Country Club Card Gift No Conflict, Official Says

A recent state ethics ruling probably will not disqualify any Huntington Beach City Council member from voting on issues affecting the Huntington Beach Co., one of the city’s largest landowners, an official said Monday.

Deputy City Atty. Robert C. Sangster said that initial checks have turned up no evidence that any council member has received a benefit of more than $250--the legal threshold--when he or she was given free VIP membership cards for meals at the Seacliff Country Club, which the company owns.

The conflict-of-interest ruling was requested after the Huntington Beach Co. gave the cards to 153 local business leaders, real estate agents and politicians--the seven council members among them--as a promotion for the country club.

“All the card allows you to do is go in and buy food and beverages,” Sangster said. “You didn’t get anything free.”

However, regular members are billed $30 a month for food and drinks whether or not they have dined there, whereas VIP members are billed only for what they actually consume, Sangster said.

Last week, the state Fair Political Practices Commission ruled that that provision constitutes a gift that council members must disclose should they either make use of the club themselves or transfer membership to someone else.

The commission said the value of the VIP membership is the initiation fee plus the difference between $30 a month and the actual dining room charges incurred, according to a letter commission attorneys sent to the city.

If the gift amounts to $250 or more, Sangster said, the council member who received it would be prohibited by state law from voting on any matter having a “material financial effect” on the donor, in this case the Huntington Beach Co.

However, Sangster said, “our preliminary analysis indicates that no member goes over that $250 threshold, so no member would appear to be disqualified.”

City attorneys expect to have prepared a report on how the ethics decision affects each council member in time for next Monday’s council meeting, Sangster said. The commission’s decision, released Friday, does not invalidate any previous votes by the council, he added.