Atlas Donations to McColl Match the One She Returned

Eight months after promising to return a $4,500 contribution from Atlas Hotels in the heat of a losing state legislative race, San Diego City Councilwoman Gloria McColl received nine $500 donations from Atlas executives--one day before the council was scheduled to vote on a major Atlas project in Mission Valley.

Both McColl and the city attorney’s office defended the propriety of the contributions, but her opponent in this fall’s council race said Monday that her acceptance of the Atlas executives’ donations was “unethical at best.”

“The question is: If she thought there was a problem with the money in March (1988), why did it become OK to take it in November?” asked John Hartley, McColl’s opponent in her bid for a third term in the 3rd Council District.

A top Atlas Hotels executive, meanwhile, described as “a coincidence” the fact that the $4,500 that McColl received from the nine Atlas employees equaled the amount that she had earlier returned.

In last June’s 77th State Assembly District Republican primary, McColl received a $5,000 campaign contribution from Atlas Hotels. In the face of criticism from her primary opponent, Carol Bentley, McColl pledged to return $4,500 of that corporate donation--even though, under state campaign laws, she could have legally kept the full $5,000.

Returned Dollar for Dollar

However, nearly six months after McColl was defeated by Bentley, the $4,500 that she had returned was replaced, dollar for dollar, through the nine separate $500 donations from Atlas executives, campaign finance reports show. Added to the $500 that she kept from the original contribution, those November donations meant that McColl ended up receiving the same amount--$5,000--as the initial gift, the only difference being the form in which the money was received.

Moreover, the nine $500 contributions were made to McColl’s state legislative campaign committee Nov. 28--the day before the City Council was scheduled to vote on Atlas’ plans for an 86-acre office, hotel and convention-center project. Although action on the proposal was postponed on Nov. 29, the council unanimously approved it two weeks later, with McColl among the supporters.

Describing the pattern of those contributions as a “putting in one pocket what you took out of another,” Hartley characterized her acceptance of the nine $500 donations as “hypocritical, unethical and arrogant.”

“It is especially unethical to do so after first recognizing the impropriety of the contribution and

returning it during the scrutiny of an election campaign,” Hartley said. “Then, six months after she’s lost, she gets it back when she thinks no one’s watching.”

Dismissing Hartley’s charges as “campaign dirt that I’m not going to dignify,” McColl stressed that she sees “absolutely nothing at all wrong” with the contributions. On that point, an elections law specialist in the city attorney’s office sided with McColl, saying that it was not improper for her to either accept the contributions or to subsequently vote for Atlas’ proposed major expansion of its Town & Country Hotel in Mission Valley.

“The general feeling is, no one’s going to sell a vote for $500, even if you multiply that nine times,” said Ted Bromfield, the chief deputy city attorney.

Hartley’s complaints show that, even as McColl prepares for this September’s councilmanic primary, her opponent hopes to keep her on the defensive from last year’s failed state legislative race.

In that Assembly race, the ultimate victor, Bentley, strongly attacked McColl for accepting a $5,000 corporate donation from Atlas Hotels on Feb. 18.

Although the contribution was legal under the guidelines governing state legislative races, Bentley termed the donation “inappropriate” because of Atlas’ development proposal before the City Council. Although declining to place any restrictions on her own fund-raising, Bentley urged McColl to abide by the more restrictive city campaign laws, which prohibit corporate donations and limit individual contributions to $250 per election--a total of $500 for a primary and general election.

As a result of the ensuing controversy, McColl in March placed a self-imposed $500 limit on contributions that her campaign received from individuals or corporations doing business with the city. At the time that she had received the $5,000 Atlas contribution, McColl said she was unaware of the impending Town & Country expansion plan.

Agreed to Return Money

By voluntarily applying the city’s general campaign guidelines to her race for state office, McColl noted at the time, she was imposing more stringent limits on her own fund-raising than those under which Bentley operated. In adherence with that policy, McColl agreed to return $4,500 of the $5,000 contribution previously received from Atlas.

Despite McColl’s 55%-45% loss to Bentley in June, her campaign committee remained intact throughout the last half of 1988, paying bills, receiving contributions and generally tying up loose ends from the primary.

Campaign finance reports show that McColl returned the $4,500 sometime between last July and December, though the exact date is not specified. The same report also reveals that, on Nov. 28--the day before Atlas’ project was scheduled to go before the council--she received the nine $500 donations from Atlas and Town & Country executives.

McColl said Monday that she did not know whether her campaign had solicited the donations from the Atlas executives and that she was unaware that the money had flowed into her campaign treasury so close to the council vote.

“We’ve not researched that, and that’s not anything that I’m even involved with,” McColl said. “I have no idea when things come in. That’s handled by the accountant.”

Hartley, however, argued that the “suspiciously similar” total of the Atlas corporate and individual donations “suggest that a deal may have been made . . . to return the corporate contribution, eliminating the political embarrassment it caused, with a promise that it would be contributed again after the election.”

In response, McColl snapped: “Since he isn’t my campaign manager, he probably doesn’t know why things are done.”

However, noting that she still has about a $20,000 debt from her $238,357 legislative campaign, McColl said, “If there are any more contributions out there, I’d be glad to take them.”

“The Atlas project was in full compliance with the Mission Valley community plan,” McColl added. “The Planning Commission unanimously approved, it and it was unanimously approved by the City Council, too.”

Saying he could “not recall” McColl’s campaign soliciting the donations, Atlas President Robert Richards explained that the hotel executives “decided individually” to support McColl last fall. There was “no link,” he added, between the $4,500 returned from the original corporate donation and the subsequent nine $500 individual contributions.

“I don’t think it was a case of them saying, ‘Hey, we need $4,500 . . . to make up for what we gave back,’ ” Richards said. “Those of us in the company often give to candidates. Quite frequently, we all talk about candidates and try to get ideas from one another. But this had nothing to do with the company. Individuals made up their own minds.”

The fact that the $4,500 in individual donations equaled the returned portion of the corporate contribution, Richards said, “was coincidental and nothing more.”

“Our contributions didn’t have anything to do with what she returned to us or with what she originally got from the company,” Richards said. “They were two separate things.”

‘Within Their Rights’

Chief Deputy City Atty. Bromfield, meanwhile, said that the Atlas executives and McColl were “perfectly within their rights” in, respectively, making the contributions and voting for the company’s project after accepting the funds.

Unlike personal financial holdings, which can compel public officials to disqualify themselves from voting on issues that could benefit them economically, campaign donations pose no such conflict-of-interest questions, Bromfield explained.

Similarly, so long as companies do not reimburse their employees for making political donations, executives of a single corporation can contribute to a candidate within the confines of the city’s $250 limit. Although some political activists interpret that practice as a circumvention of the city’s ban on corporate campaign donations, Bromfield emphasized that such contributions are “protected by the basic First Amendment right to support whomever you choose.”

Unpersuaded by McColl’s explanations, Hartley said the contribution issue “goes to the heart of our process of representative government.”

“Even if you’re technically within the law, to take money from a corporation the day before you’re supposed to vote on one of its big projects is inconceivable to me,” Hartley said. “People stop voting because they are convinced their votes--if they aren’t accompanied by big contributions--don’t make any difference. . . . This incident sure isn’t going to make them think otherwise.”