Credit Unions Rescue Beleagured Consumer Watchdog Group : Cal-PIRG: Groups provide $46,000 for the group that nearly went out of business when it lost city funding.
A consumer watchdog group that lost its city funding earlier this year and almost had to close shop received a $46,000 grant Thursday from a group of San Diego credit unions to keep going another year.
The eleventh-hour grant came four months after supporters of the California Public Interest Research Group traipsed into City Hall carrying broken toasters, curling irons and electric can openers to protest the City Council’s decision to cut the agency’s funding.
The money will enable Cal-PIRG to continue issuing its popular supermarket pricing surveys. But the agency will not issue any reports on financial institutions to avoid the appearance of favoritism or a conflict of interest because of its source of funding, Cal-PIRG’s consumer program director Jeffrey Francis said.
Cal-PIRG laid off an employee and scaled back its operations after San Diego announced it would no longer fund the agency, which had been doing business with city money for 13 years. Last year, the city gave the group $40,000.
The credit union executives who announced the donations at a press conference in Cal-PIRG’s office in Linda Vista said it was only natural they would support the consumer-protection group.
“This is a natural outgrowth of our consumer responsibility,” said Gordon Dames, president of the San Diego County Credit Union, who first proposed raising money for Cal-PIRG. “We had almost unanimous support from almost everybody we spoke to. This is the first time we’ve had an issue that we could all come together on so rapidly.”
A total of 21 credit unions contributed $500 to $8,500 apiece to the consumer group. In the last two months, San Diego County Credit Union and the Assn. of Credit Union Chief Executives donated $3,000 each to keep Cal-PIRG running during the last two months.
The $46,000 grant was given by the credit unions in proportion to the size of their assets. North Island Federal Credit Union, Cabrillo Federal Credit Union and San Diego County Credit Union were among the largest contributors.
Francis said he was “very pleased, even overjoyed,” about the funding, but that he hoped local government agencies would come forward with more cash to enable it to continue monitoring financial issues. Credit unions, banks and home equity credit lines have all been the subject of Cal-PIRG surveys in the last two years.
“This should be a program that is supported by a marriage of public and private funds,” Francis said.
Francis said he has requested funding from every city in San Diego County and has received some positive responses from officials in Chula Vista and El Cajon. But he had bitter words for San Diego city officials who voted unanimously this summer to stop funding the agency.
“Out of a $956 million budget, $46,000 is a drop in the bucket,” Francis said. “If they wanted to fund us, they could. But they haven’t given us any reason for dropping that funding. Obviously, they just aren’t that concerned with consumer protection and consumer information. The council members here haven’t seen it as a priority.”
City Manager John Lockwood said there just wasn’t enough money to fund Cal-PIRG anymore and pointed to the City Attorney’s Consumer Fraud Division as proof that consumer affairs are a priority in San Diego.
“Are you going to close a fire station down to fund consumer affairs? Probably not,” Lockwood said. “We have a consumer fraud division in the city attorney’s office. Consumer affairs are a priority for the city or that department wouldn’t be there.”
The consumer fraud division was drastically scaled back this year, so much so that head deputy of the city attorney’s office William Newsome said he wanted to change the division’s name so as not to mislead the public about what his attorneys do.
