CIVIC Aims to Replace Oceanside Members, Reform Campaign Laws

Irked by the performance of the Oceanside City Council, leaders of a new citizens coalition announced plans Tuesday to push for sweeping campaign reforms and support a rival slate of candidates during the November council race.

Dubbed CIVIC (for Citizens to Insure that their Vote Is not Compromised), the new group wants the city to enact strict spending limits for candidates and tough reporting requirements on contributions.

“Campaign reforms are long overdue,” Nancy York, an Oceanside attorney and chairwoman of the organization, said during a press conference Tuesday. “The council has been promising us election reforms for the last two years and (they) haven’t given us anything.”

The coalition is also considering whether to launch recall elections against their chief council opponents. Councilmen Ben Ramsey and Sam Williamson are most often mentioned by CIVIC members as possible recall targets. Neither councilman could be reached for comment Tuesday.

Branded a Political ‘Front’

Other council members, however, branded the new coalition, a spin-off of a grass-roots group that last year backed a successful slow-growth initiative opposed at City Hall, as little more than a front for ousted former Councilwoman Melba Bishop.

“It’s the residuals of what has been the Melba affiliates,” said Councilwoman Lucy Chavez. “I think she’s just laying the groundwork for herself and her slate of candidates in November.”

Bishop scoffed at that assertion.

“The group is certainly more diverse than that,” said Bishop, who is listed as an honorary member of CIVIC. “It’s very easy for the council to say this is just a disgruntled candidate. It’s a little harder for them to look at what they’ve done and make changes that are necessary.”

During the past year, slow-growth advocates such as Bishop have been angered by the council’s interpretation of the new growth-limitation law, saying the local leaders opened loopholes for development to trickle in.

“The City Council, in effect, thumbed their noses at the voters,” said Lou Bales, a member of the CIVIC steering committee.

The organization’s call for election reforms comes as the City Council is gearing up to study that very issue. In early January, Chavez and Ramsey were appointed by Mayor Larry Bagley to a special ad hoc committee to consider possible reforms.

Although Chavez believes CIVIC is a smoke screen for Bishop’s political agenda, the councilwoman said that she welcomes the campaign reform proposals and hopes “they’ll work with us because their interests are the same as ours.”

Committee ‘a Joke’

But leaders of CIVIC say the appointment of Chavez and Ramsey to a committee designed to shepherd in new campaign laws is “a joke.” They say Ramsey misrepresented himself to voters as a slow-growth candidate even though he received contributions from developers and land owners during the 1986 campaign. Chavez also has been consistently labeled pro-growth by the group.

Nonetheless, the group will present its ideas for campaign reform to the City Council during the coming months, York said. If the council does not accept the proposal, CIVIC might try to collect the signatures of city voters and put the issue on the ballot. The group proposes that:

- All contributions, no matter how small, be reported by name, occupation and employer. Many special interest groups skirt the current $100 limit for reporting by having various members of a business or family contribute $99 each, York said.

- On the Friday before an election, all campaign contributions would be cut off. In addition, a special reporting period would be set up the Friday preceding election day. In past elections, York said, special interest groups such as developers have waited until late in a campaign to contribute in order to hide their support for a particular candidate. The contribution cut-off would also prohibit special interests from giving large sums after an election to win favor from winning candidates, she said.

- A spending limit be set in place. Although the group has not come up with a dollar figure for the spending ceiling, CIVIC leaders insist that such a lid is necessary to control runaway campaign costs. A spending limit would give all candidates “a level playing field,” York said.

- The city investigate ways to prohibit candidates from dispatching last minute “hit-piece” mailers. During the November, 1986, election, several candidates--among them Bishop and former Councilman Ted Marioncelli--were the target of mailers they labeled as inaccurate and slanderous.

As yet, CIVIC has not selected any candidates it will support in the upcoming November election, but York said a decision would be made during the coming months.