Ferguson Reports to Irvine on Spending in ’86 City Campaign

Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) filed reports with the City of Irvine on Thursday listing expenditures of $4,412.61 in the campaign preceding the July, 1986, Irvine City Council election. And he wrote a letter to City Clerk Nancy Lacey saying that, despite criticism from Mayor Larry Agran, his political action committee, FREEPAC, “did not knowingly fail to file a report.”

“We have always filed the reports we were advised were necessary, according to the law,” Ferguson wrote in the cover letter attached to his “Supplemental Independent Expenditure Report.”

Ferguson and Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) were criticized by Agran earlier in the week at a City Council meeting for not reporting expenditures for mailings that attacked Agran and City Councilman Ed Dornan in the closing days of the campaign.

“We were not aware of any requirements to file reports with the City of Irvine,” Ferguson wrote in the letter, copies of which were sent to the city attorney, the Orange County district attorney and the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

A spokesman for Robert Dornan said the congressman was also unaware of the reporting requirement and expected to be filing similar information soon.

Both Ferguson and Robert Dornan said they had reported the expenditures elsewhere--Ferguson in disclosures filed with the California Secretary of State’s office and Dornan in reports to the Federal Elections Commission.

Agran had asked the city attorney to look into the matter, saying that both Ferguson and Rep. Dornan should have been aware of the filing requirements.