by Peggy Clifford
Anyone from anywhere can come into Santa Monica and set up a fake committee called “Santa Monicans for Quality Government,” though he’s not a “Santa Monican” and, as far as we know, is the sole member of the group.
And the aforesaid anyone from anywhere can collect money from developers, property managers and developers’ lawyers, most of whom are not Santa Monica residents and have no interest in “quality government,” but a fervent interest in “friendly government,” as they all have major projects seeking approval from what passes for government in Santa Monica, and he can use the money to feature Council members who are seeking re-election
in bogus mailers.
The candidates who are featured in the bogus mailers can claim that they knew nothing about them. though the man who made them was the campaign consultant for two of the candidates, and a line in the mailers says that the candidates who appear in the mailer have paid for and authorized their appearance in the mailers.
The candidates can take the developers’ money and approve their projects and say –with straight faces — that the developers’ contributions did not influence their votes.
The man who formed the committee can use the official insignia of the Police and Firefighters Associations on his fake mailers and exclude one of their endorsements, and be described by a Police spokesman as merely “disingenuous.”
He can claim that the mailers are “state slate mailers,” though the only people who can vote for the candidates in the mailers live in Santa Monica.
A residents’ group can file a formal complaint with the City Attorney, but she can claim that as her office represents the Council, it can’t investigate complaints in which Council members might be involved, so she’ll have to send the complaint out of town — to the “Public Integrity” division of the District Attorney’s Office.
The “Public Integrity” office can choose what it will investigate, and it chose not to investigate this complaint and sent it on to the State’s Campaign Fair Practices Commission (CFPC).
And the man from anywhere can file his campaign’s financial disclosure statements after the deadline, when they are too late to be useful, and only receive a “warning” from CFPC, rather than a fine, for what it described as “two violations of the state’s Political Reform Act.”
So the man from anywhere, the developers and the Council members can do whatever they like, and the City Attorney and DA can choose to do nothing, and CFPC can do almost nothing.
And, unlike the man from anywhere, the developers and the Council candidates, we, the people, the voters, the residents can’t do anything about any of it.