says that’s an impractical idea coming from someone “working in academia,” since the “vast majority of law firms” in San Diego are registered as lobbyists under the city ordinance...
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