FPPC Rejects Action in Lindsay Case

After a four-month review of financial records for Los Angeles City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay’s campaign fund-raising committees, the state Fair Political Practices Commission staff has decided not to recommend punitive action.

The staff concluded that “there were many sloppy errors,” but there was “no apparent intentional concealment of contributions and expenditures,” said Sandra Michioku, media director.

Lindsay’s campaign finance reports had been referred to the FPPC, which enforces state campaign contribution laws, by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office last August. The action came after a city audit of two fund-raising committees controlled by the Central City councilman revealed a series of basic mathematical errors and significant omissions. The combined inaccuracies made it virtually impossible to tell from the public record exactly how several hundred thousand dollars had been raised and spent.

Among the accounting problems noted in the city audit, which was released last week, was the handling of a $50,000 loan from one of Lindsay’s committees, the Lindsay Organization Fund, to City Atty. James K. Hahn. When the loan was repaid in 1986, Lindsay’s committee deducted rather than added the money to the balance--a $100,000 error.

Another committee, LIN PAC, had a $54,000 accounting error, and bank records showed thousands of dollars in contributions were not fully disclosed on public reports.

Lindsay acknowledged making mistakes in the reports, but he has insisted that they were “minor.”